The Reunion Pv Jack Burnett closed

"I have traveled through madness to find me." - Danny Alexander

Two to tango, huh? He ignored the previous response he got from the fox, but answered the comment afterwards.

"To a degree, you're right." Selim spoke his response (Before the attack). "I have been busy, though not in a way one may think. I didn't think of talking to you when perhaps a normal person may have needed to. I was dealing with internal issues, without much success. I was becoming unstable, and I tried to fight against it in solitude where I was only a danger to myself." Despite what the snake was saying, his tone was still monotonous. "During that time talking to you, or anyone, was the last thing on my mind. I did not need you desperately at any point, and, hence, didn't search for you. I was focusing on my mental state and homework. Those were the only things on my mind." Not to mention during those times he barely slept, which didn't help, but he couldn't do much to fix that particular issue.

While Selim was struggling not to rip out Jack's throat, he listened to his words, though was distracted from answering due to the burst of sadistic glee he got from Jack's struggles not to show pain. His unhinged mind drank it in, prompting an almost pleased-sounding growl from the Slytherin's throat.



The half-formed growl of satisfaction was partially smothered by the other part of himself that was desperately trying to quell the bloodlust. It forced his focus from the pain he was inflicting to answering the Fox's words through grit teeth.

"That may be fine when you do it with others, Fox." His words were hissed with promises of blood, "But I suggest you don't use such a tactic with me; because whether or not I truly want it... I will kill you..." His tone was tainted with a myriad of chaotic emotions, desperation, glee, sadistic pleasure, anger. Not even Selim could sort through them as they came out in a growling purr.

His thinned pupils observed the looks of suspicion and confusion that were echoed by the Fox's next words. Though he was unable to answer until he had finally let go of the fox and skulked a safe distance away.

"Sure, do a degree you may have been busy slaving away at the work this cursed school gave you, but you should've guessed that I'd notice your lack of presence in your dorm room. The fact that you had slunk away into the shadows somewhere else to sleep. Not only that, but with a particular little blackbird following behind you like an obedient chick." His fingers picked at the scabs on his puppet-occupied arm. Not ceasing, only growing into scratches once blood began to ooze from the aberrations. "I saw the warning look you shot me when we were trapped in the dorm with our dormmates. That look of warning you gave me when I was eyeing Mister Holmwood."

He looked up, licking his blood from his fingers with that listless gaze locked onto the red liquid oozing from the wounds he had caused on the Fox's neck. His golden eyes hyper-focused on the scarlet substance even as it was hidden from view by the redhead's hand. "Along with that, did you think I would be oblivious to the trauma I caused you? When I cut up your skin as you writhed in pain, I was only copying my own experiences. My own experiences that have made me into what I am today... a paranoid, scarred child that relives nightmarish memories whenever I try to rest."

His eyelids lowered lazily, "I fully expected you to avoid me. To run from me... yet you've crawled back to the hand that mutilated you." His voice became a hiss once more, as he continued with a tone of venom "The reason I question you and make these statements... is because I wonder just how much sanity you've lost if you think that returning to me, continuing to linger around the broken little doll you've seemed to claim as your own, is a good idea. You know I have no qualms in torturing, or killing you."

The boy shifted, sitting in a position reminiscent of a gargoyle on a stone perch, "You claim, act like you have a sense self-preservation... yet here we are, with me on the brink of snuffing out your little flame, and you provoking me to do so because you want to 'learn'."

His mind dredged up the emotions he felt upon seeing the fox again, the seemingly bitter comments about the redhead showing his face after months of avoiding him. "Yet I contradict myself..." He let out a snarl of frustration, standing as a burst of loathing hit him, released from the cage he stuffed it in, the cage that was weakening every day. He slammed his hand's heel against his skull, memories of his meeting with the dhampir being dredged up. "That's... a part of it... the other part is the pointless longings of a child." His yellow orbs narrowed into hateful slits.

"The dissonance is exhausting." He growled, pacing slowly around the fire and gazing into its dwindling depths. "That part doesn't matter. It's useless to me, only causing more issues I end up dealing with."

His gaze snapped over to the fox, "Apologies for the seeming bitter sentences it seemed to have slipped in before." He pulled out a chopstick, heating it over the fire until it glowed a hot red. He stalked over to the redhead, "I don't have a first aid kit on me." His gaze was lazy once more at the change of subject. "If you need.... I can seal the wound before your thoughts leave you in light of blood loss. Binding it with cloth still poses the possibility of further infection. Cauterizing it eliminates that possibility...."

His eyes were cruel, erratic emotions swaying his actions like a puppet on strings. Crouching down, he held the heated metal near his dormmate's face. "Perhaps I can see if you still do have a sense of self-preservation around me..." his voice as undertoned with a growl. Though, jarringly he seemed to move on past the threatening sentence "Though, if you know a spell, use it." His voice held a strange tone of disdain blended with deep discomfort. Then, he paused as he remembered the uttered question the redhead had tried to pose.

His gaze grew unfocused as he mentally sorted through the increasingly degrading mindscape he stored memories within. "Yes... I know what it is." His unyielding yellow stare focused once more. "Would you prefer to talk about whatever you came here for first? Or treat your wounds before the rats come searching for a meal?"

The metal had cooled to a dim orange, and his ever-shifting gaze flitted to it. He let out an annoyed snarl, as if struck by anger, and stood back up, whipping around to the fire and crouching down, laying its tip in the flames. "Tick, tick, tick, time goes on, I wish it stopped when the train slowed down, but still it carries on. Tick tick tick."

His fingers twitched erratically as he released his grip on his makeshift weapon, watching it slowly heat up to a threatening amber glow. His gaze abruptly shifted as he spotted the shadows begin to move, and the lying noises cluttered his ears once more.

He let out a predatory hiss, slamming his hand against his skull as guttural growls slid from his clenched teeth.

"Tssssss. Shut up, I have no time for you, I'm in the middle of something. I have dwindling patience. Ssso stop." He muttered.

