Shine - Part Six
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
For a minute or so, Aiden and I both sit in silent closeness. Unmoving, unspeaking.
Then Aiden abruptly lets me go and sits up, breathing out a shaky exhale.
I watch as he closes his eyes. “Um - what are you doing?”
“Need to burn off some of this.” Aiden begins shaking out his hands, and tiny droplets of Heliomancer light tumble off of his fingers like drops of water. “Sorry, I just - I can’t fucking believe that we’re actually having this conversation. And I had thought - before you explained, I was afraid that - maybe you…”
Aiden turns his head to look at me, an expression of such immense, overwhelming relief on his face that I find myself staring at him.
Seeing him with newly-opened eyes.
He’s looking at me like I missed you, and I’m just now understanding exactly how far away I was over the last two days. Even though I’ve been right here, I haven’t really been here.
It’s dawning on me that I missed him, too.
It’s dawning on me what this all must have looked like to Aiden. Why he looked absolutely frantic before I explained myself. Why he still doesn’t seem like he’s fully recovered, yet.
Oh, no.
“Oh, Aiden - oh, my god.” My heart drops in dismay, flooding with distress. “I’ve been such an idiot, I - I didn’t mean to pull away from you like that, I - I wasn’t - I was just so-”
I’m stammering helplessly, so I cut myself off and start to reach for Aiden, then draw my hands back and press my fingers over my mouth. Guilt and love and the need to reassure him are confusing my movements. I don’t know what to do with myself.
I stare at Aiden with huge eyes, then kind of lean towards him, then sit back. My mouth silently opens and closes as I struggle for something to say, my hands hovering in the air halfway between us.
Aiden watches me with obvious alarm.
“Jamie,” he says, in an increasingly stressed-out, out-of-breath voice, “You’re giving me like, twenty different cues right now, and all of them are contradicting each other, and you know I’m not good at reading those anyways-”
He breaks off as I throw myself forward, straddle him, and kiss him so deeply that he sinks down on the couch. His fingers, gripping the couch cushions tightly, begin letting off a steadier and steadier stream of shimmering golden light. Less like tumbling droplets, more like a tap left running. Light spills down over my couch and falls to the floor in two waterfalls that disperse on impact with the rug.
I’m only half-aware of it. All my focus is on Aiden, who is melting beneath me, opening his mouth for my tongue, lifting his hands to spread them on my back.
He stares up at me with dazed eyes when I slowly break off the kiss. I stare down into them, hot flames of love licking up through my body and making my cheeks burn. Overwhelming me.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, burying my hands in Aiden’s chestnut hair. “I didn’t mean to make you think - I’m so sorry.”
He lets out a heavy breath, relaxing beneath me. Then he tips forward, rests his forehead against my collar bone. I stroke my fingers through his hair, trying to communicate my love with every touch.
“It was really all because you were scared to talk to me about this, Keane?”
I bite down on my embarrassing answer, which was - yes, really.
Aiden has already knocked me miles out of the old pattern that I was stuck in with my previous boyfriends. The commitment-phobe version of me surrendered and disintegrated beneath his beautiful blue gaze a long time ago. It was actually staggering, how easily Aiden did that to me. How naturally he fell into the center of my universe, like that’s where he always belonged.
But that doesn’t make me good or experienced at having this kind of conversation. It actually makes it much harder for me. Talking about this kind of thing with anybody would make me frozen with fear and anxiety, stress over it going wrong. Over the possibility of fucking everything up between me and the other person. And that was when I didn’t even really want things to last. When I was keeping it casual.
To fuck everything up with Aiden would be something I’d never forgive myself for. And now he’s the one I need to have this talk with.
The resulting hurricane of nerves over the last few days swallowed me whole.
Even looking at Aiden right now, with his face hidden against me - I can feel the wild thrumming of my pulse in response to his nearness. The boundless oceans of love in my heart. I know that he’s something I’d rather do anything than risk.
I could panic all over again. I swallow hard, wondering if maybe I should go get my inhaler.
But… every time I’ve had a serious talk like this with Aiden before, we’ve come out better for it. Even when it was about something painful. I do feel completely exhausted afterwards, but not at all in a bad way. The opposite of that.
It’s closer to the kind of exhaustion I feel after we’ve had sex. That deep, glowing drowsiness, nakedness. That sense of sublime connection and closeness and intimacy. Perfectly worn out, perfectly raw, perfectly warm. A little bit in awe.
And these talks with Aiden usually start off pretty rough, with me freezing up, forgetting everything that I’d planned to say. But inevitably, with him… something happens.
