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Chapter Text

Autumn crept down the mountain in a red trail of leaves and the crispness had come and laid down so softly this year it had almost snuck up on Milly. Every year when the leaves were brightest she went bow hunting. It was non negotiable even now that she’d started Uni, bow season was still sacred to her. Her brothers and her family all took it for what it looked like on the tin; Milly was just country like that. She’d done archery at school since she was small. It was just facts. No body knew about her angel man hidden up on the mountain and she aimed to keep it that way.

As she drove the squeaky red pick up north her mind was revolving a new truth like a door to a fancy hotel. Her buddy Dominique had sent her a video a while back, of some weird horseshit happening down at the port. It wasn’t a big city, but it was more than a town, and word had gotten out some kind of mothman was hanging out there. She’d seen the pictures with the red coat and the barest outline of wings and her heart had gone into her throat.

But Nai would never.

She hadn’t seen him since she the end of the semester in May. She’d gotten the chance to study abroad and he’d told her to go. And now that she was back she felt less and less good about having listened to him. What if he had come down the mountain and tried his luck in the city like a pigeon?

She’d been begging him to com down off the mountain since she was seventeen. She’d been begging and bribing him to come home with her with books and fast food and her love. And he was so stubborn about it made her cry. He’d never sneak off like that to the city. He wouldn’t know how to be. Besides there was something in the video how the thing moved- Nai was a bruiser in comparison. Sure he had a certain grace that came with a twenty foot wingspan, but this guy- this mothman was squirrely.

Still made her nervous.

She had always thought of Nai as something miraculous and singular. And now more than ever she knew there was something he wasn’t telling her. It wasn’t like her to worry though and she did what she did best and that was crank the radio and sing extra loud, like yeah Stevie Nicks, she wasn't sure if she can handle the changing seasons of her life?

The road was long and winding and she managed to fold her paper hearted fears into something beautiful and crane like before she arrived at the cabin. It was old, half dug into the side of the mountain with a stone foundation and thick log siding. Her family lived here once. It was a historic thing in that regard, a relic that she didn’t want to be forgotten. It had bottle bottoms for windows and a pot belly wood stove from the 1920s she adored. The newest part of it was the front door, she’d replaced it herself her first summer up here- that was it? Eight years ago? She’d painted it blue and now it stood out from the deep yellows and reds of the foliage around it like a sign post as the trail narrowed to just two ruts.

The truck motor was cooling with loud pings as she got out and craned her neck skyward. Sometimes he was right at her- like he’d been waiting. Sometimes it’d be a day or two. But that was when she was up here every chance she got, so she’d thought he’d be here as soon as he heard the truck. Hunting season was posted on the trail head signs and he was meticulous about keeping track of time. But the sky was empty and so was the cabin- though it was clean. He’d been here. She hopped he’d listen someday and move into it. She wasn’t sure where his evil secret lair was, but she was certain at least in the winter the cabin was warmer.

She unloaded her truck with an easy air, kept the truck radio on as she did to make herself known. She’d brought four hefty tubs of gear, linens for the bed, pots and pans, her bow and hunting supplies- everything you’d expect and a milk crate full of a books.

She was still getting settled and wondering if he’d show when she took account of the split firewood- which there was none. Which wasn’t a great sign. One of the things they did while she was up to visit was to chop wood for the winter. She knew he could do it himself, but it was the gesture. Firewood had been the first gift she’d given him that he’d accepted. There had still been a little stacked in May when she’d been last- why hadn’t he started for the winter season?

It was crisp now and the autumn night would drop fast, maybe not to freezing. Too Early for that. So she got to work. Tried not to worry. Though all signs were making her stomach two step.

She got to work turning the big dry rounds left into split chunks. It was methodical work that killed stress like a targeted shot usually. But her mind was still churning that he hadn’t even started on firewood yet and how he hadn’t shown himself yet. Sometimes he would land on the top of the cabin, while she was chopping wood and wolf whistle. And sometimes he walk out of the woods and melt into her arm. Other times he’d knock- usually if it was dark out. And Sometimes he’d be there when she arrived and she’d spill out of the truck and run to him. Sometimes she’d go looking in the woods, chance across him while tracking deer.

Since she was seventeen she’d been trying to bring him inside.

She brought the ax down with a thunk.

