Work Text:
Sebastian comes in to sit by him as he’s working.
There is only one dictation quill going because his editor mercifully dropped the requirement for a second entirely redone draft. Wilkins sometimes acts like he has acquired the mastery of ancient runes and it was getting tedious trying to convince the publishing company who was the expert.
The sales of his first book should have convinced them to leave him well enough alone. He has more pressing responsibilities.
“Ominis, I want to write her again.” His hands clasp over Ominis’ wand hand and he is warm.
Maybe a tad too warm.
Ominis reaches over with his other hand to smooth over Sebastian’s knuckles.
“Are you feeling feverish Sebastian?”
“Me? No, fit as a fiddle. I wanted to write to Anne though..?”
Ominis reaches up, softly brushing along Sebastian’s arm and shoulder to find his neck. His pulse is not elevated and his skin feels dry, not clammy. He lets out the breath he was holding with a slight hiss through his teeth.
Maybe it would just be another calm day.
“Of course, bring us the letter parchment would you?”
The chair squeaks on the wooden floors as Sebastian gets up to go the few steps across the study to the writing desk. Ominis calls for his wand to summon a second dictation quill just as Sebastian returns.
A pause, like always, as Ominis reaches out with an open palm for the parchment.
Sebastian always hesitates to hand it over. A beat turned into a moment into a minute. But once he does relinquish it he is eager again, sitting back down and practically vibrating a few feet away.
“And we’ll start with..?”
“Dear Anne. ”
Ominis hums in assent, casting the spell non-verbally for his second quill to start.
“The apple tree is in bloom and I wish you were here to see it."
Ominis smiles gently, knowing just how much the flowers mean to them both. Ever since they were children, the blossoms would announce how close it was to the twins’ birthday.
“I hope your employer lays off of you a tad, even when you are the best curse breaker the country has seen I want you to get a proper rest. You deserve some time off!”
Sebastian’s voice trails off.
“Do you want me to prepare for sending her a treat with your letter?”
The other man perks up again, and he grasps Ominis’ wrist a bit tighter “Yes! And I can clip some of the blossoms from the tree in the garden and-”
Quiet again, stopped in the middle of a sentence. He waits to see if Sebastian will start again on his own. His brows furrow once it does not happen.
Ominis prods, gently “And..?”
Sebastian starts again like he never stopped, “-And I can… I can tie it with one of her ribbons. She would like that right, something from home?”
“Yes Sebastian, I think she would like that.”
“Brilliant.” Even without his sight, the tone and cadence of Sebastian’s voice tell Ominis he is smiling. The phrase is said with such warm exuberance that Ominis hears it like when they were young.
Folding the parchment but being careful to refrain his wand from glueing the envelope shut, he gingerly hands it over to Sebastian. The other man gets up to go, presumably to chase down the apple blossoms.
“Come back once you found the ribbon you want love.”
Ominis returns to his manuscript, hoping to get the details down for the theories surrounding the ties between runes and arithmancy before supper.
***
The house is quiet for a long time. The blonde tries to not think about it but it gets a bit too hard to ignore once the clock in the kitchen chimes for dinner and there is no Sebastian to fetch him.
He sighs, “Toply.”
The familiar popping noise from the house elf materialising at his side, “Yes, Master Ominis?”
“Could you kindly make sure to run a bath for Sebastian, I think he might be coming down with something.”
“Yes, Master Ominis.” A pause, no popping. She shuffles her feet, a soft noise of her slippers against the wood, “I-..”
“Yes?”
“Toply was just coming to tell Master. Toply put dinner on and it is finished. But-”
Ominis feels dread coiling in his stomach. “-But Sebastian didn’t tell you to.”
“No, that’s exactly right, Master Ominis.”
“Thank you, Toply.”
Another pop and he is alone again.
Steeling himself, he gets up to go find his other half. While the dread is still present, he is not frightened. None of the wards have activated and the extra sensory charms tell him that Sebastian is still inside the house.
When he passes the kitchen, drawing room and dining room - not finding Sebastian - he still makes sure to prompt his wand to light the fireplaces. It will be sweltering before long, but it would be preferable to the cold of the April evenings eating into his love.
The master bedroom is still and empty, as is the spare bedroom next to it. That spikes more of the dread. Sebastian doesn’t usually go towards the back of the house on his own, only when he is prompted to remember things more clearly.
There is a reason Sebastian’s words sometimes run out or are fraught with hesitation. There is a reason Ominis dictation quill writes his letters for Anne instead of them pouring from Sebastian’s own hand.
The Aurors had been called once Anne had been witnessed trying to hide Solomon’s body. Within a few days, Sebastian had been caught and interrogated. His wand was confiscated and while it was hard to prove the killing of Solomon, the use of unforgivables was fresh within the history of spells cast from his wand.
Sebastian was sent to Azkaban on the eve of his sixteenth birthday.
