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It didn’t take eyes for Ominis to figure out you weren’t sleeping.
For two weeks straight, he had woken up and turned over to reach for you, only for his hands to fall to the empty space you normally occupied. The sheets were always cool to the touch, betraying just how long you’d been out of bed and silently contradicting your claims that you had only been awake for a short while.
Sebastian had filled in the gaps for him after about a week of your nocturnal behavior, commenting on the dark, worsening circles under your eyes after you’d nearly passed out in Potions and earned a stern scolding from Professor Sharp. You had been too frazzled to take much of it to heart, but Ominis could tell based on the tight lilt of your voice then that you were exhausted.
Tonight was proving to be slightly different, however, because Ominis was awake when you began shaking in his arms.
Your whole body was rigid, tiny tremors emanating from your sleeping form as low, pathetic whimpers fell from your lips. The sheets at the foot of the bed started to bunch around your ankles as you writhed back against Ominis’ chest, and for a brief, panicked moment, he didn’t know what to do.
The severity of your nightmare was made all the more apparent when your hushed moans were replaced by a tight, muffled scream, and then you were breathing fast and shallow. Ominis brought his hand to your shoulder, gently squeezing in an attempt to rouse you from your slumber, but you were in too deep and continued to choke around heart breaking cries that sliced through him like a knife.
“You’re dreaming, love– wake up,” Ominis was calling your name in your ear, shaking you harder to pull you from the terrifying scenes that had to be playing in your mind’s eye. He rolled you over onto your back so he could run his hand down the side of your face, urging you to open your eyes and wake up, to look at him so you could know that none of what you were experiencing was real.
It took far too long for comfort, but when consciousness finally flooded your hazy brain, you were sucking down greedy breaths to compensate for the lack of oxygen in your lungs. You coughed violently, turning away from Ominis to grip at the sheets beneath you as you willed away the rising nausea in your stomach. Your shaky whimpers were all he could hear, but at least you were awake, freed from the shackles of your own mind.
Ominis felt his way towards you, reaching out to trail his hand up your still trembling back to rub soothing circles against your sweat-slick shirt. “Breathe, darling. Just breathe, you were hyperventilating in your sleep.”
The sound of his voice and the feeling of his hand grounded you, allowing you to shake the terrifying remnants of your nightmare from your head. “I’m okay,” you muttered weakly into the covers, and Ominis’ indignant huff told you he didn’t believe you in the slightest. You honestly didn’t even believe it yourself.
“You are not,” he countered, and you could hear the frown in his voice. “You’re allowed to confide in me about these things, you know. Is this why you haven’t been sleeping?”
Swallowing thickly, you felt okay enough to turn back over to face the man beside you, and Ominis lowered himself onto one of his elbows so he could gently push your mused hair off your forehead, feeling you nod in agreement. “I’ve always had bad dreams, but recently they’ve gotten worse. It’s harder to wake up from them… they always feel so real.”
“Do you want to tell me about them?”
Ominis sincerely hoped you would. He couldn’t imagine what horrors haunted the far reaches of your mind, especially considering how you rarely gave anyone the opportunity to see you struggle. Your image as the Savior of Hogwarts had effectively caged you in a prison of expectations that weighed down on you at all times. Ominis knew it, Sebastian knew it, and you did too, yet you refuted any and all offers of assistance from them both. You were infuriatingly independent, and while it had been a remarkable trait in the beginning, Ominis now believed it to be one of your greatest weaknesses.
You mulled over his offer silently, not particularly keen on revisiting the ripe memories of death and torment that had held you under a suffocating tidal wave of fear. “Not really. I’d rather go for a walk and clear my head.”
Ominis frowned down at you, the hand running through your hair pausing its ministrations, and you nervously chewed the skin of your bottom lip. Despite his otherwise calm facade, his disapproval was palpable. “There is absolutely no way I’m letting you go for a damn walk in the middle of the night. Nevermind the fact that you haven’t slept through the night in how long? You need to sleep– you’ll crash and burn otherwise.”
You groaned, pushing yourself to sit up now that Ominis was getting frustrated with you. The last thing you wanted to deal with right now was an agitated boyfriend. “I can’t sleep. I’ll just fall right back into another nightmare– it always happens.”
“Then talk to me,” he implored you with an ardent tone. “But keeping this all to yourself is precisely why it isn’t getting any better. You’re just letting it fester in your mind instead of letting it out– I would know, I did the same thing for years.”