I look at Aiden, his tousled hair falling over his eyes. Those breathtaking, sensitive blue eyes, sometimes so shy and curious and childlike, other times so deeply thoughtful, mature, and calm. I listen to the low, rich purr of his steady voice, feel the warmth of his huge hands on me…
I feel so safe, so secure. The ice melts from my chest. I feel myself yielding, opening up, fusing with Aiden. Ready to give him everything I’d withheld before. I can already feel it starting to happen right now. Aiden’s body heat is seeping into me, his heart beating against mine, his golden light softening everything around us. A deep breath gives me a taste of vetiver, which connects directly with some receptor in my heart and releases a sweep of soothing calm through my veins. It rushes gently but completely over my anxiety.
The cold fear in me gives way to a summery kind of warmth. Like magic. Aiden magic, the invisible kind that he makes himself, without drawing on the Tree. By just holding me in his arms. I find myself breathing with him, and through him.
I squeeze Aiden tightly, then press a kiss onto the top of his head.
“Yes,” I answer honestly, speaking right from my heart. “It was literally all because of that. Nobody makes me nervous like you do, Sugar Maple.”
Aiden holds very still, then huffs out a quiet laugh against my neck. “I - know the feeling.”
“Seriously,” I mumble, burying my nose in his hair. “It’s just that no one has ever meant as much to me as you do, and you know how much my people mean to me, so-”
Aiden lets out a sudden whimpering sound. “Man, please, I can only take so much in one day-”
“Oh, god - I’m sorry!”
“No, don’t be sorry.” Aiden breathes out a soft, pained laugh. He sits back, presses his palms over his eyes again. “Just gimme a second. No, hang on, that’s not what I meant. You can stay on my lap.”
My laughter comes out shaky and unsteady, but full of happiness, like his. I drop myself back down where I was. “Okay.”
We take a second to just hold each other, Aiden radiating warmth in my arms. Some of the overflow of light subsides like a peaceful ocean tide as Aiden gets a hold of himself.
He takes a deep breath when I finally climb off of him and drop to sit facing him. His blue eyes are back to crystalline, finally unclouded by worry. Now he just looks seriously shy, and I’m feeling the same way.
“So,” Aiden says quietly, his gaze dropping to his hands. “Um - kids? That’s - you’ve been thinking about it?”
Showers of nerves move through my chest again, but this time I don’t let them override everything else.
“I know it’s down the line.” I twist the ring around my finger, my cheeks burning. “But I thought maybe it would be good if we got on the same page about the important stuff now. Way before that day actually comes. Right?”
Aiden bites his lip. His intensely blue eyes flit up to my face, glowing. Shy and disbelieving and eager. “Yeah. Definitely.”
There’s a pause, and then he adds - “Where do we start with that?”
“I’m not sure, honestly.” I anxiously pull my knees up to myself. “Guess the first question is whether we both want kids, which, I think-”
I stop, looking closely at Aiden, who has just broken into a warm smile.
“Yeah, okay,” I say, around a little laugh. “The next question is whether we’d want more than one kid, which, again, I think we both…”
I fade off as Aiden’s bright smile grows brighter. I match it, nibbling my lip.
“Alright, there’s the first two things out of the way,” I say dazedly, then nearly laugh again, overcome with relief.
My suspicion was right. Aiden and I are already on the same page about some very big things.
Aiden reaches out and folds one huge hand around my ankle, gently strokes me with his thumb. I take a second to savor the closeness, the warm pressure of his touch.
“You’ve really thought about what that means, though?” he asks softly. “Bringing up a Guardian? And you still want…?”
I open my eyes and nod at Aiden without hesitating, my heart hammering. He blinks hard, then swiftly drops his gaze back down to my foot.
“Okay,” he says unsteadily. “I’m gonna wake up any second now, but okay.”
I laugh, and Aiden laughs with me, then yelps when I give his muscled arm a hard pinch.
“See? No, you won’t.”
“Idiot!” Aiden sputters indignantly.
I dodge as he tries to pinch me back. “Jerkface!”
“Parent material,” he groans, gesturing between the two of us.
“Stop it!” I laugh, then flap a hand at him, flustered. “We’ve got time!”
Aiden stops, the corners of his eyes crinkled up with his huge smile. He leans closer, puts his chin on my bent knee. I smile back at him adoringly, then reach out to twist my fingers into his hair.
“What would we want them to grow up to be?” I ask quietly.
