Chapter 6: Maritime Surrender
The garden’s dew had seeped into his bones, or maybe it was the memory of it, a ghostly film on his skin that no towel could wipe away. Hours later, seated in the worn armchair with a book unopened on his knee, Meil still felt the phantom brush of cosmos against his legs, the cool claim of Nate’s teeth on his throat. His body hummed with a pleasant exhaustion, but his skin itched with the dried sweat and earthy residue of their night.
“I need a bath,” he said aloud, his voice too loud in the quiet living room.
From within the shadow of a potted fern, a blue spark flickered.Nate zipped out, hovering at eye level. His wings shed tiny motes of light onto the pages of the forgotten book.“A noble idea. You smell like a forest floor. A very attractive forest floor, but a forest floor nonetheless.”
“Thanks,” Meil said, a wry smile touching his lips. He pushed himself up, joints cracking softly. The journey to the bathroom was a short one in the small house, each step on the linoleum echoing. The cramped room was dominated by the old claw-foot tub, its porcelain stained with age but scrubbed clean.He set the plug, turned the taps. The water roared out, a crashing waterfall that quickly muffled the world, filling the space with thick, billowing steam.
He was testing the temperature with his fingertips when Nate spoke from the sink’s edge. “I’m coming in.”
Meil glanced over. Nate stood with his hands on his hips, a droplet of condensation from the mirror landing on his shoulder like a tiny cape jewel. “It’s deep. And hot.”
“I’m not made of sugar,” Nate scoffed, though the way his wings twitched betrayed a flicker of wariness. “I am a creature of earth and air.I can handle a little water.”
Meil didn’t argue. He poured in a generous glug of liquid soap, watching as it swirled into bubbles under the torrent. He undressed slowly, the steam coating his skin anew. When the tub was three-quarters full, he shut off the water. The sudden silence was profound, filled only by the drip of a tap and the soft pop of bubbles.
He stepped in, hissing slightly as the heat scalded his ankles, then his calves, a delicious assault. He sank down, the water rising to his chest, and leaned his head back against the curved rim with a long, gratifying sigh. His muscles, tight from standing still in the garden, began to unknot.
He heard the flutter then, a quick, damp staccato above the water’s surface.He opened his eyes.
Nate was airborne, but it was a struggle.The steam thickened the air, weighed down his delicate wings. He was flying low, just above the bubbly sea, his path zigzagging unsteadily. A single, soapy bubble drifted up and burst against his chest, making him sputter.
“Need a lift?” Meil offered, raising a dripping hand to form a platform.
“I have it under control,” Nate insisted, but his trajectory was veering dangerously toward the deep end. With a final, determined push, he aimed for a large, flat bubble clinging to the water near Meil’s thigh. He landed on it with a slight splash, and the bubble held, becoming a precarious raft.
Meil smiled, closing his eyes again.The heat was pulling him under, a warm, weightless gravity. He drifted, aware of the water lapping at his chin, the slick porcelain at his back, the citrusy scent of the soap.
Then came a new sensation: a slight, skimming pressure moving across the surface of the water near his sternum.He cracked an eye open.
Nate had commandeered a fallen leaf from the potted fern—a small, glossy ovate—and was now using it as a canoe. He stood proudly atop it, using a sliver of toothpick as a pole, navigating the bubbly archipelago of Meil’s chest. The leaf slid silently through the film of suds.
Meil watched, mesmerized, as the tiny vessel charted a course across the broad, submerged landscape of him.It circled a lone, dark island of a mole. It navigated the treacherous strait of his sternum. Nate was utterly focused, a tiny captain on a vast, warm sea.
The leaf boat drifted to a halt, bumping gently against the raised shore of Meil’s left pectoral. Nate stepped off, sinking to his ankles in the soft, foamy frontier. He left the boat and took a few steps up the slope, his tiny feet pressing into the flesh with a cool, specific weight.
Meil jolted, a sudden twitch that sent a small wave sloshing against the tub walls.
A light, precise tapping began right on the tip of his nipple, a rhythmic, almost inquisitive beat from a minuscule fist.Meil looked down, his chin touching his chest. Nate’s leaf boat was docked right below, and Nate himself stood there, one hand on his hip, the other still tapping, testing the firm, responsive nub under the hot, wet skin.