When they were young he’d stand out at the edge of the tree line and wait for her to yell at him, to be invited in, like a creature just waiting to be seen.

She tossed the split wood into the wheel barrow, and ax over her shoulder wiped her brow. And that was were she saw him now- at the edge of the tree line. The shadow of a man in the corner of her eye. She let gravity take the ax and embedded it into the stump she was working at. She moved in one great tide of motion and joy, arms going up and a wordless cry.

He stayed stood right there, like a statue of himself in the dapple sunlight of the big beach tree as she approached and wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingers into the down of where feathers met the soft of his hair. Despite all her sweet joy and gentle touch he was rigid beneath her touch like he hadn’t been since the first time she’d thrown her arms around him- she hadn’t thought anything of it then- thought it was just how he was.

“I missed you,” She said into his ear. Sometimes, when she’d been a way a bit, a couple weeks- the last time she’d come back from her semester at Uni even- it was like he had to wait for his words to reload into his mouth- and so it was now.

He made a sound and his hands wrapped around her waist. The tension was still in him, but his hands are speaking in in his familiar touch. He was the only man that has ever made her feel kept, the way he wrapped himself around her with not just his arms but with all the heavy warmth of those wing. Possessive like a hawk over its kill.

She leaned in and down to kiss shim, because she was a good two inches taller than him, and he turned his cheek a bit. And she kissed right him there. His hands were in her hair and on the small of her back but what he said was more a noise, the tch of starting to say something into mumble, and she kissed him on the jaw. It always took him a little time to remember how to talk, to remember how to say please, to remember that he could just kiss her even if he’d been out of tooth paste.

“I missed you,” she said again, more firmly. He had never said it back. And the older she got the more she didn’t begrudge him. She was his only person, as far as she knew, and to admit his loneliness she thought would be too much, especially with how long it was this time.

“Okay” and the gravel of disuse in his voice made her ache. It sounded like first time she got him to say anything years ago. She had worried then that maybe he didn’t know how- that was so long ago.

“Nai? Did something happen?” She said into his ear.

“No,” he mumbled into her hair.

He had not let go of her, his hands held her tight and he’d not let her kiss him yet. She had assumed maybe he was out of toothpaste or maybe he was mad- He knew she didn’t care about the toothpaste; mouths tasted like mouths and she wasn’t picky and she didn’t care about his pride. Pride would destroy him, she thought.

It was almost good he’d been here up in the mountains and not breaking himself on real world or in a city- he’d really never make it as a pigeon. He was a soft thing really. She thought it’d grind him up and spit him out- she’d thought about it enough. About if he was regular and she could take him home- what she’d do with him, how’d it all go. But that was all pretend.

Because in reality he was real and in possession of a 20ft wingspan, and insisted the mountain is the only place for him that was safe.

“I think you’re real...”

“Oh I sure hope I am, silly?”

He mumbled something that was not even words at that. Just a kind of frustrated sound into her neck. So she held him and he did not cry. Not exactly. Though she thought he’d feel better if he did. The last few years of seeing him less had made him needy, almost desperate and the guilt welled up in her.

“I’m very real, but thank you for asking,” She said brightly, “I even brought chicken nuggets.”

That earned a scoff into her neck, almost a laugh.

Usually he was clean when he came to meet her. Something that always made her mind at ease when she thought about him living out there alone. He was living alright some how. He was always very neat. His blue Carhart overalls darned. His boots worn but neatly tied. His hair cut short. He looked like any hick with out a shirt if it wasn’t for the wings.

But he was not clean this time and his hair was grown out, matted where it met his feather on the back of his neck. His feathers were also not so tidy and he smelled like man and campfire and a little bit of booze.

“I didn’t think you’d come back-” he said. So she pulled back and cupped his face.

“It's September 9th. It’s bow season. Of course I’m here. And I’m gonna stay till bow season is over. Just like every year.”

“I thought it was… Later.”

“What did you think the date was?” She asked softly.

He looked away from her, his pride getting in the way. She’d thought he was shy when they were younger but it was more his ego. Being wrong. Not knowing things. It burned him up.

“I don’t know I lost track!” He said finally. It was punctuated not by raising his voice but by a frustrated crack of his pale wings.

He was still letting her cup his face, just standing there in her grasp, his expression best described as wet. He had the kind of pale blue eyes that never looked like they were focused, pupils always too big or too small by their brightened. But looking at her sometimes they pinged like a birds. And the did then as she pet his face and let her anchor him right there with her.

