Author’s note: In case you missed it, this is Book 2 in a series, and it might not make a lot of sense if you haven’t read Book 1 first! Book 1 is a novella called Will-o-the-Wisps, available here for only $2.99 (less than a cup of coffee!) if you’d like to get caught up!
Now without further ado, the story:
Of course, Willow can only decide to follow Lira. He’d already agreed, but more than that… the idea of letting Lira go… Willow somehow knows, without being told or having to ask. He can tell if he lets Lira go now, he’ll never see him again.
The soreness in his body from their first time has already faded, to the point that Willow can just barely feel it if he tries, but even then he’s pretty sure that he’s just imagining it because he wants to.
Lira stays and holds him the whole night, for reasons he doesn’t disclose. What he gets out of staying there and holding Willow close, his lips pressed into the soft mass of Willow’s silky hair, Willow doesn’t know, and he doesn’t ask. He’s pretty sure Lira doesn’t sleep the whole night.
“Well?” Lira says in the morning, in a voice that’s lighter than he feels. Like it’s inconsequential if Willow chooses to go or to stay.
“I already said I’d come with you,” Willow says.
It makes sense that it’s just past dawn when they’re getting ready to go. In the logic of stories, it makes sense. This is the beginning of something new.
“Will you at least tell me where we’re going? What do I need to pack?”
Lira tucks a lock of hair behind his own ear. He sits on Willow’s bed, his long legs making the bed look somehow smaller and more childish. “Europe,” he finally says. And then, “I promise I’m not trying to be evasive on purpose. I’ll tell you more when I can. Pack light. We can get what we need when we get to our destination.”
“…can you wait outside?” Willow asks.
He’s thinking of the fact that he’ll have to pack his medication, and he doesn’t want Lira to see.
Lira takes it in stride, getting up with a stretch and kissing the top of Willow’s head in passing. “I’ll be outside when you’re ready.”
Lira’s affection has been surprisingly chaste. All through the night, he hadn’t tried to do anything to Willow but hold him. Willow doesn’t know why he’s surprised. After all, he’s the one who’d come onto Lira the other night. The most Lira has done is follow him around and hold his hand.
Willow grabs his backpack, still filled with the leftovers from graduation. There’s a couple of notebooks in there, along with some gel pens. Willow flips through them and then tosses them in the trash.
It isn’t hard to pack. He packs some of his favorite clothes, a jacket, and some underwear. He grabs his pill bottles out of the drawer and shoves them both at the bottom of the bag, hidden under the clothes. His passport and wallet and ID, and then, after a second’s deliberation, the kiddie watch that Chaz had given him when they were both a lot younger.
He turns off the lamp in his room, leaving it lit from the dim orange light coming through the windows. He can’t help taking a last look around his childhood bedroom, and then he goes, shutting the door behind him. He pulls an orange hoodie on and goes to find Lira.
Willow is surprised to find him downstairs, sitting on the couch and talking to Willow’s mom. They both swivel toward Willow when he arrives.
Willow’s mom says, “You were so quiet last night, I didn’t realize you’d come in. Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”
“Mom, this is Lira. Lira, this is my mom, Lily Manchester.”
“It’s really nice to meet you, Mrs. Manchester. You have a lovely home.”
“Oh, stop,” Lily says, but it’s clear she’s pleased by the compliment and charmed by Lira in general.
This seems as good a time as any to broach the subject.
Willow says, “Mom, me and Lira were actually planning to go on a trip.”
* * *
It says a lot about Willow’s particular upbringing that his mom was neither upset to find that Willow had a boy stay overnight or that he’s planning on traveling to Europe with this boy that his mom has never met.
“Your mom seems like a nice person,” Lira says conversationally while they’re traveling to the airport.
“She is,” Willow says. His chin is propped on his hand, and he watches the familiar downtown scenery speed past the window.
The cab they’d hailed smells faintly of old cheese, and the leather seats below Willow are probably older than he is.
“It’s kind of weird that she didn’t actually have any questions for me, though.”
Willow raises an eyebrow. “What would you have done if she did?”
Lira laughs. “Honestly? No idea, I was scared shitless.”
Willow thinks of Lira, who he’s seen holding a shining sword, with magic at his fingertips. It doesn’t seem possible that that Lira would be able to be scared of a thing like Willow’s mother, but Willow doesn’t know him well enough to be able to tell if he’s lying.
“What happened to your sword, anyway?” Willow asks. He doubts Lira can take it on the airplane.
“Gave it back. It wasn’t mine. I was just borrowing it from someone.”
By now, Willow doesn’t even bother to ask questions he won’t get the answer to.
They stop at a car rental, and Willow waits in the lobby while Lira rents a car from a guy with a bald spot on the top of his head. Willow takes the opportunity to make friends with the vending machine, feeding it coins until two sodas, as blue as Willow’s hair when he was 14, and some candy and chips fall out. He kicks his feet, and when Lira comes back dangling a set of keys from the key fob, Willow grabs up his snacks and follows him back out.
