Chapter 14: The Itch of Idleness
The text from Pete was short and left no room for negotiation. Kid’s orders. See you next Monday. Don’t do anything stupid. Kaelen stared at his phone, the blue light washing over his face in the dim morning room. He thumbed over to the crew schedule. His name was absent, a blank space stretching from Tuesday through the entire next week. A week and a half.
He let the phone drop onto the rumpled sheet beside him. A week and a half of nothing. No rhythm of work, no drain of physical exertion, no purpose to the day beyond healing. It wasn’t boredom. It was a hollow, restless feeling, a sense of being a parked vehicle, of potential energy with no outlet. Useless.
He slumped further into the mattress, the movement sending a fresh, dull ache through his left shoulder. The purpling bruise had bloomed overnight into a spectacular galaxy of deep violet and sickly yellow across his back. Every slight shift was a reminder.
A soft scuffle at the doorway. Liam padded in, already dressed in his tiny, tailored jeans and a dark shirt. He held a steaming mug of tea in both hands, the porcelain comically large. He took a careful sip, watching Kaelen over the rim with those sharp amber eyes.
“Saw you were awake.” He set the mug down on the nightstand—a two-handed operation involving a precise hop. Without ceremony, he walked over to the bed, grasped the tip of Kaelen’s lazily curled tail where it hung over the edge, and began to climb. His small hands and feet found easy purchase in the subtle texture of the skin and muscle. He scaled the incline of Kaelen’s leg, crossed the plain of his hip, and finally settled, sitting cross-legged on the firm landscape of his brother’s bare stomach.
Kaelen grunted, the air leaving his lungs in a soft oof. He looked down the considerable length of his own torso at the tiny figure. “Making yourself at home?”
“You are home,” Liam said, unperturbed. He leaned forward, bracing his hands on Kaelen’s sternum. “And since you’re officially a decorative pillow for the next nine days, you might as well be a useful one. We’re going out.”
“Out where?” Kaelen mumbled, closing his eyes. The weight was comforting, a grounding point.
“The south meadow. Sun’s out. No wind. Perfect conditions for a full service.”
Kaelen groaned.
A “full service” was Liam’s term for the meticulous, hours-long process of cleaning, oiling, and checking every square inch of his wings. It was therapeutic for Liam, and usually a pleasant, drowsy experience for Kaelen. Now, with the bruised muscle screaming in protest at the very idea of being touched, it sounded like a drawn-out form of torture.
“Li, come on. Can’t it wait?”
“No.” Liam’s tone was cheerful and absolute. “You let a tree use your wing as a brake pad. The membrane’s probably full of grit and sap. It’ll dry out, crack, and then where will you be? Even more useless. Up. Move your giant self. I’ve already packed the kit.”
Resistance was futile. Liam had that look—the one that mixed clinical duty with a deep-seated need to fix. Kaelen knew it came from the same place as his own protective instincts, just inverted, focused inward.
He sighed, a rumble under Liam’s feet, and began the arduous process of sitting up.
The south meadow was a sanctuary, a bowl of sunlight and long grass hidden from the logging roads by a thick stand of old-growth fir. Kaelen walked there, the journey stretching muscles that pleaded for stillness. Liam rode in the throat pouch, the familiar, safe weight a constant against his collarbone.
They broke into the clearing, and the sun was a physical warmth on Kaelen’s skin. He shrugged off the loose linen shirt he’d worn, letting it drop to the grass. The sunlight immediately sought out the bruise, but the heat felt good, penetrating.
“Here,” Liam directed, pointing to a flat, sunny spot. “On your stomach. And try not to fling me into next week when I hit a sore spot.”
Kaelen lowered himself down with a controlled grimace, settling into the grass and wild chamomile. The earth was cool and solid beneath him. He rested his head on his folded arms, his wings splaying out to either side, the left one stiff and reluctant.
He heard the minute clicks and zips as Liam unpacked the kit from his small backpack. Then the faint, rhythmic vibrations of his brother climbing up onto his back.
Liam’s shadow fell across the edge of the vast, black membrane. “Okay,” he said, his voice all business. “Let’s see the damage.”
The first touch was a cool, damp cloth, wiping away the remnants of yesterday’s sweat and salve. It wasn’t bad. Then Liam’s fingers, probing the area around the leading edge bone, feeling for heat, for swelling.
Kaelen tensed.
“I know,” Liam murmured, his voice softening. “Just breathe through it.”
The probing continued, clinical and thorough. Liam’s hands were impossibly small, but the pressure was pinpoint, unerringly finding every knot, every guarded spasm in the complex musculature of Kaelen’s back. Each discovery was a tiny lance of pain.
“Yep,” Liam muttered. “Sprained attachment. You’ve got a rock in here. Don’t you dare move.”
Kaelen gripped a fistful of grass, the blades tearing. A low, pained groan escaped him as Liam’s thumb dug into a specific, fire-hot point just below his shoulder blade. It was agony. It was also a release, as the clenched muscle finally, reluctantly, began to surrender.