“Sensitive?” Nate asked, his head tilted.
“A bit,” Meil breathed, the word barely audible over the thrum of his own pulse in his ears.Nate’s tapping ceased. He leaned forward, his cool, smooth chest pressing against the hypersensitive spot as he wrapped his small arms around it in a loose embrace.He laid his cheek there, listening. Meil could feel the rapid flutter of Nate’s heartbeat, a bird’s pulse against his own.
“You’re so warm,” Nate murmured into his skin, his voice resonating through Meil’s ribs. “From the inside out.The garden’s chill is gone. It’s just you here now.” He shifted, planting a soft, open-mouthed kiss on the same spot, his tongue darting out to taste the clean, soapy water and the salt beneath.
Meil let his head fall back again, his eyes closing.The heat of the bath was one thing. This was another—a concentrated, pinpoint heat that seemed to spiral out from his chest, down his stomach, lower. He was profoundly bare, and not just because he was naked in the water.
Nate released his hold and waded back into the shallow foam, pushing his leaf boat into clearer waters. He poled around to Meil’s other side, his movements slower now, less playful, more ritualistic.
“You let me lead you blind into the night,” Nate said, not looking at him, focusing on his navigation. “You stood there shaking, and you never once reached to take the ribbon off.”
“I promised,” Meil said.
“I know.” Nate stopped his boat again, this time near the curve of Meil’s shoulder.He didn’t disembark. He just sat down on the leaf, drawing his knees to his chest, watching the water drip from Meil’s hair. “It’s a powerful thing, a promise kept.It makes the world… solid. For a creature like me.”
The steam was beginning to thin. The water around Meil’s knees felt cooler. But he didn’t move to add more hot water, didn’t reach for the towel. He wanted the moment to hold, this fragile, steaming capsule of intimacy in the grubby little bathroom.
Nate looked up at him then, his ancient eyes bright in the dim bulb’s glow.“The water’s getting cold.”
“A little,” Meil admitted.
Nate stood, his wings giving a practiced shake, scattering droplets.“Then we should get out. Or…” A mischievous glint returned.“We could stay until we wrinkle. Until we’re both prunes. I’ve always wanted to see what you look like as a prune.”
Meil laughed, the sound echoing off the tiles.The simple, silly offer felt like a gift. He slid deeper into the water, until it touched his lips. “Okay,” he said, the word bubbling slightly. “Let’s be prunes.”
The laughter faded into the water’s quiet lap.Nate watched him, the playful glint hardening into something more intent. He pushed off from the leaf boat, abandoning it to the current, and waded back through the suds toward Meil’s left side.
“I wasn’t finished over here,” Nate murmured, his voice low even in the small, steamy room.
His small hands found the same nipple again, now tightened from the cooler air and the attention.This time, his touch wasn’t inquisitive. It was proprietary. He used his thumbs to stroke the taut skin around the base, a slow, concentric rhythm that drew a sharp gasp from Meil. Then he bent, his mouth closing over the peak with a soft, insistent suction.
Meil’s back arched, pressing his spine against the hard porcelain. The dual sensation was maddening—the cooling water everywhere, and this one sharp, cool point of intense focus. Nate’s tongue worked with a precision no human mouth could manage, flicking, circling, then biting down with just enough pressure to make Meil cry out, his hands gripping the sides of the tub.
He released with a soft pop, leaving the skin pebbled and hyper-aware. Nate patted it twice, a tiny, possessive gesture, before turning his gaze across the broad expanse of Meil’s chest.The journey over was slow. Nate didn’t fly. He walked through the shallow sea of suds on Meil’s sternum, each step a deliberate press, a tiny claim staked. The water had cooled enough that Meil felt every footfall as a distinct, cool punctuation on his feverish skin.
He reached the right nipple, already erect and waiting.Nate didn’t touch it at first. He simply stood before it, studying it like a monument, his own chest rising and falling with quick, shallow breaths.
“You see?” he said, almost to himself.“This one’s jealous. It’s been waiting.”
He leaned forward and blew a soft, cool stream of air across the wet tip.
