The gash burns, veins of pain coursing through his arm as Barty stumbles, knees digging into the cobblestone as he hisses in pain. The after effects of the apparation vibrate through his body, down to his very cells as he pulls back the long sleeve of his robes to expose the gaping wound on his arm. Blood flows quick and thick down over his skin before forming a pool on the ground.
He's splinched himself, like some bumbling sixth year. And all the way to the bone too if that glimpse of white was real.
Barty prepares to speak the spell for this…and it isn't episkey, is it? That one's for little scrapes from quidditch matches, not anything important like his lifeblood seeping into the cracks on the cobblestone.
Barty knows a spell for this, he has to, but it's hard to find in the vast space sprawling in his head. The very second Father died, the lingering pleasant haze had been ripped away, leaving Barty floundering as his thoughts ran away with it.
He had to leave, he knew that when he forced himself out of the front door and down the hill to the town. And he had to apparate, he knew that when he saw the eyes peering through the windows of the houses along the streets and when even the late night drunks had stumbled away from Barty in fear.
But he forgot how to land right, so now there's a piece of his flesh lost somewhere in the English countryside.
Barty reaches for the memory of the spell he needs; but, without the haze weighing him down, his focus floats up and away. The dull drip of his blood on the hard ground draws his gaze down to the spreading crimson.
"Jesus Christ, mate! Are you alright!?"
His uninjured arm raises, the tip of Father's wand glowing white-hot with the spell that flies from it. Stone cracks as the lightning slams into the wall a few feet to the side of the man at the end of the alleyway.
With a shriek, the figure throws himself to the right, disappearing from sight past the opening.
The white flash of light revealed blue jeans, a black jacket, and the stunned face of some dark-skinned muggle who looked down the wrong alley. They aren't dead, but they're not a threat either. Individual muggles all alone like that never are. But where there's one muggle, there's always more. It won't be long before more pop up to check out the scream of their brethren.
Barty sways, the fleeting steadiness that he found on his feet fleeing away into the spreading puddle on the dark street. The blood's still flowing as he looks back down at his arm.
There's a spell, it isn't episkey. Something more potent, something more capable of closing the gash stretching over his flesh.
"Vulner sanentur," murmurs a memory, a brief vision of Rabastan Lestrange guiding the movements of Barty's wand through the melodious healing charm.
"Vulner sanentur," whispers Barty as the syllables bend the magic through his wand and slip into the wound, stemming the flow faster than bleeding out would. The world darkens, the ground tilting upwards beneath his feet.
"Vulner san, sanent…" the syllables fall away and Barty tumbles after.
He's lying down on his back, something soft beneath his head propping him up slightly. Awareness snaps back into place as the darkness recedes. Apparently, Barty's spent too many years half-awake and lethargic to linger in-between passed out and waking up. The heaviness of his eyelids is shoved aside as Barty forces himself up.
His arms shake, weak and boneless, as his palms press against the bed beneath him. Shrill bursts of noise strike out from alongside him. Barty freezes, staring at the strange box beside him. A moving portrait or…no that's glass. Green lines spike up and down across a glass frame embedded in a box as he stares.
A strange little tube oozing with a line of red liquid catches his eye as it jiggles from his previous movement. It's connected to his uninjured arm, taped into place with small bandages that he's already tearing away, the red liquid from the open tube now flowing onto his fingers as he studies it.
The tang of blood hits his nose when he sniffs it.
There's a mostly empty bag with remnants of blood attached to the tube. And it isn't his, it doesn't pull at his magic like a wizard's blood does when it's drawn from one's own body. Any weaver of blood wards knows the tugging sensation of magic from taken blood. It's not something that can be forgotten, no matter if it's been years since Barty's carved any blood-bound runes himself.
Blood going in instead of out. A gown clinging to his frame that is certainly not his robes and bandages over the wound he failed to finish healing before. An empty sort of stench in the air, scrubbed clean of anything human. Any hint of dirt or soil, of infection.
The hurried footsteps rip Barty's gaze towards the rest of the room. A few people in pale coats and uniforms are hurrying over to him. Those aren't robes, despite being the same color as the uniforms worn by the healers of St. Mungo's. Muggle attire, lacking the flowing forms of a wizard's robes. Eyes wide with concern but not fearful enough to show any recognition at the Death Eater he is.
Some muggle had to have found him in that alleyway after the first one ran off. Brought what they thought must have been some random, half-dead bloke to one of their own places of healing.
Any aggression showing upon his face slips away under wide eyes that match theirs. Barty lets loose the bare amount of control he had over the trembles shivering over his weak, boneless arms.
"Where am I? Who are you?" His voice rasps from too many years of disuse, but that's alright. It adds to that air of defenselessness that belongs to just another injured muggle in a hospital full of muggles.
Not beta read, so comments, critiques, and reviews welcomed.