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The cavern was quiet as Pitch glided through it, the unconscious form of the Sandman in his arms. The Nightmare King held the Guardian almost tenderly, venturing deeper into his lair than most had ever been. “You should have listened to me, Little Man,” Pitch murmured, “There are worse things hiding in the dark than me.”
Sandman whimpered softly, hardly moving. He was badly hurt, and Pitch was not about to let those Guardians kill him in their ignorance. Sandy didn’t need just any care--he needed Pitch.
Some things could only be cured by a creature of the dark.
Pitch laid Sandy on the rarely-used bed, and began examining his injuries. They didn’t have names, the things that had come after Sandman. How could they? If people knew of them, they wouldn’t attribute their work to Pitch. These nameless shadows and monsters of the dark slipped away unnoticed, and Pitch was labelled as the source of the terror. Never mind he was the only thing that stood in the way of the nameless dark...
Sandy’s eyes were closed fast, and he flinched away from Pitch’s investigating fingers. “You have to let me see,” Pitch hissed, slapping away the small hands that tried to push him off. “You’ll die, you little fool.”
Already the darkness was seeping through Sandy’s veins, turning each golden freckle into a speck of coal black. Pitch had to work fast.
He pressed a hand over the wound and closed his eyes, pulling back on that darkness. He whispered to the shadows creeping through Sandy. You don’t belong there. Come here, you’ll like it much better.
They seared as they poured into Pitch’s veins, like an unshakeable, burning chill. Pitch gritted his teeth, refusing to make a sound. What could the darkness do to him that it hadn’t already done? He wouldn’t let it take Sandman.
The shadows poured out of the Guardian and into Pitch, until he jerked his hand away from the sleeping Sandman, gasping as he struggled to subdue the shadows writhing in his veins. He felt cold, and nauseous. Pitch sank to the floor, clenching and unclenching his fists, tasting bile at the back of his tongue.
It was an old, all-too familiar sensation.
Sandy woke feeling drained, and not knowing where he was. He rolled to find Pitch lying stretched out on the ground, an arm cast back above his head. Sandy reached up to rub his shoulder, where he’d been wounded, but…
Nothing. There was no injury.
A sort of suspicion building in Sandy, he climbed down to inspect Pitch’s shoulder.
Mangled, as Sandy’s had been. Whatever had attacked Sandy, Pitch had pulled it into himself.
The Nightmare King made a sound in his sleep, twisting away from the touch. He was battling with the shadows, a cold sweat on his forehead. Sandy sat, casting his dream sand over Pitch. Gradually, Pitch’s breathing slowed, and the sweat faded from his forehead. Sandy waited a thousand questions at the ready.
Pitch woke with dark smears under his eyes, and his eyes cloudy with exhaustion. He pulled away from Sandy’s touch, climbing to his feet. He grasped his shoulder, grimacing, and began limping away. Sandy followed him on a cloud of gold sand, a question mark over his head.
“You went sticking your nose where you shouldn’t have,” Pitch growled. “You thought it was some hideaway of mine, I’m sure—only you stumbled on something worse.”
Sandman looked even more confused.
“It doesn’t have a name. If it did, you might have known what you were getting into.” Pitch made his way out to the cavern where the empty cages still hung. “You’re welcome, you can leave now.”
Sandy didn’t move.
Pitch cast a scowl at the Guardian over his shoulder. “What do you want?”
Why did you save my life?
“I don’t like you, Little Man, that doesn’t mean I’ll let you die because of your own stupidity.” He staggered to the hollow globe, sinking into the curve of Africa with a groan. Sandy followed him, but Pitch only scowled. “There’s nothing you can do, Sanderson. Just go back to your precious island and leave me be. I’ll be fine in a few days.” He closed his eyes in another grimace, wrestling with some new pain.
He opened them again to Sandy tentatively holding a ball of dream sand. “I’ll only be hazy if you do that,” Pitch said contemptuously. “You don’t need to render me useless.”
