A moment to die for

All else had ceased to exist, save his pain. As he was once more enveloped in unending darkness, his torn flesh and jumbled bones frost-dusted by his own chill, Vito lost himself in that sinister corner of Knockturn Alley. Beneath the steady downpour, a poltergeist laid; no longer Vito Dee Symons, but a battered creation, incapable of serving its purpose any longer.

He had been made blind to his surroundings. Only the black was to be seen as he peered, eyes level with the gravel to which he’d been thrown, in search of anything with which to pull himself upward. Until a hallucinated, sweltering beam of light erupted behind him, and ghosted about his shoulders; the aura of Jack Dyllan; her saving touch.

Home.

Said light spoke in the very tone that Vito had grown to associate it with, “We've killed us.” And Vito’s subconscious did reply, unheard by the woman to which its words had been direction, “Oh, there you are. I’ve been looking for you, you know. I couldn’t hear you from here, beneath the darkness. He hid me well; buried me deep in his core. What took you so very long to find me?”

Alas, Vito fought, and he spoke up from beneath the monstrous weight of his anguish in a mock-feminine voice which he had intended to sound similar to Jack’s. He quoted, “Oh Vito, You might exist because of me, but I survive because of you.” For he had deemed her statement from several months prior, which he had recalled aloud for her to hear, a suiting 'reassurance'.

Jack waited, because she had no will to survive. Yet. She was hoping for a reason. No, she was depending on a reason, and she needed it from Vito. Because what point was there to survive if he was going to come in again and make none of it worth it? She had to have some belief that once she stood, it would be permanently, and she would never be knocked down hard enough that she could not stand back up. Even if she had to stumble and fight. This Jack needed.

Jack briefly fantasized about the idea of just rolling over and embracing sleep. She was aware that there was the possibility she would not wake up, but her exhaustion consumed her. She was sort of curious too. She knew Michael would be at her funeral. Amelia was a new friend, but a real one- she would too. Calvin was too sick. Would Ariel? Jack had long decided Ariel had left her life for good and had no intention to come back. Her intens would be there. As well as her Wheezes staff. Would her family? Would they even know? Her parents, Riley, Chip... Probably not.

Words next to her stirred her. She turned her head and her own words hit her like a ton of bricks. She closed her eyes and sighed. "Okay," she exhaled. "Okay," she said, more decidely. With a sudden burst of energy, she pushed herself up into a sitting position. With a few flicks of her wand, she healed a few of her minor injuries, and sneakily fixed a few of Vito's before he could argue. As he so loved to do.

She slipped an arm under Vito's shoulders and said, "Let's put those new legs to use, huh? Where are we off to?"

Amongst the potentially fatal injury that had been carved into Vito’s skull, the minor snap and burn of flesh wounds being healed was lost. With blind and trembling fingertips, Vito gingerly mapped the plains of his forehead and the narrow rifts and indentation which had been made. From the crease of his head to his right temple it extended and disfigured the skin there, which had once been pulled taught to conceal his skeleton from view, but now lay bare his inner workings. Like shattered glass.

Blood caressed Vito’s cheek, and nestled warmly against the side of his face. No longer did he make an effort to clean himself, for with every droplet that he swatted from his face, another was born in its place. “I can’t see,” he breathed, tongue made heavy by both glass and gravel alike. “He-lp,” he croaked.

And they fell.

Their tumble from the sky flicked past his mind’s eye repeatedly, and with the blips of a broken disc.

Crash!

The Earth jostled abruptly around him, overwhelming what little perception of balance and depth remained with him. And thus Vito’s legs quaked, and he was thrown down upon his shoulder and forced to roll. On his back he laid, as his flailing limbs settled against the cobblestone street once more, and the result of Jack’s attempt to lift Vito to his feet was punctuated with the spurt of fresh blood from his wound.

From Vito’s lips, a single breath was expelled; long and laced with suffering - and his lids fell shut.

It seemed Jack had done what she was most skilled at doing- harmed when she had meant to help. She had held him for a moment, but her own weakened body and his even worse (it seemed) could not stand together, and he trumbled away from her, knocking her down too. Her arms raised before she could smash face-first onto the stone cobblestones, and her wrists jarred painfully in their sockets, leaving her momentarily unable to move. Hell. She had returned.

Jack threw herself upwards again, stumbling to her knees before using the side of the building for support. Her fingers clawed upwards, looking for any ridge or impression from which her fingers could push the rest of her body upwards until, finally, she had stood. She looked down at Vito and saw that his chest was not moving. She blanched and and raised her wand, pointing at his throat. "Anapneo." The spell was typically used to remove something that had become stuck in one's airway, but Jack had found that when a body's respiratory system, the spell sent a burst of air to start it back up. And she could faintly see Vito's chest move.

