Super Special Ep: First Day
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. The episode below is NSFW and contains mature content.
Aiden isn’t just running. He’s flying.
He’s always been fast. Has to be, as a Guardian. But today he’s sprinting like he’s trying to take off. He feels like he could outstrip a jet plane on the runway. His sneakers pound the blacktop, and sweat streams down his face. Big breaths of cold, fresh air fill his lungs.
He tips his head back for a second, reveling in the breeze against his face, and breaks into a wide smile.
He didn’t bring his headphones on his run today, but he doesn’t need them. He’s listening to Jamie.
He vaults the mossy wall lining the road and races through the trees, his breaths puffing on the early morning air. The lightest sprinkle of rain is falling around him, cool little shocks on his skin. Feels good.
Even if it was pouring, he’d have gone for a run. He had to. His happy energy is completely out of control, and he needs to burn some of it off.
He woke up to find everything floating. He’s been pouring off light, so bright that he’s surprised he didn’t wake up Jamie when he slipped out of bed at dawn. He’s emitting a soft golden glow, even right now.
Aiden is panting as he runs, but he’s smiling, too. There’s a bright, sparkling feeling all throughout his body that definitely isn’t just the usual rush from a good long run. He feels it everywhere. In his hands, his lips, his throat, his stomach, the soles of his feet. Even in the very tips of his fingers, even in his hair, somehow. It crashes through him in brilliant waves that make him want to laugh or cry or do some combination of both.
He can’t help it. He can’t help but glow with happiness. Not today.
Today he and Jamie woke up for the first time in their bed. In their house.
Dreams that Aiden had never even dared to hope for are coming true.
The deep, complete happiness in Aiden’s chest - it could lift him right off of the ground. He feels like he could reach up into the sky and gather all that beautiful color out of it and into himself, and there would be room for it. He feels like he could do anything.
He couldn’t fucking believe this, even yesterday. There were moments when people were talking to him, and he distantly heard himself answering, but really he was in a daze, trying to grasp that this is reality. Some days he honestly still can’t do that, not with Jamie.
He can’t believe that this is, at last, the real thing.
There was a long period of time in Aiden’s life where he had truly forgotten what it felt like to be happy. Somehow he got from there to here. He can hardly think how the fuck it happened, but he’s grateful, so desperately grateful that it did.
He bursts out of the treeline and finds himself on the riverbank, sprinting over the soft mud and new green grass. Without slowing down, he flies out onto the surface of the river, the morning fog swirling all around him.
The cold, glassy surface was already stirred by the soft rain, but Aiden sends up sizzling bursts of steam as he runs, making bigger ripples. He races over the water, the wind in his face. He feels dizzyingly light, unburdened, free. Birds flit across the sky overhead. His heart soars with them.
As he runs, his mind goes back to the blissful, waking dream that was his and Jamie’s first night in the house.
Jamie’s nose crinkled up with his laughter. The fluttery gestures of his hands, light as the wind. The sweet warmth of his voice. The way he offhandedly says things so perfect that they take up permanent residence in Aiden’s heart. There were several of those, last night.
And his note, Jamie’s note... it’s been singing so beautifully. Still is. Even now, while he’s asleep.
The music of him flooded every room of the house last night, transformed it into its own universe. Aiden could have spent an eternity in motionless silence, just listening.
He listens now, as he races along the surface of the river. He lets the vibrations of that sweet sound roll through him, over and over again. Then he takes a sudden, sharp breath.
Jamie just woke up. Aiden heard the shift in his note, the stirring of his awakening.
Aiden’s heart hammers against his ribs as he runs. His happiness falters as he anxiously waits to hear how Jamie is feeling. How he feels at waking up in the new house that he’ll be living in with Aiden from now on.
Aiden has been afraid that Jamie might suddenly be struck with serious misgivings about all this. He might wake up missing his old place or having second thoughts about the new one.
Or second thoughts about moving in with Aiden.