His chaotic mind was jerking him from one place to another. The urge to inflict suffering dominating all. His hand was curling and uncurling like the talon of a raptor, and Aku had began to chuckle darkly, tone dangerously unhinged.

"You're a lucky little fox. Lucky, lucky, but at this rate not for long. Had you been anyone else, you would have had oh so much more than a few gashes on your neck to worry about...." He laughed, Selim did as well, unhinged, breathless as tears of ... joy(?), or perhaps pain, steadily fell onto the stones bordering the little camp fire. The tears left nothing but crusty salt behind as they swiftly evaporated in the heat.

Inwardly, Selim struggled against his mind as it tried to snap and fall apart once more.

His eyes narrowed when the snake mentioned a 'particular little blackbird' and how he'd shot Selim a warning look when they'd been trapped. It was similar to the warning look that he'd given when the Japanese boy had seemed to be sizing up Ruka the first time they had met. Thank goodness Ruka was safe back at home in Wales or else Selim might have been targeting him instead - not that it made things any better for Jack that Flash was being targeted alternatively. At the very least, though, Flash was also his dorm mate so he could keep a closer eye on the tall boy. Then again, so could Selim.

When the noiret came over with the heated chopstick, the Welsh boy shook his head. "Ferula," Jack proclaimed, finally recalling the Bandaging spell's incantation throughout his stressed, frantic thoughts. He tapped the side of his neck as he spoke it, causing bandages to instantly appear and ease the pain of the wound as they wrapped about his throat. Magic could be really handy sometimes; handier than the cauterization Selim had suggested and Jack had a strong disinclination toward.

"Thanks, but I'm not completely helpless myself. In fact, speaking of blood loss... Ferula," he said again, leaning over in an attempt to tap his wand against where Selim had been bleeding. He hoped to bandage the arm that the other boy kept picking at the scabs at and relieve some of his own pain. Selim had come close enough, so Jack thought he might as well try.

Whether or not the spell worked on Selim, Jack listened to his dorm mate when he responded to his question regarding legilimens. Good; at least he seemed to be able to pay attention to what was being said.

"Legilimency has to do with what I came here to talk about," the redhead explained to his peer, trying not to look at the glowing hot chopstick which was trickier than it seemed. Then Selim seemed to be talking to someone only he could hear as if there was a voice in his head. Someone he told he had no patience for. Jack's brows steepled in concern, but he didn't comment on the matter. As for Aku, he appeared to ignore the puppet completely.

"Did you know that Vlad is a legilimens?" he asked, speaking quickly and urgently as if determined and desperate to give Selim something else to concentrate on other than the voices in his own head. "Do you know what legilimency can cause people to do, Fangs? What it can make people think? How it can influence and manipulate their thoughts?"

@Selim Faust

"I have traveled through madness to find me." - Danny Alexander

At Jack's attempt to bandage the gashes on his arm, Selim pulled back with a feral hiss. "DON'T TOUCH ME!."

Further away from the redhead, Selim paced by the wall of the cell, growling and scratching at it occasionally, as if searching for something. His head jerkily tilted so he could listen to the Welsh boy's words, Aku muttering lowly to him in a breathless stream of words.

"Yes, yes, you plan, plan. Sound's... hm. Blood to sate the thirst. Ravens crowing above, whispers taunting everyone's ears only heard by the few who know." His words were as erratic as he was, as he paused, scratching at the wall with chipping fingernails. "He knows. He found us, but how long will that last? Will he gaze into the pool and return to reality? Will we be left behind in the dark wailing like the souls that torment our minds?" He muttered, before jerking back and twisting to face his old friend. He paced forward quickly, gripping his chin with his free hand, eyes narrowing.

"You pick and choose which parts of me to acknowledge. You pretend the parts you ignore are mere games I play with myself. Yet you try to get me to listen to you when I am not whole. You ask for a piece to listen, when the other pieces are in control." His comment came out of nowhere as he gripped Jack's face, nails digging into skin. His snake-like eyes staring him down like a viper to a mouse. "Why bother talking to something when you cannot understand what it's saying?"

He blinked, stepping back and crawling over to the fire, muttering to the puppet. Abruptly he grabbed the remains of the rat he ate, shoving them close to the edge of the fire and then bringing it back to life with paper and a white powder. It flared up, making the shadows dance.

"T, t, t, t, t, t. The eagle can peer into minds, you say, you say?" Aku muttered. Selim continued, voice shifting. "I am not surprised."

"Do you think we care?" Aku started, Selim finished. "We don't. Is this about the dead scarecrow? The husk of a human who once was? The one..."

"We killed."
"We killed."

They spoke in unison, the voices merging unnervingly and echoing in the stone coffin. There was a pause, Selim was fiddling with one of the bones, knife sharpening it to points, cleaning plaque off the teeth for the fire to consume.

He looked up, pausing in his whittling. "Are you trying to tell me Vladimir caused it?." Aku scoffed, following up, "Are you trying to show to us why we shouldn't interact him?"

"You know how to use your words-"

"So speak plainly."

He narrowed his eyes. "For once we are talking to you-" Aku tilted his head, continuing smoothly without pause, "-As one."

"So stop wasting what little time you have."

He walked over, standing before the fox, "You wouldn't be telling us such pointless information unless you were trying to."

"-Protect what you have claimed."
"-Protect what you have claimed."

He dropped the toothless skull of the rat onto Jack's lap. Eyes darting once more to the shadows as he muttered harsh words under his breath in Japanese. He continued speaking in his native tongue, at some point shifting to Aku as the two seemed to completely ignore Jack's existence for a moment.

Then he suddenly addressed the boy again, "If that's the case. Don't bother.".He walked back to the fire, tap, tap, tapping on the warmed stones encasing the light. "We don't care if he's immoral or moral, innocent or guilty. He is simply..."

"A means to an end." Selim started carving away at the small bones once again. The flames made the deep shadows framing his visage seem all the more menacing.