“What was that all about?” he asks, handing Lira one of the sodas. “It’s faster to go to the airport than to come here.”
“We’re not going to the airport,” Lira says. “There’s, ah. Somewhere we have to stop first. Are you hungry? If you are, I’ll pick you up some food on the way.”
Willow holds up his armful of snacks, and Lira doesn’t tell him that he should be eating nutritious food, like Willow’s mom or their staff might have. He does steal the bag of Cheetos from the top of the pile, though.
They drive for a couple hours, putting the coast behind them. Lira had picked out a nice car with soft leather seats, and although the air conditioner works perfectly fine, Willow spends a not insignificant amount of the drive with the passenger side window rolled down, with his head out the window letting the breeze whip through his hair.
Going this fast, it stings his eyes and makes him squint them shut, but he does it all the same. It feels so freeing—so much he can almost taste it. An exuberant laugh works its way out of his throat, and Lira watches him out of the corner of his eye, amused.
“You seem happy.”
“Yeah,” Willow says without elaborating.
He’s doing something different, getting out of Allister for the first time in ages.
At least Willow doesn’t get carsick, but they drive for so long that he grows bored and restless, fidgeting in his seat. He’d managed to take his meds at the rental car place when Lira wasn’t looking, but he hadn’t exactly thought this through—how he was going to hide them from Lira when they’re basically stuck together 24/7. And he needs to take his meds because it’s going to look a lot worse if he suddenly has a seizure in front of Lira.
He’s trying to avoid that happening.
Willow’s thoughts aren’t making him happy, and he huffs, turning on the radio and then turning it off again.
He’s been studying Lira for a while now. First out of the corner of his eye, and then when Lira didn’t say anything about it, just staring openly. If Lira isn’t going to tell him things about himself, then Willow is just going to have to pick them up himself.
Like that Lira is a good driver. Comfortable behind the wheel, with one arm draped casually across the open window while the other steers. The wind ruffles through his deep black hair, the sun settling into it and giving it a blueish sheen like raven wings.
“Tell me something about you,” Willow says.
Lira thinks. “What would you like to hear?”
“How old are you?”
“Are you going to bolt out of the car if you find out?”
“Yes, I’ve gotten into a car with a guy who can make pictures in the air with magic, who tells me I need to stop a fairytale war, and I will be absolutely shocked if I find out you’re not a normal age,” Willow deadpans.
Lira huffs. “Cheeky. I’m around 400 years old, give or take.”
Willow blinks. Okay, he wasn’t quite expecting that. He has that feeling again, the disorienting one where it feels like reality is flipping double, lengthening and pulling itself away from him, like looking through the wrong end of a telescope.
But in the end, it’s not something he can really conceive of. Willow will be lucky to make it to 30, and he’s a teenager. Trying to contemplate a lifespan in the hundreds is just… not doable for him.
“Now answer a question for me?” Lira asks, his hands at ten and two on the wheel.
“Okay,” Willow says. “Seems only fair.”
“How did you like having sex with me?”
And that’s. Okay, that doesn’t seem very fair at all.
“No fair, I ask you an easy question, and you ask me a hard one.”
“Sorry,” Lira says, but he doesn’t sound very sorry.
It doesn’t occur to anyone in the car to point out that ‘did you like having sex with me?’ should be binary.
Willow sinks down into his seat, all the junkfood he’d had kind of churning together in it. “I liked it,” Willow murmurs, wetting his lips and remembering Lira’s hands on him. How good it had felt. The other dark feelings, about how he’s not sure if it was a good thing or not, are harder to pin down, and so he doesn’t really try.
“Did you like it?” Willow asks suddenly.
Lira gives him a brightly fake smile. “Sure, no need to worry about me. I like most things just fine.”
* * *
That answer sticks in Willow’s craw, like a burr beneath the skin, all the way until they get to their hotel. And it is a hotel that they pull up to, one out in the sticks beside an airport built in what looks like an industrial zone.
Willow still doesn’t get why they had to come here.
The answer keeps burning its way through him, a hot coal through tallow, all the way until Willow is sitting on a really ugly hotel bedspread, and Lira kneels in front of him, right there on the offensive carpet.
Like a knight in front of a prince. Willow’s heart thumps in his chest.
“Do you trust me?” Lira asks.
“No. Of course not.”
What an insane question to ask. Willow might be doing some crazy work by coming out here at all, but it isn’t like he’s unaware that it’s stupid and crazy. Crazy kid runs off with a pervert. This is how people wind up in ditches.
Who knows why Lira asked or if that answer satisfies him, but he leans up to seal their lips together, kissing Willow hungrily. Willow is caught off guard, but he still kisses back, letting Lira’s tongue meet his again and again, sipping from his mouth until it makes his head spin.
It’s still spinning when Willow finally pulls back, a delicate line of spit connecting their mouths, stretching until it snaps.
