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Moonlight streaked through the grand cathedral style windows lining the Room of Requirement, illuminating the four poster bed resting at the center of the room. Three students lay nestled amongst the multitudes of blankets strewed around the mattress, limbs tangled together like an intricate knot. Tucked in the middle of the Slytherin duo was a shivering form, cold and listless within the calming ambiance. Sweat beaded on their brow, their eyebrows scrunched at the macabre thoughts filling their dreams. Visions of torment danced behind their eyelids, launching them into their deepest fears yet again.
~***~
You could feel the bindings holding your hands in place behind the old wicker chair, the ropes digging deep into your wrists and drawing blood from the reddened skin underneath. You desperately twisted your arms in distress, fearful of what else, or who else, would enter the tent next. Your arms weeped blood down your sides and dripped steadily into the dead grass below. Sweat stuck the hair dangling in front of your eyes to your forehead, skin clammy and cold from pain. Each breath felt like one thousand tiny needles were piercing your lungs. You knew that your ribs were broken— you could feel them digging into your sides and catching on your organs like sharp cat claws. The maroon canvas in front of you shivered against the winter air and snow, doing nothing to shield you from the terrible cold. Your wounds stung from the strong breeze, chilling the blood in your veins. The sticky substance froze to your skin, creating painful blisters among the fields of ice and frost that littered your cracked skin. Sobs wracked your body, leaving your head dizzy from lack of oxygen and dehydration. You didn’t know how long you had been in the poachers camp, time ticked by differently when you were being tortured, and each second felt like one million years. Each time the tent flap opened a new stomach-churning smile would enter your field of vision, animalistic fangs peeking out from behind their distinctly human mouths like a wolf in sheep's clothing. The tips of their wands touch a different part of your body and draw wails of agony from deep in your throat. The buttons of your shirt were ripped open by the last wretched villain, leaving the cloth falling off of your shoulders and revealing your undershirt to the world. You could feel their fingers on your skin still, gripping you by the neck until you saw stars, roughly grabbing you by the upper arms and shaking you around while yelling in your face, even groping different parts of your body in demented lust. You felt dirty in your own skin, bile rising in your throat at the memory and burning against where your vocal chords had been rubbed raw from your screams. A shaky sigh pushed its way out of your mouth; you were glad that was as far as they went. You didn’t know what you would do if they tried to rip or tear off any other article of clothing. Unspeakable images filled your mind, and you cringed in horror. Your breathing was coming out in sharp pants, each movement sending a sharp pain through your whole body. Panic coursed through your veins, everything around you seeming to slow down as fight or flight hopelessly tried to kick in. You could feel the heat of the large pyre behind you, scorching the back of your neck and shoulder blades. It felt close enough to send flaming embers your way, leaving small clusters of burns on your already charred skin. You had lost feeling in your legs long ago— one poacher going as far as to run his carved hunting knife along the seams of your trousers and scarring deep into your skin. Blood poured from each man made trench for a moment after, before the disgusting man in front of you, at least the age of Professor Fig, someone’s grandfather, cauterized the wounds and saved you from the simple bliss of bleeding out. They didn’t want you to die, at least not yet. White hot pain flashed behind your eyes as you shifted, the splintered wood of the chair catching on the torn skin and shredding it further. Your vision shuttered black for a moment, consciousness hanging on by the smallest string of thread. Perhaps being unconscious would be better, you had thought. At least if you weren’t awake, you wouldn’t be aware of what they were doing to you. Ignorance is bliss, as the saying said.