“You lost track?” She asked carefully. The more she looked at him the more she could tell he was not well, the fear in his eyes was all there was. He was usually ecstatic, asking questions, telling her what he’d been up to in an exhaustive list- but he just looked empty. No one was meant to spend so much time alone.

To answer her question he just nodded.

His eyes are so serious and sharp- but that was just how pale eyes are. The way his pupils seemed always too big or too small because of it. How it made her feel like he look through things instead of at her. He was a big handsome man, prone to explosive emotions, but she didn’t blame him not really. He was feral in some very real and valid way that wasn't his fault in her mind. He’d been out here since he was fourteen. And the older she got the less exciting and magical that became and the more it made her stomach twist.

“Well I am right here,” She said twining both of her hands into both of his, “Do you want to help me set up the cabin.”

“Okay,” He said, being deeply serious. He seemed to her to be ever in denial of the intensity of his emotions which swept him up so quickly and released him just as fast- or forced down, she was never sure with him. She watched him try to put himself back together as she swings their arms together. It took him a long moment, but he was out of eye contact and he was pretending he hadn't teared up.

“Did something happen?”

“Can we set up the cabin?”

So that was a yes, she thought to herself. But instead she took him by the hand back towards the truck and the cabin. She’d already done most of the unpacking, but there was a bit of a ritual to it. There was something fun in watching him leap from the back of the truck to the porch with two great wing beats to fetch the milk crate of books. The sight of it was familiar now and lacked the fresh awe of the first few times she’d startled him away from her and back into the sky. But this time, there was something new, beneath his two great wings broad bright like a swan’s was a tangle of two more, misshapen and asymmetrical. That was new. That was very new.

He strode across the porch, all physical charisma- like he’d turned his personality back on and it was a relief. She wondered though, how much of last time in the spring when he’d been so jovial and confident- how much of that was a lie. How much of it was now?

“These are for me?” He asked. As if the answer had ever been no.

“Was thinking of you in the book shop and my hands slipped, the usual,” she said. And he had the audacity to look shy about it. As if she had not told him twice she’d missed him. But then- there was something around his edges that still seemed spooked, unsure, he had admitted he suspected she wasn’t real just minutes ago.

He wasn’t well, but she’d let him pretend a while.

He paused on the steps and set down the crate and dug through it till he pulled out th copy of Gideon Ninth she’d packed on top to tempt him. He flipped the front cover open to read the inside blurbs and used his finger to do so. He was an avid reader but she struggled a bit. Too proud to ever admit it or more likely probably didn't realize he was doing anything worth noting. Didn’t know most people don’t sound out their words after a certain age.

“You’ll like that one,” She said.

“What’s a lesbian?” He asks.

“Um, two girls who kiss,” She said.

He pauses for a moment, “Like Xena?”

“Yeah!” She said with a laugh.

He nodded with the confidence of a learned scholar. But then looked at her like he’d just had a startling revelation; “You said you brought McDonalds?”

“Yeah- hang on,” She said and had to dig the bag out of the passenger side of her truck. There was something in the mundanity, the parts of this visit that usually didn’t lodge in her brain were sticking in her throat. As she came to sit next to him, she tossed him the bag to watch him catch it. He was peeking into it's contents when she sat besides him and he wrapped one great wing around her.

That seemed to solidify something for him- something in the unexpected but very Milly thing of tossing, or the heat of the bag or the smell of it. It was like something in he kicked on smoothed over- she was so very real and good.

Even though the day was cold and the fall air was crisp, he unwrapped the burger like it was a fancy delicacy right there on the porch. Making an indecent noise as he bit into it.

“Splendid,” He said to himself when he saw the chicken nuggets at the bottom of the bag.

He reached for one, and still holding the burger in his other hand made to feed it to Milly.

“Those are yours,” she said, but knew he’d be insistent. Always was.

“They’re good,” He said he said persuasively.

“They’re yours,” she said but let him pop it her mouth and then with her mouth full, “I can get them whenever.”

“I can’t feed them to you whenever,” he said and made her feel awful.

She gave him a little shove for that and he chuckled darkly, “No soda?”

“Ah shit,” She said.

“It’s okay,” he said. and then as punishment he fed her another chicken nugget and then finally ate one himself. “Oh they’re still warm. Magnificent.”

