Chapter 25
Sitting there, cuddled in Noble’s lap, he was about to mention showering, as he was beginning to feel all sorts of ick about the cum currently drying in his briefs and on his skin, but Noble spoke first, sounding almost hesitant. “Would you consider hiring me as your bodyguard?”
“Bodyguard?” He blinked, glancing over his shoulder and frowning as a few concerning thoughts bubbled up. “Are you struggling to find work? Do you need money?!”
Noble winced, rushing to respond. “No! It’s not about money. I could retire now if I really wanted to. It’s just me finding a good excuse to stay near you, that would also make it easier for me to protect you.”
“Oh, okay,” he breathed, as warmth spread through his chest, before he giggled. “I…mean, sure?”
“Perfect,” Noble rasped, with a smile as warm as his heart felt right now.
Ollie’s face heated under the man’s gaze, which caused him to further melt after his sweet words.
Well, they had sounded sweet to him! Like, Noble wanted an excuse to stay near and protect him!
Which was possibly the sweetest thing anyone—any partner, for sure—had ever said to him.
In fact, he couldn’t actually recall much, if anything, sweet about his previous partners.
It was almost as if he possibly hadn’t been that great at dating before Noble.
Though, he was sure it was less them and more him, and—he shook the bad thoughts from his head, and almost in a daze, repeated, “Perfect.” He blinked and added, “But I will be drawing up a contract because you need to be fairly compensated, even if you are my boyfriend.”
For some reason, Noble’s smile waned at that. “I mean, you don’t need—”
“Don’t you dare say I don’t need to pay you,” Ollie huffed. “We’ll just have to figure out what times will officially count as you being on the clock.” He pursed his lips. “Though, I suppose, I could just pay you a day rate.”
Noble had regrets, and would fully admit that he possibly hadn’t thought the whole being Ollie’s bodyguard thing through. “Why don’t we just forget I mentioned it? It honestly feels like you would be paying me to stay near you, and I don’t need to be paid for that.”
Ollie wrinkled his nose. “I can see your point, but—OH! How about I pay you on the days that you physically need to protect me?”
He grimaced. “But I don’t need you to pay me to protect you. Really, it was just an excuse to stay with you and not take other jobs.”
Ollie hugged him with a giggle, but continued on as if he hadn’t heard a word Noble had said. “I’ll pay you when it feels like you are doing something bodyguard-ish, so you in fact do not have to take other jobs!”
Noble sighed. Yeah, he regretted bringing it up so much.
The witch just smiled in the face of his exasperation. “Anyway, as this is clearly an exercise in futility, why don’t we go do something constructive? Like shower, followed by…me making a Death Mark Mirror?”
He couldn’t stop the groan that came out as Ollie rushed through saying the last part. “Ollie, were the two fires yesterday and the day before not enough?”
“Okay, but I was really close that last time!” Ollie huffed defensively.
“If by close, you mean the fire was smaller…then yes, you were close.”
“I was!”
“It’s so nice to be clean,” Ollie said with a happy sigh as he reached the bottom of the spiral staircase into his private library. “Exercise really is not for me. One gets far too dirty while doing it.”
Noble snorted behind him. “Most of the ‘dirt’ came from us having sex. You realize that, right?”
“Well, I was sweaty before that, because not all of us can do physical activities without sweating, Noble,” he huffed.
Also, while he could give up exercising, he sure as heck wasn’t going to give up sex with Noble, even if it did make him gross and sweaty.
Walking through the still-open entryway of the secret library, a door he was hesitant to ever close since he wasn’t sure he’d manage to open it again afterward, Ollie paused briefly when he spotted his red leather-bound grimoire on the desk, the silk bookmark sticking out at a random place as usual.
Eyeing it suspiciously as he approached, he drawled, “Are you here to help or insult?”
His book opened on its own, the pages fluttering to the center. Ollie snorted when he was near enough to read the single word written on one of the pages. “Both. Good to know!”
“At least, its intentions are clear,” Noble sighed.