The sound of cloth against cloth drew you from your slumped posture. Someone new was entering your canvas prison, likely bringing a new type of pain with them. Whoever it was wanted to take their time with you— you could tell. They slowly stalked towards your chair, each step placed loudly and with purpose. They were taunting you, knowing that each one of their movements would send your heart leaping into your throat in raw, animalistic panic. They were the fearsome predator lurking in the woods, and you were its next meal. They came up right behind your shivering body, running their hands through your matted and bloody hair, catching on the knots and pulling roughly. Your head snapped back, a tormented hiss escaping through your clenched teeth. Your eyes clamped shut as pain coursed through your scalp and into your skull, a deep throbbing ache being left in its place once they let go. They chuckled darkly at the sounds of your misery, taking their roughly callused palm and running it along your twitching shoulder and scarred upper arms. Their fingertips continued to trail along your body, turning with a psychotic gentleness and pressing lightly on your collarbones and upper chest. Their trek ended right in front of you, their pointer finger lightly applying pressure to the center of your breast bone and leaving a small indent in the skin. The man, you knew it was a man at least, squatted lowly so he could look into your bruised eyes. He removed his hand from your body, instead taking the knuckle of his forefinger and lifting your chin, holding it in place with his thumb at the front. Your eyes shifted and focused like the shutter of a broken camera— the image getting clearer slowly and with extreme effort. You saw their brown hair first, swept to the side of their face and hanging around their ears with stray curls. Sprinklings of freckles decorated his cheeks and the bridge of his nose before trailing down to the corners of his mouth. His lips were tweaked upwards in a cheshire grin, showing the harsh divots of dimples in the center of his cheekbones. In his lap was a long blade, at least the size of your forearm. Its steel caught the glow of the fire behind you and shimmered on the wall with soft specks of light. The last thing to come into focus was his eyes, a deep chocolate brown with a twinkle of mischief and danger alight in his irises. You knew those eyes, almost as well as you knew your own soul.
Sebastian Sallow stood before you, your face held tightly in his grip and a sinister visage decorating his features. Every ounce of air still in your lungs rapidly expelled out of you, leaving you choking on nothing. He raised a haughty eyebrow at you, his irises slowly shifting around your face and decrepit appearance. A soft ‘tisk’ sound came from between his teeth, his tongue clicking against the roof of his mouth three times like a mother scolding a child. He let go of your face, letting your chin droop down to your chest and your jaw to smack against the bone painfully. Running the back of his fingers lightly against your bruised and bloody cheek, he took a smear of red with his thumb and painted it across your jawbone, his fingers spidering along your ear and into the hair at the nape of your neck. With a harsh pull, your head shot back and smacked against the headrest of the chair— the sound of contact between your skull and the old wood ricocheted around the room like a gunshot. Stars of white and black filled your field of vision, causing you to slam your eyes shut once again. You could feel a trickle of blood flow from the fresh cut at the base of your head and run down your neck, staining the back of your shirt a rich crimson. A soft whine nonconsensually escaped from where your mouth was stretched into a taut line, your eyebrows scrunching up in anguish at the sound. The brunette boy chuckled softly at your sorrow.
Sebastian leaned in close, his breath hot against your neck and rustling the stray hairs there, and whispered against your throat, “As if I would ever come to save you. You’re worthless to me.”
The air around you froze. You felt every ounce of corporeal creation get sucked out of the tent and fly around you like a tornado; suddenly you were falling. The coarse ropes binding your arms and legs together fell away, disappearing into the vast nothingness of space and time. All around you was darkness, coating the backs of your eyelids and filling your throat and nose with thick tendrils of smoke. You flailed desperately for something to hold on to— to stop you from crashing into the ground below. Just as fast as the feeling of weightlessness came, a splash sounded around you, and you were surrounded by ice cold water. Thick tresses of seaweed wrapped around your ankles as you struggled to swim to the surface. Your lungs burned for air, mouth shooting open against your will and filling your throat with the murky water of the black lake. Hogwarts stuttered in the ripples of the water above your submerged head, its stone exterior twinkling in the stark moonlight. Even something as beautiful as the moon looked deadly through the rapidly thickening sludge. The sentient weeds dragged you to the bottom of the black lake, holding you there as the last of the air in your body left you and was replaced with salty, ink stained liquid. Your vision began to spot once again, and you hopelessly struggled to free yourself and pull in any semblance of fresh air. Right when you teetered at the edge of consciousness, awaiting the sweet release of death to take you into its gentle arms and allow you to finally rest, the bottom of the lake fell apart around you, launching you harshly into the underbelly of the world and smacking you against rough stone.