“Maybe I can tell you a story,” Lira says abruptly. “This is a hotel room where something happened. A hero on a quest… well. Got nailed by the love of his life, frankly.”
Willow snorts. “How romantic.”
But, well, he’s here, isn’t he? He waits to be told a story.
In the story, there’s a beautiful boy.
“Like you,” Lira interjects.
Willow rolls his eyes, but the compliment still hits its target—dead-on like a bullseye.
In the story, there’s a beautiful boy.
A curse befalls him and changes the entire trajectory of his life. He can only burn with passion. Burn and burn, and there’s never any end to the wanting, but this boy happened to be made of the exact thing that wants to burn—a phoenix and not a magpie—and he reveled in it.
“The rest of the story is less nice, although it has a happy ending. It involves some magic and biological trickery that I don’t think you’d enjoy. But the rest of it—we can bleed off a little of his story if we do the same thing.”
That takes Willow a second, and then his eyebrows raise.
“Are you propositioning me?”
“How about it? Do you want to be a prince?”
Willow is pretty sure he’s in a hotel with a crazy man, or at least that Lira isn’t good for his own grip on reality. It feels weaker, around Lira.
“I don’t want you as bad as the boy in the story wanted his lover. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anyone that much. Frankly, I don’t think I can.”
Lira shrugs. “So what? You’re you, and he’s him. You don’t have to be someone else. I don’t want you to be.”
“I think you’re insane,” Willow moans into Lira’s mouth.
Still, he’s letting Lira splay his hands across Willow’s bare stomach, and also letting Lira dip his hand deeper into the waistband of his pants, until his fingertips brush against Willow’s cock. Willow curls in on himself with a shudder as lust jolts through him.
“Maybe. I promise to make you feel really good, though. Do you trust me?”
“No,” Willow repeats.
And still he does nothing to stop Lira.
Maybe he wants to know what it feels like to burn.
Lira spins him around, caging Willow between a shelf and the vanity, in front of a full-length mirror. He kicks the inside of Willow’s feet wide with a casual, fluid dexterity. It puts Willow off-balance so the only thing he can do is lean back and let Lira take his weight.
Willow’s hands flex behind his back, where Lira has them pinned. He takes one look at himself in the mirror and moans.
“That’s it,” Lira gentles. “See how good you look, pretty boy?”
Willow can’t quite meet his own eyes in the mirror. He shies away from it, not being willing to see what he looks like when he lets Lira do this to him. There are too many nasty voices in his head telling him about what kind of boy he is, if he can see.
He doesn’t tell Lira any of that.
Lira says, “That’s okay. I can appreciate you enough for the both of us.”
Lira frees one of his hands, the other more than adequate for keeping Willow pinned just how he wants him—not that Willow is trying particularly hard to get away. He rubs his hand down the front of Willow’s skirt, tenting with proof of Willow’s desire. A moan catches in Willow’s throat as Lira palms him. He’s hard from this, he can’t deny it. Hard from being manhandled and being told strange, crazy stories of a boy he doesn’t know.
“Pretty boy,” Lira says beside his ear, sliding his fingers underneath Willow’s skirt and then up his narrow thighs, between his legs to squeeze Willow through his underwear, and Willow gasps and brings his knees together—or tries. He still can’t really close his legs, not without falling over, so it’s all he can do to stay spread open and take it, let Lira explore his body, let him fondle and rub and squeeze, making Willow’s body feel so good, his cock get hard, as Willow’s insides feel more and more chaotic.
He’s panting before he knows it, choking his voice in his throat because he’s afraid that if he makes a sound, it’ll be crying out for more.
It’s not that hot in this hotel room, but he’s starting to sweat beneath his clothes. He’s dripping from his cock and moaning when Lira starts to really stroke him, slow, rhythmic strokes of his fist as he kisses up the side of Willow’s neck.
Willow’s eyes have long since fluttered shut, and Lira wasn’t lying; he can make Willow feel very good. He does.
“I want to eat you out one of these days,” Lira says casually. “Would you let me? Not now, you wouldn’t, probably, but maybe if I gave you enough orgasms, left you feeling so good you could only quiver and call my name. Would you let me between your thighs then? Maybe you’d be too weak to kick me away.”
Willow should hate it, being talked to like that. It reminds him of such ugly things, but it also feeds the lust in his belly, making him soak Lira’s hand and cry out louder than before, an animal in heat.
“Do you want me to fuck you?” Lira asks, warm and close to Willow’s ear.
His voice is like honey, sweet and handsome. Willow keeps his eyes squeezed shut tight and nods. He does. He can’t say it out loud, but he does.
Lira’s fingers aren’t quite slick enough, but that somehow makes it better. Willow wonders if Lira knows, because he doesn’t make any move to slick them from the bottle of lube that’s surely lurking somewhere. He doesn’t ask Willow if he’s okay, he just pushes inside.
It burns, and Willow revels in the burn.