He took all her gifts and examined them one by one while she observed the ritual. He lined up item on the steps near his boots; The MREs, the protein shake powder, the toothpaste, socks, then the best part for last- each book at the bottom.

“Oh more Moomins!” He said.

“Yeah I didn’t know there was more, or I’d have gotten them to you sooner,” She said.

“I’ll consider forgiving you,” He said around his burger as he pulled out the next- “Mmw!” his mouth was full as he got to the Warrior Cat books she’d found. He held all the little middle grade readers in his lap- burger abandoned still half in the wrapper on the step- and looking at her and then the books the way like someone might look at an infant child or a bouquet of flowers or a hundred thousand dollars.

“Yeah I thought you’d like those, i'ts the last part of story, so there’s no more after that.”

And that earned her a serious look that almost made her laugh. His face fell to no expression at all and in the softest dead pan told her; “I love you.”

She paused. In the eight years shes known him, he hadn’t even been able to get an ‘I miss you too’ out of him. Apparently the trick was warrior cats?

“I love you too, Nai.”

He went so red she though he’d choke. She leaned in and finally, he let her kiss him and felt she’d melt there. There was something still a little magical about being so warm beneath the mantle of his wing against the crisp of the air and his stubble against her cheek- which was so normal but unfamiliar on him- God she had missed him. When he broke away, against her best effort to woo him into deepening the kiss, she smirked. He was definitely just out of tooth paste and being silly about it.

“You know I’d move heaven and earth for you, right?” She said softly.

He looked away, anywhere but at her, before his eyes fell back on to the Warrior cat books. He flipped the book over and pretended to read it, “I do. Yeah.”

“Is that why you never ask for anything?” She pressed. And that made his shoulders shoot up around his ears.

He was always avoidant when she asked what he needed. It drove her up a wall when she just wanted to help.

“You already give me so much,” he said like he though she was unhinged for what she’d already done.

“You deserve everything?” She said as simply as she might that water was called rain.

“Milly-” He said ineffectually.

She was already snuggled up close to him, and he was under the porch ceiling so he could not flee upward as he was prone to in an intense conversation.

“-You do!”

He fell quiet and she expected him to start an argument or say something sharp, she did not expect him put his head in his hands. She waited a moment to be sure he was crying. She could tell not just by his shoulders but how his wings shook too, the new extra one pressed against her hip as well. She reached around his neck with both arms and brought him in to her chest.

The warrior cat books clattered down the steps to the gravel.

“You do!” She repeated again as firmly as she could, “And whatever happened, I don’t think you deserved it.”

“You don’t know that,” He said in such a tremendously ragged and broken voice she thought it’d kill her. She didn’t argue with him, it was a scared irrational thing to say and because she knew him, she loved him, she said nothing and just held him.

She should have never left him alone up here, the guilt was welling up in her. That she could say these things to him and mean them. But how her actions had taken her half way across the world instead. He had told her to go. Of course he had. She’d been stupid. He couldn’t, not even now, ask her not leave again. Even though every ounce of him desperate about her, now, last time, every visit before. She’d ask him to come with her- “Are you coming home with me?” always answered “When will you be back?” for years. And all the time, she’d never seen him cry.

When he calmed and finally tried to peel himself away from her she held him tight so that he had to wiggle and then huff.

“Tell me what happened while I was gone,” She said mercilessly but so full of kindness.

“I- It was a bad winter-”

“You didn’t mention that before I left.”

“I didn’t want to worry you-” he said and wriggled out of her hold. He wiped his right eye, the one that had the little beauty mark beneath it, with his palm. He pulled down his eye lid as he did and grimaced, like he was threatening to break into it again.

“Well now you have two extra pairs of wings and actin’ funny! I’m extra worried. Great job.”

He scowled at her.

“You did not let me finish- I had to burn a lot last winter,” he admits. But he said it likes it was nothing. She tried not to think of it- of him having to burn his books because of the cold. For a bookworm like him that was the kind of choice that couldn't have been easy.

“Even- Dune?” She asks. She asks like she was speaking not of a dog eared paper back but a beloved mutual friend.

He makes a face, not quiet a pout, but the ghost of it. “Yes- ”

He really hadn’t said so in spring. And she choose her words carefully when she reminded him; “You could stay here in the cabin you know- when it gets real cold-” she tried to keep her tone cheerful and neutral but he still tensed up.

