Cantrips: Volume #2: Minor Magics Crafted to Amuse and Entertain

by Joey W. Hill

  Daralyn hadn’t finished high school. Her grades had been dismal for obvious reasons, not from lack of desire to learn. The girl stared down at the envelope, turning it over in her hands. She didn’t open it, but she pressed it against her chest, head bowed over it a long moment before she lifted her face. Her chin was quivering and her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “Thank you,” she said. “I…thank you.”

  She fled the room. Les rose and went after her, dropping a quick kiss on Marcus’s head because he was still sitting on his heels, and squeezing Rory’s shoulder in reassurance before hurrying off in Daralyn’s wake.

  “That’s what Christmas is supposed to be about.” Elaine dabbed at her eyes. “We could have all saved our money and given that one gift, and that would have been a perfect Christmas.”

  Thomas nodded, reaching over to touch her knee. Marcus came back and took his seat between them, though Elaine gestured him forward and gave his hair a motherly stroke. He took the hand with a smile and kissed it, making Thomas’s unflappable mother color a little and smack his shoulder lightly.

  That was Marcus. He knew the right things to say and do when it wasn’t about him. Yet as Thomas rested his hand on Marcus’s arm, his Master turned it over, nudged Thomas into linking fingers with him. When Les and Daralyn returned, Daralyn composed once again, the two girls made Thomas and Marcus stay in place while they brought coffee and dessert from the kitchen. The activity steadied Daralyn, so Thomas was content to stay in his chair, his hand joined with Marcus’s as the family chatted and ate dessert. He noticed Marcus bypassed the coffee and pie too, and wondered if it was for the same reason he didn’t partake. He didn’t want to let go.

  When coffee was consumed and conversation was winding down to the relaxed exchanges of family members comfortable with one another, Elaine checked her watch and said it was time to go home and get ready for midnight mass. Les, Julie and Daralyn were going with her, but Elaine shook her head when Thomas offered once more to accompany them.

  “No, you stay here your first Christmas night together.” She sent an amused glance toward Rory. “Rory will also be delighted to turn in early and let us pray for him. He was up at the crack of dawn taking care of Mr. Grenham’s animals so he and his wife could go pick up their son Ford from the airport in Raleigh. He’s flying in from Afghanistan for a two week leave.” Her fond expression for her younger son became tender as she ruffled his hair.

  “Well, make it a good prayer,” Thomas said. “You know he needs it.”

  “I heard that,” Rory said through his yawn. “Butthead.”

  “Penis breath.”

  Elaine shook her head, but she chuckled, touched Thomas’s cheek, and swept her gaze over him, Marcus and Rory at once. “I’ll pray for all of my boys.”

  That comment had Marcus blinking in surprise, but she left it at that. Thomas and Marcus saw the family out to the driveway, and exchanged one last set of hugs with everyone. Giving them a wink, Julie warned she’d be back in time for pancakes in the morning. She and Les were kidnapping Daralyn for the full night, planning an impromptu slumber party in Les’s room after Mass.

  As they piled in the car and exited the driveway, Thomas lifted his hand in a wave. A deep breath later, he absorbed the fact that he and Marcus were alone. Their first Christmas Eve together.

  “Let’s leave the dishes for tomorrow,” Marcus said, putting his arms around Thomas from behind, pressing his body full against him. Thomas closed his eyes as Marcus’s mouth found his throat, his rich scent surrounding him.

  “You can’t be awake enough for that. You nodded off twice in the last thirty minutes.”

  “I’m awake enough to get inside you. That’s how I want to fall asleep.” Marcus’s hand dropped, thumb hooking inside Thomas’s belt, his fingers curling over his groin on the outside, stroking. “And when I wake in the morning, that’s where I’ll put myself first thing. I want my first Christmas morning memory married to you to be all about tasting every inch of your skin, listening to you begging me to come. I want to see you gripping the sheets, all helpless and out of control, feel your ass squeezing my cock and know that what I want for Christmas is underneath me, all mine. My farm boy.”

  “You really are a greedy bastard.” Thomas turned his head, suppressing a groan as Marcus bit his throat again. He’d been in a biting mood today, and Thomas anticipated he’d be putting those teeth in a lot of dark, delicious places.