Before Ollie’s eyes, the ink on the page bled away, and new words rapidly formed.
“‘Chapter Eh: Helping a Failed Witch Make a Mirror, and Avoid Becoming a Fire Hazard Again.’” He rolled his eyes at how many times the word ‘again’ was underlined.
“‘When a spell requires you to mix chanting with an action, using a metronome, or a device with a similar purpose, when new and useless, is recommended. Chant evenly, and match the required action in time with your words. Surely, even you can handle that.’”
Noble cracked his knuckles in an obviously threatening manner, as he drawled, “It’s far too rude for my liking. Maybe I can try to fix that?”
“Mm,” Ollie grunted while glaring as his book slammed shut, rolling his eyes again when it proceeded to disappear. “Rude or not, and apparently easily threatened, that was actually helpful. I was thinking my supplies were the issue, and even got some nicer, small wooden-framed pocket mirrors.
“Thinking back to that last time, I definitely did start to rush near the end of my chanting. I’m pretty sure with every attempt, I tended to speed up the more I repeated the spell, and I know for sure that I wasn’t paying any attention to how fast I was depositing the sand.”
“Usually, when magical objects are created, whatever you have will be transformed, so supplies mostly don’t matter. Aside from when herbs and shit are involved, as their freshness is important.”
“That’s good to know. Ah, let me just get a metronome app on my phone so we can do this. Because the fire blanket is ready, and I've got sand and plenty of mirrors.”
Two whole stacks of mirrors, he thought with a wince. He supposed he might be able to use the rest for something else.
Pulling up the App Store, he quickly downloaded a digital metronome, setting it to a slow, even tempo before placing his phone on one of the chairs, safely out of range of any possible fires. Because while the room may be magically protected, his phone was not.
“Maybe we should grab Red first?” Noble suggested, as Ollie snagged a small, round, wooden-framed mirror from one of the stacks.
“No. No, I didn’t even need Red to fix that last fire. This is going to work!”
The man just sighed and reluctantly waved him on.
Standing by the right edge of the table, he placed the mirror in front of him, taking a deep breath before trying to wrap his head around speaking in time with the annoying, constant ticking noise.
When he finally thought he had it down, Ollie grabbed a handful of sand from the medium-sized open bucket.
Dropping a bit on the table, away from the mirror, in his head, he said unrelated words just to be sure he knew exactly what he was trying to do.
Once he did, Ollie took yet another calming breath.
When he felt a false sense of calm, Ollie grabbed another handful of sand and held it over the mirror, as he began to chant, “Grant me thy will, thy Endless Death, to read betwixt the lies of the entombed. Embed thy reflection with thy mark. Grant me thy will, thy Endless Death, to read betwixt the lies of the entombed. Embed thy reflection with thy mark—”
With each word and grain of sand that dropped, the sand began to warm in his hand, but unlike all the previous times, it stayed warm, never tipping into hot territory.
At first, nothing happened, aside from the heat, but then a feeling of coldness started to seep from his center outward, mixing with and almost combating the warmth, while the mirror began to glow faintly.
Ollie did his best to keep going, and not let his encroaching excitement at his possible success mess up his pace.
Just as he repeated the spell for the tenth time, and the last bit of sand fell from his grasp, there was a sudden loud crack that sounded like lightning, and with it came the smell of ozone, along with a sharp, blinding brightness that obscured his vision, bringing his chanting to a stop.
Blinking rapidly to clear the spots from his vision, he let out a breathless laugh when he spotted the mirror on the table. It was still round with a wooden frame, but the frame had thickened, and carved into it were the branching fractal patterns of the Lichtenberg figures.
“I DID IT!” Ollie squealed, jumping around and dancing happily. “I did it. I did it!”
Noble chuckled, catching him when Ollie jumped into his arms and peppered kisses on his face.
“I did it!”
“That you did, Baby. I’m proud of you.”
Ollie couldn’t help but beam at that, before realizing what his success meant, and as he pointed, he blurted, “To the diner!”