Chapter 53 #2
After listening to Noble explain why…Ollie couldn’t say he didn’t understand, at least in the beginning, yet…
he also somewhat understood the latter—Noble’s lust for violence…
He wished he didn’t. But he had wanted to hurt Mikael, and even if some of it wasn’t his own emotions, he knew deep down, underneath all the denials, a little bit of it was.
Mikael had almost killed Red. And he’d realized, while listening to Noble, that maybe it was okay that, in return, Ollie had wanted him to hurt… It didn’t excuse the actions, even if it explained them.
He didn’t understand wanting to hurt those who hadn’t harmed him, though, and Ollie didn’t think he ever would, or even wanted to. But maybe that was also okay.
Taking a slow, deep breath during the silence, Ollie cleared his throat and asked, “Did you approach me knowing what I was?”
Noble shook his head. “No, I didn’t know until the amulet started glowing.”
“Why didn’t you hurt me when you found out? Did you stay because you planned to kill me?”
“No!” the man almost desperately shouted, before wincing and, much more calmly, admitting, “Never… The truth is…I was already fighting to hold on to the lies they had told me from the very first moment I stepped foot in your library. I was at a point where I couldn’t keep lying to myself that what I was doing was justified.
That day you read Annabel’s diary to me, I…
still had a witch tied up in my basement…
“I let her go in the end. The first witch I ever let go… I just couldn’t keep doing it. I enjoyed the violence of it all, but I never wanted to hurt innocent people. My problem was that I just didn’t see any witch as innocent for far too long.
“To be honest, all that research, all those books I read here, they were just me trying to either prove that the hunters were right, or further prove how foolish I was to trust everything they had told me. And meeting you…just made me realize how much I needed, how much I wanted, to quit.”
Ollie wanted to believe him…wanted to cling to the idea that Noble had seen the proverbial light, even before they’d met, yet…he still had too many questions.
“What about Mikael?”
“He knew me, and I knew him, because we were both hunters. The organization sent him here with the lie that he and I would work together on a hunt.”
He frowned at that. “It was a lie?”
Noble let out a bitter chuckle. “Yes, they actually sent him here so I could kill him.
We never got along, and they knew he would set me off.
Believe it or not, hunters offing each other is a common occurrence, and one often forgiven quite easily by those in charge.
But after Mikael showed up that first time, I called them.
I called them and I told them I was…done.
“There was the worry that they’d investigate, but apparently, I’d been showing signs of wavering in my tasks long enough that they didn’t.
He sort of ended up becoming my last task for them.
It was what I was working on that week. I had been trying to track him down so I could kill him.
And after finally succeeding that day, I ‘retired’ as a hunter.
“Ollie, I’m not a good person. In fact, I’m probably just as bad as all the villains in the many books on your shelves.
But I want you to know, regardless of what happens between us now, there was never a single moment where I even considered hurting you…
I couldn’t… I looked at you, and every instinct in me wanted to protect you.
“It’s why I tried to distance myself from you after we slept together that first time.
I tried to be an asshole and shove you away, but then you cried, and I looked into your eyes, and I just…
couldn’t walk away. I was too selfish to do it.
” Noble swallowed hard. “I understand if this is it for us. But, please know, and believe me when I say that I wasn’t lying about loving you. ”
Ollie stared, with tears in his eyes. It still hurt.
It hurt to hear what the man had said, and it hurt to know even just a little bit of what he had done, yet…
Ollie still couldn’t…let him go. He felt disgusted in himself that he still wanted Noble despite it all, but he had known that already yesterday.
He had known that before ever asking Noble to come over.
And as he wasn’t willing to deny himself the man’s love, no matter how twisted Noble may be, he was just going to have to accept that self-disgust and allow himself to be selfish for once.
Noble was the villain who had his heart, and he didn’t think that was going to change anytime soon. Villain of his heart or not, Noble was his, and he wasn’t able or willing to let him go.
After a moment in his own thoughts, Ollie rasped, “I believe you…and I…I love you, even knowing what you did.” He sniffled, taking a deep breath and slowly letting it out, just barely stopping his tears from falling this time, before he continued.
“The truth is, Noble, I don’t have the right to forgive you for what you did.
Because I am not the one you wronged. The only one who can answer the question of who can forgive you is you.
But I am going to forgive myself for wanting to be with you. ”
Noble stood up abruptly, with a look of hope on his face that almost crushed Ollie, as the man rushed around his desk to hug him. “Thank you, thank you—”
“Wait,” Ollie cried out, stopping the hunter in his tracks right in front of him, his arms outstretched. “There is still something I need to say. And I need to say it for this to work, for me to live with this! There is something I need you to do for me, Noble.”
“Anything,” Noble promised without hesitation, his arms slowly dropping to his sides.
He swallowed nervously, knowing the weight of what he was asking, yet he still asked. “The witch hunters, their organization…it needs to fall. I can’t be with you knowing it’s still going, and that innocent witches are still dying while we are sitting around doing nothing!”
The hunter’s face became void of any emotion at his words, and he stared silently for a moment, before finally saying, “Do you understand what you are asking of me?”
“I think I do,” Ollie rasped softly.
“It won’t be a peaceful takedown, Ollie. Knowing how kind you are, I need you to realize what you are asking me to do, what the results of it will be, because I don’t want you to be shocked later.”
But Ollie did know. He knew exactly what he was asking for, regardless of how lightly he no doubt seemed to be asking it.
“I know what it would mean. And I know it won’t be easy.
It will be dangerous, and it will take time, possibly even years.
I also know that it will be bloody, and people will need to die for it to happen.
But I want them gone!” As he finished speaking, Ollie struggled to hold back his tears as he stared, waiting for Noble to answer, hoping that it would be the words he needed to hear to not lose the man he loved.
Noble stared back, his expression unchanging, before the man finally sighed, his eyes closing briefly. When they opened, a sharp look of determination having replaced the emptiness, the man said, “Okay.”
Ollie burst into tears, sobbing hard as he leaped from his chair. Noble caught him effortlessly, picking him up and holding him tight as he buried his face into Ollie’s neck.
He felt the man’s tears hit his shoulder, as the hunter thickly rasped, “I’m so sorry, Baby. I am so sorry for what I am, for what I’ve done. For scaring you, even for a moment.”
He didn’t respond, Ollie just clung to him, breathing in the man’s warm scent. There, in Noble’s arms, he finally felt as if he, and his world, was being put back together again.
Ollie was just thinking that all he wanted to do was remain where he was for the rest of the day, when Jahla burst into his office, blurting out, “I think I’m a witch!”
He felt Noble tense beneath him, and Ollie also froze as he tried to wrap his mind around what he’d just fucking heard. And his brain was still not completely certain, as he looked back sharply at her and squeaked in disbelief. “What did you just say?!”
THE END!