"A path to a goal.."

"-We've had since we watched our housemates get cursed."

He paused, looking over with the small blade he had been using to carve the bone held laxly in his hand. His eyes were narrowed into a dark glare as his hand curled tighter around the knife, the dark aura of bloodlust rising to the surface on more.

"Besides, if he is truly the villain everyone sees him as. Well..." The boy smirked lazily, gaze tinged with insanity.

"We've likely done far... far worse things then him."
"We've likely done far... far worse things then him."

His expression was soon hidden from view once again as he went back to carving away the bones of the rodent. The steady scraping of steal on ivory echoed with the crackles of the fire that lie in between the two children.

A barrier between two different worlds, one could say.

Thick brows steepled in concern as Jack watched Selim and assessed what he had degraded into. If there was anyone who could help him, Jack doubted he himself could. They seemed to be having difficulty just holding a conversation now. Originally, they seemed to talk fine even if Selim seemed a bit tired. Later on, the yellow-eyed boy could still communicate alright even if he seemed pretty distracted by things no one else could see or hear. Now, however, he was responding to those things, giving them almost as much attention as he gave the real people he talked to. It was disturbing to note the digression. If only there was something more Jack could do to help him.

When he was told he picked and chose which parts of Selim to acknowledge, however, Jack's brows narrowed. He felt his skin tighten where his dorm mate grabbed his face, but said nothing about the nails pressing into his flesh. He simply endured it like a child enduring the grip of a grandma's pinch.

"Fine," he answered. "You're right; there's no point in trying to have a conversation with someone if you only talk and don't listen but expect them to listen to you. So I'll address and listen to all of you as best I can. Whatever you want me to. If one of your other...pieces...are in control, then I'll talk to them instead."

When Selim stepped back, Jack rubbed his jaw where it had been grabbed, frowning, but not taking his eyes off the other boy. He watched his shorter peer feed the flames with paper and powder of some kind before glancing at the puppet when Aku began again to speak.

"...Why did you kill him?" he asked when the pair of voices seemed to have each had their say. His tone had softened, void of anger or distress; just curiosity and a tinge of sorrow. "Was it an accident...? Or...or not?"

He couldn't see it as anything but an accident judging by the state he had seen Selim in right after Victor's death, but he thought it would have been better to ask anyway. He wanted to know what Selim and the other sides of himself thought.

"I wondered...if Vlad's legilimency might have had an effect on you. Whether it caused your shadow to come to life or even if it might have had a part in making you the way you are now. Or...maybe you're not sure yourself. Especially if you didn't know he was a legilimens to begin with."

He sighed and shook his head. "I'm not trying to tell you you should stay away from Vlad. I'm just trying to figure out what happened," Jack explained. When he was told he wouldn't be telling them such pointless information unless he was trying to protect what he had claimed, he glanced away for a moment, then back.

"I don't presume to be strong enough to be able to protect you," he admitted at last, staring into the fire. "Either one of you. Any part of you. At least not yet. But...I wanted you to know that I don't blame you for what happened to Victor. Even if you might not care what I think or if I blame you or not. I just thought you should know."

He blinked at the rat skull dropped into his lap, then picked it up and turned it over in his hands, looking it over. He hoped the rats Selim were eating were free of disease and weren't contributing to the boy's obvious signs of sickness.

"He's...," Jack hesitated upon hearing Aku and Selim explain what Vlad was to them. "What?" He looked up and at both puppet and student. "What...if I may ask...is your goal, then? Something to do with the cursed students?"

His mouth twisted as he continued to listen to the boy and his rabbit. "I don't see him as a villain," Jack protested. "Neither do I see you as one. People do things for different reasons. Anything can be viewed as 'bad' or 'good' depending on what perspective you look at it from. What's important is how you see yourself."

Jack stood then, about ready to walk toward Selim, but then thought better of it. He looked at the rat skull in his hands again, opening and closing its tiny jaw. He wondered if Aku's teeth had come from rat skulls like this one. "I just wish I could help you, Fangs. You and Aku and...whomever else you have in there in your head with you. I miss when you were back in the dorm with us."

@Selim Faust

"I have traveled through madness to find me." - Danny Alexander

Selim glanced up, eyes sharp, gaze penetrating as he listened to his dormmate speak, watching him as he finally forced himself to accept his as more than just the piece he tries to communicate with. His hues scrutinized the redhead, looking for any line of deception, and indication that the boy was just humouring him.

"Then you have made the first step toward reaching what you should be trying to avoid." His tone was flat, not angry or satisfied, but his frame did ease. He went back to whittling away the bones he clasped in his thin fingers, lifting his head as another question was asked of him.



There was a sharp exhale of air as he tried to pull that particular memory free of the coiling tendrils of rot that was permeating his mindscape. The memory was damaged by his degradation, shrouded by the haze of exhaustion. He tried to remember it, what exactly happened, only catching snippets of the vaguely familiar voice of Athanatos from when the upperclassmen had spoken to him, not by word of mouth. The thing that rose from his shadow was starkly clear, he sharply remembered the pure, unadulterated terror he felt when those thousands upon thousands of bulging, twitching red eyes locking onto his horrifying form, the sharp feeling of digging his nails into his skin, the screaming, the blurry, unfocused sight of that shadowy nail plunging into the fallen Scarecrow's barely-moving chest. It hadn't been aggressive before, perhaps grouchy.

But when the peanut gallery forced away Selim's attempts to keep them from being injured, it had snapped. He hadn't controlled it before, he hadn't controlled it after. It was a manifestation of his rotting soul and it hadn't had a master... not that he knew of, at least.

"No, we didn't control that abomination. It controlled us, with fear and panic." Aku spoke darkly. He may have been cruel, but he was still a part of Selim, and he wasn't a masochist in the slightest, he hadn't enjoyed that cursed experience.

Selim's fingers drummed rhythmically against the stone floor, moving as if gliding over the keys of a piano. His gaze snapped to a corner where he could've sworn he saw those familiar red eyes, summoned by the memory his mind had tried to consume into nothing.