You heaved yourself up onto your knees, coughing and sputtering the water out of your lungs before greedily gulping down the musky air around you. The rough smell of mildew and wet earth filled your nose. Stone stretched as far as you could see, coating the floors and walls. To your left was an alabaster skeleton, the stench of rot still hanging on each crevice— flesh flaked off of the bones like barbecue on a summer day. You gagged in your throat, bile threatening to launch itself from your esophagus and splatter on the ground below your dirt covered fingers. The sound of far away screams filled your ears— pleas of mercy bringing stinging tears to your eyes and tracking down your scratched cheeks. The blackened braziers lining the walls caught the black ooze shifting on the doorway closest to you; faces of torment and pain covering its surface and reflecting back in your expression. Salazar Slytherin’s Scriptorium. You were back in that wretched place.
You turned back to the floor before you, hands holding up your upper body as your knees still sunk heavily into the jagged rock floor. You heaved against the tightness in your throat, the remainder of the salty water you had swallowed and a little vomit trickled out of your mouth like a broken faucet. You remembered the yelling— the never-ending pain of the cruciatus curse pulsing through your body and boiling your insides in a fiery inferno. You had never experienced pain like that before, not until then, at least.
Two sets of feet stepped into your line of vision, one pair of boots scuffed and caked in dirt from various explorations, the other pristine and shiny— glowing orange in the dim lamplight. You craned your neck up and locked eyes with the pair of Slytherin’s standing before you. Sebastian had the same evil twinkle in his irises that he had in the camp, a vile smile twisting his mouth into a hellish mask. Ominis stood beside him, a similar look adorning his features, before crouching in front of you and tapping the underside of your chin with his wand. He tilted his head in wicked elation, tittering in smug satisfaction at your apparent shock.
“Hello, little dove.”
He chuckled low in his throat before standing once again, quickly pressing his palm against your forehead and pushing you onto your back. The duo circled you, eyeing their prey like a pair of carrion birds analyzing a decaying carcass.
Ominis spoke again, contempt coating his voice like a thick layer of paint. “Don’t you know that you have to mean any unforgivable curse you cast? You have to want to cause pain, dove. Sebastian doesn’t love you— he wanted you to feel every second of pain he gave you.”
The brunette’s hearty laugh filled your ears, “How could we ever love someone like you? A simple muggleborn— a mudblood. I only used you to get what I wanted, now that I have that, you are useless to me.”
The blond made a noise of agreement. “You pushed Sebastian in the direction of the dark arts. Solomon’s blood is on your hands. How could I ever forgive you for that? My family tortures the likes of you before breakfast is even served. I should do the same, make them proud for once.”
Your heart splintered in your chest, cracking under the emotional pressure and cutting into your very being. Tears continued to spill down your cheeks like a waterfall; the tides pooled in your collarbones and made small rivers of sadness. The room felt like it was closing in on you, tightening its hold on you like a noose around your neck. Frantic puffs of air burst from your mouth and clouded in the cold air around you. Sebastian barked a laugh at the heartbroken look adorning your features, nudging the boy next to him in demented mirth.
“Merlin, Ominis, listen to them grovel. They’re crying! Don’t worry, little duck, this will all be over soon.” He pointed his wand at your chest, a bright red glow encasing the tip of it and crackling with electricity. “The door still needs to be opened. Shall we, old friend?”
Ominis grinned evilly, leveling his wand just to the right of Sebastian’s. “Yes, let's.”
In unison, the two people that you loved more than the universe itself swung their wands in an arch and shouted the spell— their voices bouncing around the echo chamber and ringing in your damaged ears.
“Crucio!”
White hot convulsions wracked your body, a scream clawing its way out of your chest, and the world was painted in inky black nothingness once again.