Meil shuddered violently, a wave sloshing over the rim onto the floor. The sensation was electric, a shock that didn’t end in his chest but shot directly down his spine, pooling in a thick, heavy heat low in his belly. His cock, half-hard until now, swelled abruptly against his thigh, the water feeling suddenly insufficient to hide it.
Nate smiled, a flash of bright satisfaction. He pressed his open mouth against the side of the nipple, not taking it, just letting the heat of his breath and the cool of his lips contrast. Then his tongue darted out, a quick, wet stripe from base to peak.
“Oh, god,” Meil choked out, his head falling back against the tub with a dull thunk.
Nate continued, his movements becoming a slow, torturous liturgy. He licked, he sucked lightly, he grazed the sensitive skin with the edges of his teeth. He kissed around it, his small hands bracing against Meil’s pectoral for leverage. Each touch was sharp, exquisitely delicate, and devastatingly precise.
The heat in Meil’s lower belly coiled tighter, a spring wound to its limit. His blood pounded, a dull roar in his ears that muffled the drip of the tap. His nipples, both of them, felt swollen and sensitized, each pulse of his heart echoing in them. And his cock ached, full and heavy, straining upward through the water’s surface, breaking the plane of the bubbles into the cooler air.
He was completely at the mercy of a six-inch creature, and the surrender was absolute, terrifying, and perfect.
Nate pulled back, his own breathing ragged. He looked down at the evidence of his work—the flushed skin, the desperate rigidity of Meil’s body—then up at Meil’s face, his eyes clenched shut, teeth dug into his lower lip.
“Look at me,” Nate commanded, his voice husky but clear.Meil forced his eyes open. The world was a bleary, steamy halo around Nate’s glowing, fierce form.
Nate placed a tiny hand flat over the abused nipple, feeling the frantic heartbeat beneath. “Mine,” he whispered, the word final.“All of this.You gave it in the garden. You’re giving it now.”
He didn’t wait for a response. He stepped back into the water, his wings giving a feeble, damp flutter as he moved toward the tap.“The water’s cold. We’re getting out.”
Meil could only nod, his body humming, his need a live wire. The moment was over, but the momentum of it carried him forward, gasping, into the chilly air of the bathroom.
The moment was over, but the momentum of it carried him forward, gasping, into the chilly air of the bathroom. Water sluiced off him in great sheets, puddling on the linoleum around his feet. He grabbed a towel from the rack, its terrycloth rough against his palms.
He dragged it over his head once, twice, a hurried and perfunctory motion. The fibers caught on his still-erect nipples, a sharp burst of sensation that made him gasp again. He barely gave himself time to dry off, feeling the desperation for his tiny friend’s attention on his body. Dampness still beaded on his back, his legs, as he flung the towel over the curtain rod.
“You’re in a rush,” Nate observed. He was perched on the lip of the sink, wings slowly fanning to dry them, his gaze tracking every drip.
“Cold,” Meil muttered, the word thick in his throat.It wasn’t the air. It was the emptiness where Nate’s mouth had been.
“Hmm.” Nate pushed off, a wobbly flight through the residual steam that landed him on Meil’s bare shoulder.His small feet were cool, grounding. “You’re trembling.”
Meil didn’t answer. He just turned, water from his hair spotting the floor, and walked the few steps into the darkened bedroom. The moon through the window painted a long, silver rectangle across the rumpled duvet. He stood in its light, skin glowing pale, still panting slightly.
Nate’s hand came up, his fingers tracing the line of Meil’s jaw.“All that heat from the bath,” he murmured. “And now you’re cold everywhere else. That’s not fair.”
“Then do something about it,” Meil said, the challenge raw and immediate.Nate laughed, a soft, dark sound. He walked down the slope of Meil’s collarbone, his path deliberate. He stopped over the pounding pulse in Meil’s throat, placing both hands flat against the skin as if quieting a frantic bird.Then he leaned down and bit.It wasn’t the grazing promise from the garden. This was a sharp, unequivocal claim. Meil cried out, his hands flying up but hovering, unsure where to land without crushing the fae. The pain was bright, specific, a anchor in the swirling need.Nate released, licking the small mark. “Mine is a claiming that stays,” he whispered against the wet skin.“I know,” Meil breathed.
