CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Magistar

Biff was good at waiting. He’d hovered on a knife edge of balance the entire day, but Max allowed him to be there, and to help, and seemed to take comfort in his presence. Which was enough. More, really, than he expected.

He’d held his breath at the perfection of it, when Max’s hand gripped his, and they were standing together. He was Max’s familiar. He was Max’s. It was easy, and good, and so very right.

That stupid couch was gone. That stupid house was clean and free.

Max seemed…better. His steps back to the apartment were tired but light. He kept hold of Biff’s hand, and Biff thought he might die from the pure joy of it.

They showered together, kissing open-mouthed and whole-bodied, bone-tired but bone-hard. They slid against one another under the spray, slippery and silken, fumbling like they were both new to this. Rediscovering each other’s noises, and smells, and tongues, until they were panting in an ecstasy of exhausted relief.

Biff let the beauty of it wash over him like the water, now gone cold. He did not worry that the silence still bubbled around them. Silence had held them, warm and sure, all day long. If Max wanted silence, Biff could bask in it. It was, after all, his safe place.

Max led him to the bed, pushed him in, and climbed in after.

Only then did Biff risk speech. “You’ve been awful quiet.”

“I’m testing it out, seeing how it fits.”

“And?”

“Doesn’t really suit me.”

“No. I thought not.”

“Good look on you, though.”

Biff tried not to be thrilled by that statement.

Max nudged him insistently, reshaping how Biff lay to his exacting standards, and then curled against him. “This is okay for now. We can talk later. Sleep.”

Biff let himself fall into slumber, Max’s breath against his shoulder, each warm puff scented with reverie.

* * *

Max lay awake in the quiet dark. Staring blindly into the peace until he realized there was no quiet, not really. The night held the shush of wind through trees, the occasional rush of a car. Beyond that was the relentless sway of the ocean. And there, near him, were the breath and the heartbeat of his mate. This must be the place Bryan visited in all his silent moments. Calm. Loving.

Max felt as if, for a long time, some part of him had been out of alignment – with himself, with the past, with the world. Bryan shifted it back into line. Not straight, of course, just bent in conjunction with reality. I shouldn’t be surprised – he is both a medic and a shifter.

Because he was Max, and never satisfied, he broke the easy quiet. “You still awake?”

The werewolf grunted at him in a sleepy manner that said he wasn’t but would do what was necessary.

“Why did you come when I texted?”

Bryan rolled to his back, snaked an arm about Max, pulling him against his side. Max let out a shaky breath and rested his head on the werewolf's chest.

Instead of answering, Bryan asked a question of his own. Brave boy. “What changed your mind?”

Max shrugged. “Your brother, maybe. He came and talked to me.”

“What about?” A grumble of sibling disgust.

“Responsibility. Duty, I guess, in a roundabout way. Fathers. Dumb decisions.”

“Sounds productive.” Bryan began to rub Max’s back with one big, glorious hand.

“In the end, it hurt worse to give it up, to give you up, than the possibility of failure. Which for me is saying a lot. So, I figured…fuck it.”

“Okay,” said his werewolf, clearly struggling to comprehend. Max supposed Bryan might never really understand – he was a caregiver by nature. He’d shouldered his responsibilities as Beta without even viewing them as a burden. He’d treat becoming a familiar exactly the same way.

Is that the secret? Max wondered. To not see Magistar as a responsibility at all but just what I am now?

Bryan said, almost too softly to hear, “Tell me, Max. Please?”

Max knew exactly what Bryan needed. But those three words stuck in his throat. Too corny. Cheap by the very virtue that they were only words. His mouth was so full of his own wanting that it choked him. He feared the stupid might spill out first and ruin everything.

Finally, he said, “Talking is usually so much harder for you. But I find, with this…I find…”

Bryan shrugged. “Feelings come easier to me. I know what you are to me.”

“If I asked, would you tell me why? Not show me, tell me.”

“Do you need that?” Bryan shifted under his cheek, uncomfortable with the idea, not their position in the bed.

“Yes.” Max nuzzled into that soft chest hair, listening to the brush of it against his chin. Taking comfort and giving it as he felt Bryan relax under the instinctive caress.

“Then I’d try. But I won’t be good at it.”

“Please. Tell me. Why?”

Bryan spoke, voice hesitant and shaking in the darkness. He was careful about his words, as if they were small, sharp fragments of glass to be picked up and disposed of with caution.

“Because you smell like caramel. Because you fizz on my tongue. Because all your angles are beautiful and you’ve no idea. Because you tilt your chin up when you mock me and lower your gaze when you’re pushed too far but you can’t stop the one from turning into the other. Because you stand too close and it could be a challenge to me, or a test of yourself, or just because you can’t resist my warmth. So I’m always left with fear and hope in equal measure. Because you speak before you think, but you think too much, and sometimes you stop and my world shakes with possibility. Because when I’m with you, there is always more, more, more. So much, it’s overwhelming and not enough at the same time. It’s like running and shifting and running again from perfection to pain to power to pleasure, and I could no more stop loving you than I could stop becoming a wolf. And sometimes, I wonder if this even is love or just a new state of being. As if I have a before-Max, and werewolf, and after-Max. As if a gene for being yours got turned on. And maybe I’d turn it off if I could, but this is me now. I’m yours. Why fight it just for what the world thinks we should be? I’d rather fight the world.”