~***~
You shot up in bed, a hand clasping at your chest just above where your heart threatened to beat out of your ribs. The early morning sun glittered through the windows of the Room of Requirement, casting an otherworldly glow around the room and shining in your eyes, illuminating the panic swimming in them— irises darting around the room like a frightened animal in a cage. Your breathing rapidly entered and exited through your parted lips, each strong and with purpose— like you’d never breathe again. Every inch of your body was buzzing with frantic energy, nearly vibrating the speed of light. Fight or flight kicked in, narrowing your line of sight and pumping adrenaline into your bloodstream. You scrambled out of bed, tripping on your knees over the legs of one of your sleeping partners, tumbling yourself roughly to the ground and filling the room with a loud, echoing thump. With all the strength you could muster, you crawl like a man searching for water in the desert towards the closest corner of the room, eyes darting in every direction like you were trapped in the dark caves once again and there was a spider on your tail. You curl your body into a tight ball against the wall, knees pressed painfully against your chest and hands clasped behind your head, covering your ears with your arms and rocking back and forth like a child afraid of the dark. Every one of your senses were in overdrive. Colors swirled behind your tightly shut eyelids, sending bursts of light into your frontal cortex. Every single sound in the room was like a bomb was going off right next to your ears. The birds just outside the window trilled at the rising sun and sent shocks of pain through your skull; your teeth clenched around the stark migraine forming just behind your eye sockets. You were astutely aware of the muffled sobs leaving your clasped jaw, and in a desperate need to not wake your companions you bit roughly on your bottom lip, canines drawing blood and filling your mouth with the taste of copper. The heels of your hands roughly smacked against the sides of your head in a miserable attempt to make your brain shut up , but all it did was send rockets of throbbing pain into your already pounding skull. You knew that you weren’t in danger, but your body would not stop in its incessant panicking. You couldn’t think straight, all that filled your sporadic mind was the sound of heavy static. Every nerve ending in your body was sparking, and you knew that if you were stuck in this position for much longer that your heart would stop due to the speed at which it was beating— pumping blood and energy through your body for the fight that was not happening. You would’ve welcomed death at that moment if this hysteria would stop.
Tucked comfortably under the covers of the four poster bed, Ominis blearily opened his eyes to darkness yet again. His lids were slitted like the sun hurt him, and he stretched an arm to your side of the bed, lightly pawing around the silken sheets for a part of your body. You weren’t between him and his other sleeping partner anymore. That was when he noticed the muffled cries coming from the corner of the room, the sound filling his ears and shaping into a knife— ready to stab his heart in woe. He could hear you, each creak of the floorboards from your shuffling, each bit back wail clenched under the weight of your jaw, each hardy slap against the dome of your skull. You were in the throes of a panic attack yet again, likely from one of your nightmares. His heart broke even more at the image, and he wished more than anything to be able to cast the nightmares away from your subconsciousness. He had offered to brew you, or really get Sebastian to brew you, a drought of dreamless sleep, but you were too stubborn to accept anyone else's help. Some would call it courage to live without a lifeline, but he called it dreadfully stupid . He sat up in bed, lightly groaning at the cold air hitting his uncovered shoulders, and stretched his arm a little further to the left, smacking the other sleeping boy much harder than he did the bed. Sebastian growled minutely at the harsh awakening, roughly grabbing the offender's wrist and slowly turning towards his blond partner, a glare narrowing his eyes in annoyance. The blond shook his hand out of the now lighter grasp, smacking him once more on the chest with the back of his hand and pointing in the direction of your sounds. The brunette quickly sat up, looking in the direction of the boy’s finger. He saw your shadow tucked away from sight diagonal to him, causing the catch of his breath in his throat and a pain in his chest.
“Oh,” he breathed.
Both boys quickly clamored out of bed, nearly tripping on their house shoes that were placed at the base of the headboard, and carefully crept towards your petrified body— a weird dance of making their steps loud enough so you could hear them approaching and moving slow enough as to not startle you and send your panic into even more of a tizzy. Each kneeled to one side of your body, hands out in a placating manner like they would approach the Graphorn’s in your vivarium.
Sebastian spoke first, placing a hand gently on your bent knee, followed by Ominis, who decided to stay back for now so as to not overwhelm you, “Little duck?”
“Dove?”
You violently shivered, knocking the freckled boy’s hand from your body and let out a whimper— like the words, and the contact, burned you. A flinch shocked through your entire body as you attempted to become even smaller in your desolate corner. The boy quickly retracted his hand from your space, a look of pure heartbreak crossing over his features.
He shuffled slightly closer, still giving you space but wanting you to know that he was just outside of your personal bubble. His eyes darted around your curled form, his own panic beginning to rise in his throat. This was so much worse than your attacks normally were. You had never flinched away from them before, never acted like you were afraid that they’d hurt you. Gods, what did you dream about?
