Original Fic - Wishes Not Free - Hunter's Man, 1/2
Summary: Even a modern boy, with modern views of life and love, can't guarantee he is free of the influence of deals and fate.
Pairing: Andrew/Morgan
Rating: NC-17
Author's Notes: Part of Wishes Not Free.
Hunter's Man
He was not the type to understand magic, Maeve mused, not yet. She tilted her head to the side slightly, then back again, pondering what her eyes told her. He was young, but then, that was common, and he'd grow out of it. He was reasonably attractive, and that was more fatal -- a more awkward young man might be less focused on love than on relationships in general.
"Was he wrong to send me here?" the boy asked, when she did nothing but study him. She blinked.
"No. LeJeune was quite right, in what he said. There is strong magic about you, and it is well beyond his capabilities to dismiss."
He had, perhaps, a little more patience than most of her clients. It took another ten or twelve seconds of her stillness for his nerves to again demand he speak.
"Can you?"
She hummed noncommitally. He sank back in her chair, clearly frustrated, but apparently willing to await her convenience. She privately considered that to be a very good sign.
"It is not actually a curse. The spell was crafted to protect you."
"Protect me? By making any guy I like incredibly accident prone the minute I try to kiss him? I'm scared to have sex! I'm seventeen! What kind of good does that do me?" he sputtered. She smiled.
"Sex is lovely, yes, but there are... dangers. The spell is older than you are. And it is not human magic. Those who are not human do not always consider humans ways of thought."
"What d'you mean?"
She shrugged, and gestured for him to take another sip of tea.
"It was very likely laid when you were in the womb. It is meant to hold you safe, by turning those too intent upon you away."
"Okay. It's meant to keep skeeves who are a little too interested in me away. Does the damn thing at least have an expiry date?"
Smiling, she let her hand drop to rest on Casper's head. The dog whined.
"The spell is not meant to be lifted, only altered. It is bred too deep into your bones -- to lift it outright would be to alter you internally, in ways you might well not survive."
"So I'm stuck with it," he concluded, sagging. She scratched behind Casper's ears thoughtfully.
"The spell is designed to be altered with the natural events of your life. Its worker may not have anticipated your wanting it loosened so young, but..."
"You can loosen it? What does that even mean?"
Thinking, she settled back for more tea.
"I can grant you a year and a day free from the spell's interference. You would have time to pursue the... relationship... you desire. But the debt must be repaid."
"Yeah, they said you didn't do things cheaply."
She waved a hand, dispelling the comment.
"In terms of cash, I work on a sliding scale. But there are always consequences to these things. The spell would not have been cast by someone who did not intend to follow through eventually. You will have to be prepared for that."
He shrugged.
"Look. I'm seventeen. I'm going to live life on my terms, not anybody else's, no matter who intended what before I was even born."
She nodded slowly.
"Very well. I will loosen the spell... and we shall see what comes of it."
Three Weeks
"Aunt Mary? Hey, look, if you're not busy, I'd just like to ask, what the fuck?"
"Language, Andrew," his aunt tsked automatically, then did a double-take. "And what are you talking about?"
"You and Uncle Dave!" he exclaimed. "Je-- Sheesh, you too have been totally freaking insane this whole week. What's going on?"
She tried to summon a smile, then started looking even more freaked out.
"I'm sure you're just imagining things," she soothed, and ducked into the laundry room.
He stood in the hallway making faces at the door while she emptied the dryer.
Life had gotten seriously weird ever since he and Aaron had started getting serious. Not that Aaron was the problem -- he was in his first year at college, so he was pretty busy, but he was patient, and adorable, and really, really hot. No, it was that somehow, since the creepy wizard-for-hire LeJeune sent him to the even creepier witch Maeve, and she'd lifted his curse, it seemed like everything was out to get him.
He'd never had so many bruises in his life. It was starting to get better, but especially that first week, he'd bumped into so many things he started worrying he was going to batter himself to death. And he'd had more close calls than he wanted to admit -- whatever else that protection spell did, it had at least kept him from walking out into the street without checking for traffic, or trying to run into third base with an untied shoelace, or carrying a tray of snacks up to his bedroom without dropping a full glass of cola.
On top of that, his aunt and uncle had been acting really weird, ever since he'd told them about the spell and how he'd had it lifted. At first, he put it down to their freaking over his getting into every possible accident known to man. Then, it seemed like maybe it was because he'd actually started talking about his mom, something he hadn't done since he survived the car crash that killed both her and his dad. But it had been weeks, and they were still acting like there was another shoe about to drop.
Giving up on Aunt Mary, he decided to grab his jacket and head out to the campus. Maybe Aaron could spare him some time between classes.
Five Weeks
Andrew tilted his head a little more and leaned in for another kiss. Kissing Aaron really was fun -- his boyfriend had this neat trick he did on his earlobe, and every once in a while he'd tickle and then they'd have to stop for a while so they could wrestle to see who'd be on top, and it was warm and wriggly and every thing else kissing was supposed to be. Well, not the big love-drama thing, but he kinda discounted that. Yeah, kissing Aaron was fun; he didn't know what he'd been grousing about earlier.
Except that he did. And reminding himself about the things he liked about kissing Aaron wasn't helping.
Bracing himself for the objections, he pulled back.
"Aaron, I really like this, but I think it's time we moved on."
His boyfriend blinked at him, wide-eyed.
"You're... dumping me?"
"What? No." He turned red. There may have been some mental flailing. "No, I meant... I want to do more than kissing."