"Vladimir and me were having a chat, you know." He hummed, eyes narrowing, "During that time, I mean."

His amber gaze slid to Jack, "I had forgotten, the last time I drudged the conversation up was when he was trying to heal me after the incident at the Fall Ball." His eyes were sharp as he mentioned the boy trying to help him.

He let out an expiration of air, frown curling down the corners of his chapped lips as his eyes raked through the shadows around them as if searching for something. His head was throbbing with the effort to remember the scene. "He was cordial, answered some of my questions, gave me tea that I'm still planning on finding again one day." He paused, looking down at the sharpened thigh bone he was carving, "That shadow appeared around the tail end of the conversation, it didn't do much, paced the circumference of the tent, smashed a teapot, but otherwise was fine as I left it well enough alone. I thought it was just a hallucination. Vladimir debunked that after addressing its presence..." He tilted his head, brow furrowed, the Ravenclaw had said something then... what was it....

Ah... yes.

Selim cleared his throat, conjuring up the memories of the times Athanatos spoke to him... and mimicked him in a vague distortion of the Ravenclaw's voice.

"Be careful, the darkness lashes out."

Selim aptly quoted his words, tone solemn.

"Then you... fools started banging on the trap door. I had hoped you would've gotten the hint and told them to stop when I didn't move, but it was too late." He snorted in faint amusement. "And, well.... you were there for the rest."

He shifted, facing the boy with the sharpened bone held laxly in his fingertips. "If you still have the slightest hint of doubt, I pose this statement to you... Vladimir didn't intend for that Scarecrow to die." His tone was peircing, commanding, this was one thing that, over a year of pondering, he was sure of. He snorted, as the memory grew clearer the more he focused on it, even if for the briefest of moments.

"In a melee where there is no magic,
for wizards there is no risk.
Wizards enjoy a great many comforts,
advantages that muggles will never understand.
Break a bone... A wave of a wand and it knits.
Lacerations and burns, bruises and impalements...
What does it really matter?"

That voice was not exact, but familiar enough to niggle the memory of anyone who had heard Athanatos speak for any amount of time. His eyes lidded as he gazed at the fox. "That, my dear fox, is the response he gave me when I asked if he intended to let the Scarcrow be torn apart by our charming housemates."

He stood, circling casually around the fire before coming closer to his dormmate. He lifted the boy's chin with the point of the bone, eyes narrowed darkly in some unreadable emotion not even Selim could name. "I watched his reaction to that girl, Marion, as she fell from the broom during the Fall Ball, the fierce protectiveness over her as the Gryffindor that had been flying her around on a broom despite her state tried to help her. He loathed that boy, blamed him, scorned him." He let out a slow laugh as he stood, stepping back, perhaps he had unknowingly let another of his pieces take control? Slim never consciously did so, it just happened without any of him knowing.

"If that's all a bloody act. If that emotion is fake then I congratulate him on his mastery of the theatre!" He let out a low growl, a cold smile on his face. "The fact of the matter is that if that boy was the cause of the strife we've gone through in our school year, then he is not the mastermind behind it. No matter how he may speak, may hold himself, he's just a bloody teen like the rest of us. He's been touched by darkness, yes, but haven't we all? There are those who have it far worse than him when it comes to the corruption spreading around this brick and mortar prison, Erin, for example... and do you see anyone pinning the blame on her?"

He 'tsked'. "If you think about it from the perspective of Athanatos possibly being manipulated- puppeteered- by another... Then you can see why I avoid our cursed house; why I loath our short-sighted peers." Shrouded by shadow, Selim's amber gaze burned with bloodlust as he stared down at Jack, "And if those rats end up being the Ravenclaw's downfall... and nothing in this wretched place changes... I'll be watching from the shadows laughing as this cycle of unexplained torment in our school continues, and I won't hesitate to slit their pretty little necks if they cross me."

The boy walked back to the side of the fire, taking a moment to let his friend process this new perspective. Harshly he coughed, a rattling, dry thing. He wasn't used to so much speaking after months of not having to do so. "So, I've given you my perspective, my reason for defending the boy during the Fall Ball as our pathetic peers attacked him on a whim when he was trying to enjoy a date. I've given you more tools to make your own choice on how to see that boy and the seemingly ever-constant trouble that follows him."

He let out a breath, which wheezed slightly in his throat, moving onto the next comment the fox made. "I highly doubt the Ravenclaw is controlling me. I haven't seen him in months, not since the Fall Ball, at the least, when he healed my jaw." His fingernail tapped the bone which had been whittled down to the size of a tooth, Aku's mouth opened and Selim shoved it into an empty spot around the edge of his maw with a faint sound of fabric splitting. He pulled out some glue and ran its nozzle around the sides of the tooth that met the fabric of the puppet. Shifting, he grabbed another bone and began the process once more. "If Athanatos does somehow end up being the cause for everything his accusers say he is, then so be it. Now that he's the cause for my swifter healing from injuries, I at the least owe it to him to be one of his few defenders."

He then addressed Jack's suspicion of the boy being the cause for his mental state. "If he is controlling me then I applaud him for being able to make heads or tails of the degrading mess in my mind... but there isn't even the vaguest hint of a chance that he is the cause for my madness... no, as far as I can tell, it runs in my family, there are a few that have similar conditions to what I have. They're quarantined to the farthest corner of the Faust compound, and the rest of the clan tries to forget they exist." He shook his head. Another beat of silence.

He glanced up as the other boy spoke once more, gaze having returned to its dull blend of exhaustion and constant edginess. "I wouldn't've cared if you even had blamed me, Burnett. For even if I wasn't the cause of the Scarecrow's death, I have done far more immoral things in my short life. So the scorn would've been well deserved, and my victims would have commended you for avenging them even if only slightly." He coughed again. Taking a brief break to let the silence fester, filling the space with only the cracks of burning wood spitting sparks.