His soft voice shook with emotion, trying again to break through the fog in your mind and bring you back to the land of the living, “My darling, please talk to us. How can we help? Can we touch you?”
You whimpered again, a feeble sound from the back of your throat that sounded so much like a wounded animal that it brought a misting of tears to the blond’s eyes, before shaking your head roughly against your clasped arms and tucking yourself somehow even smaller. Touch was out, Sebastian deducted. What could they do now? His startled silence gave Ominis the opportunity to speak again, his throat thick with worry.
“Please, please , give us a sign that you’re in there, sweetheart. We’re right here, we aren’t going to hurt you.”
Their voices caused the panic inside of your heart to rise even further, like a tide retreating backwards before cascading downwards as a giant tsunami. You pounded the heels of your fists against your head again, the still aware part of your body hopelessly trying to shove the images of your lovers hurting you out, out, out of your mind. At this point you were striking yourself hard enough to leave bruises, and the boys panicked further at the sight and sound before them. You already had blood pooling in your hands and dripping down your arms from where your fingernails dug into your skin. Each violent thwack splattered patterns against your hair, your face, the wall behind you, anywhere it could reach. Sebastian’s breathing picked up exponentially, waving his hands around in distress. Ominis was not much better, his body began to shake with tremors at the sound of you injuring yourself right in front of them. He didn’t know what to do, it had never been this bad before.
Sebastian turned to the boy next to him, his heart beating anxiously in his chest. “Ominis, what do we do? They’re hurting themselves!”
Ominis stuttered, “I-I don’t know! Stop them before it gets worse!”
Sebastian thought quickly, leaning fully over your body and grasping at your wrists in a solid grip.
You flailed around, screams leaving your lips at the sudden intrusion. You were back in the camp once again, your arms bound and completely unable to move, to fight, to protect yourself. The brunette tried valiantly to hold on to you, stuttering words of comfort to the best of his ability as frightened tears gathered and clung to his eyelashes. In his state of panic he loosened his grip on your wrists, leaving you able to wrench one of your hands from his.
“Hey, it’s me! It’s Sebastian! Please calm down, you’re okay, you’re safe!”
Your vision was blurred, your head filled with images of the ghastly smile Rookwood would give you before he would descend upon you with unthinkable acts of torture— absolutely destroying your soul and your will to live. All you could hear was the sound of his horrendous laughter over the sound of your screams.
In a last act of self preservation, you swung your hand back and smacked the person before you across the cheek with all the strength you had left.
The sound reverberated around the room like a large stone falling into a chasm below, tumbling against the walls and finally smacking into the rough, pebbled ground. Sebastian reeled back in shock, his hand reaching up to cradle his cheek. Even more tears gathered in his eyes and spilled down his cheeks, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. All Ominis could do was sit in horrified silence, unsure of what had just happened— only knowing that someone had been hit but unaware of the level of damage caused. He could still hear your pathetic sounding sniffles and, thankfully, quieted wails. Sebastian was eerily silent to his left, thus leaving him to deduct that you had hit him in your state of panic.
You came back to your body at that moment, your eyes finally creaking open around the crusts that formed in your eyelashes from your tears. The room stilled around you, everything silent and still like the world outside of the grand windows lining the walls. All that could be heard was your sniffles and the heavy breathing of the boys across from you. Vision was gifted to you once again, and before you, in the dim lighting of the early morning sun, you saw your freckled boy. He had a look of betrayal in his eyes, tears spilling from his eyes and wetting the collar of his sleep shirt. Your eyes darted to his hand, still pressed gently against his assaulted cheek. You pieced together the puzzle before you, your eyes widening and more tears gathering against your bottom lid. Your hands moved away from your head, one palm plastering itself across your mouth in shock and the other grabbing at your wrist. Gasps left your throat, a numbing pain spreading just under your ribs and expanding to all points of your body. Apologies spilled from your parted lips, and the aura of true sorrow permeated around your still hunched over form.
