Chapter 8 Will
Will
After the first day staying with Sage, and after going to the mall and getting the thing about the sugar right, Will started to relax.
Shifting had helped, even if he’d only done it in the bedroom that smelled of roses and contained entirely too many cushions.
Regardless, it was good knowing there’d be no punishment for shifting.
Starting the very next day, Will settled into a routine with Sage.
The first and most important rule was that mornings never started before ten o’clock unless someone called Sage for a job.
Will made sure coffee was ready and waiting for Sage, which Sage kept telling him wasn’t necessary.
Still, he liked seeing Sage sit down and relax at the kitchen table with his non-strawberry-flavored coffee.
Sage had Will read poetry and about poetry, and he made him write poetry about random things.
When Will had first made the dish towel dry plates, he’d assumed there were specific spells to memorize for specific things, but apparently, being a witch meant being able to come up with spells whenever the situation demanded it.
The intent behind the spells was key, and the words simply activated the magic.
It was different from what Will knew to do—push his magic into herb concoctions and then use those.
“That’s more hedgewitch workings, and it’s effective on a small scale, just like non-verbal magic,” Sage explained one morning when Will asked him about it.
“It won’t get you very far, because witchcraft works with spells or talismans, which focus the power.
A real witch binds their desired outcome into the words they speak or sing. ”
Will found that easier and easier to do as the days went on.
Sage had him clean the windows with magic (“Dirt and stains, you are a blight, wash yourself for clearest sight”), the floors too (“Swish and swipe, broomstick wipe”), but they kept doing the dishes together, alternating who made the dishes wash themselves and who told the towel to do the drying.
Will especially enjoyed those moments, and the easy company Sage offered. They stood on either side of the sink with plenty of space between them, but with magic crossing back and forth when the plates passed from the soapy water to the soft cotton towel.
Still, as often as Will did something right, he also made mistakes, the most spectacular of which was shattering three glass “see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil” monkey figurines into tiny, sharp pieces on Sage’s living room floor.
They had been sitting on the mantel, and Will had meant to dust them, not send them crashing to the floor.
“Oh no, oh no.”
Will lost his concentration, along with his control over the ancient feather duster he’d magicked into dancing around the room to clean. He wanted to curl into a ball and whimper. He nearly did.
Then, he heard footsteps coming down the stairs, and he felt himself deflate. Sage was going to hate him for this. Sage was going to be mad. Or worse, he’ll be…disappointed.
Sage, before he did anything else, walked up to Will and looked at him.
“Did you cut yourself on any of the glass?”
Will shook his head. The lack of anger Sage showed at the damage took Will by surprise. It was just as new as working magic, and he watched astounded as Sage kneeled, looked at the shards, and said, “Come together glass art rended, may all your cracks be truly mended.”
Then he picked up the three figurines and held them up for Will to see.
“They’re…whole.” Will’s voice broke on the last word.
Sage nodded. “Yup. Magic can do that.” He looked at the floor. “Do you want to try?”
Before Sage could drop the glass monkeys again, Will reached out to wrap his hands around Sage’s. That surprised him more than anything, and he wanted to flinch away, except Sage had mended them. He’d made them whole again.
“P-please don’t.”
Sage hesitated, looking at Will with those gorgeous blue eyes. Is he going to ask me now? About what happened? Is he going to make me tell him?
“Okay,” Sage said. “Hey, how d’you feel about pancakes for an afternoon snack?”
“Is there jam?”
Sage chuckled. “You bet, Will. You bet.”
Truly mended. That stuck with Will. He still woke up several times a night, and he usually ended up wandering around the house when he did, checking locks as he went.
When he felt daring, he’d sneak a few steps up the attic staircase, the door to which Sage never bothered closing.
Will would sit there and listen to Sage’s slow breaths as he slept.
It made Will feel calmer, and he didn’t know why.
Truly mended. Will wished Sage would turn to him like he had to the shards and spell him whole again, untainted. In his dreams, Will still heard Ed, felt the hands and fists, felt all the rest of what the dead loup-garou had done to him.
Will had been with Sage for about two weeks when he woke up yet again in the middle of the night.
He’d had a bad dream, a bad memory, and after the initial panic, Will relaxed.
He was in his rose room where half the floor was covered with cushions.
The yellow one was hiding under the bed now and trying to cozy up to Will’s feet in the mornings.
So far, it had evaded all his attempts at catching and expelling it from the bedroom. Will had named the cushion Lemon.
After a few moments, Will’s breathing calmed down, and he threw the sweat-damp sheets back and got up. It was raining, the low and steady pitter-patter beating against the roof and windows.
