Omg sorry for the late reply, I meant to respond sooner but lost track of things!
Yeah, I was definitely thinking about how Conrad had yet to prove his love, because while it was shown he had liked Aelfric the whole time he didn't act on his feelings. You really summed up what I was trying to achieve! As for Aelfric, there is definitely a lot more to his backstory and the whole Bloodbane thing was just the tip of the iceberg. I'm glad by the end of the story people could see him for who he really is!
Honestly I have such brainworms about them it's not even funny, but yeah Conrad refusing to reciprocate really was because he didn't want to end up hurting him :'^) Like in a way that was how he showed his love however much it hurt. Another thing that is unspoken but true is that Conrad genuinely likes Aelfric for who he is, as opposed to viewing him as a hero, or him being handsome or charming the way most people are smitten with Aelfric :_;
But yeah I will send you the oneshot! Itch.io is a little less intuitive for me because I sometimes forget to check it but honestly I love talking about this stuff because I like dissecting my own characters and work so do not worry about that. I love talking about my ocs like who doesn't lmao