Ominis bribed the guards to allow him to send a toffee cake from Honeydukes to him. It was only after the fact that he had been told it was delivered the same day as Sebastian’s transfer to Azkaban.
Ominis was plagued with the implications that Sebastian’s favourite birthday treat must have looked like he was given his last meal.
And although Sebastian Sallow was not sentenced to death, he might as well have been.
Azkaban had broken his mind too many times over. When Ominis finally managed to fight for appeal leading to his release a short time before their twentieth birthday, there was barely anything left of his best friend. The things he remembers are fractured and deceptively coherent at times. He can take care of himself with just a slight prompting, keep up with simpler conversations and commit to lighter chores with some instruction. Sometimes he will remember snippets of their old life, mostly their childhood or the early years of Hogwarts. He recalls Anne’s favourite colours, how she braids ribbons into her hair or how they would start to prepare for their birthday. He recalls what songs she sang to him before sleep and he always picks out new books from her favourite genre to send her.
She has a room in their home, but it has never been used.
Sebastian being sequestered to the back of their house was always a warning for Ominis. It was where the washroom and bath were located, but also where the owls would arrive. He would only go there if he was more lucid. With him being more lucid there was always the dread of what he would remember.
The healer had said that days like this are a gift.
A gift? Even with his upbringing, his tightly held control and his steeled resolve it had been exceedingly hard for Ominis to not outright hex her.
He lengthens his strides and tries to make noise as he moves across the corridor towards the back rooms. If he can, he would like to not startle Sebastian in his more fragile state.
Sebastian is standing quiet and still by the half-door that allows the owls to perch during the day.
He approaches him slowly, wand raised and cautious.
“Sebastian?” His hand lands on the broader man’s shoulder. He feels him flinch by the contact.
His voice is gravelly, “You didn’t tell me she was gone, Ominis.”
Not this. He doesn’t want to relive it again. “I-... I couldn’t tell you, Sebastian.”
The broad expanse of his love’s back shifts underneath his fingertips as he turns to face him “...Why?”
He hopes his expression is earnest, “Because you will not remember it for long, my dear.”
Anne had passed barely a year following Sebastian’s imprisonment, right before their seventeenth birthday. Ominis had been with her for her last day, heard her last shaking breath and prayed to all that existed that she would take just one more. He held her hand until it was cold in his, wet with his own tears.
In the beginning, Sebastian could remember more of his sister, and thus could recall that she had passed. It had been slightly harder to live with him in those times, as he so often would retreat into himself. Weeks passed without a single word uttered. It was a silent solitude that threatened to break Ominis’ resolve.
At present, Sebastian only very rarely remembers Anne is dead. Even when he does, it is never for long. It is like the fracture of his mind retracts back to a simpler and less painful time, even as it turns more warped by the day.
Once he had deteriorated further it felt cruel and unnecessary to remind them both of the truth. Instead, Ominis tells him that Anne is working for the Ministry abroad and that her curse-breaker skills are so exceptional that the government sends her on missions to other countries.
Both of Sebastian’s hands fist into his shirt - startling him back into the room. Ominis is pulled roughly forward as Sebastian leans in too close to his face.
“You lied."
On one cruel occasion, Sebastian was lucid for long enough that the ruse ceased to work. Sebastian was angered and he pressed for news from his sister. Ominis’ had felt forced to produce a letter from Anne. Hoping to placate him and calm him, it had turned into horror as soon as Sebastian demanded to see the letter himself.
It had frightened Ominis when it happened, fearing that the subterfuge would be instantly revealed. He couldn’t hope to replicate Anne’s handwriting and he had scrambled for some excuse to wind Sebastian into believing his sister would use a dictation quill as well.
But he need not have worried.
In some of the more heartbreaking moments of Ominis’ life, Sebastian just sat there in silence for a time before handing the letter back to him, saying that he preferred for Ominis to read it aloud to him.
He releases his wand and it clatters on the tiles as it rolls away, he doesn’t need the sensory charm to eternalise this moment. His own hands find Sebastian’s on his chest, grasping tightly against the now much more feverish skin. “I had to, Sebastian, I had to.”
Still reasonably strong, Sebastian pulls him almost up onto his toes, it very nearly topples him over into the distraught man. “Where is her grave, where did you lay my sister to rest?!”
“Just outside, in the garden. Dearest, she is under the apple tree.”
Sebastian sobs - a broken and hollow sound and it makes Ominis’ eyes sting.
To twist his heart further, it seems the love of his life is lucid enough to agree, “She… She would’ve liked that. To not be far from home.”
Tears flow freely down his own face and the shaking from his love accompanied by soft choked sounds tell him the truth has sunk in again. Ominis can’t catch his own breath from the maw of grief in his chest, but he reaches both his hands to Sebastian’s cheeks anyway - angrily swiping his thumb against the trails of tears.
“You deserved so much more from the world Sebastian.”
“But I still have you…don’t I?”
Ominis' own control breaks and the words come out with a sob, “Y-es. You will always have me.”