“Do you?” Nate continued his journey south, over the damp terrain of chest and abdomen. Meil’s muscles jumped under the touch. He was entirely on display in the moonlight, every shiver, every quickened breath.Nate reached the trail of hair leading down from his navel. He didn’t follow it. He knelt there, his small form a silhouette against Meil’s stomach, and placed a single, open-mouthed kiss just above the hip bone. Meil’s entire body tensed, a bowstring pulled tight.
“You’re still wet,” Nate said, his voice muffled against the skin.
“I know.”
“You’ll get the sheets all damp.”
“I don’t care.”
Nate looked up then, his eyes catching the moon glow. “You’re getting desperate. It’s written all over you.” He said it not as a tease, but as a fact.A coveted discovery.Meil’s cheeks burned. He couldn’t deny it. The careful control of the garden, the patient stillness in the bath, had burned away.What remained was a pure, unadorned want. He was laid bare in more ways than one.Nate saw it.He finally, slowly, followed the dark path downward. He didn’t fly. He walked, each step a tiny, cool pressure that made Meil’s breath hitch.When he arrived, he didn’t immediately touch.He simply stood there, looking.
Meil was fully hard, aching, the cool air a torment. He was enormous from this perspective, a landscape of strained flesh and urgent blood. Nate reached out one hand and laid it, palm flat, against the base.The contrast of scale was dizzying.
“So much,” Nate whispered, almost to himself. “All for me.” He leaned forward, pressing his whole body against the length, a full, cool embrace.He turned his head, his cheek resting on the shaft, and listened again. To the blood rushing, to the sheer physicality of the need.
Meil’s legs threatened to buckle.He braced himself against the wall, his forehead pressing to the cool plaster. “Nate, please.”
“Please what?” Nate’s voice was innocent, but the vibration of his words against the sensitive skin was not.“Anything. Just don’t stop.”
Nate pushed off, walking back up until he was level again.“Lie down.”
The command was gentle. Meil obeyed, lowering himself onto the bed. The dampness from his back seeped into the duvet cover, a cold shock he barely registered. He watched Nate hover above him, a brilliant, blue-winged constellation against the dark ceiling.Nate descended, landing on his stomach. He walked up, over the sternum, to the hollow of Meil’s throat. He settled there, a minuscule king on his vast, yielding throne.“Close your eyes,” Nate said.
“Why?”
“Because I said so.” There was no playful lilt now. It was pure, soft authority.Meil closed them.The bedroom darkness behind his eyelids was deeper, more profound. He felt Nate shift, then the delicate, almost impossible brush of wings against his chin. Then, the warmth of Nate’s entire form pressing down, the slight weight a focal point in the universe.
“You are my garden,” Nate whispered directly into his skin, the words seeming to bypass his ears and enter his blood.“My warm, breathing ground. Your promises are the only walls I need.”
Meil’s chest tightened. He brought a hand up, slowly, terrified of dislodging him. He cupped his palm over the small of his own throat, over Nate, creating a dark, warm cave.He felt Nate relax into the shelter of it.
They stayed like that, breathing synchronizing in the quiet room.The desperate edge softened, replaced by a profound, aching ownership. Meil’s body still hummed with need, but it was a patient vibration now, a held note.Nate finally stirred, nuzzling against the fleshy part of Meil’s thumb. “Okay,” he sighed, as if concluding a silent prayer.
“Okay what?”
“Okay,” Nate said, pushing himself up. He fluttered down Meil’s body, a straight line in the moonlight, until he landed on the damp trail of hair again. He looked up, his expression unreadable from this distance. “Now,” he said, his voice clear and impossibly intimate in the dark room. “Now we see.”
“Now we see,” Nate repeated, his voice a hushed promise against the damp skin of Meil’s stomach.
He didn’t move toward Meil’s straining erection.Not yet. Instead, he walked in a slow, clockwise circle around its base, his tiny feet leaving cool, damp prints on feverish skin. Each step was a considered punctuation in the silent room. Meil’s breath caught, held, released in a shaky rhythm that matched the circuit.“You trust me,” Nate said.It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
“Even after the garden. Even blind.”
“Especially then.”