At the mention of his own trauma, you deflated, any arguments dying on your tongue as you sighed in defeat, “I– I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize. I just… want to help. I wish I could help, but I can’t unless you let me. Do you not trust me?” His brows drew together at the thought, and you were quickly scooting closer to him so your knees brush against his, reaching for the hand he had splayed against the mattress.
“Of course I trust you, Ominis, more than anyone. If you take anything away from this conversation, please let it be that. I’m just scared. It’s horrifying enough that my brain is even capable of conjuring up such awful scenes by itself, I don’t want to worry you because of any of it.”
Ominis turned his hand over to lace his fingers with your own, and the tender way he tucked your hair behind your ear had you drawing closer into his warmth. You peered at him through your lashes to watch his lips press into a hard line, the concern apparent on his face as he told you, “I’m already worried, darling. You’re never here in the mornings anymore, and you’re falling asleep standing up in the middle of the day on the regular. I don’t know how I didn’t hear you thrashing around until now but I’m glad I did– this can’t continue. It’s not sustainable.”
As childish as it was, you groaned and tipped your head forward so it was nestled in the crook of his shoulder. Ominis’ long fingers slid around your neck, softly squeezing your nape to relieve the lingering tension in your body. You relaxed into his touch, shamelessly drawing in a breath to take in the unique scent of his hair pomade and something else distinctly Ominis. It settled your nerves just enough to have you admitting the truth to him, your voice quivering.
“You died.”
Ominis stilled, angling his chin down to stare fully in the direction of your voice. “What?”
“In my dream,” you clarified, your heart pounding against your sternum as the vivid images of Ominis bloody, broken came back to you. “You died. Sometimes it’s Sebastian– or even Professor Fig– but it’s always the same; someone always dies. It’s violent and drawn out and no matter how hard I try I can’t…”
You clenched your teeth together so tightly, your jaw began to ache, and Ominis’ hand around your neck tightened a fraction as he urged you to continue, “Can’t what?”
You didn’t want to say anymore. Your stomach was churning with shame and fear in a way that threatened to bring back the nausea you’d been faced with when you woke up. The anxiety blossoming in your chest stole your breath, and you pinched your eyes shut in a bid to fight back tears. With your throat too tight to speak, you rocked your head from side to side against Ominis’ shoulder, silently conveying that you didn’t want to delve further into it.
Ominis was having none of it, though. He didn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around you, tugging you into his lap so that you leaned completely into his chest while his hands roamed up to your scalp, gingerly running his fingers through your sleep-mussed hair. You let him hold you securely, and after a few tentative beats of silence, his lyrical voice was murmuring in your ear.
“When I was younger, I had nightmares all the time. Bad ones that would make me scream in my sleep and thrash around so hard that I’d fall out of the bed. I didn't yet have my wand, so it was particularly dreadful having to rationalize everything without help. My family didn’t care to trouble themselves with my hysterics, so I used to hide in my closet for hours at a time to calm myself down.”
He had never told you that before. The thought of Ominis young and helpless, wrought with crippling fear and forced to deal with it all by himself in a dreary closet… it made your heart hurt and your blood boil. How unfair, you thought, for a child to have to go through such agony alone.
You hoped then that you never got the chance to meet Ominis’ family. There was no chance you’d be able to restrain yourself from making them pay for ever bringing someone so good such torment.
Raising your hand up to trace your thumb along the angular curve of his jaw, you muttered, “You didn’t deserve any of their treatment. I’m so sorry, Ominis.”
He smiled softly, cupping his hand over yours and turning his head to press a lingering kiss into your open palm. “It’s alright, I’ve long since made my peace with that aspect of my past. I’m telling you this because while I didn’t have anyone to help me then, I do now, and so do you. There’s no shame in talking about the things that scare you, and I promise I would never judge you over what you choose to tell me.”
“I know,” you whispered. “I know…”
Ominis trailed his fingers down your arm, skimming along the surface of your pajama shirt before letting his hand rest against the curve of your hip. He was waiting for you to continue at your own pace, and you were eternally grateful that despite his refusal to let you walk the nightmare off, you could at least take your time forcing the reiteration out.
“I killed you,” the declaration hung heavy in the air, and you felt Ominis tense briefly against you. “In the nightmare— you died, but it was me who killed you– it’s always me. Everything always feels so real and even though I try to stop myself, I never can. It’s like there’s a disconnect between my brain and my body, and I have no choice but to watch myself do these unspeakable things.”
The way Ominis seemed to coil around you further in an attempt to console you left you clinging to the fabric of his shirt like a pitiful child. “They’re only dreams, darling. None of it is real, I know you could never hurt me.”
