Murky Waters [OS&BM2] - Ominis Gaunt x Reader

Chapter 2

Your steps are quiet as you make your way down the empty corridors. The occasional creak of the wooden floors and your heavy breathing your only companions. There is nothing but silence around you, yet you can hear a million voices in your head. Screaming. Crying. Yelling. Fighting. Following you through the narrow hallway your feet are rushing you down. You try to outrun them, try to silence them with a charm, but to no avail. It's unbearable. The pained screams, the sobbing. You just want it to stop. Desperate, you lift your hands and close them around your ears, in hopes it would drown out some of the noise. With a start you realise it's you. You're the one crying. Tears streaming down your face like a waterfall; Heavy. Endless. Painful. It almost feels like your body's convulsing, trying to purge itself from all the sadness, all the loss, all the death you had seen up until now.

You had to keep going. And so you take a moment, close your eyes, and pretend you're somewhere else. Hogsmead. The Astronomy Tower. History of Magic. You're not alone. You're not alone. Yourenotalone. A mantra you whisper to yourself over and over to steady your breathing, to calm your heart, to quiet your mind. A few more minutes, and you push yourself off the wall you had slumped against without noticing. Keep going you tell yourself and wipe your eyes as your legs begin moving.

It doesn't take you long to get to where you so desperately felt you needed to be. There are three big windows, shaped like an archway, with pretty patterns and even prettier details in their frames. None of it is of any interest to you. The only thing you could see, the only thing you wanted to see, was the person standing next to them, leaning against one of the stone pillars. His eyes were downcast, and face angled to the side, the moonlight casting the most painfully beautiful shadow over his sharp features.

Your feet come to a halt. You open your mouth, but nothing comes out. As if you had lost your voice on the way here, left it behind with the horrifying emotions that had been chasing you. 

He looks up, now, and he doesn't need to see to know it's you. He always knows when it's you. Both of you are quiet, with nothing but the faint light of the moon intruding on this meeting of yours. The ringing in your ears was still present, and you wondered if he could hear it too. The spiders were scratching at your neck again, at your throat, at the back of your head. It felt like they were everywhere, entirely determined to consume you tonight. You wouldn't let them. You'd never let them.

But then he says your name. So softly, and so full of anguish, that you feel your body break apart. You never thought it was possible to feel such overwhelming grief and hurt that you wanted nothing more than to just crumble, bury yourself underground. To just vanish, escape the pain and the endlessness of it. His outstretched hand finds yours, and you weave your fingers together, like you had always done. Like you would always continue to do. It was like a lifeline, holding on to him. Making sure he was still here, alive and in one piece. Next to you. With you.

"I don't-" you begin, but don't have it in you to finish the sentence. The words crawl back down your throat and you feel like you're going to choke on them. So you cough; once, twice, three times, to get the damned words over your lips. It doesn't work. You try again and open your mouth to say something. Anything. But the next wave of grief crashes into you, and it's so overwhelming, so painful, that all you can do is gasp for air so as to not drown. Your eyes are filled with salt water, and you can't tell if it's your own tears or the sea of guilt and sorrow that's determined to  swallow you whole.

"Ominis.." you whisper his name as you let out a sob and without another second to spare he pulls you towards him by your interlinked hands. Your face collides with his shoulder, painfully so, but the physical ache in your cheek is a welcome distraction from the way everything else inside your body hurt. His hand keeps a firm grasp on yours, and his other arm snakes around your body, pressing you against him. You turn your face slightly, and it fits so perfectly in the crook of where his neck meets his shoulders, you feel like that space was made for you. Like two pieces of a puzzle finally slotting together after they were lost underneath the table or sofa for too long. Your eyes fall shut and you press them together to keep the tears from flowing.