"Oh. Oh!" The college student gave him an uncomfortable look, then pulled back. He watched, a little bewildered, as Aaron squeezed up against the cushions, barely touching him. "Andrew, I... I really want that too."
He started to smile. Aaron shook his head.
"But I don't think we're ready for that yet. I'm... not good at controlling myself. If we go further, and then we have to stop, I might not be able to. If I got carried away..."
He rolled his eyes.
"You aren't going to rape me, Aar, Jesus. I get that you need boundaries too, I'm just saying, you know, I'm getting kinda frustrated here." He gestured self-deprecatingly at himself, or more particularly, his pants, where a healthy tent had not yet gone down. "How about hands? Hands wouldn't be too much, would they?"
College boyfriend looked startled. Hoping a little physical reminder of just what he meant would help get the point across, Andrew tipped himself onto his knees and began crawling into his potential lover's lap.
"Would they?" he asked again, all innocence as he brought one palm down on the spread thighs beneath him.
"We could do handjobs," Aaron conceded, in a strangled tone of voice.
The teenager grinned. Now this wasn't going to get boring.
Nine Weeks
Andrew groaned into the mouth pressed against his, feeling warm hands stroking over his hips. Aaron was draped over him, a seriously hot blanket, all that bare skin feeling utterly sinful against his.
He hesitated a little, when those hands wormed under him to cup his ass, then decided to ignore it. His boyfriend knew his boundaries, he wasn't worried.
"You have a great ass," Aaron mumbled, and he blinked, but determinedly ignored it in favour of rolling them over and climbing on top. "Seriously."
"Yeah, thanks," he muttered, and bent down to get back to the kissing. Something felt off, though, and he wasn't entirely surprised when he found himself back on the bottom, legs spread wide to accommodate the older man's weight. Again, he pushed back his unease, trying to lose himself in the rhythm of thrusting tongues and grinding hips.
The waistband of his shorts parted from his skin to let meandering fingers in at his ass. Jerking away, he glared furiously at Aaron's flash of irritation.
"Hey! We talked about this!"
"Andrew, babe--"
"Seriously, Aaron, cut it out. You were the one who suggested just avoiding asses until I was ready for anal in the first place, stick to your own damn rules."
The older man huffed, tossing himself back on the bed.
"When I suggested that, I didn't think I'd be waiting three more months. Christ, Andrew, how much longer are you going to make me wait? I moved up to handjobs on your schedule, but we've been stalled here forever."
"Forever? Didn't your mother ever tell you not to exaggerate so much you're actually lying, you bastard? It's been more like a month!" he shot back, bouncing out of the bed for maximum arguing power. "Get over yourself!"
"This is practically painful!" Aaron whined. How he could whine while still sounding like he was in total control, Andrew had never figured out, but just then it was one more infuriating thing on a night when the sex had not been going well.
"Painful would be blue balls, moron, and yours are looking pretty healthy," he sneered. "I'm supposed to be the one setting the limits here. Remember? Virgin?"
"Only because of that damn curse. I bet if it hadn't been there, you'd have lost it years ago."
"What, when I was fifteen?"
Shaking with fury, he jerked his pants back on. Tonight had been meant to be about reconnecting, about remembering why he was dating this college jerk who somehow always had papers to write when Andrew wanted to do something fun, but never when he wanted a quick hand job. Instead, it was confirming his worst fears about the relationship, and didn't it just suck that the guy he'd had a bloody curse lifted for turned out to be too bad to stay with.
"Andrew... Babe... I didn't mean that." Aaron sounded alarmed, probably because instead of nookie, he was getting naked flesh rapidly covered back up.
"You remember when I decided I was ready to move to the next level? When we started doing handjobs? And you thought I was dumping you?" He stared at the man nodding cautiously at him. Honestly, Aaron was hot, but he wasn't all that cute when there wasn't a cloud of sexual tension between them, and Andrew was suddenly quite sure he didn't need that kind of hot in his life. "This time, I am dumping you."
The tears, when he was striding out of the apartment building, were totally irrational. He kept telling himself that, keeping his eyelids fiercely propped apart, trying to get them to stop. Aaron was a jerk, and that relationship had been going bad a lot longer than he liked to pretend. Dumping him was the best -- the only choice, especially if he only had a year to have fun before the curse was back and he had to try to figure out a different way around it. But it still sucked, so there were tears in his eyes, and he hated them.
He was so preoccupied with trying to dry his tears without openly acknowledging them, he didn't even notice that there was another guy on the sidewalk until the man grabbed onto his arm and yanked him back from the road. He spun around, thinking, a mugger is just what this night needs. Then a car roared past, horn squealing angrily, and he realized that this total stranger had just saved his life.
He gaped.
"Are you okay?" the man asked. He nodded, trying to assimilate what had just happened. Dump boyfriend, storm out in tears like a total idiot, nearly get hit by a car, redhead trying to get him to sit down on a bench he didn't remember being there.
"I - yeah. It didn't hit me. You -- wow. You just saved my life. Thank you."
The man smiled at him, and he was suddenly grateful he was already sitting down, because that was an amazing smile.
"You're welcome. I'm glad I was here to save you."
He found himself grinning back.
"Me too."
The bus pulled up. The driver watched them for a minute, raised an eyebrow, then drove on, thinking, idiots think a bus stop's just a place to crash.
"I'm Morgan," the stranger said.
"Andrew," he introduced, and shivered at the responding flash of teeth.