Sandman settled on a cloud next to him, stroking Pitch’s hair. Pitch gave up protesting and sighed, gritting his teeth as the pain needled its way through his arm. “You have too big a heart,” he growled at Sandman.
Sandy shrugged.
Eventually Pitch fell into an uneasy sleep, wincing and whimpering at each new pain. Sandman wove a few small good dreams that seemed to help, but if he woke mid-dream Pitch would frown at him and roll away. Sooner or later, Pitch would roll back in his sleep, tucking his head against Sandman’s belly. Sandman smiled a bit to himself, running his fingers through Pitch’s feathery black hair.
He did puzzle over the things that had attacked him. How long had they not known that things worse than Fearlings crept in the dark? How long had Pitch been the only one to know of them?
Pitch gave a sigh, and relaxed. The pain must have finally faded.
“You should have left by now, Little Man.” Pitch swept past Sandy, looking as though he were steeling himself for something. “Many of your dreamers must be missing out. We both have work to do.”
Sandman persisted.
“You want to know what the are?” Pitch snarled, “So do I. I don’t know much more than you do, Sanderson. You’ve spent all these centuries cursing me for the fear I spread--at least those fears have names. What these things do, these shadows--they’re an ancient fear. A blackness that runs through all of time, always lurking, always waiting for the light to go out. I’m a mere shadow, I must have the light to still exist. What they are--they are the complete absence of all that you hold dear. There was never any light in them.”
Pitch and Sandman stared at each other, and Pitch reined his anger in, trying to explain. “You and I, for all our differences, are not so unlike each other. We depend on the dreamers, you and I. But these things--they existed long before our precious dreamers and they will continue long after.” Pitch paused, and added--“I may be fear, but they are chaos. Pure, primordial chaos. They destroy everything they create, and when they come sniffing at the corners of our world they start with the dark places.”
Sandy began to understand. That’s how you know about them. They came looking for you, first.
Pitch nodded. “And they would consume me just as quickly were I not rather good at disappearing. You Guardians are the least of the things I spend my time running from.”
But you can take something of them into yourself.
“It burns like fire and ice,” Pitch said, “It’s no pleasant experience, and it does me no favors. The more like them I am, the more vulnerable I am to them.”
Sandman considered that for a long moment. You weakened yourself... to save me.
Pitch looked away. No one would ever extract a confession from him about why he saved Sandman. He would die before he admitted it, and Pitch was no longer certain he could die.
...but he knew those things could destroy him, if he let them.
Pitch was distracted from his thoughts by a small kiss on his forehead. Sandy smiled, his hands on Pitch’s shoulders. After a moment Pitch reached up, pulling Sandy in for a real kiss, his arms wrapped tightly around the Guardian. Sandman was surprised to find the pleasure that came from that kiss, even if it still had a knife’s edge, to it.
Pitch let him go, taking a step back and refusing to look at Sandy. “Go then, and stop tormenting me.”
He did not want to be pushed away, so he was pushing first.
You’re going out to fight them, aren’t you?
“Not fight them, you idiot. Lead them on a chase.” Pitch called his Nightmares to him, swing astride the biggest of the bunch.
Sandy’s cloud became a golden plane. I’m coming with you.
“They already had at you once, Little Man, don’t you think you ought to be keeping away from them?”
Sandman gave a small smile. I’m not alone, now. Sandy couldn’t let go Pitch go out to face them alone, not now that he knew what they were, and that saving him had made Pitch weaker. No, Sandy would face them alongside Pitch.
Pitch gazed at him for a moment, and then turned towards the darkened night sky. It was a new moon, which was why those shadows had dared to come out. The stars did not frighten them nearly as much as the light of the moon. Pitch pulled out his scythe, and nodded at Sandman. “I won’t save you if you get caught this time, Sanderson.”
Sandy rolled his eyes, and mimed outracing Pitch. I don’t have to be faster than them, just faster than you.
Pitch laughed an almost genuine laugh, and they took off into the night. For the first time in over millennium, the Guardian of Dreams and the Nightmare King had a common goal.
Protect the dreamers from the things that hid in the darkness where even Nightmares did not go.