When the boy let out more utterances, he tilted his head, listening to the question absently.



He let out a hum, sore throat adding a gravelly tone to it. "While I may not blame Athanatos for all the student's troubles, I do believe he is tied to the root cause of them. My goal is to dig down and follow that root to the core." He paused, "Not for any moral reason, mind you. It's burning my curiosity, and I want to sate the intrigue so it can bother me no more, so I can focus on more important things."

There was a beat of silence, and Selim didn't dare break it, instead enjoying the lull, the brief moment of clarity brought on by Fox's hesitant acceptance, and the conversation.

He stilled his hand, though, upon hearing Jack's next words. For a moment everything for him stilled as his mind tried to search for what the redhead was referencing. Vague snippets of the early beginnings in Hogwarts eluded his thought train, all he could dredge up was the signing of their contract, the 'Fight Club', bits and pieces of the last Blossom Ball, and faint wisps of the few times he had been ill, but every normal day he had spent in that dorm room? Every normal day in between those times? The memories were gone, no matter how much he tried to bring them back up to understand what the redhead was trying to say.

"I cannot recreate what I cannot remember, Fox." He spoke, tone oddly detached. "And I doubt that even if I got help for my degrading stability that I would be whatever boy you remember me to be." His gaze shifted and he stared at Jack from the corner of his eye. "Besides, there is someone else I have found companionship in, I do not plan on abandoning them anytime soon. It is foolish for someone to cut free the anchor of their ship amidst a storm."

Jack was no longer an anchor to Selim. The boy was merely a tie to memories that were rapidly fading, the only solace he had found in his time away from society was in a particular dhampir, who understood nigh exactly what he was going through, who tried to help in a way that was much more feasible then what Jack was trying to accomplish.

Jack was not yet forgotten, not yet discarded, but times had changed, and Selim had changed with them, even if only to stay above the storm, even if only to try not to drown in its depths.

"Why do you think I should be trying to avoid something? What should I be trying to avoid and why?" Jack wanted to know. "Do you mean I should be trying to avoid you?" He shook his head. "I don't know what you want from me, Fangs. I wish I knew. I wish I could help."

He heard Selim exhale sharply and went silent, waiting patiently for an answer to his previous questions. After what seemed like an eternity of nothing but the crackling of the fire between them, Aku spoke. Jack looked up, peering from the rabbit to Selim and back again, before nodding grimly. He'd thought as much. It didn't mean Victor would come back to life, but Jack at least felt slightly better to know his suspicions had been correct. Selim hadn't been a true murderer. Not consciously, anyway.

Jack continued to listen as both Selim and Aku spoke. He met amber eyes when they found him and he was surprised to learn Vlad had tried to heal Selim. Perhaps Vlad was the one Selim had told he didn't want to be magically healed; that he wanted to let the scars form from his injuries. The Japanese boy then spoke of tea Vlad had given him and the shadow that had appeared towards the end of their conversation. Jack swallowed hard. No wonder Selim had a hard time these days separating reality from hallucinations or other conjurings his mind made up.

"I know he didn't intend for Victor to die," the Welsh boy answered sadly. "They were friends. But I still think that if it weren't for Vlad's actions, Victor might have survived. I think Vlad thinks that, too." He shuddered, considering again how the whole situation echoed his own greatest fears. Fears such as his own behavior being the cause of the death or suffering of someone close to him. Then, as if to himself, he muttered, "I don't want to become like him. Like Vladimir."

It interested the redhead to know that Selim had been curious enough to ask Vlad if he had intended for Victor to die. Had Selim cared about Victor, too? Not likely, but...he must have at least been curious as to Vlad's motivations. Selim continued to speak then and Jack continued to hear him out. He tolerated the lifting of his chin with the point of the bone his dormmate held, meeting his gaze steadily. Jack contemplated what Vlad might have felt for Marion, but for some reason he couldn't bring himself to care too much. Victor was already dead. Marion was likely to follow a similar fate, he thought, whatever Vlad intended or not.

"You're afraid of whomever you think might be manipulating Vladimir?" Jack asked, trying to make sense of what he was hearing. "Who? The hags?"

He sighed deeply. "Well, I'm glad he doesn't seem to be using legillimency to control you. I know Vlad isn't as in-control of things as he might seem to be or others might think him to be. That's why I haven't gone seeking him out. I just wish I knew who to actually go after and why."

Jack watched Selim glue teeth and bones carved into teeth onto his puppet. "I see. So you feel indebted to him." At least the reason for that had been made known to him now.

It was horrible to hear that Selim wasn't the only one with the sickness he had in his clan. It was even worse to hear what happened to those others who had it. Still, he had confidence Selim could perservere and defeat his crippling mental issues. "I don't think you do immoral things without good reason," Jack told him seriously. "However hard you may be on yourself. I think that has to do with how you were raised, which is no fault of yours. But again, you probably don't care what I think."

Selim soon divulged that he believed Vlad to be tied to the root cause of many students' troubles. Jack nodded slowly in acknowledgement as he considered this. "If you're doing this to find out how he's tied to the suffering of the other students...I wish you the best of luck," he stated sincerely. "Is there...is there anything I can do to help you?"

He blinked when the Japanese boy mentioned there was someone else he 'found companionship in'. Well, of course. Why wouldn't he? Just because Jack had stayed away from him for so long didn't mean he wouldn't have found someone else to keep him company. Jack should have been glad of that. Right?

"Ah..." He tried to work up a smile. "Well...good to hear you haven't been lonely." He looked down again at the toothless rat skull in his hands. "I guess I'm of no use to you anymore, then?"

