by J B Black
His mother braved the unknown. She tossed aside a life of luxury and ease for a man she had only recently met. A man who had no money to his name and nothing to offer her in way of lineage. Everything valuable to the Blythes came up blank in Ælfweard’s father, but his mother picked him still. Loved him still. Adored him and their children despite the hardships that choice led to for her. Her actions spoke of a far braver woman than he gave her credit for, and his determination to pull his family from poverty seemed to pale in comparison to her knowing sacrifice. If her leaving allowed his siblings to be free of the expectations of the wizarding elite, would his success draw his own children back into them?
He hated the very idea. Given the choice, Ælfweard preferred spending his life celibate, providing money for his siblings’ happiness rather than fighting his way into a world where anyone he loved would become a target for ridicule. A world where love and fate held no sway.
The entire mess left him sure of less than he had believed possible, but when William came back to their room still in that blue jumper with his hair softly falling upon his face, Ælfweard recognized one key fact which he could no longer afford to ignore.
His heart thundered, racing in his chest. He had never seen anything more beautiful. Dark hair and pale skin with full pink lips which smiled with such ease now that the warlock trusted him. While that delicate trust bought his silence even as his love grew, Ælfweard found himself no longer able to keep the sentiment inside his chest.
“I love you,” the wizard confessed.
Quicksilver eyes widened, and William’s lips parted. Ælfweard’s words hung in the air between them. It would be simple to brush them away. To pretend he had said something else or nothing at all, but as William’s cheeks pinked and he mouthed words without committing to a response. Nothing in his wide eyes hinted of the trust breaking between them. Wrapped in Ælfweard’s jumper, the warlock appeared softer than he ever had before.
Licking his lips, William whispered, “Why?”
Ælfweard frowned. “Why?”
“Yeah, I mean…” he trailed off, setting down his things before he took a seat on his bed and faced the wizard. “You’re awesome and all, but we’re friends. I thought you looked at me like one of your little brothers.”
Though he had pointed to his position as the eldest child when trying to explain the urge to take care of the warlock, Ælfweard found himself unable to lie any longer. His heart longed for William. Ached for him in a way which left him uncomfortable and unprepared.
Swallowing, he forced his eyes to hold the warlock’s gaze. “I wanted to take care of you. I’ve never wanted to do that for anyone else.”
“So...you lied to me?”
Ælfweard wanted to shake his head. He wanted to deny everything, but even if he had lied to himself first, he had recognized the lack of truth in his motives from the beginning. Even now, coming out and confessing likely placed the warlock in an awkward position. Two weeks remained until winter break, and for the remainder of it, they were stuck together. Still, he held tightly to the hope wrapping tightly around his heart.
“I wanted to be someone you could rely on, and I thought it was just an infatuation which would fade, but the more time we spent together, the more I fell in love with you,” Ælfweard replied, rubbing his palms across the top of his thighs.
Humming softly, William stood, and the blond tensed as the warlock sat down next to him. When the other placed a hand upon his shoulder, Ælfweard’s heart drummed so loudly, he almost couldn’t hear a thing the other man said, but when the words came through the overwhelmed fog of his mind, dread settled in hope’s stead.
Sitting beside him, William spoke softly. Each word came carefully measured. “We’re in close quarters, and these things happen. After Gilroy and Nicholas, fate might seem scary, but my parents were fated mates, and it’s a big deal for warlocks and witches. I plan to wait and find mine.”
“But what if we are mates?” the wizard retorted when he found his words.
William’s nose wrinkled. “Cause we aren’t.”
“How can you know?” Ælfweard asked, taking one of the warlock’s hands in his own. “Unless you can see the strings, we wouldn’t know until we kissed.”
“And what? You think we should kiss?” William stated, but he brought up his other hand to hold Ælfweard’s hands in return.