“But what if I did?” Your broken voice was like a knife to the heart, “Sometimes I wake up and I don’t even know where I am– like I’m on the verge of completely losing it. What if I accidentally used magic on you in some panic induced state? You can’t know for sure that you’re safe with me when I’m like this– I don’t even know what I’m capable of anymore.”
“Well I do,” Ominis shifted, moving you away from his chest so he could cup one of your cheeks in his cool hands and angle your face up at him. “You’re capable of kindness and selflessness, and you radiate authenticity and compassion. When you walk into a room, you have an uncanny ability to make it feel overwhelmingly warm and inviting. You’re capable of loving so deeply and so fiercely that it scares you sometimes, which is where a lot of your self-doubt comes from. All of those reasons and more are why I know you could never hurt me, even if your mind is trying to convince you that you could.”
Ordinarily, words like that from Ominis would have you blushing all over and weeping sappy tears. But right now they did little to placate your irrational fears, and your apprehension was so tangible that Ominis could feel it radiating through you in his arms. “None of that means I can’t still unintentionally hurt you,” you whispered.
“While I understand where your concerns are coming from, I think I’ll be the one to decide whether or not I feel threatened by you. I haven’t even had the chance yet– you’re gone every morning.” He ducked his head so his breath ghosted across your cheeks, “Truth be told, I thought you were angry with me at first.”
At that, you were blinking away your nerves as you wrapped your hand around his slender wrist, his thumb still caressing your face. “Angry? Ominis, I don’t think I’ve been seriously upset with you once in all the time I’ve known you.”
He smirked, your statement doing more to please him than he let on. “That’s good to hear; I genuinely thought you were giving me the cold shoulder at night and disappearing in the mornings because of something I had done. I suppose I should have put two and two together faster.”
You shook your head softly before you leaned up to press a doting kiss to his lips, and he met you eagerly, tilting your chin up further so he could return the gesture with an appreciative hum. When you broke apart, you pulled your hand away from his wrist to splay your fingers across his clothed sternum, taking in the steady thrum of his heart beneath your palm. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. It’s been far easier to just walk until the nerves wear off.”
Ominis scoffed, “It’s freezing outside, like hell I’m letting you take a stroll. What else could help you sleep? You need to rest.” He added the last bit hurriedly, as though he knew you were about to interject with the same excuses you’d been spouting since waking up.
“I haven’t tried much beyond the ‘no sleeping’ route. I think my brain is too… panicky, to fully relax, so I just get up and move around.”
“Have you tried taking dreamless sleep?”
You nodded, and your lip curled in distaste at the memory. “Yes, but it gave… mixed results. I didn’t really like how it made me feel the next day.”
He hummed pensively, trying to think of anything else that could potentially help you finally get some sleep, only to come up short. “Tell me what I can do to help. Anything other than letting you leave, that is.”
As you wracked your sleep deprived brain for any ideas, the slow, featherlight feeling of Ominis’ hand ghosting over your hip had you shivering in his hold. The sensation was enough to completely pull your focus, and you shifted in his lap, causing him to swallow thickly at the friction it provided him between his legs. Interesting.
“Distract me?” You asked him softly, letting yourself concentrate solely on the taller man cradling you against him. “Please– I don’t want to think about it anymore.”
Ominis chuckled, leaning down for another kiss, and you surrendered to him completely as he slid his hand back up your waist and under your shirt to drag the cool tips of his fingers over your clammy, heated skin. You sighed against his lips, letting him coax you off of his lap so you were laying back against the pillows again. Ominis rolled between your spread legs, letting his weight drape over you as he deepened the kiss, and simultaneously tasting him and feeling him press into you in such a way was exactly what your frazzled mind needed.
When you dropped your hands to tug at the hem of his shirt, Ominis was obliging you in a heartbeat, breaking away from you for a moment to sit up and pull the clothing over his head. The creamy, smooth skin that greeted you made your head spin with arousal, and you were quickly working in tandem to shed your own top.
Ominis felt your movements beneath him and reached down to assist, utterly desperate to have his hands on as much of you as possible. You sat up a little to make things easier, and before the cotton material had even hit the ground he was on you again, probing his tongue into your mouth to taste as much of you as humanly possible. You moaned, wrapping your arms around his neck as he sensually dragged his hands down your front, taking care to pay extra attention to your pert nipples. When he brushed his thumb over the sensitive skin, it sent a bolt of heat straight to your core.