@Selim Faust

Selim Text Color: #4d0f25
Aku Text Color: #614f6d

"I have traveled through madness to find me." - Danny Alexander

Selim glanced up as Jack asked a slew of questions, the desperation behind them received as he stared at the redhead steadily. His mind spun with cluttered thoughts and sounds as he tried to process what was happening, how he felt, but it was neigh-impossible to make sense of. "Yes. I want you to avoid me. I'm unstable, emotional, and I know how to cause serious harm. I have no control over myself if one of these fragments tries to take over in a surge of violence. I'm dangerous and growing more impulsive by the day, it's a bad combination." He cast his unreadable gaze to the bone he held in his hand. "Classes are hard. I can't focus on what the professors are saying, there are so many intrusive, bloodthirsty thoughts that cross my mind. It sticks me in a haze of desperate control. I'm only keeping up my grades thanks to the textbooks we have." His hand shook slightly, causing the bone to drop as his grip loosened. "I can't stop going though, if I do the faculty will search for me. That's bad. So I avoid everyone as best as I can between classes, I avoid the dorm where I can't sleep, and all I can do is think, even that is dangerous." He released a shaky breath.

"That is why I want no one near me, especially not you. So many of the pieces hate you, but I know that if I let them act on that hate I'll never recover." He looked up at the redhead, grabbing the bone once more, straightening.

His dormmate's comment about not wanting to be Vlad was met with silence. Then Aku spoke slowly, picking up on a line of thought in Selim's chaotic mindspace. "I don't think he wants to be himself either." Who would? Who would like to watch their friends die around them? The boy was a victim of circumstances, there was a lot on him, a lot to bear. Yes he was rude, snappish, but Selim could understand that frustration, he experienced it often enough. Dealing with so much distrust and hate from his peers would easily make anyone bitter.

The response to Selim's speculations was met with a passive expression. "We don't fear them, we want to talk with them, to figure out their motivations. Our only goal is to sate our curiosity, that is what drives us to survive, we could hardly abandon it."

"We don't know who they are, progress is slow, and we haven't found ourselves in enough situations to discover who may be tied to whatever is happening here." The sickly Slytherin intoned, going back to whittling. He paused though distracted by the sounds and sights around him. In front of the duo was the shadow, a mass of darkness and bulging eyes. His hands shook slightly, pulse beating in his head as everything seemed to freeze.

'It's a lie, it's not real, ignore it, don't let the Lies win-' He took in a sharp breath as the thing suddenly reached for him, stepping back a few paces. Nothing was in front of him, of course, but his whole form braced for an impact that never came.

After a moment he let out the trapped air in his lungs, shaking slightly as clammy sweat clung to his pale skin. Turning away he fell into a fit of harsh coughing, walking away from the fire as he tried to still his shaking hand, ignoring the mocking voices that whispered in his ears. "Don't go after anyone, let the dead rest, Fox." He glanced up, hues cold "The professors will deal with it. At least, that's what most say, doesn't change the fact that they're failing in protecting students in the meantime. I suppose some students are too foolish to help them by actually listening to their commands."

He looked away, wiping the flecks of red and mucus away from his mouth with his sleeve. "We may not trust them, but there's hardly anything a bunch of teens can do against the mastermind of this darkness. Perhaps a few more getting killed in their attempts to do so will make them listen." The puppet laughed, but his tone was hardly joking, "That's how creatures learn after all, from death. Natural consequences are far more effective than the authority of experienced adults. Children learn not to play with fire by burning themselves, such a fact doesn't change when you get older."

The next comment made Selim pause. Coughing again as he sat down against the stone wall once more, he responded, "The eagle doesn't care if I feel indebted to him, I'd think. I'm hardly any help to him, and my attempts to pay back the debt will likely end in failure. I can't connect to him, not after what happened in the hospital wing." He snorted, "I failed a simple task, made a fool of myself. My past always comes back to foil me, it seems." He closed his eyes at the thought, huffing.



One amber eye opened at that, dull with exhaustion yet swirling with that ever-present instability. He responded as the Fox finished. "You're thoughts don't lack value, but the reason I have done such things doesn't change the fact that I've done them. Stains don't disappear so easily, Fox."

The next response made him huff. "One of the best things you can do is avoid me. There are, of course, many other things that are in your capability, but all of them require you to cooperate with me, and in my state, that would likely end in bloodshed, yours, most likely."

He closed his eyes again, digging through the degraded mindscape he now held. "One of these pieces... they're dangerous, unstable, illogical. They're bloodthirsty and are in control most often... it's only a matter of time before they act on their violent impulses." His eyes opened again, and he looked intently at the redhead, "I suggest you prepare for such an incident."

The stretch of silence that followed was long, his mind was growing hazy once more, the cohesive piece in control losing its grip gradually, like a spotty cellphone signal. His hands had stilled, laying in his lap, loosely gripping their items as they shook.



Something shifted in Selim's mind, coming loose from the confining memory loss that was slowly taking over his thoughts. A flash of something, a burst of emotion, the image of sobbing in someone's arms. Emotion shifted in his amber gaze, a forgotten piece of himself briefly taking over as the memorized intensity of emotion awoke it.

The emaciated boy stood, head bowed, and slowly walked towards the redhead, kneeling behind him. Without really knowing what he was doing, his arms wrapped around his dormmate, the first one to accept him.

A hug, huh? He's only ever hugged his Nii-san. It was strange, the disconnect between his thoughts and his actions encompassing him in an unfeeling bubble of nothing. It was as if he was outside his body, simply watching it move.

What was he doing?

That memory, it was rooted deeply, degrading into flashes of feelings and images that didn't belong to him anymore... But Selim had a feeling that it would never truly disappear, like a parasite he couldn't get rid of, a stain that wouldn't disappear with any amount of scrubbing.

Whatever piece that was in control slowly disappeared, and the familiar, unhinged feeling took over once more, so starkly different from whatever had just happened.

It started as a chuckle, slowly growing in bursts until it became full-on waves of mad-sounding laughter. The boy released his dormmate, arm flung over his eyes. He stood swaying and lightheaded from the lack of inhalation. Stumbling the boy leaned against the wall, breathless after the burst of laughter.