  “Do you want me any other way?” Marcus asked.

  “No, Master. God, no. God bless us, everyone.”

  Marcus snorted a chuckle against his flesh, tightened his fingers over Thomas’s hardening reaction. “Tiny Tim isn’t what comes to mind right now. Let’s go in. I want my dessert. Your dick covered with apple pie filling and a scoop of ice cream off your smooth balls will be just the thing.”

  “Christ,” Thomas murmured.

  * * *

  Marcus had gotten a second wind, as he often did. As a result, Thomas would have expected them both to sleep like the dead until morning, but the early years of living on a working farm, followed by the subsequent demands of running the store, early truck arrivals and deliveries, had given him an intuition for when he needed to wake. As such, he came fully out of slumber at 3 a.m. He was alone. He’d cleaned all the sticky pie and ice cream off him before sleep, but Marcus had wanted them both to stay naked, so now Thomas pulled on his new flannel pajama bottoms, one of his mother’s usual Christmas gifts, and went looking for his husband. Not in his home office, the first place he looked. He checked the kitchen, peering out the window to be sure there were no lights on in the barn, despite the fact Marcus had said he wouldn’t do any work until Christmas was over.

  Brow creasing, Thomas moved into the living room where the tree had remained lit, per his family’s tradition, for the entirety of the Christmas Eve night. He found Marcus sitting in a wing-backed chair on the opposite side of the tree, out of direct view of the kitchen. He was so still, Thomas might have passed over him without registering his presence, except Marcus was his true north. Thomas’s senses always pointed toward wherever he stood, breathed, existed.

  His Master didn’t break his fixation with the tree, the expression in his eyes keeping Thomas from saying anything right away. When he finally shifted his glance to it, he noticed there was a new present there, all by its lonesome. It was a carved white pine box with a simple silver bow tied around it. Obviously something that Marcus had brought with him but not put out until now.

  “I didn’t know what to get you,” he said abruptly, telling Thomas he’d known he was standing there. It didn’t surprise Thomas, because his Master always knew where he was, too. The same compass guided Marcus, after all. “That’s what was tearing me up, Thomas. I expected to have problems with the decorating, the tree, all of that. I didn’t expect to get completely and totally fucked up about what to get you for Christmas.”

  Thomas came to him. He slid down to the floor, sitting on his ass, pressing his side against his Master’s leg. Letting him keep the dominant position, thinking it might help. He touched Marcus’s knee and left his hand there. “You said we weren’t supposed to get one another gifts.”

  “Buy one another gifts. I read legal contracts. I see loopholes same as you. Plus, you know I’m a liar when it’s convenient.”

  “No, you’re not. That’s the one thing you’ve never been. Not with me.”

  “No. Not with you.” Marcus’s gaze slid across the room. Thomas noticed now the picture he’d made for Marcus was here as well, propped up on the occasional chair that had been put back in its normal place, caddy corner to the tree, across from where they were now. “I have the money to buy you anything, but I walked into a bunch of different stores, looked online and nothing…none of it matched what I felt inside. It felt like… It was our first Christmas, damn it. I was treating it like getting a gift for the damn baby Jesus, and I just shut down over it. That’s when I realized how utterly fucked up I am about
all this.”

  “Marcus.” Thomas curled his hand around his calf, but then changed his mind and stood up on his knees to lean against Marcus. He put an arm around his back, pressing his forehead hard against Marcus’s temple. “You’re allowed. You don’t have to be invincible around me. How many times do we have to go through that? I’m the person you get to break around. It’s part of the whole marriage deal.”

  Marcus swallowed. Leaning forward, he propped his elbows on his knees, which let Thomas slide his arm even further around him. Thomas shifted so he was on one knee, his other thigh pressing against Marcus’s knee to form a T. “Tell me,” Thomas said quietly.

  “Okay.” Marcus stared at the tree. “I need a cigarette.”

  “No, you don’t. You have me. And we agreed you don’t smoke in the house. You’re not supposed to smoke at all.”

  “Nagging asshole.”

  “Yeah. Tell me. How about you start with what you meant earlier? ‘I almost…but I couldn’t.’” Thomas shifted his touch under Marcus’s thick mane, ran his fingertips over the taut neck beneath. “You almost didn’t come home for Christmas. That’s what you meant.”