Smiling, he tilted his head, and for a moment, the wizard wanted to say yes. Wanted to take the opportunity to kiss the man who inspired his heart to race, but another part of him panicked. If they kissed, a chance existed they wouldn’t be mates. No matter how much his heart raced when faced with the dark-haired man, Ælfweard had no way of knowing they were mates until that moment, and all the emotions racing around in his veins clawed deserved more than the dismissal they would receive if William wasn’t his mate. Did it make his love any less?
“Let me court you!” Ælfweard offered instead.
William frowned. “Court me?”
“I’ve never dated or courted, and you’re waiting for your mate. If we date or you let me court you, I can show you how incredible we would be together,” the blond wizard explained, struggling to find the words, and even as he spoke, he saw the uncertainty in the warlock’s gray eyes.
Biting his lip, William glanced around their room, avoiding Ælfweard’s piercing gaze. The more time he spent with the wizard, the more he liked him. No one ever cared for him the way Ælfweard did, but the easy way they now melded together as roommates proved nothing. All the texts described fated mates as a red string which pulled with the magnetic force of a black hole, and while William immediately found himself physically attracted to the other man, he accredited that to the blond’s muscular physique over any sort of fate between them.
Despite that, William hated the idea of an outright refusal. Their friendship bloomed quickly, taking root faster than anything William had ever experienced. Somehow, Ælfweard became vital to his life in a single week. Even the idea of a life without him turned the warlock’s stomach. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, William cared about Ælfweard too much to purposefully break his heart, and that — more than anything — decided his response. Given a chance to see how he was, especially after they no longer shared a room, Ælfweard would realize he didn’t love William the way he believed, and their friendship would come through unscathed.
“Okay.”
Ælfweard’s entire face lit up. His smile almost made William’s heart lurch in his chest with guilt. Pulled into a tight hug, the dark-haired warlock hid his face in the other’s shoulder. Soon, the blond would see through the fog of whatever infatuation clouded his mind. If the thought of that made his heart throb in preemptive pain, that was merely from terror that their friendship might not survive the embarrassment Ælfweard would feel upon realizing that his love found itself not what he had believed.
Meanwhile, Ælfweard delighted in William’s assent. In their remaining two weeks as roommates, he intended to prove how truly perfect a relationship between them could be. If given a chance, he hoped the warlock would grow to feel the same. The adoration which might grow between them would only be made the more fruitful when they shared their first kiss. Ælfweard desperately hoped the magnetic pull between them would prove to be fate itself binding them tightly together with a fine red string.
Chapter Thirteen
Whatever William expected, he hadn’t believed he would wake up the next day much the same as he had the first time. Ælfweard spent the rest of Saturday as if nothing had happened. Like promised, the wizard fetched lunch and dinner, and they quizzed each other on terminology before William helped Ælfweard with druidic physical laws before the wizard returned the favor by helping him describe certain basic alchemical processes through a more formula-based perspective, which McCoy appeared to prefer. All this ended well, and only as he went to bed had William realized that he still wore the other’s knits sweater.
“Shit, sorry,” William had sa
id, tugging the sweater over his head. With a quick shake, he spelled it clean, holding out for the wizard to take. “Here. I almost forgot I borrowed it.”
When the wizard took the sweater with a smile, the warlock hadn’t thought much of it at all until Ælfweard replied, “You can borrow any of my jumpers whenever you’d like.”
The other’s generosity struck him strangely, but he swallowed down the odd flutter in his stomach and joked, “I might take you up on that next time I’m hungover.”
“Doesn’t have to be just then,” Ælfweard had said, blushing. Putting his sweater away, he murmured, “I liked seeing it on you.”
William pulled his own shirt on, ducking into bed with only a slight awkward laugh as he wasn’t sure how to respond. His heart raced. Under the covers, he clawed at his senses as he flushed bright red, but hidden from Ælfweard, William burrowed into his bed, wondering why his stomach fluttered and heat pooled low in his core at the other’s words. He wanted more, but he couldn’t describe what that more was. As he drifted off to sleep, he imagined waking up and dressing in one of Ælfweard’s sweaters and nothing else. Picturing himself lounging on his bed with only the oversized sweater covering the swell of his ass, William could feel the foreshadow of the blond wizard’s hungry gaze.
