Chapter 3
Noble stayed silent as he carried a quiet, and obviously very tired, Ollie up the stairs into the man’s living quarters. Holding the man up with an arm under his butt, the witch’s legs were barely wrapped around his waist, as Ollie rested against his chest.
There was a lot on Noble’s mind, and yet it was nothing he really wanted to think about, let alone actually carry out.
For sure, there was a list of things he needed to do, but all he currently wanted to do was stay by Ollie’s side.
Even if the longer he stayed there, the more the little witch would likely question him about things he couldn’t answer without lying.
Given what had happened, with the things he said, and what the man would likely start to notice if he hadn’t already, he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hide what he truly was.
The fact was, Ollie was a highly intelligent individual, but he was also, Noble noticed, someone who liked to gaslight himself away from hard truths.
Which was why he honestly wasn’t sure when the questions would come, or even if they would.
“I could have walked,” the little librarian croaked softly as Noble opened the front door that was thankfully unlocked.
He wasn’t so sure of that. The man had been very unsteady on his feet and only half-awake when he’d prodded him into agreeing to go to bed. It was only 9pm, but Ollie seemed pretty out of it.
“You’re tired, it’s fine.” Noble smiled down at the witch.
Ollie’s nose scrunched up in disgust. “And you’re not? Not to mention everyone else who is going to keep working while I continue to do nothing.”
The self-deprecating tone of the man’s voice bothered him, but he didn’t think he’d get anywhere if he tried to tackle that right now, so instead, he attempted to just soften the man’s feelings a bit. “Baby, give yourself a break. You’ve been through a lot in the last twenty-four plus hours.”
Closing the door, he left it unlocked and headed down the hall.
“I’ll…” the man trailed off, hesitating before lying, “I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“But I will be. Soon. I just need to not think. And once the bruises and cuts are gone, it’ll be a lot easier to do that.”
“Baby, that’s not exactly a healthy way to cope.”
Not that Noble could really talk, since that was pretty much his go-to method of dealing with shit. Well, he normally defaulted to just not thinking, or rather pretending that it wasn’t on his mind, when it was.
Because pretending I haven’t done all the horrible shit I’ve done is so easy, when I remember every single name and face of those I’ve killed, he thought sarcastically.
Yeah, he was a hypocrite, what else was new?
Well, it wasn’t as if he actually regretted killing all of them, there was definitely some he would happily and willingly kill again if it was an option.
It was all those he was unsure of, and the ones he now knew for sure were innocent.
“Well, it’s worked out pretty well for me so far, so like, why not just keep doing it?” Ollie said with a nervous laugh that cut off as he winced in pain.
Ah, his Baby’s poor throat.
“Ollie...” he rasped with a sigh as they reached the little witch’s bedroom. Setting the man down on the edge of the bed, he carefully ran a hand over Ollie’s loose red curls, since the witch hadn't pulled them up. “How are you really, Baby?”
Jahla had just sat down near a stack of books that she planned to clean when she found herself surrounded by the other librarians. But then she supposed this was their chance to try to pry answers from her without Noble and Ollie there.
“No lying, what the fuck really happened? Because Ollie was beaten all to hell, and what do you know, Noble’s fists were banged up from hitting someone.
Oh, not to mention, this would be the second time Ollie’s come in looking messed up since he started dating the man,” Aurora said stiffly, as she cracked her knuckles.
“Yeah, no one in their right mind is going to buy the random masked stranger with ‘dogs’ explanation,” Percy scoffed.
“The lack of police presence, or even the fire department, pretty much drives home that what we are being told is a lie,” Fleur drawled softly.
Winnie let out a hesitant laugh. “I mean, I'm not saying I buy it, but…like, the marks on the floor don’t make sense, and I’m not sure they can be explained in a way that does.”
“As the ones that look like claw marks appear to be surrounded by rot…I’m not sure there is one either,” Hanna said slowly.
Eashaa snorted. “There is also the fact that there is a very deep scorch mark on the floor that, for some reason, never spread beyond an odd semi circular point, yet the amount of soot suggests it was burning for a bit, and should have spread.”
Jahla sighed as she eyed them before standing, as she was not having this conversation while on the floor.