The blond pulled out of your hold to mouth wetly down the exposed arch of your throat, dropping his hands to the waistband of your pajama pants to tug them down your conveniently raised hips. Completely bared to him, Ominis began his thorough exploration of your body with his hands while his mouth bit and licked at the skin just below your collarbone. The sting from his teeth was instantly soothed by the hot lave of his tongue, and your hands gripped at his shoulders with bruising strength.
Ominis swiped one of his long, slender fingers through your folds suddenly, nestling the tip of the digit directly against your bundle of nerves, and your sharp intake of breath was like music to his ears.
“O-Ominis,” you moaned, straining under the weight of his torso to chase the dizzying feeling. You heard and felt his breathy chuckle against your chest, and then he started peppering kisses down your tensing stomach as he moved lower.
You lifted your head to watch as your boyfriend slithered between your legs, nudging your thighs up so your knees could drape sinfully over his shoulders, and when he peered up to where he knew you would be watching with a positively wicked smile, you whimpered.
Without a word to you, Ominis delved between your legs, licking a broad stripe up your center with enough pressure to make your toes curl. Your shameless moans turned airy when he traced teasing circles around your clit with the tip of his tongue once, twice, before mercifully taking the sensitive nub between his lips and sucking gently.
You gasped, fisting the sheets into an iron tight grip as your spine rounded off the mattress. “Ah! Ominis– Merlin– please–”
Ominis groaned, the senseless noises and pleas falling from your lips shooting straight to his growing erection and causing him to boldly grind his shaft into the bed for reprieve. All the while, he managed to wrap his arms around your thighs to hold you fast to his rapidly moving mouth. His nose replaced his lips, nestling briefly against your clit before he probed your entrance with his tongue, easily sliding the muscle into your warm, tight heat.
Your hands flew to his hair, gripping at the strands so close to the root that Ominis had no choice but to relent to your pulling. He took his cues from your frantic tugging, unashamedly fucking you with his tongue as your cries of his name grew louder, needier– and he swore if your voice was the only thing he could hear for the rest of his life, he would die a happy man.
When Ominis felt your stomach begin to tense under him, he was thoroughly prepared to pick up his ministrations and finish you off. But then you were palming at his shoulder with one of your hands, silently urging him to stop as a keening sound ripped from your throat. He relented, pulling away to stare fixedly in the direction of your voice. “What’s wrong?”
“N-Nothing,” you murmured, completely dazed as you stared at your lover through your lashes. “I just don’t want to finish yet. I want you inside of me, please.”
He knew this had all started with the promise of distraction, but he would be lying if he said he wasn’t selfishly grateful that you wanted his cock over his mouth.
Ever the gentleman, Ominis appeased you immediately by sitting up and hooking his thumbs under his own waistband, tugging the loose sleepwear down so his now solid erection could spring from its fabric prison. Your mouth watered at the sight, and then you were prematurely scooting down the pillows so your shaky legs were spread ready for him.
He must have felt your impatient wiggling if his coy laughter was anything to go by, but he wasted no time after kicking off his pants, scaling your flushed body to lean hungrily over you. When you reached out to snake your arms around his neck, Ominis dropped to his elbows so you could pull him into a heated, impassioned kiss. The taste of yourself on his lips made your head spin with pure lust, and when you felt the head of his cock nudge against your slick entrance, there was no stopping the insistent twitch of your hips.
Ominis pressed the head in, pushing forward so slow and so tenderly, you couldn’t help but moan for him as your nails dug into the skin of his neck. He swore softly under his breath, marveling in the way you stretched around him, enveloping him so perfectly that it was a wonder he didn’t lose his composure all at once. There was a momentary pause as he bottomed out and committed your raspy breathing to memory, and then he was pulling out nearly all the way before languidly thrusting back in.
“Merlin— you’re so tight, love,” Ominis groaned his heated praises against your ear, grinding into your ass with enough pressure to make his brain cease functioning. Your guttural moans were his only response, and he quickly got to work setting a slow, even tempo.
Picking his head up to nip at your thundering pulse, Ominis breathed heavily across your sweat-slick skin before claiming your mouth in another greedy kiss, the two of you moving together in a gentle, easy rhythm. The sound of the bed frame shifting echoed through the room, intermingling with the hushed, loving whispers that passed between the two of you. You moved onto Ominis in perfect, lazy synchrony, trailing your hands across his lithely muscled back and digging your nails into the skin there with each particularly deep thrust of his perfect cock.
“You take me so well, darling. You sound so gorgeous like this– I love you, I love you so much.” Ominis shifted enough so that he could slip his hand beneath your arching spine, clutching you to him so tight that all you could do was grip at his shoulders fitfully, your breasts pressing deliciously to his flushed chest. The intimacy of it all stoked the fire in your gut, and your head fell back with a gasp when Ominis took advantage of your bent position to grind up into your sweet spot.