“No,” he said with intensity.

“Why not?” She demanded. She didn’t mean to be so hard about it, but maybe it was what he finally needed to see reason.

He clammed up, the expression draining out of his face like a washed out watercolor piece. It was the kind of look that preluded him fleeing upward in a clap of feathers and anxious energy.

“I- well,” he said articulately. He lost the ability to make words when he was nervous so she tried not push him. He was some where between boyfriend and beloved outside cat and for the first time she was feeling deeply concerned for him. Going away had made coming back in 20/20 perfect clarity. The more she looked the more he stammered until he spit out; “They’ll find me, Milly Thompson.”

And she didn’t really think that was true, but she suspected he’d convinced himself.

“You know if you wore a big a coat I bet I could take you right through the McDonalds’ drive through and they wouldn’t even think anything of it. How would they know, Nai?”

He held her with his keen blue eyes with a look that said she was being stupid. His face was still empty when he said; “Having nice things makes bad things happen.”

“That’s- that’s not how that works…” She said so low and gentle.

He looked away and she grabbed hold of his arm before he could haul himself up. “Nu uh-- no talk to me. You gonna tell me who is after you? Or do you just think some ones after you- that’s alright too. I know you get scared-”

“You don’t understand-” he said.

“I want to- Nai, I want to,” She said pulling him back to her.

“They found a friend of mine. He was old. He used to let me use his shower- He- asked me to come inside for the winter. And I thought maybe I’d stay there- but they came.” he told her in an uncomfortable rush.

“You can come use my shower if you want,” She said.

“No. They’ll find you too!”

“Nai,” She said softly. She held onto his arm like he was a spooked horse. “I know being up here by yourself is very hard-”

“Milly they killed him!” He cried. She stared at him for a long scared moment, “He wasn’t a good man. But he helped me and they killed him. I can’t be anywhere.”

“What?” She said softly, “Like murder?”

“Yes. Milly, very dead,” he told her with a frustrated lack of inflection. “… Not that being alone...hasn’t been...peculiar.”

She nodded.

“Just. Also. They killed him.” And after another beat of her looking at him incredulously, “They very much killed him. And then came and took him away in the ambulance and they did not use the sirens.”

“I’m so sorry-” Milly said, regretting a good third of the past conversation. She let him ease out of her hold cause he was looking at her like he had no idea what to do with what she just said.“I really am- I didn’t know- I wish you’d told me- was it before I left?”

He just nodded and decided now was a great time to pick up the books he’d dropped.

“It’s fine,” he said. Milly was deeply and uncomfortably aware that is absolutely under no circumstances was fine. And when he’d gathered the books and settled besides her again, still not looking at her, but into his McDonald’s bag, he added; “The nuggets got cold.”

“I’ll get you more.”

“Promise?”

“I do, yeah,” She said. He’d never asked her to promise anything. Never told her he loved before. Never grown more wings before. There was no way she was leaving him when she left this time. This time she was bringing him home. And she looked at him like she could will him into it right now with her mind. “Just you wait and see, okay, every good thing. I promise.”

He was entirely red in his ears and neck and still trying to feign interest in the milk crate's supplies and treats. But his wings poofed up- and she still after all this time was not quiet sure which emotions this particular quirk implied- but he stretched them to their full length then shook them out and laid smooth again. What she did know was that it usually meant the conversation was over, but the amiable silence was short lived-

Because he told her quite firmly; “You shouldn’t tell lies,” And before she could open her mouth more to gape had the audacity to add; “It’s just chicken nuggets.”

“No it’s not. It’s your life.”

And the strangest thing in the world was that he didn’t argue at all. Like he had made up his mind about something and was wearing it like armor against her. He let the silence ebb up and out and away and stretch until it was unbearable and she realized he’d been alone so long she could never beat him at this game.

She heaved a loud sigh of defeat.

And then still sitting besides her, still so close and warm asked very calmly; “Are you going to tell me about Prague?”

So she told him about Prague.

Chapter Text

Prague might have well have been Narnia or Arakiss to Nai as Milly described. It was a faraway place that took Milly away for almost a year, and it was full of old brick buildings, new friends, a new language. He laughed when he thought he should, and sometimes it came natural. Milly was a story teller at heart and even the simple runaround of her first week trying to find bathroom supplies became a journey in her mouth.

