C'est La Mort

On his knees he rocked, fragile and silent, save the occasional poorly stifled whimper, as the consequence of his allegation rose to her feet above him and began to shout in retaliation. But not without protest from his subconscious did he await the conclusion of Jack’s remarks. With every false assumption that fell from the redhead’s frowning lips, resentment mounted his dying heart and bucked. But alas, the black hole spat from him the truth that he had withheld until Jack’s inquiries had ceased, “Because it’s all I’ve ever wanted! For as long as I can remember, it’s all I’ve ever wanted. To die. And I can’t. I want it with everything that I am. The one and only thing…” He broke. “… The only thing I have ever asked of anyone. The only thing that will make it... stop. And it is the only thing I can think of – always.”

“People?” The hollow man’s question shuttered with a maniacal laugh. There was a hazardous edge to Nemo’s voice; an unspoken threat intended for Jack. “People ‘bend over backwards’ for him. For Mortimer, for Poe. They don’t know who they’re trying to save. The real charity case. Do you?!” He continued to rock as his breathing quickened viciously, pausing only for a brief moment.

“Wanna know who you’ve ‘done so f-cking much’ for?” That bitter, snarling laugh has occurred once more; a sickly and unnatural thing that did not belong upon his tongue. And with jumping hands he extended his arms at his sides, “I’m Nemo!” He informed Jack, presenting her with nauseating enthusiasm the ugly evidence of his self harm, which stood out in stark contrast against the pale flesh of his forearms. By the hundreds and in many a variety, the scars splayed across his skin. The thick trail of a razor blade running parallel to protruding blue veins; the bubbled brand of a lighter along visible bone; the track mark highways stretching endlessly across the flip side of his elbows. It was a horrific sight to behold, but the knowledge that there was more to be seen beneath the cover of his shirt and the scar removal charms that had been cast upon him was arguably more haunting. “I’m no one. I am a fake. A thief –“ His voice stuttered and his head fell as he wept his next words – “I stole my mother’s sight…”

“I am a scrapbook of scars and addictions, glued together by people who care too much about Mortimer and about Poe…” His heart panicked beneath his constricting chest and he fell backward to sit on his heels. “But not me!” He sang, “Not Nemo! Because no one gets to see me. Only you. So…” His arms twitched further outward at his sides, “Here I am! Still proud you saved me?”

Jack's hands were shaking like mad, like the old days, back when Chase thought she was dirt, back when Vito wanted her hate, back when she didn't have a friend in the world. She couldn't understand how someone could just want death, and not a resolution. Jack had troubles, heartbreak, pressure. The idea of dying was not scary, it could be relieving most times, but still she pressed on because there was people she needed to care for. Poe was not a selfish man, but there had to be something that hurtled him towards the idea of one solution.

"Why?" Jack pleaded. "Why can death only help you? What is it death can do that all of these people who love you can't do? What about your situation is so unfixable? Help me understand!" He had fallen and she wanted to, but she controlled herself enough to allow her to sit on the edge of the sofa, staring straight at him.

And then... he claimed her care was not truly for him. Sure, he used people in general, but she felt it. She felt the accusation. And out came the question. She was sure he was asking out of genuine concern- did she really know who she was protecting? Her heart thumped with the pain of the accusation. Jack had put off her life for this man. She had out him before everything. And he didn't think she had for the right reasons.

Do you?!” Jack tried to tell him, "I do-" And then he continued on. But before she could assure him, he showed her his scars. Jack's voice caught in her throat as she stared at them. She forced herself to look at every single one because she knew it had been happening in her house. She had let him hurt. He continued to speak and her face crashed into her hands as she bit back her own tears, and yet, they flowed. She shook as he spoke and she quaked and tremored and begged for someone to help. But no one was ever there to help.

She looked up at him as he stared at her. Accusation was in his whole body, his whole spirit. He wanted her to admit he was too much, he wasn't someone she could handle or he wasn't someone she even wanted to handle. He didn't realize... She had seen his scars before... She had seen his mum, she had seen his pain. She knew who he really was- she didn't think someone could be laughing and drinking one day and attempting suicide the next without some faking. She had seen him for real and it only increased what she was too afraid too admit, what made her so upset every time she failed him. Why he, of all people, got her defenses down. And why she couldn't have ever dreamt of living in a life where he had died.