“Oh Merlin, Sebastian, I’m so sorry. I thought you were— I thought I was— everything was just happening so quickly and— oh God, what did I do? ”
Ominis could sense the panic in the room rising once again and jumped into action.
“It’s okay, my love. Everything’s okay. You aren’t in your nightmare anymore— y-you’re in the Room of Requirement with us. No one is going to hurt you, not with us around.”
The boy felt pathetic under the weight of your gaze. Tears were steadily spilling from your eyes like a torrential downpour and all he could do was sit back and listen to the natural disaster destroy everything around him. Apologies filled with self depreciation flowed from your lips still, gathering in the air like a thick cloud of smog.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Oh God, I didn’t mean to, fuck , what did I do? What did I do? Oh Merlin, I hit him. I’m so sorry —”
“It’s okay, It’s okay ! I’m fine, I know you didn’t mean to. Please, please stop crying. I love you so much, we love you so much, please stop apologizing, my darling.” Sebastian shook himself out of his startled stupor, his hands hovering over your knees once again— afraid to touch you in case it shocks you back into your mind.
Panic still coursed through you like a wildfire, but you focused on the freckled boy’s brown eyes in front of you and willed it away. You leaned back against the wall, slightly smacking into it with your shoulder blades. You began to minutely relax, your knees still pulled up to your chest but not as tight as before. Both boys breathed a sigh of relief at the sound of your breathing slow. Still unsure if you want to be touched, they both collapse against the wall on either side of you, just enough space between each other that contact could be made if needed.
Sebastian leaned his head back on the wall, his chin pointed up at the ceiling and his eyes gazing through the grand skylight above. The remains of the night sky still shimmered there, stars poking through the slightly lighter shade of blue and winking out as if to say goodbye. He sighed deep in his chest, feeling like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders.
“We’ll be right here when you’re ready to talk. Don’t push yourself— we aren’t going anywhere.”
The trio sat in silence for a good while, listening to each other's breathing and heartbeats. Ominis looked unseeing at the beautiful sunrise, feeling the heat cascading over his body and warming his cooled skin. Sebastian counted the stars above, breathing deeply through his mouth and releasing through his nose after every five to seven. You followed the steady rhythm of your partner’s heartbeats, trying to match them and still your breathing enough to speak once again. You ached for the two boy’s next to you— you didn’t deserve their kindness, their love. All you did was hurt them. They had been tortured for you, had killed for you, and now they were left to pick up the pieces of your shattered life and psyche. They didn’t sign up for this life. Stealing your nerves, you took a deep breath and prepared the story of your nightmare for them— they at least deserved that from you.
You began your story, your voice soft and still slightly shaken. You began in the camp, talking about your fear and unwillingness to continue to live if the torment continued. You talked about how you had seen Sebastian’s face take over Rookwood’s and the words he said to you. A stuttered intake of breath sounded from your right, and you refused to look over and see the disappointment on his face. You then spun the tale of how you found yourself in the Scriptorium, how you had felt the air leave your lungs under the black lake and come rushing back as you smacked into the hard stone floor. Finally, you told them about what they both had said to you in the dark, lamplit room; the grotesque— the downright life-ending insults they threw your way.
Your eyes darted down to your lap, unwilling to even look in either of their directions because of the disgusting way your mind depicted them. Silence filled the room around you once more, not even a breath, a sniff, a shuffle filling the grandiloquent space. You bit your lip anxiously, prepared for the worse case scenario. You wouldn’t blame either of them if they decided that you were too much to handle. Sure, it would hurt, maybe even destroy you, for them to leave, but you certainly wouldn’t blame them. How could they deal with you when you couldn’t even deal with yourself?
A slight tug on your hand brought you out of your depressing slump. Looking over at the boy to your right, you found Sebastian in a right state. Tears flowed from his eyes even stronger than before, and his bottom lip was bit between his top row of teeth. Sniffles fell from his reddened nose, making his freckles stand out even more than normal. Small whimpers came from his throat, muffled by the pressure of his jaw clenching around his teeth. Your expression softened, your heart breaking piece by piece at his absolute anguished torment. He tugged at you again, too weak to grab you but wanting you closer. You shakily moved to your knees, shuffling over to him and letting him angle you how he wanted. He gently pulled you into his lap, wrapping one of his arms around your waist and holding your face against his neck with his other hand at the back of your neck.
