Chapter 7: Waking to Worship
The grey light of dawn didn’t so much arrive as it did seep, a slow silver bleed around the edges of the blinds. Meil woke to it without opening his eyes, a gradual awareness of the room’s quiet shapes. The second awareness was the weight: minimal, familiar, utterly central. A warm, steady pressure on his left pectoral.He looked down, chin brushing his own sternum.
Nate lay sprawled on his chest, head turned sideways, his cheek pressed flat against Meil’s nipple. His lips were slightly parted, each exhale a focused, whisper-soft stream of heat onto the already sensitive skin. Nate’s wings, usually a restless lattice of energy, were folded loose and limp against his back, a dull shimmer in the low light. One tiny hand was curled in a fist near his own chin, the other resting palm-down on Meil’s skin, as if claiming the territory even in sleep.Meil held perfectly still. The bed was warm, his body a landscape of pleasant aches—the deep muscle satisfaction from the garden, the sharper, more recent tenderness from the night. He felt deliciously used, a temple visited with fervor. He watched the minute rise and fall of Nate’s back, a motion that synced with his own breathing.
Then his body, traitorous and honest, responded. The nipple beneath Nate’s cheek, stimulated by the simple, rhythmic warmth of his breath, began to tighten. It hardened gradually, a distinct peak forming under the soft skin of the fae’s face.
Meil bit the inside of his lip. He didn’t want to wake him. This was a private, perfect thing: Nate trusting enough to sleep so vulnerably on him, himself feeling so profoundly lived upon. But the change was unmistakable.
Nate stirred.
A tiny, almost imperceptible shift. A slow blink. His bright eyes, fogged with sleep, opened partially.
He didn’t lift his head. Instead, he seemed to become aware of the texture change beneath his cheek. A sleepy, knowing smile touched the corners of his mouth. He nuzzled in, a deliberate press of his face into the hardened nub, then relaxed again, his smile softening into something content.
“Morning,” Meil whispered, his voice gravelly with sleep.
“Mmm.” Nate’s sound was a vibration against his skin.“It’s saying hello.”
“It’s rude. I told it to let you sleep.”
“I like it rude.” Nate turned his head just enough to plant a dry, closed-mouth kiss on the tip.“It’s an honest greeting. Better than ‘good morning.’” He stretched then, a full-body miniature extension that ended with his wings giving a sleepy flicker. He pushed himself up on his elbows, looking down the vast plane of Meil’s torso, then back up at his face. “You look rested.”
“I feel… settled.”
Nate’s gaze was appraising, tender. He crawled upwards, his knees and hands a delicate percussion on Meil’s skin, until he could sit cross-legged on the broad shelf of his sternum. The dawn light caught the fine blue veins in his wings, making them glow like stained glass.“Settled is good.For a human. You churn so much.”
“Less, with you here.”
“I know.” Nate said it without arrogance, a simple statement of observed fact. He leaned forward, bracing his hands on Meil’s collarbones.“The garden is still with you.I can smell it on your skin. Underneath the soap and the me.” He dipped his head and inhaled deeply at the base of Meil’s throat.“Earth.Night-blooming jasmine. My teeth.”
A shiver ran through Meil that had nothing to do with the cool morning air. He brought a hand up, his finger dwarfing Nate’s back as he traced the line of a wing with the very tip of his nail. Nate arched into the touch, a catlike gesture.
“What’s today?” Nate asked, his eyes closed.“Wednesday.My long shift. Ten to seven.”
A subtle tension entered Nate’s small frame.He didn’t like the long shifts. The house was too quiet, too empty. He’d never say it, but Meil saw it in the way his wings would droop slightly.
“I’ll be here,” Nate said, but it sounded like he was convincing himself.“You could come.Hide in the stacks. Harass the encyclopedias.”
“And listen to Mrs.Henderson complain about the large-print romance novels being too risqué? Pass.” He opened his eyes.“I’ll manage.I have my moss garden to tend. The sparrows owe me gossip.”
Meil smiled. The thought of Nate, six inches tall, bargaining for gossip with street sparrows was endlessly charming.He let his hand fall back to the sheet. “I’ll come straight home.”
“You’d better.” Nate stood, balancing perfectly on the gentle rise and fall of Meil’s breathing. He walked down to his stomach, peering over the edge of the ribcage like a cliff-diver surveying the water below. “I’m thinking of adventures.Maybe the kitchen cupboard.The great upper shelf. It’s been a while.”
“The one with the fancy jam you can’t open?”
“The very same. A fortress of glass and metal. A worthy challenge.” He puffed out his chest, a comically brave gesture.Then he glanced back, his expression shifting.“I miss you when you’re gone. It’s… loud.”
“The house?”
“No. The silence.” Nate shrugged, as if dismissing his own confession, and leapt. His wings snapped open, arresting his fall, and he buzzed in a lazy circle before landing on the nightstand beside the lamp.“Now.Sustenance. For the weary explorer.”