“The kids?” Aiden sits up, his eyebrows knitted in confusion. “Just - who they are, right?”
“Yeah, but what do we want to, um…” I trail off, struggling for the right words. “What do we want to - plant? And try to nurture?”
Aiden understands what I’m asking this time. He falls silent, turns it over in his mind for a long moment before he answers.
“I can think of a lot of things.”
“Well… can you give me some of the ones that are the most important to you?”
Aiden thinks for another silent minute.
“Kindness,” he finally answers. “Honesty. Generosity.”
I stare at Aiden, then drop my head so he can’t see the way I’m smiling. Then I realize that it’s pointless, because he can hear me. I lift my head to find his eyes shining happily, and I know that he’s listening.
“What are yours?” he rumbles, poking my foot.
“Just…” I shrug, still not looking at Aiden. “I’d want them to be loving, and caring, and thoughtful. And brave. Like…”
Like you, I think, but don’t say.
Silence falls over us. I risk a fast little glance at Aiden, find him biting down on a smile much like mine.
Feels like we’re on the same page about this, too.
A burst of courage moves through me, and before I know what I’m doing, I find myself reaching for my laptop. Aiden draws back, watching as I open it up and pull up the page I had been reading about the adoption process.
I hand the laptop to Aiden, who automatically reaches over to the coffee table and picks up the ghost glasses. He uses them sometimes when the ghosts aren’t around, just to read. He slides them onto his nose and draws the laptop onto his knees.
I watch him, my heart swimming with love.
“Whoa,” he says softly, when he gets to the end. “I had no idea that it takes this long. Or that…”
He doesn’t finish, but I have a feeling that the same thing caught his attention that caught mine. The big difference between the wait time for kids and the wait time for babies.
My heart was beating faster and faster as Aiden got nearer to the end of the article. Now it’s going about as fast as I can handle, so I just blurt out the question.
“Would you ever think about adopting a kid first?” My words come out all in a rush, my burning cheeks hot enough to melt. “There can always be babies later, but would you…?”
Aiden lifts his head to look at me, blinking hard behind the glasses.
“I mean…” He shrugs his broad shoulders slowly. “Yeah, definitely. But - the kid might be chosen by the Tree. He might become a Guardian. Isn’t that a lot to pile on the kid? When he’s probably already been through so much painful shit?”
Warm relief starts to spread through my chest as I shake my head earnestly at Aiden.
“I actually think it might be nice for a kid who's been through all that to discover that there’s some magic in this world.” I take Aiden’s hands, give them a squeeze. “And yes, things will be different for him as a Guardian, but he won’t have to take over the whole responsibility when he’s seven, like you did. He doesn’t have to face the hardest part of it until he’s ready. Right?”
Aiden stares at me blankly, then slowly sets the laptop aside. He moves closer to me on the couch, gathers me up into his arms. Holds me with such immense tenderness that I instantly get all melty inside.
“If we did adopt a kid, though, and he became a Guardian,” Aiden murmurs, speaking very slowly, “He’d have to be homeschooled until he gets his powers under control, and understands that he has to keep them a secret. All the kids would. That’s a full-time job, and, I mean - we both really like our jobs.”
I draw back to look at Aiden, shaking my head again.
“It’s only a full-time job if only one of us teaches him. Which, frankly, neither of us are even qualified to do. He needs more than one teacher.”
Aiden blinks at me, caught by surprise. “Both of us?”
“Yeah, both of us. I can do science and math, and teach him how to grow things. You can do P.E., and English-”
“I can do English?” The surprise in Aiden’s eyes redoubles. “Um - can I?”
“You’re always reading poetry, and understanding it, and you read old-timey documents for a living, so yeah. You could teach him how to cook, too, that’s home ec. We have that nice kitchen now.”
Aiden absorbs this for a moment. “That leaves out history.”
“I thought that one was obvious.” I poke Aiden’s ribs. “Kasey and Will, right? Figure Kasey can handle social studies, too. I think she’ll demand to, actually. And if you need to supplement that history class, there’s a whole archive you can show him… I know it wouldn’t be, like, the most conventional education we could give the kids, but I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. And then we don’t have to quit our jobs, we could just cut back our hours…”
I fade off, my gesturing hands dropping to my lap as I catch sight of the look on Aiden’s face.
He stares at me, glowing.
“You’ve - given this some thought, huh?” he murmurs softly.
I blush and turn away, ferociously nibbling my lip. “No.”
Aiden huffs out a laugh, leans in close to brush a kiss onto my cheek. “Bad liar. So bad.”