“There,” Liam said, satisfaction in his tone. He moved on, his touch transitioning from assessment to care. He opened a small tin, and the scent of the healing salve—comfrey, plantain, beeswax—filled the air, mixing with the smell of sun-warmed grass.
The application was different now. Not probing, but spreading. Liam used the flat of both hands, working the salve in slow, expansive circles, starting from the periphery of the bruise and moving inward. The salve was cool, then warming, its herbal depth sinking into the tissue. The pain didn’t vanish, but it receded, blurring at the edges, soothed by the rhythm and the intent behind the touch.
Kaelen’s breathing deepened. The fist in the grass relaxed. A low, involuntary purr started in his chest, vibrating through the ground beneath him.
“That’s it,” Liam encouraged softly, his voice close to the membrane. He was kneeling on the wing itself now, his weight negligible. He worked in silence for a long time, the only sounds the rustle of grass, the distant cry of a hawk, and Kaelen’s steady purr.
“You know,” Liam said after a while, his voice conversational, “Pete called this morning. Before you woke up.”
“Mmf?” Kaelen’s voice was muffled by his arms.
“To give me the official incident report. And to say that Drew requested a transfer off his crew.”
Kaelen’s purr hitched. He went still.
“Pete denied it,” Liam continued, his hands never pausing their methodical work. “Said he couldn’t spare the manpower. But I think he just didn’t want to give him the easy way out.” He smoothed salve along a delicate strut. “The story’s all over the yard, Kae. Not about the… the spectacle of it. But about the loader cable snapping, and the swing, and you being the only thing in the right place at the right time. Miller told Pete you moved faster than anything he’d ever seen. Said it wasn’t human.”
Kaelen swallowed. “They’ve always known that.”
“Knowing and seeing are different.” Liam’s small hands stilled for a moment. “I think… I think you changed the narrative. Yesterday, you were the guy with the broken wing. The liability. Today, you’re the guy who stopped a thousand pounds of wood with his body. The specialist.”
The words hung in the sunlit air. They didn’t erase the memory of Drew’s sneer, the weight of the stares. But they layered something else over it. A fact.
“Doesn’t feel different,” Kaelen mumbled into his skin.
“It wouldn’t,” Liam said, resuming his work. “You’re still you. You still hurt. The world’s just recalibrating a little. Give it time.”
He finished with the salve and moved on to the rest of the wing, the undamaged right side, and then the left’s vast, trailing membrane. Here, the work became meditative. Liam used a soft-bristled brush to dust away tiny fragments of bark and dirt, then applied light, citrus-scented oil from a dropper to keep the leathery skin supple. He checked every finger-width of the leading edge, every delicate joint where the struts met the main bone.
Kaelen drifted. The sun baked into his back, a counterpoint to the cool salve. The purr became a constant, a sound of contentment that had nothing to do with thoughts and everything to do with sensation: the safety of the hidden meadow, the meticulous care of his brother’s hands, the solid earth beneath him. The useless, restless feeling began to dissolve, burned away by the simple, undeniable purpose of this—of being maintained, of being kept functional, of being seen, not as a spectacle, but as a living system that needed care.
He must have dozed. He was jostled awake by Liam climbing back onto his shoulder, small and warm.
“All done,” Liam announced, wiping his hands on a cloth. “The bruising will take time. But the membrane’s sound. No micro-tears. You did good, Kae. Not just with the log. With letting it heal.”
Kaelen pushed himself up slowly. The ache was a deep, persistent throb, but the sharp, catching pains were gone. He flexed the left wing experimentally. It moved more freely, the stiffness eased by the heat and the salve and the massage. He looked at his brother, who was now sitting on his knee, repacking his kit.
The sun was past its zenith, starting its long slide toward the trees. A week and a half of this stretched before him—of quiet, of enforced stillness, of Liam’s bossy, brilliant stewardship.
“What now?” Kaelen asked, his voice rough with disuse.
Liam looked up, a slow smile spreading across his face. “Now,” he said, “we go home. And you, you great big invalid, are going to sit on the couch and not move while I make food. And you’re going to tell me what, exactly, you were thinking when you decided to play catch with a full-grown tree.”
Kaelen huffed a laugh, a short, surprised breath. He reached out a single, careful finger and brushed the top of Liam’s head. “I was thinking I had to.”
“I know,” Liam said, his smile softening. He leaned into the touch for a second. “That’s the problem. Now, come on. I’m starving. And you’re my ride.” He picked up his kit and walked up the length of Kaelen’s thigh, ready to climb back to his perch.
Kaelen stood, gathering his shirt. The meadow grass whispered around his legs. The weight in his pouch settled, familiar and right. The narrative had changed, maybe. Or maybe it was just clearer. He was a specialist. He was also a patient. He was a protector. And, for the next nine days, he was fundamentally, undeniably, his brother’s.
He started the walk home, the shadow of his wings, one moving easily, one with deliberate care, sweeping long and black over the golden grass. The uselessness was gone. Replaced, for now, by the simple, sun-warmed certainty of the path under his feet, and the small, vital weight resting just over his heart.