Listening to her talk he could pretend maybe that the last winter hadn’t happened. That it was still three summers ago and she would be back to visit him almost every weekend. He didn’t realize back then that those would be the good times, and that they would end.

She had by the end of her stories twinned her fingers in with his, so when she stood to finish unpacking she naturally tugged him after her. She set him to sweeping as she unpacked, and had him help her bang out the old dusty mattress before she put the new lavender scented sheets on it.

Everything was in a familiar pattern. This playing of house they’ve been making for years. All the same little tasks. In the same little order. He hung up the outdoor shower and Milly started chopping vegetables for dinner. All he had to do was go fill the big plastic kegs with water and they’d be all done- and he could take a shower.

He’d been filthy for ages and he felt contaminated touching the fresh scented sheets, and Milly hand, and the clean shiny plastic tub she kept all her camping supplies in.

“When you get back from getting water, I’ll detangle your hair if you want?” She said. She didn’t look up from chopping carrots.

“That’s going to take a while,” He said lowly.

“I know, I’ll do it though,” She said looking up. Like this was some kind of apology. For leaving or making him cry earlier or coming back- he wasn’t sure.

He left with out responding, grabbing the big empty water kegs and shooting skyward in burst of muscly and feathers. The sound of it, the great fwumph, of him going was a divinely satisfying noise to Milly’s ears. The almost shock wave of wind he left in his wake blew grit back into the cabin- and that was less far less divine.

He wasn’t gone long, though the fear that he might not come back leeched into her as she got the stew on to simmer. The sun was just getting behind the mountain, bringing in that golden hour light when he returned, landing with a hard thump like a meteor in the front clearing. He had a keg of water under each arm and his wings, seven of them now, not just the two, staid sprawled out for a long moment as he found his footing as a creature that walked on the ground again.

She tried to see him as she saw him the first time; As something more creature than man and couldn’t not even with the longer hair and additional wings. She’d mistaken him the first time, perched up a tree, for a cougar. Moore from the way she felt watched and hunted before she spotted him than from what he looked like when he spotted him all gangly teen with wings. She hadn’t been sure, not for weeks later, that he even spoke English or could understand her. She’d made the correct decision to offer him her left over chicken nuggets and the rest felt like history. He’d filled out since then, he was big man now, even if she had managed to outpace him height. He could carry those two big kegs full like it was nothing and made her chest hammer to watch him.

She set down the cooking things and gave the soup a stir and hurried out to join him around the back, under the twisted old apple tree they always hung the shower. He was reaching up high over his head to hang it, going on tip toe and wings wide- usually she’d help, she was taller but instead she stopped to gawk. That was her man and he was beautiful in the dapple sunlight. And she felt the incredible pang of guilt for leaving him, but she also knew, had fought with herself that she could not would not make the shape of her life around his stubbornness. She’d do anything for him, but not that.

“Are you being a creep?” He teased over his shoulder. And he sounded like himself, not the awkward scared too much emotion voice he’d had since she’d talked him into believing she was real.

“Maybe~”

“Come here,” He said making a motion with one hand and holding the bag shower up with another, “You’re tall.”

She laughed and trotted over to use her tall for good. She stood next to him hands over her head while he secured it. He looked up at her so close and she grinned, she had kissed him one of the first times just like this. He kisses her on the side of the mouth and says, “Let me get clean, first.”

“Okay, hear me out,” She said unbuckling the left shoulder of his overalls, “I really missed you.”

“Soap first. Or I’ll die.”

She laughed and unclicked the other strap and was rewarded with being able to put both hands on his pecks as he peeled himself the rest of the way out of the pants and threw them to the side.

“Happy?” He asked.

“No I want to kiss you~”

“ Did you bring a tooth brush?”

She pouted. No she didn’t, she left it inside with all other the goodies. Before she could open her mouth to persuade him he reached up and pulled the cord on the shower and down came cold lake water in a rush.

Milly Squealed with laughter and stepped back, her shirt managing to take the brunt of the water.

Nai turned under the stream of water, wings stretching wide, all five of them. Three more than she was used to, and even with just two they had always mesmerized her. Up close she could see that there was more than just five really, and a series smaller ones near his neck flexed in time with the others. He was suddenly more feathers than man as he poofed up and he preened like a parakeet under a sink spigot, wings shimmying and water going every where.

