Disclaimer: I do not own Rise of the Guardians.

Pitch

It's the silence that gets to him.

He can handle the dark, the loneliness, the mind numbing feeling of being the only one to care about his own existence, but the silence? It cripples him. Curls his body into itself and leaves him hunched and shaking. He needs it. The fear, the screams, the cries of others, to fill his ears. Maybe it's wrong, maybe it's sick, but it's the only thing that helps him ignore his own nightmares.

When he hears the footsteps he thinks he's hallucinating and he almost doesn't look. When he hears the sharp intake of breath he still doesn't look. It is only when he feels the chill that he has only ever felt in the presence of a certain white haired boy that he allows his eyes to travel upwards.

Jack Frost.

Pitch is almost certain that he could write a book about all the ways he hates Jack Frost. Every time he looks at him he thinks only of the fact that Jack, who had once been as isolated as Pitch, had loathed the idea of his company so much that he had sided with them. It makes him sick.

"Go away", Pitch hisses.

Jack steps forward and Pitch can see the pity in his eyes. The look of utter sympathy spilling across his face. Pitch's stomach twists. "Pitch-" Jack tries, his voice wavers as he says the single word. Like he can't comprehend the sight laid out before him, and maybe he can't. Pitch knows he must look pathetic, hunched in a ball like he is trying to limit the amount of space he takes up. Trembling like he can't bear the weight of the air around him. He doesn't blame Jack, but it certainly doesn't make him any less annoyed.

'What do you want?" Pitch cuts him off. He doesn't want to hear what Jack was going to say. He doesn't care. "Do you want to gawk? Do you want to point and laugh and run off to tell your friends?" He spits the words out, "Tell them that you've really scared the Boogeyman away?" Pitch can't stop his words anymore than he can stop Jack's measured steps towards him. "Or perhaps you're here to do me in-"

"Pitch, please," Jack pleads, like he's the one who has anything to beg for.

"Well go ahead then," Pitch offers, and really he wouldn't mind, " and then you'll really have a story for the children." He stops then because there's nothing else for him to say. He's strung his words into the air and left them for Jack to scan.

There's a moment and then another where silence is the third occupant in the room. Jack stops walking and Pitch stops breathing but their eyes are locked onto each others like they are trying to read one another's minds. Finally Jack exhales and says in voice, quiet and torn, " I never wanted this."

It takes Pitch a moment to process the words, and when he does he laughs.

He'd never wanted this.

Note: I know that this concept has been done a lot already, but I kind of just wanted to try it myself. Sorry for mistakes (feel free to point them out) and any ooc-ness that may occur in this fic. Feedback would be appreciated. Thanks to anyone who may have read this.