She knew this was coming from a place of worry, specifically worry for Ollie, but at the same time…it wasn’t like she could tell them the truth.
“So…it’s…not entirely a lie? I can say Noble was not the one who hurt Ollie.
Nor has he ever. There was for sure someone else here who Noble fought, but…
can you just trust me when I say it’s best that you not know the full truth?
And that there are very good reasons as to why the police and fire department were not called, and can’t be called.
Not to mention why none of this will be reported to insurance… ”
When everyone started talking at once, she sighed again.
Ollie stared up at Noble and hesitated. How was he really?
He swallowed hard, flinching slightly as Mikael’s screams filtered through his mind, along with visions of the man on fire, his charred skin coming with a stomach-turning smell.
He couldn’t stop the shudder as the feelings he had felt at the time slid home.
Just as before, the emotions felt like his own, yet also foreign.
They formed this sticky feeling of vengeful satisfaction, fueled by hate and rage that turned his stomach as it seeped into his very bones, spreading and bringing with it both elation and disgust.
But then that horrible feeling of hate and violence was swept aside, his insides freezing as fear grabbed hold.
“R-RED, PLEASE!” he screamed, shaking the familiar.
Failing…Ollie was failing. He was supposed to get Red to safety, but he couldn’t… He was too weak… Ollie couldn’t lift him, he’d always been too weak…
“Please, wake up! Ah—Red, please! You have to live! I can’t—ah—” he gasped breathlessly. “I-I can’t live without y-you!”
Flinching back at the desperation in his voice, the vision in his head shook apart and switched to a worse one, tears forming as he was helplessly dragged down, the smell of blood flooding his senses. Too much blood… There was too much…it wouldn’t stop…
“Sto-stop,” he sobbed. “Stop,” he desperately begged, as he pressed down on the familiar’s chest wounds. “STOP BLEEDING!” he screamed.
Ollie broke free of the memories’ grasp as a hand tilted his face upward. Blinking rapidly up at Noble, tears trailed down his face as his own screams echoed in his ears.
“Ollie…” the man rasped, his concerned gaze staring down at him.
Taking a shuddered breath, his heart ached now, along with the rest of him, as he sniffled and tried to push back the overwhelming feelings weighing him down.
But it was hard to not let himself drown in the devastating desperation that came, alongside a feeling of utter uselessness as he’d begged Red to wake up, to keep breathing, to not leave him.
To not leave him like everyone else had. ..
But he couldn’t, and the man had asked him a question. How was he really…?
Ollie took another shuddered breath and rasped, “Bad…scared…disgusted… B-but do I-I really need to talk about it? I—ah…I just want to forget.”
When Noble hugged him, Ollie buried his face into the man’s broad chest as his tears fell faster.
“I know it’s hard, and you don’t want to think about it,” the man rasped softly. “And you don’t have to right now…but you will eventually.”
“Why?” Ollie couldn’t help but whine hoarsely.
“Because we can’t allow what happened to happen again,” Red said as he padded softly through the open doorway of his bedroom.
He looked over to his familiar, as Noble pulled back from the hug. Reaching for the cat with a sniffle, Red came right to him, leaping onto the bed and into his lap. Ollie hugged his familiar, running his hands through his soft, short fur.
“Ollie, you lost control, and I couldn’t reach you,” Red said after several moments of purring and letting himself be pet. “Noble somehow managed to, but your mind was not as it should have been in that moment. And I think we all know what would have happened if he hadn’t come…”
Ollie swallowed hard, his eyes briefly closing as another image of a bruised, battered, and still burning Mikael entered his mind. “But it was still me…”
“It was, but it also wasn’t,” the cat replied vaguely.
“What else was it then?”
Red hesitated for a moment, before finally saying, “I don’t know. I don’t know what happened in that moment, or what exactly came over you. Can you tell me what happened before you…appeared there?”
Ollie blinked. “Appeared?”
The familiar wrinkled his snout. “You…poofed there, quite literally, out of smoke.”
“I did what?!” he squeaked, before flinching at the pain the sharp words caused to his bruised swollen throat.
At the same time, Noble choked out, “He did what?!”