Sobs wracked the brunette, stuttered breaths leaving his clenched throat and barely squeaking out little wails. You gently shushed him, your whispers blowing the tufts of hair at the base of his neck and tickling his ears. He gripped you like you would disappear at any moment, not quite strong enough to bruise but just enough to hold you in place. You let him get all of his emotions out, only drawing back and placing your temple against his when his breathing finally slowed. He took the hand against your neck and brought it up to your cheek, mimicking the motion you were making on his newly bruised cheekbone— your doing.
He whispered to you, his voice cracking around every other word in regretful misery. “I am so sorry that I did that to you. Some nights the thought of your screams still keep me awake— the pain I caused you will haunt me forever. I never want to be that person again. Please, do not blame yourself for my mistakes. The thought of you taking responsibility for my wrongdoings punches a hole right through my heart. They are my mistakes, not yours. You did not kill my uncle, you did not push me to the dark side, that was all me.” He took a shaky breath, sighing against your lips. “I will be atoning for my sins for the rest of my life. I do not expect forgiveness, but please , I ask that you don’t leave me to the darkness. I couldn’t do this without you— the both of you.”
You laugh lightly at his plea. As if you could ever abandon him— your stupid, silly boy. You kiss him gently on the forehead, before doing the same to the tip of his nose and then finally his bruised cheek. You press your forehead against his once again, whispering against his skin.
“Your reaction right now, your words, are the reason you are forgiven. I know you are not the same person from those catacombs anymore. You are one of my soulmates— my twin flame. I could never leave you, not now, not ever.”
He hiccuped a sob once again, bringing you back into the crevice where his shoulder meets his neck and hugging you tightly. You heard a shuffle from behind you before two more arms wrapped around your forms. Ominis rested his chin against the brunette and leaned his cheek onto the top of your head. Soft droplets of water pooled in your hairline, his own tears wetting the hair there. He held you both for a moment, letting everyone get their feelings out and into the open, before gently turning your chin towards him and pressing a soft kiss against your lips.
Ominis held both of your cheeks in the palm of his hands, like he was holding the world itself, and looked deep into your eyes— for once finding them dead on instead of being slightly to the side. “You are not useless— not worthless . We need you more than you will ever know. I would denounce everything for you, my family, my lineage, my name , everything I could ever give you and more. You are my sun, my moon, and all my stars— both of you are. I would be lost without either of you. Please, never question our undying loyalty to you, my darling dove.”
Sebastian pressed a soft kiss to your jawbone, echoing the statement of his crying companion, “My beautiful little duck.”
It was your turn to cry again. You buried your head into the blond’s chest, your hand reaching up to the brunette and pulling his head into the side of your neck. They both chuckled at your need for touch. You were still slightly shaking from the residual tremors of the panic attack in your system. They each gently ran a hand through your hair and down your spine respectively, soothing your nervous energy with a gentle stroke on wherever they could reach. A soft, watery whimper came from between the two boys.
“I don’t deserve you both.”
Sebastian reached his hand around and thumped you on the head lightly— just enough to startle you but not enough to hurt. “None of that now, you silly thing.”
You slumped against their forms, all the fight disapparating from your body and leaving you exhausted. Ominis tisked in his throat, softly shaking your shoulder and beginning to pull the both of his partners up to a standing position.
“Alright, let’s get you cleaned up. No falling asleep quite yet; you’re dripping blood onto the carpet.”
The three of you laughed lightly as you shuffled over to the bathroom at the opposite corner of the large room. They each had an arm around your shoulders, allowing you to lean your full body weight onto them. Once reaching the porcelain room and lighting the candle wicks that lined the walls, they both carefully lowered you to sit atop the toilet seat— Sebastian moving to run a bath while Ominis searched under the sink for the first-aid kit. You watched them both with love filling your chest and warming your very being. They were the best thing that could have ever happened to you.
You knew, deep in your heart, that you would do anything for them. You would be anything they needed you to be— go anywhere they wanted to go, as long as they did not leave your side. You knew now, that no matter what happened, you would face it head on— together.