When Peter had said the witch was going to teach him, Will had expected someone more, well, old.Sage was definitely older than Will, but Will didn’t think the man was even in his thirties yet.He had long-ish walnut-brown hair that flowed around his head in a sleep-mussed mop.The incidental beard Peter had criticized made Sage look roguish, and it really worked with those cheekbones.
Will didn’t really mind that Sage wasn’t wearing a shirt, either.Sage was in good shape—not over-the-top like the werewolf hunter in that movie, but real and firm in all the right places.A tattoo stretching from his back to his lower right abdomen underlined that.It was a raven or a crow, but the design didn’t seem static at all like tattoos sometimes did.The ink seemed as alive as the canvas it was painted on.
On top of all of that, Sage had blue eyes.Kind blue eyes.And while he was still feeling a bit shocky, Will was pretty sure his wolf was taking note of that too.
Doesn’t matter though.He probably…Peter’s probably told him everything about me.
“Got it to hide an appendectomy scar, and no.The cushions up here aren’t spelled.I don’t think,” Sage said.
Will looked away from the tattoo, his cheeks heating.“Sorry.Didn’t mean to stare.”
“Don’t worry about it.”Sage yawned.“So, you good?I mean, feel free to wander around or whatever if you need to be a morning person, but I’m going back to bed.I’m in the attic.”Sage pointed at a smaller staircase at the end of the hallway.
Will nodded.“Not a morning person.And I could do with some sleep, actually.”
“Cool, cool.See you at a more reasonable time of day, then.”
Sage wandered off.Will watched him for longer than was right maybe, but one wing of the corvid looked like it was moving with the shadows in the hallway and…
Will shook his head and looked away.He wasn’t sure what to do with himself, so he stood at the foot of the bed for a while, attempting to process everything that had happened.
In the span of just a few days, his life had changed drastically.He was free.He was going to learn magic.He hadn’t died, but Ed and the pack had, and so had his grandfather.Will’s chin trembled, and he wiped at his eyes.He didn’t want to be a crybaby.And anyway, it wasn’t that things werebad, it was just the strangeness and novelty of everything.
That’s it.I haven’t had this much change happen to me since mom and dad died and since we moved…since we moved in with grandpa.
The wolf part deep inside of Will had the strong urge to follow Sage up to the attic and curl up next to him, but Will couldn’t do that.It was weird, and also, Sage was a witch and probably wouldn’t welcome all the werewolf weirdness.But the wolf still wanted it.A lot.
“You better not try groping,” Will told the cushions as he went to work uncovering the bed so he could try to get some sleep.To his own surprise, he was out almost as soon as he crawled under the rose-scented covers.
The next thing Will knew, it was later in the day, and nothing that had happened had been a dream.Everything smelled of roses.He blinked the sleep out of his eyes, only to nearly pee the bed when he saw something wiggle on the corner of the mattress.
“Fuck.”
Will sat up.His eyes were sticky with sleep, and he rubbed them to get a better look.A cushion.It was just a cushion, an enthusiastic one that was trying to climb back onto the bed by using the other, regular cushions as a cushion mountain.
Guess there was at least one enchanted one in the mix.
Will picked up the cushion, and it smoothed itself around his hand.It was a round yellow one with a button in the center.The shape was probably the reason it hadn’t managed to climb back onto the bed and…comfort him.
“This is just so wrong.”
He tossed the cushion at the door and got out of bed.
He felt like shit, just on a basic physical level.He had to force himself to locate the bathroom and turn himself into someone closer to personhood than zombiedom by the simple magic of soap and water.
Sage had left towels and toiletries out for him, and by the sounds of it, the witch was already up and about.Music echoed up the stairs, some feel-good pop.Will stood at the top of the stairs for a long moment.
It wasn’t the kind of fear that had ruled his every waking moment for the past four years that kept Will frozen to the spot, but down those stairs, there was still uncertainty.And Will wasn’t sure how to navigate it or who to be.Should he try pretending he was John who didn’t have a care in the world?Would Sage demand all the details of what had happened to Will?And when Will was forced to tell him, would Sage look at him the same?
That scared Will most of all, the way he would be seen.He was just some packless pack wolf and not an alpha, he knew that, but Ed had made him something else as well.Will knew he was…broken.Well, maybe not broken exactly.He still remembered who he had been, after all, and the things he’d wanted.But Ed and the pack had been foul, and all that foulness had touched Will, everywhere.
What if Sage found out and no longer looked at Will like a person, but like that bruised apple you kept in your kitchen because you simply hadn’t gotten around to throwing it out yet?Or like the lettuce that had been moved too far back in the fridge and had partially frozen there?
Will’s stomach growled.I guess even thinking of frozen lettuce makes me hungry these days.
Will straightened his borrowed clothes—the pajamas from Mike and Corvin’s house—and went downstairs, trying his best to move quietly in order not to be a nuisance.He could only deal with things as they happened, and if things did happen, at least he wouldn’t have to be afraid of them anymore.
Sage was in the kitchen, wearing board shorts and a T-shirt, and making pancakes.An ancient radio with the shiny antenna out at an angle on the counter was providing the soundtrack to which the witch danced around the kitchen on bare feet.He shook his hips and spun in a circle.