  Marcus shot him a glance, his eyes flickering, lips pressing together. “Yeah. I figured you knew. Expected it. That’s when I realized I couldn’t do that to you. That I didn’t want to do that to you.”

  “Thanks. It would have hurt me a lot if you’d done it. Which was why, deep inside, I knew you wouldn’t.”

  Their gazes held, a muscle flexing in Marcus’s jaw. Thomas gripped his shoulder, a quick, meaningful squeeze, before returning to that stroke. He took pleasure in the sloping lines from neck to shoulder, passing over shoulder blades, combing his fingers through Marcus’s hair, then bringing his touch back under it, into that light hold at juncture of shoulder and neck. “Tell me the rest, Master. Please.”

  Marcus sighed, dropped his gaze to his hands. “It’s crazy, how kids still celebrate Christmas, no matter what else is happening. We had a tree at Mike’s, some scraggly thing we stole Christmas Eve when they weren’t watching the lots too closely. Hell, they probably would have given us something free, but we were so used to stealing what we needed by that time, it never occurred to us to ask anymore. We decorated it with everything from cut tin cans to paper chains made out of magazines. We’d even found each other some gifts, maybe not all of them stolen, who knows? Mike cooked us a ham and a bunch of fixings. We sat around a couple of card tables. It was the first Christmas since everything changed with me for my family. I was accepted, and they were my family. And by next Christmas, they were all gone. How is it people who were with you such a short time can mean so much?”

  He lifted his head, looking up at the tree, and Thomas’s gut wrenched as the lights reflected off Marcus’s eyes, glistening with emotions he couldn’t hold back. “I miss them, Thomas. They were the family who knew me, loved me and, even though we were all fucked up in different ways, it still…the closer we got to Christmas this year, the more I remembered that night. Emile sitting in my lap on the floor. I’d hit my growth spurt and felt so manly, holding him like that. He was never big; skinny and average height, built like a scarecrow. He was throwing popcorn at Toby, Mike threatening to kick the shit out of us if we didn’t clean all that up while he drank beer and grinned at us in a Santa hat… He had that look that said he’d probably want a nice blowjob from me before he passed out, but that was okay.”

  Thomas held him. Marcus was leaning against Thomas’s knee, letting him. Even draped an arm over Thomas’s bent knee as he regarded the lights. “I know it’s fucked up, but I loved them, Thomas. They were my first real family. Before I found you and yours.”

  Thomas could feel the jagged lump he heard in Marcus’s voice in his own throat. “I know. I’m so sorry, Marcus.” He pressed a kiss to Marcus’s forehead, rubbed his back. Just held him. They stayed that way for a good long time, Marcus’s head pressed against his as they looked up at the tree. Thomas stayed quiet, understanding whereas another person might vent or weep, Marcus simply leaning on him, holding his arm tight around Thomas’s knee braced in front of him, was what his Master needed.

  “So that was when I figured out what to get you for Christmas,” Marcus said at last. “Christ, you were worried yours was sentimental. I almost didn’t bring mine with me. Hell, I almost threw it away a million times before I even met you, and I never could. I threw away everything else, except Toby’s picture, that one fantastic picture.” Marcus shook his head. “You’re going to have to go open it, pet. I don’t think I have the courage to hand it to you.”

  Thomas brushed a kiss over his mouth and touched his jaw. “You’re afraid of nothing, Marcus Stanton.”

  “Except losing you.”

  “Well, since that’s never going to happen, you’re pretty much fearless. You’re stuck with my unrefined farm boy self forever.” Thomas wiggled his ring finger at him. “You made a vow and the only way out of it is death.”

  Marcus gave a half snort. “You’re not that hard to live with.”

  “Well, you sometimes are, but fortunately I’m Catholic and suicide is a mortal sin.”

  “Not the only thing they consider a mortal sin.”

  “Eh.” Thomas dismissed that with a shrug. He eased away from Marcus, appreciating how Marcus reached for him, squeezing his arm before he let him stretch out to the tree, snag the box and bring it back, resting it on his knees. “This is great carving work.”