Milly held her hands up to her face and shrieked again as droplets went flying. She was distracted a moment, watching, while he smugly ignored her before she went scrimboling back into the cabin to find the tooth brushes she’d brought for him. When she returned, still pulling the tooth brush out of the packaging, she kicked off her sandals and pulled off her shirt and jumped into the cold water next to him and made him squeal as she jokingly offered to brush his teeth for him- and they went squawking and laughing in and out of the the water until the camp shower emptied and Milly laughed herself to the ground, sitting in the mud puddle the shower had made in the roots of the apple tree.

“Are you happy?” he asked her out of breath, stark naked and laughing.

“No! Brush your teeth!!” she said holding the item out.

He grumbled and took it from her, only half washed and stood there and brushed his teeth. She looked up at him, statuesque in his build like something out of a renaissance painting, only he looked too delighted and annoyed for antiquity.

“You’re insatiable,” He said as he helped her up off the ground.

“You deserve some kisses,” She said and popped right up and kissed him. He made an excellent argument into her mouth that sounded like wuh mih hu. And that made her laugh again. Having to watch him go through six intense emotions while know he didn’t want to be kissed about it had been a peculiar sort of torment for her. This time he let her deepen the kiss and ran his hands through her hair and it felt like what ever tension had been in him mind about losing track of time, or her not coming back, his hard winter- she thought maybe she could kiss it away. He helped her out of her bra and she shucked off her muddy pants and eventually they parted so she could refill camp shower.

It felt good to have a moment of normal between them. Where every and everything could be okay, just like every other time she came up to the cabin. She had missed him. And she yearned for this to be their normal. Her weird man who would wrestle with her over a tooth brush and wash her hair.

“I wish this was everyday,” he said quietly, like he could read her mind about it and like it was a secret.

“It could be,” She told him. He had also said I love you over a warrior cats book, so maybe the old normal was dead. Maybe this time she could convince him to come down the mountain with her.

“You don’t listen,” He said and booped her nose. And then with his other hand pulled the cord for the final rinses to get the soap out of both their hair.

She didn’t start the argument up again. But her gut told her he was being stubborn that being alone so long had skewed something in him. That what ever real danger there was for him, that they could face it together in a nice heated home maybe. She tried not to pout as he walked away to get a towel. He’d made up his mind about something, she was sure, about what she didn’t know yet, but it made her nervous. So nervous. And if she asked him outright he’d deny it, he always claimed he didn’t have many thoughts, that he was simple. But she knew that couldn’t be farther from the truth, he was thinking too much all the time and she left him alone with all his thoughts; the truth, the imaginary and the lowliness for far too long.

--

Once they were dry and inside the stew was ready and the fire had warmed up the old cabin nicely. Milly sat on the bed combing his curls out with her fingers and green apple hair detangler.

She watched over his shoulder as he scrolled through her phone. He had opened the news and had started asking questions. This was of course all a part of the ritual.

“You live in the woods why do you care?”

“The whole world is still out there,” He said meaningfully.

So she explained the absurd political headline of the day and he opened up her games and played a few rounds of fruit ninja.

“If you stayed with me you could have your own phone. A tablet even.”

He tensed beneath her fingers.

She had never pushed him this hard on the subject. But she just had a feeling, a terrible feeling that she needed to. Now more than ever.

“I’m living in the apartment over my father’s garage. It's big enough for too and it's got high ceilings- for your wings and me being tall. It’s one of those two story red neck mansion garages. You know the type, but it's actually nice.”

“I’ve seen it,” He says. Which confirmed her suspicion that he had followed her home before at least once.

“There's a balcony. You could come and go and it's the same woods as these, technically.”

“What would I even do?” He asked. And that alone felt like such a victory.

“What ever you want!” She said too enthusiastically, “Like I said, I think with a big coat would cover you up just fine if you wanted to go into town sometime. You could even go to the library…”

He made a little noise of wanting in the back of his throat but didn’t say anything for a long enough moment that Milly continued.

“We could go to the Lush together, you could pick out all your own flavors….”

“That would be nice,” He conceded. Everything about Milly always smelt good, from the hair to the sheets and he did want that. He wanted very much to be clean at all times. It was not that he did not want the life she was so desperately trying to sell him. He felt he had already made himself clear- they would come for him and they would hurt her. “What would you do when they come with guns, Milly. You haven’t listened to me at all.”