“Okay,” said Max. “Okay.” His face was wet. He buried himself further into Bryan’s chest hair, the little strands sticking to his damp skin.

“Can I stop explaining now?” The deep voice was a plaintive rumble under his ear.

“Yes.”

“You believe me?”

“I do.” So much he had been given. So many more words, so awkward from a man who already had what he needed. For all Max’s imperfections had already reshaped themselves into paw prints. And Max, who spoke so much nonsense so very often, was silent when faced with the risk that was truth unsaid.

“I’m afraid.” A small truth first.

“Of the responsibility of me loving you? Max, it’s too late. You don’t control that, anyway. You never did.”

Max nodded. “You’re an asshole.”

“Yes, but I’m your asshole.”

Could there be a gayer way of putting it?

“We’ll be okay, Max. I’ll be okay,” said his werewolf. His familiar. His love.

* * *

Biff lifted Max up over him. Max’s breath caught. He sure does like to be manhandled, this prickly, awkward man of mine.

He kissed at Max’s salt-damp eyes. Awed by the faultless flaws of Maximillian Barker, who had allowed himself, miraculously, to be loved. And to love.

Perhaps I don’t need him to say it. He’ll come around eventually.

Every part of Max had been fractured, waiting for Biff. Not so that Biff should repair him – only Max could do that for himself. But a werewolf, who knew all about breaking and reforming, could hold Max while he mended. That was all Max really needed, an unwavering strength. Belief. And all Biff required in return was to be needed. The gift of Max’s imperfections, wrapped in all that imperfect skin.

So he said it instead, the thing he’d been waiting to hear, in case Max thought it was special too. In case Max needed it as a gift.

“I love you.”

Max replied with “You could look under the bandage, if you wanted.”

Biff had been curious. They’d both been careful with it in the shower. He was medic enough to take precautions with any wound, especially one he knew nothing about.

He pulled the gauze carefully off Max’s neck. Underneath was a tattoo, raw and new. A wolf’s paw print.

“What does it mean?”

“I love you, too.”

Something burst over Biff at that, joy and gratitude in equal measure. Incandescence. He folded against his lover, profoundly relieved. I guess I did need to hear it. He nuzzled in near the mark, inhaling Max’s scent, absorbing all of it, absorbing his existence.

“Bryan?”

He murmured a nonsense response. Okay, then, guess I’m Bryan from here on out.

“I’m starving.”

Bryan laughed. “Me too. Want me to cook us something?”

“You can cook? I have landed a prize.”

“I can open packages and put things in microwaves.”

“That’s my big, strong boy. There’s mac and cheese in the freezer.”

Bryan left him and rummaged about, returning a few beeps later with a hot plastic tray of cheesy goodness and two forks.

They ate in silence.

Bryan watched the movement of Max’s throat as he swallowed, shifting the skin under the paw print there. “We’ll need to be trained. You know. This Magistar stuff.”

“Yep,” said Max. “I figured we’d ask your drag queen friend. She seems to know things. And people. And your pack should move into the house. It does need to be fixed up, though. Are they up for it?”

“Love me, love my pack?”

“I wouldn’t go that far. But someone should get some use out of that shit-hole.”

“Alec decided on a pack name.”

“Well?” Max looked interested, even if it wouldn’t be him entering it into the DURPS system anymore.

“San Andreas Shifters.”

“Cute. You moving in here with me, when they move in there?” Max said it so casually, as if it were already decided.

Bryan was thrilled. “If you’ll have me.”

“We’ll have to talk about this tea situation. And I won’t have your brother ruining my coffee again, either.”

Bryan felt the laugh bubble out of him. “We’ll be a great Magistar pairing, you know that?”

Max snorted. “I don’t know about you, Muscles, but I intend to shake them up a bit.”

“I never doubted you for a moment.”

“No, you didn’t, did you?”

“Finished?” Without waiting for an answer, Bryan took the tray and the forks to the sink.

Then he climbed back into the bed with his mate and began kissing him. Starting just under the new paw-print tattoo and following the trace lines all over Max’s body. Until the mage was melting under him, and Bryan wasn’t certain where his kisses stopped and Max’s body began. His lips tingled, and his mind drifted, and his heart shifted and ran, with Max, together. Bryan found that words of love came easier for both of them then, mixed with the noises of passion at which they were both already so accomplished.

Around them, quintessence waited, willing, ready. It was used to waiting – it had waited a long time. And magic came in many forms.