His body shook with harsh coughs, forcing more air out of his own lungs. Forehead resting against the wall, he stared at the splash of crimson in his hand. He chuckled slightly at the sight, wiping it off on his pants. A grin was on his face, and he snickered, turning slightly to look at the other boy. "Exactly. Though some pieces seem to think otherwise. Sentimental, a weakness." He scoffed, "You'll never understand, never be of any effective use.We're in two different worlds, Fox, and unless something changes that will always be the case." He laughed darkly, "I want to see that desperation on your face again, the pain lining your features was so... funny"

He laughed again, but it shifted into a fit of coughing once more. He bent over slightly, coughing into his hand again. When it faded he straightened once more, swaying slightly, the smirk was still on his face, his eyes glinted with madness once more, born of stress snapping something in him, fragmenting him once again.

He had dropped the bone and scalpel, the steel spikes he called chopsticks were in one hand. "I want to see you bleed again." He frowned, "But your reactions are boring. Perhaps I should strike someone else down instead." The grin returned as he looked at the fire in contemplation, "You've made more little friends this year, haven't you? They don't have your scars though, maybe I'll do them a favour and give them a better understanding so you can become oh so much more closer..." The smile was dark, amber hues glinting with glee. "Yes, their reactions would b so much more fun."

He laughed at the thought, imagination sporadically producing images to matched the thoughts curling through his mind. The images faded without another fit of coughing, his lungs rattled like a bag of loose bones, and slowly he sighed. "I wonder, then, if I would see that desperation again." Idly he wiped the red flecks off his mouth and turned away from Jack. His mind was once again a haze, energy being drained by whatever ailment plagued his lungs. Lowly, he muttered, speaking to whatever voices he could hear, before pausing and looking back at the redhead.

"Run along, little Fox, you've said your piece. Best depart before you leave with more injuries than you arrived with. I do hope you don't get sick from my presence, then you might miss the fun we'll have in the future." The boy darkly smiled, eyes sharp and predatory.

Of course, he was hardly actually concerned, the redhead had no qualms using magic to heal and actually kept himself healthy. He wasn't plagued with insomnia and things that warped his vision of the world. He was stable.

Selim was only sick because of his lacking health. Living in damp dungeons with a weakening immune system was never good. He still did it though, because he was born in darkness, and in darkness, he intended to stay.

Jack frowned as he heard Selim once again refer to himself as a threat and a danger. He thought it odd that someone could consider themselves unstable and know it, but considering Selim's history regarding his episodes and his shadow and the unintentional murder of Victor Moore, Jack supposed he couldn't argue with the Japanese kid. He just wished there was more he could do to help. Was avoiding him really for the best? For both their sakes? Selim seemed to think so in any case.

He would have liked to think Selim would have had enough self-control to hold back if he knew he was getting dangerous and growing more impulsive, but if old tricks like talking to him to bring him back from his memories weren't going to work anymore, it wasn't as though Jack had any better ideas. No one knew Selim better than himself, after all. It just wasn't in Jack's nature to give up, especially on someone he cared about.

"So many pieces of you...hate me?" Jack repeated, trying to make sense of it while telling himself he wasn't hurt by the statement. "But...why? Didn't I pay for the ways I wronged you?"

He considered what Aku said about Vlad not wanting to be himself either before nodding slowly in agreement. That was probably right, but that wasn't stopping Vlad from doing whatever he was doing. Jack only hoped he wasn't making things worse for himself and everyone else connected to him. There had been enough victims in that department.

Jack continued to listen to Aku and Selim explain how they wanted to find out more about the hags and how they didn't fear them; only that they wanted to sate their curiosity. Well, that, at least, was still the same about Selim. He had always been about seeking answers to things he wanted to know regardless of the cost.

When he was told not to go after anyone, Jack sighed. It sounded rich coming from a guy who was seeking answers himself to tell someone else to 'let the professors deal with it', but Jack knew there wasn't much he could have done anyway. Even if he'd wanted to, he wasn't even sure where he would have tried to start. Selim, on the other hand...Vlad had a connection of sorts to him. If anyone had a chance of unravelling mysteries surrounding Vlad, it was likely to be Selim.

The Welsh boy continued to hear out Aku when the puppet spoke of not trusting the professors and more children getting killed. Jack continued to fiddle with the rat skull in his hands. Aku was right about the natural consequenses, he thought. How many more deaths would it take to get the teachers to do more about the hag problem? It was a grim question; one he dreaded to consider.

Then Selim explained his connection to Vlad had been severed since their time in the hospital wing. Jack grit his teeth. What, then, did Selim plan to do? Wasn't he as blind in this mystery as Jack was? Worse, maybe, if he didn't have all his wits about him? Well, it wasn't as if Jack could stop him even if he wanted to, could he? Selim seemed to have made up his mind.

He told Jack that his thoughts 'didn't lack value', but that it didn't change what Selim had done. Jack knew that, of course. But was that why Selim wanted him to stay away? Because, whether he intended to or not, he could have ended up seriously harming Jack or worse? Selim said there were things that were in his capability that would require him to cooperate with Selim but would likely end in the shedding of Jack's blood.

"So what if more of my blood is shed?" Jack asked. "Haven't I proven to you by now that I can take it? Or don't you think I can handle sticking by you when you need it the most?"

But Selim had said there was someone else who he had for company. That, and parts of him, for some reason, hated Jack. Those statements hurt, but if they were true, it was all the more reason to note that Selim didn't need Jack. Not this time.

Just as he was coming to terms with this notion, the noiret stood and approached him from behind. Before Jack knew what was happening, Selim has wrapped his arms around him and it took him a moment to understand that it was not an attack, but an embrace. A hug.

Wetness came to his eyes, unbidden, so he closed them. He hugged Selim back as best he could from his awkward position. At least until he began to hear the laughter.

