Me and the Devil: Sebastian Sallow

Chapter ONE THIRTY - Please

(Jacob and the Stone - Emile Mosseri)

My own wavered breaths wound around the strands of my hair and ignited my blood as the swell of ancient energy dipped beneath my chest, warm and pulsing. The effort to rein it in hurt far worse than any of the injuries I had had before, even on death's doorstep. My fear prickled against my skin, reminding my heart of the chaos I had just unleashed and the death that had resulted from the last.

Solomon.

Dead.

I killed him.

I saved Sebastian from...

Sebastian.

My knees gave way as I crumpled to the ground, hauling my quivering bones through the silence and the soot.

Sebastian's head tilted back at an awkward angle, his legs folded beneath him and hands limp over his torso.

"Sebastian?" My throat screamed at the effort to speak but my heart pressed on. "Sebastian! Oh fuck please. Seb-"

His throat bobbed, his wild, frantic eyes flung open and locked to mine as he begun to sputter. Bits of dirt and blood trickled along his lip. My shaking fingers did little to hold my heart together as I pressed them against his cheeks, pulling my body close to his.

His groans and gurgles finally formed the hint of my name, his fingers lifting shakily to my cheek, seeming to question the reality of it all.

"Atley?"

Strangled relief pinched my chest, nausea welling just behind it as truths dug knives between my ribs.

My eyes flicked back over my shoulder, past the corpse of the man I'd intended to injure and over the rubble and smoke. With the flames now smothered, the darkness of the room fiddled with my vision, blurring my ability to see the wall my friends had been near only a moment ago.

"Anne?" Sebastian's widened eyes grew impossibly larger as they danced over the body of his uncle and the disaster scattered remnants of the room.

I shoved my heart back through the cage of my ribs and limped over as quickly as my screaming body would let me. Sebastian pulled himself behind me, muttering over and over again something that sounded of his sister's name, Ominis' too.

My boots scuffed through half burnt torches and black singed bones. Something toppled over the tip of my toe as I kicked it in my hurry, and I paused for only a moment to pull the tiny glimpse of metal up from its bed of dirt. I clutched the tintype, now scratched and bent over slightly at the edges within my fingers. The tips now stained and dark from the soot.

Someone coughed from up ahead and I was thrown back to my body.

Sebastian had barely made it a few steps ahead of me, his right leg showing him all sorts of grief as he barreled forward.

His body sunk down quickly in front of a heap of cloth and dirt I recognized after a moment as Ominis' shirt. His body had been thrown over Anne's, shielding her no doubt and taking the brunt of the burst. His shoulder peeked through a large tear in the cloth - red, bleeding and burnt. His strangled coughs shook his body, the only movement from below.

Sebastian pulled him up promptly but gently, leaning his back against the wall. His heavy eyes swept over the damages, lingering over the steady rise and fall of his chest and letting out a silent "thank Merlin" before flicking back to the shadow of his sister.

Ominis' groans bounced across the stone.

Anne held still,

silent.

"Anne. Anne." Sebastian pulled her body into his arms, tucking the messy strands of hair from her face and dipping his ear to her chest. Something thin and wood toppled from his hand and collapsed to the dirt.

Discarded and useless.

His wand.

"It- it- Something's not right." He stammered, rolling her limp body closer to his chest as his breathing stumbled.

"No."

Her head lulled to the side, her eyes staring blankly to the ceiling.

"No?" Sebastian's voice tipped higher, uneven.

He shook her gently, but having received no response, shook her harder. Her loose bones and bun bounced against her body.

"Anne?" His tone entirely uneven, broken and betrayed. "Anne wake up- please."

My heart stripped completely bare as the reds of his eyes tipped back up to me, pleading and terrified.

"Atley?" His question left unfinished,

my own fear clinging stiff to my clothes like dried blood. I shook my head ever so slightly and Sebastian's face contorted, letting out a cry of tortured chaos, a heart burdened and empty of hope and purpose.

The sound entirely un-human

it sent the magic within my veins ablaze once more. Thick and speckled with regret.

He dipped his head back to hers.

"Don't go. Don't go. Don't go. I don't want you to go. Please. Please Anne. I need you. I can heal you. Don't go."

Ominis had managed to roll his thoughts back to his ribs, pulling his broken body forward and using his good hand to reach toward Anne's.

"...Anne?"

There was no doubt he'd heard the entire ordeal but disbelief still laced between each syllable.

"ANNE." Sebastian sobbed and Ominis flinched, his chest heaving again as he forced breath to his lungs.

Ominis began searching the dirt hastily, shoving soot into piles as his fingers wound around the space.

"My wand. Please. S- Atley? My wand. Perhaps a spell that can- can- can-" He choked. "My wand?"

Thin, trembling fingers wrapped around Sebastian's wand though the shaking never ceased. Ominis' own sobs crashing through his throat as he held it close.

"I had the cure in my hands... That's not fair. You can't- Anne please. Please. Please. Please. Please." Sebastian's body rocked hers back and forth.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

Back

and

forth.

His desperate pleas turned to desperate whispers.

"Not you too. Please not you too. Me instead. Please take me instead.

I can't do this without you..."

What have I done?

Anne was truly dead,

I was to blame

and there was no question of my responsibility to mingle with realities this time.