Bittersweet Heart (Ominis Gaunt x James Sharp)

Concept of beauty

The higher you climb, the less significant problems seem. James narrowed one eye and tilted his head to the side. From this angle, a rock below him took the shape of a fish. The grassy ocean was split into halves by it.

He took shelter aloft the great tree. Branches covered him almost completely from the outside world, with only watchful eyes remaining, peeping out of the leaves. James could lie motionless in ambush for hours. Talkative birds perceived him as part of the scenery, singing and nesting dauntlessly around him.

"Perhaps I babied him too much."

James' thoughts were wandering far from the Beast manual. The fury he had felt was already gone, but a feeling of frustration lingered. He didn't know exactly how to deal with it.

How many more years should pass before Ominis started to see him? It wasn't obvious what he was witnessing instead of James today. The same hesitation applied to Father.

It couldn't be a coincidence. Or...could it? One day, both of them question his integrity. As if he had given any reasons for it to be true.

James was rereading the same paragraph for the third time and hadn't comprehended a single word. An emptiness in his gut created a vacuum. It glued them together.

In fact, he was aware of demons inside of him. No matter how much he tried to calm them, sometimes disturbing thoughts took over. It felt as if a growing lump in his stomach was ready to burst, releasing long-contained words to pour uncontrollably from his mouth.

It only happens within the inner circle. Does it mean that James doesn't appreciate them? By no means. The exact reason why he could treat them badly was knowing they would still love him back.

"Is this what happened?"

But why does he feel resistance at the mere mention of it? James seemed to have replaced his brain with his heart. It was impossible to concentrate.

His feet stretched along the mighty branch as James covered his face with a book. Maybe this way the knowledge would seep into his head.

The one thing he was almost certain of was his sanity, at least for the time being.

***

He didn't come back in an hour or two. He didn't come back in four either.

Ominis twisted his wrists. They were numb and tired from constant writing. He clenched a stack of flipped pages in his fingers. By the feel of it, he dealt with a week's worth of work ahead.

Street noise was gradually fading away. Ominis had become a hearing himself. Each tiny sound resonated loudly in the chamber of his brain. It riled him terribly.

Now, when he was seeking one specific sound, he didn't want to hear any others. It seemed as if noises knew about his wish and were sabotaging it. They were making fun of him.

The needle was drearily piercing his brain, always finding the weakest spot and continuing to torment it. Ominis realised his fingers were still clenched around the pages. The distance between them had become impossible to determine. He tried to concentrate the remained strength on it.

How many of them was he holding? Two pages? Ten? Or more? He desperately needed to sense it. A simple exercise to temporarily alleviate the excruciating pain.

A tense frown appeared between his eyebrows. Eyes felt like they were pressed to the back of his head. An uncontrollable spasm ran through his body, starting from the shoulders and ending at the crown. He let go of the pages.