Nate hummed, a vibration Meil felt in his groin.Finally, Nate approached. He didn’t use his hands. He leaned forward, his posture reverent, and pressed his lips to the side of the shaft. It was a kiss so soft, so impossibly light, it felt like the brush of a moth’s wing.Meil jolted as if scalded.
“Shh,” Nate murmured, his breath cooling the spot his lips had touched. “I’m not done looking.”
He kissed another spot, an inch higher.Then another. He mapped the entire length with these ghosting touches, his lips barely making contact. He kissed the prominent vein, traced its path with the tip of his nose. Meil’s hips twitched, a minute, helpless upward jerk he couldn’t suppress.“So responsive,” Nate whispered, his words a tactile caress. “Every part of you speaks to me.”
He reached the tip, a bead of moisture glistening there in the moonlight. Nate looked at it, his head tilted. He leaned close, his face mere millimeters away, and simply breathed.The cool air made Meil gasp, his back arching slightly off the bed.
“Please,” Meil begged again, the word frayed at the edges.
Nate ignored the plea.He turned, sitting down with his back against Meil’s stomach, facing his feet. He pulled his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, just watching. The intimacy of the casual contact, of Nate using his body as a resting place while denying him, was its own sweet torture.
“You’re so warm here,” Nate said conversationally, as if commenting on the weather. “Like a banked fire.”
He tilted his head back until it rested on Meil’s sternum.He gazed up the long line of his body. “I like this view.”
Meil groaned, a sound of pure frustration that morphed into a laugh.It was strangled, desperate. “You’re a menace.”
“I know.” Nate smiled, a flash of that old mischief, but it softened instantly.He pushed himself up and turned, crawling back into position. This time, he lay down along the length, his chest and stomach pressed flush against the heated skin. He spread his arms and legs wide, embracing it fully.
“Mine,” he sighed, the word sinking into Meil’s flesh.Then he began to move. He shifted his body up, then down, a slow, full-length slide. The friction was exquisite, maddening, amplified by the slight roughness of his tunic and the smoothness of his limbs.He did it again. And again.A human-sized stroke rendered in miniature, achingly thorough.
Meil’s fingers dug into the duvet.Sparks shot up his spine. His world narrowed to the six inches of exquisite pressure gliding along his skin. Nate increased the rhythm slightly, a deliberate, rocking motion of his entire tiny form.“You feel that?” Nate breathed.
“God, yes.”
“Every part of me,” Nate said, “touching every part of you.”
It was too much. It wasn’t enough.Meil was shuddering, his muscles coiled so tight they ached. The climb was excruciatingly slow, a steep hill built of feather-light touches and unbearable tenderness.Nate pressed his open mouth against the shaft, not sucking, just holding the heat there. He whispered against it, words Meil couldn’t decipher, just a stream of affectionate sound.
Nate lifted his head. His eyes were dark pools in the dim light, full of an ancient, knowing love. He saw Meil hovering on the precipice, trembling with the effort of holding back.“Let go,” Nate whispered, his command gentle as a breeze. “I have you. I’ll always have you.”
He lowered his mouth and took him in, not with hunger, but with a profound, enveloping sweetness.The sensation was absolute, perfect, and final. Meil cried out, a broken sound, as the world dissolved into a white-hot cascade. It rolled through him in long, relentless waves, pulling him under.
He floated back to himself, disembodied, boneless. The first thing he saw was Nate, kneeling now, watching him with an expression of soft triumph.Nate wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, a simple, human gesture.
For a long moment, neither spoke. The only sound was their mingled breathing, slowing into sync.Nate crawled up his body, leaving a cool, damp trail. He settled in the hollow of Meil’s throat again, a familiar weight. Meil’s hand rose, heavy, to cover him.“You saw?” Nate’s voice was barely audible.
“Yeah.” Meil’s throat was raw.“I saw.”
Nate nestled deeper. “Good.”
Outside, a wind chime uttered a single, clear note. It hung in the night, a echo of the garden, a promise that this, here, was just another part of their shared, secret world.Meil’s eyelids grew leaden. The last thing he felt was the minute, steady pulse of Nate’s heart against his own, a rhythm he knew better than his own.