I suppress a smile, put a hand on his face, and push him away. “Shut up. Whatever. The point is, we could figure it out.”
Aiden takes off the glasses and looks down at them. “Guess - guess we’ll have to make him a little pair of ghost goggles, won’t we?”
“Oh. Yeah, guess we would.”
There’s a brief silence. I think both Aiden and I are having a moment, picturing a tiny, child-sized pair of ghost glasses.
“We’ve both been saying him this whole time,” Aiden says suddenly. “Did you realize?”
I… didn’t realize, actually. But we have. Both of us. We’ll have to make him a little pair of ghost goggles, Aiden said, and I didn’t think twice about it.
I blink at Aiden, surprised.
“Well - you know what we mean. Not necessarily him, just - whoever we end up taking home first.”
“Right, yeah, of course.” Aiden hesitates. “You think it means anything that both of us just started saying that, though?”
“No,” I answer uncertainly, twisting the ring around my finger. “Probably not, right?”
“Yeah, no.” Aiden shakes his head. “Course not.”
There’s another short silence.
“You - you really don’t have any problems with the Guardian thing?” Aiden asks again, his blue eyes searching mine. “Not one hesitation about that?”
I do hesitate, and Aiden catches it. Something falls in his expression, despite his fierce attempt to hide it. I quickly take his hands in mine.
“No hesitations,” I explain softly. “But one request.”
Aiden stops, caught off-guard. “Okay…?”
“If we ever do this, one day…” I take a deep breath. I know what a huge thing I’m about to ask of him. “I think we need to come clean to my parents about what you are. Because they’re gonna want time with their grandkids. All of them. My parents can’t be grouped in with the people who the little Guardian has to stay away from to keep things secret. They - they’ve gotta be in the inner circle.”
Aiden stares at me, silent, blank-faced. Then he lets out a little laugh, heavy with affection.
“Should’ve known it would be a request for someone besides you.” Aiden shakes his head in a dazed kind of way. “It was something for somebody else. Of fucking course.”
He’s half-smiling, but I can hear the nervousness in his voice.
I bite my lip anxiously, then reach over to the coffee table. The note is sitting there, the one that my dad left with the video of us as babies. The one he addressed to both me and Aiden, and signed with Dad.
I pick it up and give it to Aiden, folding it into his hands.
“You know how they think of you, Aiden,” I tell him earnestly. “And there’s no rush. We don’t have to have this conversation with them until the time comes. I understand how hard it is for you to tell anyone, but this - this is super important to me.”
Aiden closes his eyes for a second. He takes a slow, deep breath, then nods.
I let out a sharp exhale, then tip forward and start pressing rapidfire kisses all over Aiden’s face. He huffs out a low laugh, winding his arms around me.
I tuck myself up against him, curl into him, and bury my face in the nook of his neck.
A warm, rich silence gently drapes down over us.
I get the sense that Aiden and I just got through the most difficult part of this talk. We can discuss all of this in more depth later, but… we asked each other the big questions, and found harmonic answers.
Glowing with relief and elation, I sink even deeper into Aiden, suddenly exhausted.
I think he’s feeling the same way. He worked today, coached a soccer practice, cooked all that food, took off my clothes and pinned me down to the couch, then had this talk with me, and he’s been worried as hell for two straight days and nights…
I can feel from the heaviness of his head resting against mine that he’s just as deeply exhausted as I am.
I get up and take Aiden’s hands, draw him to his feet. He lets me, leaves his hand in mine as I lead the way across the living room. He keeps close to me the whole way up the winding staircase.
I come to a stop before we reach our room. I catch myself staring into the other bedroom, the one currently unoccupied. Aiden stops, too, standing right behind me. I lean back against him, smiling to myself.
I reach back and take Aiden’s hand again, give his fingers a tight squeeze.
Aiden holds perfectly still, then slips his hand out of mine. His fingers slide searchingly down my bare lower back until they find the dimples on either side of my spine. Then he gently fits his fingertips into them.
“What are you doing?” I ask, my smile revealing itself in my voice.
Aiden lets out a little exhale, then wraps his arms around me. “Nothing.”
We both fall silent for a moment.
“Three?” I ask softly, looking in at the bedroom.
Aiden begins to glow again, the gentlest, subtlest light from his bronze skin.
“Three,” he agrees, his deep voice velvety with happiness.
I close my hands around his wrists, and his golden light shines brighter. Bright enough that it spills into the bedroom, casting a warm glow over each of the little alcoves in the walls.
One, then two, then three.
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