As had become his custom, Will went downstairs and checked the windows there. Once he’d done that, he snuck back upstairs and to Sage’s staircase. He could see the rafters of the house from here, reaching in toward the center like the canopy of a circus tent.
The rain was loud, and Will couldn’t hear Sage’s breathing, so he dared another step, then another. The third one from the top creaked under Will’s weight, and he froze.
Shit! What did I do?!
“Will, that you?” Sage asked, his voice thick with sleep.
Will stood frozen, heart beating in his ears and sweat gathering along his spine.
“Will?”
Something creaked, and a second later, Sage was leaning over the banister rounding the access to the attic, just above Will’s head. Will looked up briefly, then down just as quickly, ashamed. And afraid.
“Sorry, I…”
What am I going to say? That I’m some shifter creep who sneaks around here every night? That I was trying to get up there to watch him sleep? Shit. Why did I have to go and make a mess? Sage was only ever nice to me.
“You okay?”
Sage’s voice was calm. He didn’t sound angry.
“I just couldn’t sleep.” Truly mended. “I have bad dreams sometimes.”
Will’s heart was beating as fast as a wolf running under the full moon. To say it was to make it real. No, to say it was to give the knowledge to others—to Sage—and that…that…it could break everything.
“Huh, okay. Why were you coming up here?”
Will didn’t want to answer, but at the same time, he felt compelled to. His wolf wanted to please Sage, not lie to him. It was pack instinct, soothing in this moment of fear.
“I thought…I wasn’t going to do anything bad. But sometimes, it just calms me down when I hear you breathe.” It had sounded okay in Will’s head. Out of the shelter of his thoughts, it sounded creepy.
“Please tell me that’s a werewolf thing?”
“I guess?”
“And what helps you get over the nightmare is to sit on those stairs for however long it takes you to calm down?”
“Yeah?”
Sage fell silent. Will braced himself.
“But you can’t hear me over the rain?”
“No…”
“Okay. Unless this is totally inappropriate, you might as well just come up here. My futon is pretty big, and if it helps you sleep, you can have half of it. Or not. Whatever is comfortable. Just sleep too, okay? I’m not trying to suggest anything weird or the kind of thing that would make Peter consider tearing out my spinal column. ”
“Peter…tears out spinal columns?”
Sage was silent for quite a while. “I should plead the—there’s some number I should plead. No comment, you know? I’m not always super coherent when I don’t get enough sleep. Anyway, if it helps, you can sleep up here.”
Will had not expected this. Secretly, he’d been waiting for Sage to snap. Every time he hadn’t, Will had glanced at him and wondered if he was real, if he was really fine with having Will around and messing up constantly. He’d wondered and feared the moment when the camel’s back would break.
Yet this invitation from above made him feel like the girl from that fairy tale, the one who walked into the forest in nothing but her nightgown and wished on the stars. The stars heard her and rained down onto her nightgown in the form of golden coins. Sage’s words were golden coins as well.
Will heard Sage go back to bed. He clenched his jaw. He wanted to go up there. He wanted to climb into bed with Sage. Will had eyes, and Sage always wandered into Will’s line of sight just when distraction and daydreams were already on Will’s mind.
Sage was so handsome. And those blue eyes…Will really liked those. He wasn’t sure whether it was okay to want what he thought he maybe wanted or not, but he couldn’t help wanting it. He couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to kiss Sage and be kissed by him.
Before he could think better of it, Will took the remaining stairs up and was finally in the attic.
He’d never been there before. The entire space was one large room made smaller by the angles of the roof, which made the space cozy.
There were several old-looking carpets on the hardwood floor, and a large futon in the center of the room.
Other than that, there was only a wardrobe and two bean bags on either side of a low table, as well as a yoga mat in front of one of the two round windows.
“I’ll stay. If that’s really okay.”
Sage was already back in bed. “Just toss the cushions on the floor.”
Of course there were more cushions. Will still wasn’t sure why any person—witch or otherwise—needed that many cushions, enchanted or not.
In this moment, he didn’t care. He walked to the low bed and pushed the cushions off, then took up that space. He stayed on the corner, but Sage turned and moved half of the sheets and comforter over to Will.
“Get warm. Hope you sleep okay. If you snore, you gotta go.”
Will gingerly got under the covers. Sage was almost back to sleep already.
The bed was soft, really soft. Maybe it just felt that way because Sage had warmed the sheets with his body and breath, but as he settled in, all the things around him told Will that he could relax.
Sage’s smell was all around him, and that, more than anything, made falling asleep easy.
That night, Will didn’t have another nightmare, and he slept soundly.
The next day, he woke to morning wood for the first time in ages, and seeing Sage put that yoga mat to use by doing actual yoga on it—the kind that explained his toned body—only made Will wish for things that weren’t his to wish for.