Jamie said that Aiden murdered the commitment-phobe in him, and Aiden knows that Jamie can’t lie. But it would kill Aiden to hear even one thread of regret in Jamie’s note this morning, and he can’t stop himself from going cold with nervous anticipation in the handful of seconds between Jamie waking up and Jamie remembering where he is.
Aiden waits, listening anxiously.
There’s an extended pause that seems to go on forever, and then -
Jamie begins to sing.
Aiden’s breath is stolen from his lungs. Everything but Jamie goes silent, even the heavy pounding of Aiden’s own heart.
There’s never been a second when Jamie’s note didn’t sound beautiful to Aiden. It was beautiful enough to leave a permanent imprint in Aiden’s soul when he was fifteen. It was the only thing bright enough to give him light when he was lost in the deepest, darkest places within himself. The spell it casts on Aiden is beyond comparison. Matchlessly sublime.
But sometimes Jamie’s note reaches rare heights. And when it does, it takes Aiden’s note with it.
Their notes interweave, and become a duet. They become music, and the beauty of that music is like nothing else Aiden has ever experienced before.
It’s happening right now, and Aiden has never heard it sound quite like this. This is - this…
Awe falls over Aiden, takes him over completely, and holds him fast. Time seems to slow down. Every second stretches out to be minutes long, and Aiden is running in slow motion down the river, able to see every droplet of water, every burst of steam he sends up. He sees the wind moving slowly through the feathers of the birds taking off from the riverbank. The half-time dance of the early sunlight on the water.
His breath is caught somewhere high overhead, halfway between his body and the vaulted ceiling of the sky.
The duet pours over Aiden like a hymn. The resonance of it hums and vibrates in every atom of his body. Love and warmth pour out from every nuance of their harmony.
The music sweeps up Aiden’s heart, throws an immense wave of shivers through him. He closes his eyes in rapture, lets out a stuttering sound of pure bliss.
His blood is dancing to this song, his soul...
Overwhelmed, Aiden throws his head back and begins to laugh wildly as he runs. He flings his arms out wide and closes his eyes. He feels in love with everything, with the whole world -
Lost in complete abandonment, Aiden unintentionally releases all control over his magic. Before he even realizes what happened, he hits the water and tumbles directly into the river.
He surfaces easily from the gentle current, startled and gasping. The unexpected cold plunge was a shock, and for a second he just treads water, in total confusion.
When he realizes what happened, he bursts into laughter again. He can’t seem to stop himself. Not until Jamie’s note stops doing that, anyways.
Aiden swims to shore and falls onto his back on the pebbles. He lets the rain flutter down onto his face. He closes his eyes and listens to the song of himself and Jamie. He breathes in the music, glowing softly.
Serene warmth rolls through him like bottled sunshine at the sound. His clothes begin to gently steam as he starts to throw off Heliomancer heat. His happy energy still needs somewhere to go, some way to be released. He’s burned off a lot already, but it’s still simply too much for his body to hold.
Eventually Aiden gets back to his feet and shakes himself off, pushing his drenched hair out of his eyes. He could stay here and listen forever, but he wants to get back to the house.
He takes a second to catch his breath, to get his magic back under control before he steps out onto the river. He’s smiling again as he sets off sprinting over its surface, heading back the way he came.
He’s finally doing what he always wanted to do, all that time he spent wandering.
He’s running back home to Jamie.
~~~~
The rain is falling heavily by the time Aiden gets back to the house. It showers down on the green ceiling of the little nature pathway that leads to the gate. Aiden loves this pathway, the bridge to his and Jamie’s world.
He lets himself in and feeds Luna breakfast, then pads upstairs and heads directly for the shower. He takes his time amidst the green tiles, washing off slowly. The steaming hot water feels good after the rain, and… he doesn’t want to go to the bedroom. Not just yet.
Some part of him can’t quite believe that Jamie is in there waiting for him. His heart is jumping wildly at the thought. He needs a minute to calm down.