Waking hard and wanting in the middle of the night, William bit his lip, swallowing back the name on the edge of his lips. His ass clenched. Slick pooled between his thighs. Rock hard and desperate, the warlock glanced over to the sleeping wizard before sliding his hand down. He flushed, but he slid his fingers down the crevice of his thighs, pressing the tip of two against his twitching rim. Longing curled in his gut, and pushing the fingers inside, he huffed, panting as his cock twitched, jumping against his stomach. Desperately, he rocked back onto his fingers. Since coming to Aelion, he had only jacked off a number of times, but it had been so long, and his fingers seemed so much less satisfying. When his eyes slid shut, he saw Ælfweard’s cock. When they first met in the baths, the thick length hung between his muscular thighs. Even flaccid, the size alone left William salivating.
Considering how shy the other was when invited to even kiss, the warlock doubted Ælfweard would go with the flow if William climbed into his bed. Still, he imagined straddling the wizard’s muscular thighs. Would the sight of him be enough? Even if Ælfweard’s infatuation wasn’t actually love, would the blond grow hard instantly? In the foggy haze of a mind between slumber and wakefulness, William imagined he did. Imagined the thick length leaking and flushed in eagerness right before it pierced him to the core. As thick and long as it had been, if it grew even the least bit, Ælfweard would make his stomach bulge. Fill him until he was speared and wanted. Bouncing with only pleasure in his mind, and adding a third finger, William questioned his own sanity. He had never wanted someone like this. Had Ælfweard’s confession weaseled its way into his mind?
Biting back a cry, he struggled to fight against the urges which left him rolling over to fuck into his fist as he stuffed three fingers inside him, curling and stretching and flexing his hips to reach a desperate piece inside of himself which would not find piece on his fingers alone. This mad heat had to be his body recovering. Exhaustion and malnutrition kept him from his usual sex drive, so a week’s recovery proved strong enough that a single confession threw him over the edge. There was nothing more to it. When he woke the next day, he would feel only friendship once more, and the fondness between them would eventually go back to being only that once Ælfweard realized he didn’t actually want to marry a warlock. Even Ælfweard recognized that, or he would have jumped for the kiss. If he had any faith at all in them being fated, the wizard should have said yes to that, so William wouldn’t get his hopes up. The heat in his body meant nothing.
When he finally came, William silenced his cry into his pillow, and the discontent with his orgasm left his whole twitching as he let his fingers slide free. They weren’t enough, but he wasn’t about to pull a dildo out and fuck himself while he still had a roommate.
Falling asleep after a quick spell to clean himself and his clothes, William drifted back to sleep, so he wasn’t expecting to be awoken the same way as the day before. Ælfweard set the food on his bedside table, leaning over him to brush a stray lock of raven hair out of his face.
“Breakfast is ready,” the wizard whispered, and as William blinked sleepily up at him, the blond flushed. “The battle magic students have a practical today. I saw Petra in the dining hall, and she mentioned we could attend at any time if you wanted some exposure to mechanical wizardry.”
Sitting up, the warlock stretched. “You know, you could wake me up. With the library closed, I don’t really have a schedule.”
“You need the sleep,” Ælfweard retorted. Then a pink flushed his tan face. “Besides, you mentioned you liked this. I wouldn’t be doing a good job wooing you if I forgot what you liked the day after you told me.”
A sensation like butterflies fluttered about in William’s stomach, but he shoved the feeling down. “Does this mean I’ll be getting breakfast in bed until winter break?”
Their eyes met as Ælfweard smiled. “The second the library is open tomorrow, you’ll be there. I can’t exactly get you breakfast in bed if you aren’t in bed.”
Humming as he took a bite of a sweet berry, the warlock savored the burst of slightly tart juice upon his tongue before he sighed. “I suppose that’s true.”
“I’ll still bring you breakfast,” Ælfweard promised.