She looked around. Mungo's was out. In fact, Jack was fairly sure any sort of apparation was too much movement for the poltergeist at her feet. To tell the truth, the thought of apparating was agonizing to her- that twisting and compressing. No, it was out. She could not leave him, surely, he would die. Her head tilted upwards, almost in defeat, and she saw the open window. Her eyes dropped and followed her to see a broken broom in an alley. She turned, spotting an old Quidditch shop. There.

She blinked and turned, deciding, "Accio broomstick." There was a splintering crash and a shout, but an old broom came flying towards her. She mounted it and positioned herself directly over Vito. She laid down completely and pointed her wand at him, "Petrificus Totalus." His body stiffened and she said, "Sorry." She reached down and grabbed him around the chest, the broom between them, and shifted her weight. The broom lifted into the air, and the air was pushed out of Jack from the pressure of Vito's weight. They rose to the height of the window, still convered in shards. She had to be careful. She could not protect her face because she had to look forward so, at her urging, the broomstick eased forward. It slipped throught the window and hovered over the bed. Once completely over, Jack released Vito and he fell lightly onto the bed. She released him from her spell and rolled off the broom. She paused, before a very pained, "Ow" issued from her lips.

She limped over to a corner of the room and cast a fire, not minding any property damage. She pulled out Floo powder and threw it in, uttering the words, "My department, head healer's office." She got on her hands and knees and stuck her head into the fire, beholding Edwin. "Edwin. Another crazy case." He sighed. "Where at?" Jack gave him the room and place and advised him to bring any potions he had. She pulled her head from the fire and stomped it out. She turned and spotted a glass of water. She limped over to the bed and poured the glass over Vito's face, as Edwin arrived with a pop. "Wake up. Doc wants to see you."

(So I decided to bring in a Healer... XD)

Yarn and wine. The unruly, coiling yarn of Jack’s hair,
the warmth of her pale freckles.
Cold wine, spatter. Stain orange yarn and pale freckles red.
Strings fray amongst glass rain. Rag Doll. Soak wine,
mop blood. Wet her yarn in this crimson sea that he’s made –
for her. Only for her.
Tangle. Dot “die” with her sun spots. Slip beneath. Breath,
with unnatural, sloppy lungs. His icicle fists – force her downward.
“Drown, my monster.”
Painted red. Made warmer. Boiling. The froth of Rag Doll’s stuffing.
He is thirsty. Melt, ice man. Drown too, in her yarn and wine.

And so he drowned, and what awaited him as he slipped beneath the surface of that water, red, was the very woman who had bled said pool in the nightmare that had overwhelmed Vito with the abrupt arrival of unconsciousness. Water, quite translucent and thus very ordinary, rolled over Vito’s parted lips, through which he uttered a startled cry. "Breath, Jack!" His voice cracked as he lent forward and reached for her small frame with desperation. But he was calmed by the sight of the steady rise-and-fall of her chest as she did as he'd camanded, and Vito was once more made aware of the grey of reality that sepearted his fears from the truth.

Pain welcomed him home; which had been decorated in fire, a corpse, an abundance of crumbled glass, and the splintered wood of smashed furniture. But Vito hadn’t the strength to protest any further. “Jack,” he brokenly acknowledged his creator as she stood before him, and in the direction of the deceased women who lay to his left, he turned his head. Chase Moor accompanied him atop his matress, adorned in angel wings. And he briefly wondered what explosion had occurred in Satan’s that evening to have created such a chaotic mess.

Jack was speaking to Edwin with a low tone, briefly outlining the night's events, swearing him to secrecy. What he knew of Vito was that the poltergeist was a highly sensitive subject to the Ministry that could not be detained, so 'intense rehabilitation' was the method Jack had informed her Deparment that involved Vito Dee Symons. And no one was qualified to administer such a tactic. No one, except Jack. Everyone had to silently fill out the paperwork of his crimes and wait.

Jack hated politics.

She felt her voice crack as she said she had not managed to stabilize the victim, as she referred to Chase to her employee, before she had faded. Edwin looked at Chase and, with a wave of his wand, a sheet burst over her, waiting to be wrapped under her. Jack volunteered to do that. "Just tend to him, right? It's our job to not let any being die under our watch." She knew that the department had ill will towards Vito, unable to understand how he was still allowed to walk the streets. Most knew nothing of him. Top tier employees like Edwin wanted him gone, and the conflict was clear on his face.