“You can hide back in the woods. My father and my brothers got guns too, you know.”

“Milly,” He said darkly.

“Tell me Who, Nai, Who would come for you.”

“The Vatican,” He said, “My godmother’s cult. The us government. Who ever gets here first.”

Milly pursed her brows, this did not help her narrow down the realness of his dire fears. He was a man with wings after all, would it also be so strange if the Vatican was after him, or the government?

“What if they stopped looking for you a long time ago?” She said into his hair. And he was quiet.

“I told you they killed Dr. Conrad.”

“His obituary said he died of a heart attack, Nai. I can show you on my phone, I checked.”

He made a noise of distress and she ran her hand through his hair, “I know that’s hard, but- hear me out, okay, I care about you so much-”

“Milly stop,” He growled.

“Where you there when they came? Or did you just see the ambulance-”

“I- don’t- I- Milly,” He said so softly she thought he might break again.

“It was a really hard winter, it's okay, if you got confused-” She said gently into his ear.

“Milly,” He said with a sense of urgency, though he didn’t move from where he sat between her legs. She still had her hands in his hair, still carefully combining out all the knots.

“Nai.”

“Don’t. Please.”

“Just, consider, please,” She said and kissed the top of his head.

And the hard part was that he was considering, he trusted her more than he trusted anything. And even though he had already decided this had to be the last time he saw her he ached for her to be right. It had been a hard winter. Dr. Conrad had died while he wasn’t there. He did get confused sometimes when he was alone too long, Milly didn’t love him less for that either. And the two things went to war inside of him and made him sick and hot. He’d been only fourteen when he ran away from the SEEDS commune and Rem had told them to run and to hide and he’d just never ever stopped.

“I can show you, on my phone, but it can wait if your having an emotion,” She said sweetly.

“I’m not having an emotion,” he said, voice heavy with emotion.

“Uh huh, and my name’s not Milly,” She teased.

“Just show me,” He demanded and turned around so quickly all his wings and feathers brushed across her face and body as he spun so he had his arms in her lap. He took up a lot of space with all those wings and looking down at him, his long blond hair all down around his shoulders he really looked like something biblically accurate. He also looked close to tears when she took back her phone

He rested his head on her thigh as he waited for her to search up the newspapper site. He felt luke warm, like a wasp that had been smashed but wasn’t quit dead or alive. Suddenly he wasn’t sure of anything, only that his hair smelled like green apple, even if no apples he’d ever smelt smelt like that.

Once Milly pulled up the obituary on her phone she handed it back to him and he was deathly quiet for a long time. She watched him read it two or three times. It had been written by his grand daughter and it was cold and scathing and loveless collection of sentences.

“Maybe, they made it look like a heart attack.”

“He was pretty old, Nai.”

“Either way, I can’t be out there, I’m too-”

“Too what?” Milly pressed.

“Strange?... SEEDS will hear about me eventually and then someone will find me, and they'll want me to go back. And I don’t want to be found Milly. I’ve been here all this time so they wont-” He began. And for a moment she feared she’d lost the upper hand in talking sense to him. But she frowned and pulled up a tiktok of the recent mothman sighting Dominique had sent her.

“Look here,” She said firmly and pressed play. The dark video looped once, a group of friends in a car laughing and then a loud thud and a winged figure, eyes shinning in the dark hitting the middle of the road at a break neck run.

“WHAT!”

Milly let him have the phone to watch on loop and waited a long moment before she ventured, “Do you really think if there was some powerful agency after you they’d let that get out on tiktok?”

“Milly. That’s my brother I thought he was dead?”

Milly blinked, “I thought it was you.”

“No, look he’s assless! How could you mistake that for me?”

Milly choked back a laugh. This was so serious and she was laughing, "Okay I had thoughts, suspicions even, but the easy answer was you went sight seeing or something. It's a dark video-"

“Where is this?” he demanded.

“Down in the port. Why, you need to go some where all of a sudden now, hmm???”

He batted her knee with his hand, “This is serious!”

“It is!” She agreed, “Do you want to go. I’ll take you anywhere as long as it's out of this damned woods.”

“Deal,” He said impulsively. And she only felt a little hurt that he couldn’t make the decision for her, because of her, but anything was better than watching him live like this out here.