Eventually he takes a long breath, then steps out of the shower. He catches sight of himself in the mirror as he does. He stops still, taking a longer look.
A memory suddenly rises in Aiden’s mind. Another time he was stopped before a mirror, looking at himself.
It was during the worst and darkest of his drinking days. The point when his hope came the closest to finally collapsing in on itself.
He was drinking and drugging himself into oblivion, keeping himself constantly fucked up. Knowing nothing and feeling nothing was the only thing that seemed bearable, the most his heart could handle.
He was desperate. He just wanted everything to stop hurting.
He did the bare minimum to keep himself alive. He kept moving, never staying anywhere long. But he was so disconnected, so far detached from the world that he couldn’t remember anything he did or saw. As soon as it was over, he forgot it. The hours and days and weeks all blended into one dark blur. He couldn’t tell them apart anymore.
Aiden has very few clear memories from that time. But he does remember that moment, in some tiny hostel, in the middle of nowhere. That moment in the mirror, when he looked into his dull, lifeless eyes, and understood that he was losing himself.
That if he went on like this, he might never be able to find his real self again. Connection severed. Irretrievable. Who he was before, lost.
So what? Aiden remembers thinking, as he stared into his own empty, bloodshot eyes. Seriously, who cares? What fucking difference would it really make to anyone?
Aiden shakes his head, pulls himself back to the present. He gazes into the mirror for a long moment. The mirror in the house that he shares with Jamie.
Reflected in this mirror, Aiden looks so damn happy. He’s having to bite down on a smile, even though nothing happened. His eyes are glowing with bright excitement, with joy. And he can hear Jamie’s note, glowing just the same way.
What fucking difference would it really make to anyone?
Turned out it would have made a difference, after all. A big fucking difference. Aiden shakes his head wonderingly.
He takes a deep breath, then dries off and heads for the bedroom.
He stops in the doorway, smiles when he sees the soft tumble of red hair against the pillows.
Jamie must have gotten up and showered already, then gotten back into bed and dozed off again. He’s asleep on his side, on top of the covers. His velvet-soft skin is damp, glowing softly in the early light. A few glistening droplets of water glimmer in his brilliant hair, and a few more sparkle on the delicate curve of his neck.
He’s breathing slowly, his red eyelashes brushing his freckled cheekbones.
Aiden’s heart swells with love.
He stares at the beautiful bare body laid out on the bed before him. The bed tucked into the alcove, the alcove carved out of an apricot-colored wall. The branch reaching in through the window. The rain tapping against the glass.
For a long time, Aiden just looks.
Then he closes the door behind himself, so that Luna doesn’t come upstairs and surprise him and Jamie. Their first night in the house was perfect, but Aiden wants their first morning to be unforgettable, too.
He goes quietly to the bed and climbs into it beside Jamie.
He tucks his body around Jamie’s body, puts his thigh to the back of Jamie’s thigh. Jamie sighs contentedly in his sleep, then snuggles back into Aiden’s warmth.
Just this sends a sweep of heat through Aiden’s veins, one that makes his toes curl at the end of the bed. He’s always caught off-guard by the instant, powerful responsiveness of his body to Jamie’s. Would probably be really bad and embarrassing, except that Jamie’s body seems to have the exact same kind of responsiveness to his. Aiden can feel Jamie’s pulse starting to pick up as their bodies press together, and he’s not even awake yet.
Aiden takes a moment to consider how exactly he wants to rouse Jamie from his sleep. There are lots of options, lots of good options.
First, he draws away just enough to put his fingertips to the dimples on Jamie’s lower back. Finding them sends a current of warm bliss surging through Aiden’s heart, as it always does.
He begins to lightly touch Jamie’s shoulder blades, tracing their graceful contours.
Wing bones, Aiden thinks affectionately.
That’s what they are. The way Aiden sees it, Jamie is an angel. His laughter is the sound of his wings in movement.
And Aiden can’t stop going back for another taste of heaven.