He wouldn't believe her, and still she cried. She finally raised her head to face him, her lips trembling and tears still rolling down her face. "I can't let you go, Nemo," she said. She was a Gryffindor, but she was terrified. "I can't Nemo. I love you."

These words were ancient. They declared their age with the brush of dust from their each syllable and through Nemo’s familiarity with every one, despite never once having uttered them aloud. They were his rationalization; the code that the boy that he’d been had forged in an attempt to explain his desire for death. As old as his origin, were they. Therefore, he did not question their existence, nor his ignorance of their presence in his mind until Jack presented him with the question that they had been arrange to answer, and like breathing, Nemo exhaled them in response, “No one can get rid of her. I can still see every scar, every broken bone when I look at myself, ‘cause no magic can get rid of that. Not really. And they’re too heavy now...” Because no one had ever asked.

"I do-" The damage that he had done to himself burned beneath her stare, tainted flesh squirming in sync with the tangling of his stomach. She could see him now. No one had ever been so near. And he would draw forth the brands that his mother had scattered across that same skin for Jack to see, if he could. It was a blazing ache, his need to plunge his hands beneath the work of healers and reveal to her everything that he had ever endured; everything that he presently endured, invisible to any eyes but his own.

And as wholeheartedly as he had tried to drive Jack from his presence with his venom-tipped words, witnessing her tears was endlessly more difficult. Nemo lifted and turned himself slowly and with the creaking motions of a rusting machine. It was an excruciating thing, to have inflicted such harm upon her - upon McDonald. Silently and with the trembling fingertips of a mad man he held the sides of her face and dragged her closer to himself in a blur of pale hues, until their foreheads rested against one another softly. "I can't let you go, Nemo.” His eyes drifted downward, murky and red rimmed. They never can.

Her next words, however, were entirely unknown to his ears; those which had existed in theory, but had remained until the present a rose-colored work of fiction. "I can't Nemo. I love you." Frantically, his eyes climbed Jack’s face in his scramble to gain purchase within hers once more; to grasp at this foreign light before which his darkness had cowered, no matter how briefly. But neither Mortimer nor Poe offered any definition of Jack's proclamation, and thus Nemo was left to drown in his confusion, and sorrow, and regret. Look what I’ve done to her. And in a sea of acceptance, and comfort, and warmth. I love you too. Nemo dropped his head in hiding, finding shelter in the crook of her neck, and from him shuttered what remained of his sorrow. "I love you too. I love you too," was his whispered mantra. And these words were startlingly new.

OOC: I'm sorry. This is horrific. It's still all a learning process with Nemo.

OOC: horrific?! My poor heart!!!!!

Nemo. Jack had treasured the name since she set about identifying the mysterious, bloodied man who had appeared in a Ministry hallway. Only once hwmad she even alluded to the four letters and he expressed his disapproval- that name was forbidden. Jack had settled for Poe and tried not to imagine how the word would taste on her lips.

He approached her and her heart thumped more madly than ever before. His hands cradled her face and she swallowed, trying to force away the tears. She wanted to be strong for him, so she set about pretending. His forehead touched hers and she felt weaker, her walls were crumbling. So different, this familiar touch. Vitoria had rested here, but out of his need. Jack had remained there for him, unconsidered. But here, there was mutual need, mutual offers of comfort. They were holding each other together and Jack could not stop the truth from pouring from her mouth.

Jack had said a lot of things in her life- quick talking had been as necessary as magic. Yet one elusive phrase had remained uncaptured by her tongue. How often had everyone joked of Jack's natural resistance to any sort of intimacy? How often had she born these taunts with fake pride whilst cursing her own foolishness, whilst aching that no one believed in her ability to be... human.

Jack couldn't pinpoint the moment, but found herself in the middle and, by that time, it had been too late to stop it. Only Nemo could have made her so happy and so miserable. Miserable be queen she could not help him, could not make him happy, could never be deserving of him.