But Edwin was professional. As Jack approached the bed, she ignored Vito's call to her and moved instead to Chase. Edwin took his place by Vito and said, "I'm Edwin. I specialize in vetrinary and supernatural Healing. I have studied my craft for longer than you have had this- well, your previous body. I need your cooperation." Clearly, Edwin was very aware of Vito's temperment.

"What I am going to do is going to be as intense as surgery. I will cast a spell for the pain and then work, steadily. You must remain still or it can permanently damage your bone structure." Jack looked up and muttered, "So don't move." She supposed their distance had caused a fracture in their connection, for her injuries were independent of his; or perhaps, he had meant they were no longer bound as creator and creation. She did not know, but she did not want his wrath if his face was broken.

Jack looked at Chase. She needed to be made nice. Jack couldn't just wrap her up. She glanced at Vito, "Sit still so he can save your life," she suggested. She turned and walked off to the bathroom, going to gather towels, cloths, soaps, and maybe even something nice for Chase.

In inconsistent splashes of blood and light, Vito’s world wavered; with his vision in its dreadful state. “Go fck yourself,” Vito murmured with great difficulty. Speaking was a trial in itself, and yet Vito could not be bothered to remain silent while in the midst of a healer. They had forever irked him so. “I possessed my…” Vito spared himself a brief moment of rest as his head lolled in response to his agony. “- last body for far longer than your sorry lifetime, foolish bastard.”

“And what have you done with my mirror, Redhead?” He demanded, his tone a broken one. Evidently it was of more importance to Vito the circumstances under which his property had been disposed of than the reason a woman was lying dead at his side. Details, details… I never liked her anyhow. Though it is a pity such flawless red hair has gone to waste.

Edwin was well versed in Vito's file. One could say he almost had a morbid interest in the poltergeist. He could recite most of the things in the file. At Vito's words, Edwin blinked, saying. "Forgive me, but have you not employed the use of the last body, the one with the darker hair and shorter height, for nearly seven years? In fact, I believe we are only a few weeks before the date of your creation." Little did Edwin know, but he was referring to Jack's eleventh birthday, the day things went so wrong, the day Vito Dee Symons was created on a beach she had visited with her family, leaving before he could kill her.

Little did Edwin know, he had referred to the birth of an age.

Jack entered as Edwin got down to work, doing some of the more basic healing spells, setting a few fingers and ridding the body of a few minor bruises. He began to cast the pain spell as Vito addressed Jack, who had come to Chase and was now washing away the blood from Chase carefully, forgetting the bloody handprint on her own cheek. Vito addressed her and her eyes flicked up. "Forgetful are we? I thought you would have recorded the moment I smashed it into your own personal history the second I did it. I doubt even a possible concussion could make you forget that most traumatic event."

Evidently, the assumption that Edwin's claim to possess knowledge of Vito's comings and goings to be a dishonest one had been a shot in the dark on the poltergeist's part. "You here that Mrs. Monster? It'll be our birthday shortly. You can buy me a-" Vito's sentence broke with a low and tortured scream which resonated from his core as the fracture in his skull pierced his being. It was a horrific sound; one which revealed to the humans in his midst the hellish creature that they had confined to a broken bed.

He heaved a shaken breath as a spell was cast over him to quell his suffering, when abruptly he began to waver in and out of view. "No numbing!" Vito insisted in an urgent hiss, "It makes it too difficult to hold on." And like a candle's flame, his vessel flickered. In an instinctive motion, Vito's fingers fluttered in Jack's direction and clutched with desperation the fibers of her bloodied shirt. "Why the fck did you smash my mirror?" was his panted rebuttal as he attempted to tether himself to the mortal realm with little success.

Speak. Keep talking; it will help. "Get Clara Bow out of my bed. She is-" He gasped as pain severed his thoughts "-destroying my sheets."

Jack was fairly successful at ignoring Vito, managing to wash the blood from Chase and sew up the wounds magically. She began rubbing her exposed skin with soaps and then she began combing through her hair. It was then that Vito screamed. Somehow, she almost felt as though he were screaming through her, as though the scream was pouring out her own ears and parted lips, and yet no sound escaped her.

He relaxed and after a moment, Jack continued, trying to hide the way her fingers fumbled and slipped as she finished combing through Chase’s hair and adjusting her shirt. Jack leaned forward to grab the end of the sheet to wrap up her friend when Vito suddenly grabbed her shirt. Her eyes flashed when he spoke to her and she glared at him, all of her anger and bitterness and resentment shining through firmly, without question.

She leaned forward. “Because you f-cking killed by best friend,” she hissed.