He pushes his nose into the rich, silky-soft red hair before him and takes a deep inhale. Then he lifts his head a little. From this position, he can see the unruly strand of vivid hair sticking up over Jamie’s temple. He can see the gentle curve of his mouth, just barely open in his sleep. The rainy sunlight kissing his face, breaking softly over his delicate bone structure.
Very slowly and lightly, Aiden begins to pass his hand over Jamie’s body. He lets the glow in his heart fall over both of them. He lets love seep through with every tender, passionate touch.
He works his fingers into Jamie’s muscles, deep pressure in some places, light in others. Kneading and stroking him, gently dragging his fingertips through his body hair. He puts his mouth to Jamie’s neck and kisses it very softly, his lips barely touching the smooth warmth of Jamie’s skin. He lets his breath break against it in a gentle rush.
Jamie’s feet are tangled up with Aiden’s, so Aiden feels it when they flex suddenly, toes curling. He smiles to himself, then keeps going. Keeps Jamie enveloped in slow, lingering caresses as he stirs from his sleep.
He touches Jamie everywhere, follows every subtle nerve connection. He pays special, loving attention to certain sweet spots. He rubs himself up against Jamie, lets him feel just how bad he wants him.
Jamie’s body is responding, answering every current of desire transmitted through Aiden’s touch. Aiden can see it, feel it. He can hear it in Jamie’s breaths, which are growing deeper and heavier.
Aiden is already there. His body is more and more keyed up with each second that this goes on. He knows that he’s looking at Jamie with undisguised hunger in his smitten eyes. A desperate ache is building in him, an all-consuming yearning and craving that he’s helpless against. He can feel the heat of his own cheeks burning.
He puts his mouth to Jamie’s neck and drinks him in, intoxicated. Jamie swallows, and Aiden’s fingers ride the soft movement of his Adam’s apple.
Aiden reaches down and slowly draws his hand up the front of Jamie’s thigh, then higher and higher, all the way up until his fingertips graze Jamie’s cheek. Then they fall over his mouth, tugging on his parted lips.
Jamie takes a deep breath, and Aiden feels the almost imperceptible beginning of a movement. Jamie is about to turn over and face him.
But Aiden is almost painfully turned on the way they are right now. He grips Jamie’s hip suddenly and tightly, holding him in place, and puts his mouth right to Jamie’s ear.
“Don’t - move.”
His voice comes out in a rush, rough and breathless and desperate, melted with desire. He can’t keep the need out of it, can’t even try to.
Jamie stops still. Aiden hears the stutter in his breathing.
Aiden forces himself to go slow, but he lets his hand go anywhere it wants. White-hot waves of desire sweep through him as he bites and kisses and touches Jamie, rubbing their bodies together, pressing himself as close up against him as he can get.
Aiden watches, mesmerized and captivated, as Jamie begins to pant softly. Then deeper and harder, his breaths starting to stumble over each other. As the rosy blush in his cheeks spreads and deepens, slowly turning crimson. As he presses his face into the bed and grasps a handful of the sheets, desperately trying to hold still.
All of this only feeds the flames of the pent-up desire in Aiden. Every gasp and soft cry, every twitch and shudder of Jamie’s body sends electricity snapping and sparking and flying through Aiden’s veins like fire along lines of gunpowder. The ache in him has grown so intense that it’s agony to go on doing only this, to not go further.
Jamie finally can’t hold still any longer. He turns his head and looks over his shoulder at Aiden, panting hard through his half-open mouth.
His eyes are on fire, blazing and burning. Turned the color of burnt sugar. Hazy, imploring, his pupils completely blown out.
Aiden can’t stop himself. He tips forward and kisses Jamie deeply. Luring his mouth all the way open, taking long tastes of him with his tongue. Jamie melts even further back into Aiden, their mouths fused together like they might never come apart.
When Aiden pulls back, Jamie looks almost drunk. His eyes are blurred, his eyebrows drawn up and together, his cheeks fire-engine red.