As he ate the breakfast his roommate brought, the warlock curiously watched the way Ælfweard struggled to appear busy and consumed with his own meal despite the desperate looks he less than discretely sent William’s way. Like a pet awaiting praise, he shifted. Too quiet and too loud all at once.
If only to put him out of his misery, William joked, “So is that you’re sales pitch? Date you and I’ll be well-fed?”
“I don’t want to date you,” Ælfweard murmured, and William’s heart stuttered, lurching in his chest before the other corrected, “I want to marry you.”
Lips stretching in a slightly forced smile, the warlock suggested, “Mate me?”
Red colored the other’s cheeks. The tips of his ears and all the way to his neck flushed as his bright blue eyes rose to pin William in place. “Yes. If you’ll have me.”
“And besides food, what sort of wooing do I have to look forward to?” William tried to keep his tone light as if mocking the other, but his tone deepened, growing husky despite himself as heat brewed in his core.
The places he touched in the depths of the night ached, wanting once more what he doubted he could ever have without wrecking the friendship between them. He wanted Ælfweard. Perhaps not forever. Love and lust weren’t the same. Yearning to be pinned and speared upon another’s cock held no sway over wanting to bind their lives together, and the mythical meeting of fated mates definitely did not match their awkward introduction. Every story suggested the first time two destined souls met, they would feel immediately attracted to one another in a way which could not be rationalized away. A pull of such magnetic wanting that no doubt existed as to the fated purpose of their existence in each other’s lives. Moreover, mated pairs matched. They got along splendidly, and they fit together like two matched pieces. Two perfect gears which worked wonderfully together. That certainly didn’t describe Ælfweard and William despite the way the warlock’s body ached to cross the room and settle himself in the wizard’s lap. His lips ached to be kissed, but he simply swallowed the milky tea the other man brought with breakfast and said nothing.
“To be honest, I never had the chance to think about how I’d want to court someone,” Ælfweard confessed. “Whatever it takes, I want to show you I can care for you — that I want to care for you. I’ll support your passions. Respect your wants.”
William frowned, studying the other man. “You know I don’t need to be courted, right? We can just be practice boyfriends.”
“‘Practice boyfriend?’
”
“Sure! We already eat together, study together — fuck, roommates is pretty close to dating, isn’t it? All about context, I guess,” the warlock rambled, struggling to think up a definition which wouldn’t cause him trouble down the line.
“What about touching?” Ælfweard asked. His cheeks pinked as he ducked his head, but the want which darkened his eyes left William breathless.
“Yeah,” he whispered. “We can — we can do that too.”
Nodding, Ælfweard bit his lip. “And baths?”
“The baths are shard anyway,” William replied. “That should be fine.”
Never did William regret his own words as quickly as those. When he went to bathe, Ælfweard came along to do the same, and he found himself endlessly aware of the other man. Aware of his gaze. Conscious of the man’s muscular body and the thick cock between his legs. When they stripped, stepping into the water, William glanced back at the other. His cheeks flushed at the twitch he caught of the blond’s cock. Want trembled through his body, but William sunk into the hot water, fighting against the way his heart raced.
“Should I…” floundering, Ælfweard trailed off. He stood between the bath in which William stood and the one beside it. Half a mind to say yes and half terrified of what might come if he did, William swallowed, struggling to speak. His delay lasted just long enough for the wizard to turn as red as a tomato and duck into the adjacent bath. “Sorry, that was — that would be inappropriate, wouldn’t it?”
“Be jumping a few steps,” William murmured as he washed.
Ælfweard rubbed his hands over his face, turning his back to the other as he flushed in shame. He had never desired to pursue anyone. Whether courtship or dating, he had no basis for either. The wanting inside of him bubbled up, wanting more and more, but he couldn’t find a way to describe the yearnings and emotions boiling to the surface. Taking care of William fulfilled some of his desires, but he ached to hold the other man close, and the wizard had no idea how to breach the space between them.