“Yes,” you rasped out between broken cries of his name. “Yes, Ominis, right there, please– you’re so good– f-feels so good, I love you.”
You watched as Ominis’ eyes pinched shut with barely contained restraint, and you wanted to tell him to let go, to stop holding back. But then he bent forward to place a chaste kiss on your neck that had goosebumps breaking out over your skin, and he dug his feet into the mattress to give himself the leverage to thrust into you that much harder, grazing against that mind numbing spot everytime.
Ominis felt as you tightened and shook around him, needy gasps of his name falling from your kiss-swollen lips like a mantra. He found himself smiling at the way you whimpered and wrapped your trembling legs around his waist, your hands gripping his shoulders, and when you rocked back onto him with a shivering moan, Ominis’ arm around your waist tightened immeasurably further.
“I’m so close, Ominis– more, please.”
With a deep, throaty growl, Ominis increased his pace even more, moaning into your ear and gasping your name as he tried to hold off his own orgasm as best he could until you were there too. The wet sound of skin slapping against skin filled the air around you both, coupled with wanton pleas and brainless whimpers that only served to edge Ominis closer to his own release. The rapid cadence of his cock burying itself into you so roughly finally brought you tumbling into euphoria, keening breathlessly into the hollow of his throat while your nails raked down his otherwise pale, unmarred skin.
Ominis groaned again, squeezing his eyes shut as you seemingly sucked him in further, tightening and pulsing around his shaft, whimpering his name over and over as you twitched and came loudly in his arms. He managed to thrust into you once, then twice more before he was stuttering out a warning through his clenched teeth.
“Fuck, I can’t– can I come inside, darling?” Ominis’ high pitched voice was enough to have you seeing stars as you rode out your own climax, and all you could do was give him an encouraging moan, far too strung out to form words. Ominis buried himself inside you to the hilt, collapsing with you against the sheets as he sank his teeth into your shoulder with a whine, and he ground his hips deep to let himself fall over the edge with you.
It took a while for either of you to come close to coherence again, the two of you rendered thoroughly boneless by one another. After a few minutes, Ominis was whispering more sweet, breathy nothings to you as he slid his hands reverently over your pliant body. He pulled out gently, groaning at the way you seemed to spasm from the sudden loss of being filled by him.
You sighed as Ominis crawled his way back to the pillows, fluidly lowering himself so that he could wrap around you rather adorably before pressing kisses along the column of your neck. When he made his way to your face, he lovingly nuzzled his nose against your cheek before asking, “How do you feel?” His voice was exceptionally gravelly in the wake of your shared passion.
Unintentionally, and yet ironically on cue, you yawned right in his face.
His sharp bark of laughter jolted you from your post-coital stupor, and you found yourself blushing with embarrassment. “I’m so sorry–”
“Don’t be, that was sort of the goal, wasn’t it?” He chuckled, his laughter ghosting over your cheeks before he was kissing you once again, soothing you right back into that limp, tranquil state you welcomed with open arms. “Try to sleep. If you start to have another nightmare, I’ll wake you up, alright?”
You hummed in agreement, letting Ominis manhandle you beneath the covers and onto your side so your back was flush with his bare chest. He coiled his arm over your hip, holding you firm in an embrace that promised the security you so desperately craved, and you found yourself relaxing against him. His slow, steady breathing against the nape of your neck lulled you into a blissful state of respite you refused to fight against.
“I love you,” you told him again, already sounding like you were asleep.
Ominis found your smaller hand and interlaced your fingers together, delicately tracing circles over the smooth, warmed flesh. “I love you too,” he murmured softly, his lips curling into a sated smile. “Now rest.”
Cocooned in Ominis’ loving embrace, you felt guarded from the horrors of your own mind for the first time in a long time. It was safe and warm and reassuring– everything you had been longing for since you shot awake in a panic that very first night years ago. Ominis anchored you to him, keeping you grounded and at peace as your breathing deepened.
Right before drifting off into nothingness, you told yourself that for as long as you lived, Ominis would always represent home to you. A constant, benevolent presence in your life that you would forever cherish and protect with everything in you– because you loved him, and you knew he was right. Ominis was always right.
You could never hurt him, no matter what you might believe yourself capable of. So instead of worrying about the ‘what ifs’ and the ‘should haves’, you did as Ominis asked.
You finally slept, and thankfully, you didn’t dream.