Aiden takes one look at the expression on that freckled face, and his heart melts into fire that spills through his entire body.
Jamie feels it happen, with their bodies cupped together like this. He feels what it does to Aiden. His breath hitches sharply.
Aiden leans forward again, puts the tip of his tongue to the tip of Jamie’s tongue. He rocks up against him, building even more tension, more friction between their bodies.
A pleading, desperate moan spills from Jamie’s lips and into Aiden’s mouth. The breathless sound instantly annihilates what remained of Aiden’s ability to resist.
But he goes achingly slow, mercilessly tantalizing both himself and Jamie as he brings their bodies together.
Jamie’s hand tightens around the fistful of the bedding that he’s grasping. His red eyebrows furrow, and his eyes shut tightly. His chest rises and falls hard and fast. His mouth has fallen open. His lips are all wet, puffed up from Aiden’s kisses, their color darkened.
Jamie lets out a soft whimper, Aiden hisses through his teeth, and then -
Aiden moans deeply, burying his face in Jamie’s neck. Jamie lets out a heavy, shuddering exhale, trembling from head to foot. His hand reaches back to clutch at Aiden’s thigh.
Aiden’s mind goes blank, momentarily whited-out with heart-stopping pleasure. When it starts working again, it’s reset in a completely different mode. Sensation overtakes everything. All of Aiden’s conscious thoughts have dissolved. All he can do is feel, and gasp air into his lungs.
Aiden’s intimate dreams about Jamie were always so vivid and breath-stealing, powerful enough to drive him wild - so powerful that Aiden had to wonder what even one second of the real thing might do to him. He found out the answer to that question some time ago, now. But still, he’s never ready for the way this feels. It’s something impossible to be ready for.
This is being flung into heaven. This is ecstasy reached and then surpassed. This is a realm beyond ecstasy that Aiden can only get to with Jamie. That he can only get to because he’s with Jamie.
Aiden is swimming deeply in mind-melting pleasure, depths he never imagined. He’d only been floating on the surface, before Jamie. He had no fucking idea.
Panting, he lifts his face from Jamie’s neck. He threads one arm beneath it, then wraps his hand around Jamie’s forehead, so that Jamie’s head is tipped back and tucked beneath Aiden’s chin, held against his throat.
Aiden holds Jamie in place with that hand, lets the other one start to roam.
At the same time, he starts to move, forcing himself not to rush. He wants to do this slowly and deeply.
Tremors begin to move through Jamie’s body as Aiden finds his rhythm. His cheeks are so red, and his hand is gripping Aiden’s thigh like he’s holding on for his life. Aiden is getting a soft gasp of pleasure with every movement, and now a hoarse moan, and now a longer, stuttering one...
Pleasure is pouring through Aiden, too, sweeping his body in molten waves, each building on the one that came before it. He’s gasping, almost delirious with how good this feels, fighting to keep himself at this slow pace.
He drops his head and bites into Jamie’s shoulder. Jamie’s mouth starts moving like he’s trying to say something, but the only word he manages to stammer out is Aiden’s name. The throb of pleasure Aiden gets from this makes him lightheaded.
Jamie turns his head to look at Aiden over his shoulder again, and their eyes lock together.
Aiden’s heart pitches over itself as he looks into those beautiful brown eyes. They’re hazed over with pleasure, but also swimming, overflowing with love.
It’s too much for Aiden. Sparkling energy flies through his veins, threatening to escape as magic, threatening to explode something. Aiden knows it’s pointless to try and catch it, so he tries to divert it into that glittering gold dust light he makes.
The energy does escape as light, but not the kind Aiden intended. No haze of glittering gold bursts into being in the air around him and Jamie.
Instead, lines and threads of golden light wrap around their intertwined bodies, flashing and moving and glowing like miniature bolts of lightning.
Jamie stares down at this new form of light with huge eyes, but even the unexpected magic isn’t enough to distract Aiden.
He can’t go slow anymore. Not after that look Jamie just gave him.