Jack did not expect anything from it. She wasn't asking for a return. She just wanted him to now that she was not like the others. He was not an obligation to her, he was not charity, or whatever reasons everyone else had determined to make it their mission to keep him alive. She wanted to see him live and move from all that held him down. More than anything, Jack wanted him alive and happy, even if it wasn't with her.

Now the words were said, and she felt his gaze lift to hers. She held it there, stilling her quaking lips. Tears no longer rolled down her face, and though her eyes burned, her body was still. His head fell against her and she began to lift her hands to hold him, but his voice interrupted her... He spoke words she had never expected to hear. Surely, she had heard him wrong. But he repeated them, and she knew she had heart correctly.

A quiver ran up her spine and she pulled him as close to her as humanly possible, squeezing her cheek against his head. "I want to be here for you. I want to make you happy," she said, as though explaining to him. She shivered from emotion, though to list them all would take more time than she felt she had. She whispered in his ear, "I could never think you were no one." She closed her eyes tightly, holding to him and to this moment, for life was notorious for ripping any hope from her arms. "You're everything," she breathed, clutching him like a lifeline.

Surely, this was the meaning of reconstruction; the truth to 'starting over' and the essence of a 'second chance'. To have fallen to such dark depths, and to flatline in the arms of his savior; to lie defeated and at the mercy of the only being capable of drawing his puzzle-piece mind together again. ‘Healing’, Nemo had experienced in the past, for his mother had torn and shattered him many more times than he could ever have counted, before gathering him up when she had finished. But this, what Jack had seemingly dedicated her very existence to performing perfectly, could be nothing other than reconstruction. The only chance that Nemo had ever been given.

And how could he resist the golden glow of the acceptance that Jack offered? Though he did not believe it to be true, he had never deserved anymore more than to be freed from the belief that had been installed in him; that it was his responsibility to rid the world of himself: Nemo, the insignificant thief. And Jack had done just that, "I could never think you were no one." He had believed it a lie, before he’d identified the sincerity in her tone, and felt the warmth of her pull around him. And when the truth of her words settled in him, he knew he could never return such a favor. No ‘thank you’ would suffice for what Jack had done, and Nemo wholeheartedly doubted that Hallmark made an appropriate card for the circumstances. So his whispered confessions continued, “I love you too. I love you too.” How many times could he reassure her of this, before it overtook its competitor? The thought, I stole your sight. I took it and it doesn’t belong to me. I’m sorry Mommy.

Nemo collected his arms against his chest, withdrawing from Jack his scars as his disgust towards himself and his past became too powerful to deny any longer. Her care for him making his shame and regret all the more present. He crossed his forearms over his heart, locking them away from Jack’s view. And for the first time since he had been revived, Nemo was silent.

Jack didn't know what she wanted him to say. She just knew what she wanted him to hear, what she wanted wished he could believe. How maddening, to believe something about someone with your whole heart, and they could not see how it was plausible. She had heard someone say 'You never have to explain to anyone what you know in your heart to be true.' Jack could not say she believed it, not in this circumstance. Since she had met Nemo, she had wanted him to see what life could be worth living for. Since she had figured out the mystery of his past and his name, she had wanted to convince him that things were different.

She didn't know what she had wanted, but his words were infinitely better. She could not squeeze him any tighter- if she did, she was sure her arms would somehow melt into his shoulders. She simply held tight, breathing with him, taking this in as real, believing it, showing him what it meant to believe.

He withdrew slightly and covered his scars. She stared at him and lifted her hair, showing the crisscross scars there. She dropped her hand to her collar and pulled, showing her scarred shoulder, before the stab scar on her abdomen. She looked at him. "We're even." She smiled a little, hoping to prompt one from him. She looked at him, and then reached out, slipping her hand in his, her eyes still hooked on his. This was not a gesture that said 'I am holding on to you because I am obligated to.' This was a gesture that said 'I want to hold your hand.'