Selim let him go and Jack turned around to face him in concern as his dormmate leaned against the wall, gasping for air after his maniacal bout of laughter. Jack watched him cough (was that...blood?), wishing he could help, but knowing better than to try. He felt so helpless then, both to assist Selim in that moment and to aid him overall; fix whatever broken parts of his sanity would not allow him to live life to his fullest. But Jack was only a kid, same as Selim. There was only so much he could do, especially without the possibility of potentially just making everything worse.

Sentimental. A weakness.

Yes, he knew Selim was right. But he couldn't help being sentimental. He couldn't help being weak. The tears came hot and fast, then, and Jack angrily rubbed them way on the sleeve of his robe. He had stopped being of use to Selim.

"Yeah, well..." he tried to say when the emaciated boy told him the pain in his features was amusing. "...glad I could amuse you, then."

His head jerked up when Selim mentioned striking someone else down instead. Who did he plan to hurt? Ruka? When he spoke again, it was through gritted teeth. "I. Have. No. Friends."

Jack decided he'd had enough of this. He didn't think he could bear to see Selim this degraded any more; have him be tender only for him to become cruel again seconds later. So, when told to 'run along', the Welsh boy actually turned away, ready to leave.

"I've left you alone for too long this year," he muttered under his breath. "It's probably my fault you've become like this; at least partly. I only hope your new companion can somehow help you better than I can. Merlin knows you need it."

He huffed. "I'm not about to leave you completely to your own devices, though. I'll still be checking up on you down here every now and then lest you end up nearly dead like that time I had to drag your and Ruka's asses to the Hospital Wing. If you don't get better soon, I'll drag you back there myself," Jack proclaimed, determination and tenacity saturating his voice. "The least I can do is make sure you stay physically healthy even if I have no clue what's going on mentally with you."

@Selim Faust

Selim Text Color: #4d0f25
Aku Text Color: #614f6d

"I have traveled through madness to find me." - Danny Alexander

The other boy's question rang in his ears, the memories being dragged up by it making his hand twitched and his stomach roll with deep nausea. "Oh this is hardly about that. We haven't the faintest clue as to why they hate you. Perhaps it's envy, envy of the stability you have in your life. The envy of creatures that live in darkness as they watch those that live in the light. The envy of an empty husk watching on as those that aren't hollow like them laugh with others. The envy of the soulless living right beside those with souls. " The puppet paused, "Or perhaps it's simply the hate of being looked upon with pity." The rabbit chuckled, Selim didn't comment.

In truth, all of those explanations were very likely. Envy was a dangerous emotion, and it easily warped and contorted into loathing. Despite that most have enough sense to know that they shouldn't lash out just because of something so petty, but Selim wasn't most. No, Selim had broken under the stress, his sense had split at the seams, and now there were fragments of him that hated without restrain and fragments that knew it wasn't right to do so.

'Hadn't I proven myself to you?'

The desperate inquiry was met with silence, slowly Selim gathered what bits he could to answer it. He knew how much questions without answered gnawed and tore at one's mind, after all. "You have. I never want you to prove yourself again... that... event." He glanced over. "It was a mistake, made by a compromised mind and a boy desperate to help that mind. I..." His jaw tensed, could he even refer to himself as 'I'? This fragment, this wasn't all of him. Could he really speak for himself if he was barely a single entity anymore? "...It shouldn't happen again. That is what I'm trying to prevent. I don't want you to fall victim to my instability again."

He looked away again, head pounding with a dull pain brought on by his exhaustion. Everything seemed to be pulsing softly around him. Closing his eyes he cupped his skull in his hand, feeling a tad dizzy from the effort of keeping himself in check. Evidentially that was a sing that his control would slip completely soon after.

'I. Have. No. Friends

The sickly boy laughed, the sound harsh and ragged after the coughing fit. "You have a brother though. And that little blackbird, by all definitions, is your friend. It doesn't matter if you deny it, the evidence is there... and going by that reaction, it's obviously true in spite of your self-denial. If you truly believed he wasn't a friend, then your reaction would've been apathy, not anger." His head lolled to his side, a sly grin on his features.

"But if what you say is true, I guess you won't mind if they're sliced up a bit. Some dissection never hurt anyone, after all." The rabbit snickered at that. The Slytherin the puppet was connected to was suddenly craving some old-fashioned pseudo surgery and contemplated snagging a rat for it. Sure such experiments had already been done on animals, but he always preferred to learn such things hands-on.

He'd eat it afterwards, he didn't like wasting perfectly good food after all.

When the redhead turned away Selim thought that was that, but the words spoken after were heard clearly. His eyes narrowed as he looked over to his dormmate, scalpel glinting dangerously. "Your fault? You always did make such unrelated things about you. Dear Fox, I am as I am. I am imperfect, insane, and the last thing I want is for you to assume the way I was before was truly me." He chuckled darkly, "The boy you first made a contract with was the Faust Clan heir. A boy forced into a mould of his father's making." The snake grinned, "This is simply the result of being forced into an unfitting role. The pressure was too much, and eventually, our father's perfect little doll broke."

"You have had next to no impact on how we turned out. A boy we knew for a year against a man we lived under for 12 years? The numbers say it all. I'm sure you would've turned out exactly the same if you were in our shoes." The pupped tilted his head, button eyes dead against the wide smile on its cloth face.

The red head's threat of visiting him and dragging him to the hospital wing was answered with an eerie stillness. "Your a stubborn child." The voice was cold, despite the smiling mouth it came out of. "So very, very, infuriating. I truly would love to wring that little neck of yours." A dark tone echoed behind the words. "It would be so very pointless if you took it without a peep though. Maybe I really will make that blackbird chirp instead..."

A dangerous smirk played on his lips, anticipation in his snake-like eyes burning in target with the fire behind him. "Run along now. You've delivered what you wanted to say. Maybe your next visit will be more fun."

With that, Selim turned away, wandering to a corner and snatching up more bone to carve. He'd make sure Aku had a full set of teeth when the fox found him again.

Idly he hummed a tune, an old lullaby he heard from his mother so long ago. It was distorted now with time and instead sounded haunting as it echoed through the room and into the hallway beyond.