The day unfolded with a slow, domestic rhythm. Meil made coffee, the rich smell filling the small kitchen. Nate sat on the edge of the toaster, legs dangling over the side, nibbling on a single oat he’d pilfered from the box. They didn’t talk much.The quiet was a companionable, shared space.
In the shower, Meil let the hot water sluice over him, washing away the last dreams. Through the foggy glass, he saw a tiny blue shadow perched on the curtain rod, waiting.
Dressed in his standard librarian uniform—soft brown trousers, a cream-colored cotton shirt—Meil stood by the door, keys in hand.Nate hovered at eye level.
“Don’t do anything that requires a bandage,” Meil said. “The little ones are all gone.”
“You used them all on your scratches from the blackberry thorns last month.A tragic waste.”
“Worth it. The jam was good.”
Nate drifted closer, until his feet landed on Meil’s shoulder. He walked to his neck, placed his hands on the hinge of his jaw, and kissed him just below the ear.It was a kiss that held the entire night and the quiet morning in it.“Go. Be wise among the books. I’ll be here.”
Meil turned his head, catching Nate’s small body in a careful, cupped hand. He brought him close and pressed his lips, with immense gentleness, to Nate’s entire form. Nate laughed, a bright, surprised sound, and pushed at his thumb.The house felt different when he closed the door behind him. Not empty, but suspended.Holding its breath.
The library was a cathedral of quiet echoes and sun-dusted motes. The day passed in a familiar pattern: the soft thud of book returns, the whisper of turning pages, the low murmur of assistance given. Meil reshelved, organized, recommended. His body moved through the motions, but part of him remained anchored in the warmth of his own bed, the weight on his chest.Mrs. Henderson did, in fact, complain about the risqué large-print novels.He nodded sympathetically and suggested a nice cozy mystery.
At three o’clock, a sudden, sharp anxiety pierced him. It was visceral, a cold needle in his gut.He fumbled a book, sending it sliding across the polished returns desk. His heart hammered against his ribs.It wasn’t his fear. It was too alien, too sharp-edged and wild.It tasted of ozone and crushed leaves.Nate.
The feeling vanished as suddenly as it came, leaving him shaky and breathless. He leaned heavily on the desk, earning a concerned look from the volunteer at the computer terminal.“Meil?You alright? You’ve gone pale.”
“Fine.Just… skipped lunch, I think.” He forced a smile. The rest of the shift stretched before him, an eternity.Every tick of the clock was an insult. The silence of the library now felt oppressive, a vacuum where that spike of terror had been.
At exactly 7:01 PM, he was locking the main doors.The walk home was a blur of twilight shadows and mounting dread. He couldn’t explain it. The connection wasn’t words; it was a gut-deep wrongness.He shoved the key into the front door lock, his hands unsteady. The house was dark.Too dark. Nate hated the dark, always kept a small nightlight glowing in the living room when he was alone.“Nate?” Meil’s voice cracked.Silence.
He dropped his bag, not bothering with the lights, and moved through the rooms.Kitchen, empty. Living room, the moss garden on the windowsill undisturbed.Bathroom, cold and silent.
The bedroom door was ajar.He pushed it open.
Moonlight streamed through the window, painting the bed in monochrome. And there, in the center of the rumpled sheets, was Nate.He was crouched, not sitting.His wings were half-flared, tense. In his small hands, he held something.A shard of something reflective. A piece of the small decorative mirror that usually sat on the dresser, now shattered.
Nate was staring at it, his entire body rigid. Not with fear, Meil realized as he stepped closer, but with a cold, incandescent rage.An ancient, terrible anger that seemed to warp the very air around his tiny form.
He didn’t look up as Meil sat heavily on the edge of the bed.
“What happened?” Meil asked, his voice barely audible.Slowly, Nate lowered the shard of glass. His eyes, when they finally met Meil’s, were not bright with mischief or soft with affection.They were dark, bottomless, and old.Older than the woods. He held up the glass.Tapped it with a finger.
In the reflection, warped and fragmented, Meil saw the room.He saw himself, looming and worried.He saw the bed. And he saw, just for a fraction of a second, something else. A shadow at the window that wasn’t a tree branch.A shape, gone before he could even process it.
Nate spoke, his voice a dry rustle of leaves, devoid of all its usual playful melody.
“They found me.”
The words hung in the moonlit air, cold and final.
Meil didn’t think. He didn’t ask questions. His hands, which had been frozen at his sides, moved. He reached forward, his movements deliberate and slow, presenting his open palms like an offering. Nate didn’t hesitate. He dropped the sharp shard onto the sheet and stepped into the cradle of Meil’s hands, his wings drooping.
Meil gently scooped him up with both hands and held Nate to his chest, right over his pounding heart. He curled his body around the tiny form, creating a fortress with his own bones. Nate’s rigidity lasted only a second before he collapsed into the hold, his face pressing into the soft cotton of Meil’s work shirt. Meil could feel the violent, rabbit-fast tremor running through Nate’s entire frame.