Nemo watched as the remainder of his will dissolved beneath Jack’s calloused fingers and his left arm fell from his chest to rest between them. He compensated for what he lacked in resolve with consciousness, however, and he tilted the appendage away from the glare of a near lamp in such a way as to cast his scars in a shadow that eased his shame. For though his friend had declared them ‘even’, his cruel subconscious’ judgment could not be swayed; Jack’s scars were the marks of a just cause and the battle for life, and his the product of his selfish mission.

But even as said ruling was set, Nemo lifted those fingers which had not coiled around Jack’s to ghost them above the intersecting lines of white across her temple in an unspoken statement of understanding and apology.

He dropped his hand from Jack’s face, tracing the line of her jaw downward until it rested in a loosely crumpled fist at her shoulder. And there he remained, pained and entirely overwhelmed by the recovery process, they’re entangled hands his only tether to the ground. Open mouthed, he breathed as he lay against Jack in surrender and reconstruction began, not matter how strongly he apposed it.

Jack skin tingled under his touch- so foreign, being touched in a manner that was not violent nor casual. She and Nemo lived in close quarters- they were constantly knocking into each other in the kitchen, wrestling over the remote control, smacking each other over stolen bacon. She was used to his touch, but not to this sentiment. She usually squirmed under such intimate contact, but her eyes studied his face, looking to see what he needed, what still needed repair. He traced the scars and she let him- he could guess where they were from, surely, and she knew the origin of his.

He fell against her and she held him, leaning against the couch and working her other arm around his shoulders, fingers touching the base of his hairline in the back, his floppy hair tickling her fingers. Edwin had prepared her for all the technical aspect of helping him recover. He had not covered the words that had just transpired between the two.

She let out a sigh, one mingled with relief and exhaustion. They were both tired, surely. Her heart was slowly calming itself- one major step today. She could deal with all of the implications of her proclamation later, when she had recovered from it. How funny, how three words could exhaust her so. She let her thumb slip from his grip and she rubbed it along his hand. "Do you need anything?" she asked. "Food? Water? Sleep?" She was more knowledgeable in and prepared for these ideas.

Plenty was required before Nemo could achieve something akin to comfort or satisfaction - and yet he did not speak for his vices as Jack drew gooseflesh forth from the back of his neck, nor when his chest ached as the fatal harm that he’d wreaked on his internal organs was steadily reversed. While various requests for alcohol, drugs, and other such poisons were made unceasingly by his addictive personality, Nemo gave Jack no more an answer than a negative grunt, which he had unenthusiastically intended for her to understand to be a ‘no’. Because, though there was many a thing that his self-destructive mind believed to be necessity, Nemo knew better. Jack would not provide him with his methods of suicide, and he hadn’t the cruelty in him to reveal to her during her efforts his remaining longing to die.

So he breathed, and his tired heart beat, and his lashes flicked closed… because Jack loved him, and Nemo had never known a closer thing to death than sleep. He would make do for her. He would have to make do.

Nemo never responded with actual words, which Jack could only find a little odd. On one hand, the man always seemed to have something to say, and she could even dare to say that he was even more eloquent under pressure. On the other hand, this ordeal had been quite unlike all of their others, even if it wasn't the first of his suicide attempts that she somehow intercepted. When he grunted, Jack withdrew a little to search his face and as his lids closed heavily, she understood. She withdrew and helped her friend onto the couch, which she expanded with magic a little to give him all the room he needed.

Jack wanted to remain by him, but she also felt that they were going to collapse if she didn't regroup a little. Practical things needed to be done, and she needed to right herself. The world had been thrown askew, was orbiting in reverse, and she still hadn't found her legs. She reached down and squeezed his hand as a promise of her return and then she went to the kitchen to get him a glass of water. On the counter, the two Jarveys watched her reproachfully- it seems they had been listening. She pulled out a glass and filled it under the watchful gaze. Fred made a tsk-ing noise and Jack hissed, "Oh, shut it."

She passed the hall closet on her way into the living room and she briefly opened it to grab two blankets and a pillow. She walked back into the living room and dropped one of the blankets on the armchair for herself. She sat on the edge of the couch with the blanket and pillow in her lap, setting the glass of water on the coffee table for him. "I'm here to tuck you in," she said, smiling weakly.