In one swift movement, he gets Jamie up on his knees in the bed. And then it’s all a dream, every sight and sensation so fucking good that Aiden can hardly bear it.
Jamie in front of him, biting down into the bed so hard that his teeth are leaving marks on the sheets. Aiden with a thumb in one of those dimples at the base of Jamie’s spine, his other hand busy drawing sharp gasps and whimpers.
Jamie surprising Aiden by rolling up slowly, so slowly, vertebra by vertebra, until his shoulder blades are against Aiden’s chest, until his head drops back onto Aiden’s shoulder and rolls to the side, so that his breath is right in Aiden’s ear. So that the next moan to come from his mouth is right in Aiden’s ear, too.
Jamie’s cheeks and nose burning so much that Aiden feels the heat of them against his neck, even through the waves of heat that he himself throws off when they do this. It means there’s always a light sheen of sweat on both of them, so that their bodies seem to glide and flow together… and when Aiden moves again, he feels the shiver it throws through Jamie’s body, with Jamie’s shoulders against his chest, his knees sinking into the bed.
The lightning thread traverses their bodies like licking flames the whole time.
Aiden is getting rougher and rougher with Jamie, but the blissed-out look on Jamie’s face tells him not to stop. Each gasp of pleasure is nearer to the one that came before, and now they’re all turning to breathless moans.
Aiden is lost in Jamie’s trembling body. He hisses through his teeth again, not sure how much more of this he can take -
He gasps sharply, shuddering, then wrenches Jamie back against him and keeps him there. A deep, gasping groan of pleasure tears itself from his throat.
Jamie cries out, shivers thrown through his whole body, and then collapses back into Aiden’s arms. Aiden drops his forehead onto Jamie’s shoulder, shaking, overwhelmed with ecstasy.
They stay locked together for a moment, trembling and speechless and gasping for breath. Then they both go crashing forward, tumbling ungracefully onto the bed.
Jamie is crushed beneath Aiden, but apparently happy about it. He lets out a dazed laugh, smiling hard.
And his note is singing.
Again, that music. The kind they only make together. Aiden presses his forehead into Jamie’s shoulder, listening.
Aiden has never in his life known real silence. Not for one full minute. Not even in his sleep. Never had a day without noise, and he never will.
But now, maybe, he’ll never have a day without music.
If he can do this right. If he can keep hold of the panting, breathless slice of heaven in his arms.
“Holy shit,” Jamie stammers, pressing his face into Aiden’s arm. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Aiden laughs, pressing a kiss onto Jamie’s back.
The Heliomancer lightning on their bodies has dispersed, but now a flash of light comes through the mismatched windows of their new bedroom. They both lift their heads to look.
It’s turned into a cold, dark day outside. The rain is falling in thick sheets, blurring everything beyond the garden. A rumble of thunder crashes somewhere in the distance.
“Shit, it’s really coming down,” Aiden murmurs. “Guess we can’t leave our house today.”
Jamie arches a red eyebrow at Aiden, breaking into a big smile.
“Oh nooo,” he says, in a voice rich with happiness.
Aiden laughs again. Love is brimming in his heart, ready to spill over.
He rolls off of Jamie, so that Jamie can catch his breath. Aiden needs to do the same. It’s gonna take him a while to recover from what just happened.
But he has plans for the rest of the morning, plans for him and Jamie. A long, steamy shower. A home-cooked breakfast of pillowy pancakes with syrup and golden drops of butter. Two cups of hot coffee with fresh cream.
Aiden is trying to do what Ariana told him to in her letter. To believe in joy that lasts. But he’s thought about it, and he’s pretty sure that for joy to last, it needs to be cared for. Fed, loved, sustained, nurtured.
Aiden is only too happy to do that. That’s all part of the joy, for him. Not a small part, either.
He’s found the joy that he wants to make last. It has his heart, his unwavering devotion.
Aiden aims to do everything he can to fill every day and night with this music.
To keep his Companion Plant growing happily by his side.
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