“Okay,” Meil breathed into the quiet room, his voice a low rumble in his own chest. “Okay. You’re here. I’ve got you.”
He held Nate there for a long time, just feeling the tremors gradually subside into sporadic shivers. The scent of ozone and crushed greenery was faint on Nate’s skin, layered over his usual scent of moss and damp earth. Meil rocked minutely, a barely perceptible sway. The terror that had spiked in him at the library made sense now—a psychic echo, a frayed wire of shared panic.
“Talk to me,” Meil murmured when the shaking had nearly stilled. “Who found you?”
Nate’s voice was muffled against his shirt. “My kind. The ones who cast me out.” He shifted, pulling back just enough to look up at Meil’s face. His ancient eyes were glassy, not with tears, but with a cold, crystalline fury. “They felt the claiming. In the garden. It sent out a… ripple. A beacon.”
“The ribbon? The bite?” Meil’s mind flashed to the sharp pleasure-pain in the moonlight, the deliberate mark.
“All of it.” Nate’s small hands fisted in the fabric. “I was careless. I wanted it too much. I didn’t shield us.” A wave of guilt, stark and bitter, washed over his expression. “I led them right to your door.”
“Our door,” Meil corrected softly. He stroked a single finger down the length of Nate’s spine, feeling the delicate architecture of his wings. “What do they want?”
“Me. To bring me back. Or to erase the ‘stain’ of my bonding with a human.” Nate let out a short, harsh sound that was nothing like a laugh. “They saw through the mirror. Scrying. Testing the wards of your home. The glass couldn’t hold the gaze. It fractured.”
Meil looked at the jagged piece on the bed. A mundane object, shattered by an ancient, hostile attention. The cozy reality of his life—the library fines, the lavender sheets, the shared bath—felt paper-thin.
“What do we do?” he asked. The ‘we’ was absolute, non-negotiable.
Nate was silent for a moment, listening to the steady drum of Meil’s heart. Some of the terrifying age in his eyes receded, replaced by a sharp, calculating focus. The mischievous fae was gone; this was a survivor.
“We don’t let them in,” Nate said finally. “The house is your territory. Your presence is a barrier. They can look, but crossing a threshold without invitation is… difficult. For now.” He looked toward the window. “They’re still out there. In the trees. Watching.”
A chill that had nothing to do with the night air crept down Meil’s neck. He instinctively hunched his shoulders, shielding Nate more completely from the window’s line of sight.
“Can they hurt you?”
“Not directly. Not here.” Nate’s gaze was distant. “But they are patient. They can whisper. They can turn the small things. The sparrows at the feeder might become their eyes. The roots of the old oak might press a little harder against the foundation, seeking a crack.”
Meil thought of the friendly sparrows Nate bargained with for gossip, now potential spies. The familiarity of his world was curdling, turning suspect. He took a deep, steadying breath. The air still smelled of laundry soap and Nate. That, at least, was real.
“So we become watchful,” Meil said, the librarian in him seeking a plan, a course of action. “We notice the small things. And we don’t invite anyone in.”
A faint, grim smile touched Nate’s lips. “You’d turn away the postman? Mrs. Henderson with a misguided casserole?”
“Especially Mrs. Henderson with a casserole,” Meil said, and was rewarded with a genuine, if slight, flutter of Nate’s wings. The tension in his own chest eased a fraction. They were terrified, but they were together. This was the deal, wasn’t it? The warmth came with the cold. The garden came with the watchers in the trees.
Nate nestled closer. “I am sorry, Meil. For bringing this to your quiet life.”
“Don’t.” Meil’s voice was firm. He brought his hands up, still cupping Nate, until they were eye-to-eye. “You are my quiet life. All of it. The baths and the battles. Okay?”
Nate looked at him, the last of the icy rage melting into something weary and fond. “Okay.” He reached out and patted Meil’s lower lip. “Now, I’m going to sleep right here. And you’re going to stay awake and guard me like the noble, terrified giant you are.”
“That seems like a fair division of labor.”
Meil didn’t put him down. He lay back against the pillows, Nate secure on his sternum, and pulled the quilt up over them both. He left the lights off. The moonlight was their ally now, revealing the empty windowsill, the still shadows. He stared at the ceiling, listening to Nate’s breathing even out into sleep, feeling the weight of invisible eyes on the house.
His own eyes were wide open. Every creak of the settling house, every rustle of the wind in the maple tree outside, was a sentence in a new, dangerous language he had to learn. He mapped the sounds, separating the benign from the potentially threatening. His thumb moved in a slow, rhythmic arc across Nate’s back.
The warmth of the small body on his chest was a compass point. The dread was a vast, dark sea around them. But here, in this bed, was a tiny, defiant shore. He would not sleep. He would learn the new language of his own home under siege. He would watch.