  “Yeah. I’ve kept it in that for a long time. The box was done by one of my early finds. Ian Holmberg.”

  “Right. He does fantastic wood sculpture.”

  “This was when he was doing more crafty stuff, but you can see the artist starting to come out in the way he worked the lid.”

  Thomas nodded. A trio of stars was burned into the top. Stain had been worked into the grain, making it look like a stormy sky behind the stars. The middle star was the largest, the Star of Bethlehem. Aware of Marcus’s close regard, Thomas lifted the lid. Looked for a long moment.

  “Unlike yours, the hands that made it weren’t the giver’s,” Marcus said quietly. “But it wasn’t bought. At least not with money.”

  “No. but that doesn’t matter.” Thomas lifted his gaze to Marcus, but his Master had his attention locked on the contents inside that chest.

  “Your mom planted the seed a few weeks ago, when we were first talking about Christmas. She said the tree topper should be picked out together, because it would have special meaning when we brought it out every year. Since you bought all sorts of ornaments, but nothing to cover the top, I guess you felt the same way. Apple doesn’t fall far from that sturdy tree, after all.” Marcus’s lips quirked, but there was no humor in his eyes.

  Thomas was hard put not to rush to assure him too quickly. Understanding his lover the way he did, he looked back down and lifted out the contents of the box. It was a star, created out of twigs and a thorny vine. It was simply made, but whoever had done it had put a great deal of effort into it. Not too much or too little embellishment. The bark of the twigs had been peeled away and a stain used to create a pattern of swirled pale yellow with smudges of gray, the vine a dark green contrast. The whole thing had been sprayed with something to preserve it, giving it a soft luster.

  “I think he stole the sealer, but the rest was probably gathered out of back lots.”

  “Toby?” Thomas asked.

  “No, and yes. He was the ‘artistic advisor.’ Emile. Emile made it for me. For all of us. For that one and only tree we shared.”

  The lights of the tree touched Marcus’s heartrendingly beautiful features, the quiet green eyes, his face for once without a mask of any kind. Just a mix of the boy he’d been and the man he was, who, at his core, was all about loving Thomas. His gaze turned to him now, showing that clearly.

  “He said the vine represented Jesus’s crown of thorns. Said he punctured his fingers quite a few times creating it, but that sort of added to the symbolism, so he did
n’t do anything to protect himself from it. I suspect some of his blood is soaked into the wood. When we put the star on the tree, I remember Emile put his head on my shoulder, wrapped both arms around me and said the star wrapped in thorns was like love. ‘It hurts, but it’s beautiful, too. That’s why I like it. It wouldn’t work if it didn’t have both, you know?’”

  Marcus’s voice broke a little at that part, but when Thomas moved to put the star aside, he shook his head. Getting his resolute look, he put his hand over Thomas’s, squeezed. “Let’s put it on our tree. If you’re okay with it being our first tree topper.”

  “You bet your ass.” Thomas gave him a fierce look, layered his free hand over Marcus’s.

  When Marcus nodded, withdrawing his hand, Thomas rose, pulling the stool Daralyn had used earlier over to the tree. As he stepped onto it, Marcus rose, laying a hand on his lower back to steady him, his warm palm on Thomas’s flesh, bare above the loose hold of the pajama bottoms.

  “Hand it to me, Master? Please?” Thomas asked softly.

  Marcus picked it up, turned it over in his hands, held it a moment. Lifting it to his face, he pressed a kiss against one of the twigs in the middle. “To the family of my past,” he said, then lifted his gaze to Thomas. “For the family of my present and future. Merry Christmas, Thomas.”

  Thomas leaned down, and Marcus was ready for him, their mouths meeting in a long moment of intent contact, a hundred emotions passing between them. Marcus’s fingers tightened on Thomas’s shoulder so when he lifted his head, he found himself held in place, his Master’s green eyes boring into his. “I’ll get better at this. My job is taking care of you, and that means being better at this.”

  “Well, I don’t want to make you think you can get out of harder work, but you pretty much made up for the past few weeks in the past ten minutes. And I take care of you, too, when you need it,” Thomas added, with a severe look. “That’s the way this works. Just remember that.”

  “You really are getting bossy, pet. Last thing I need is a nagging wife.”