I lean over the cardboard box to take a look at its little occupant.

“You comfy in there?” I ask softly. “I’m sorry we can’t give you anything to perch on, but Angie said you might fall off of it.”

The bird blinks up at me slowly, tiredly. We carefully dried him off, and now his downy feathers are soft and fluffed up, sticking up at the back of his head. He looks exhausted, but also comfortably nestled up in the old blanket that Aiden lined the box with. He’s stopped trying to take flight or scramble around, although he was deeply alarmed and cheeped nonstop when we fitted the little homemade cast of medical tape around his broken leg.

He nipped at it a few times with his beak, then gave up. Even now, he can’t do more than lift his head slightly to look up at me.

“You think he’s all good in there?” I ask Aiden. “Let’s see, we gave him some peanut butter and sunflower seeds, he’s all dry... Warm enough, though?”

“Mhm, he is,” Aiden says tiredly, from behind me. “I’m taking care of it.”

I turn to look at him. He’s stretched out on our bed with his head on his arms, his face turned towards me. He spent a lot of magical energy searching through my different kinds of vision, and I can hear his exhaustion in his voice. I can see it in his half-open blue eyes, which are blinking just as slowly as the bird’s.

But apparently he’s still spending a little bit more to make sure the bird is nice and toasty against the cool, rainy air blowing in through the branch-window.

“Mmm. I love you.”

A tired smile turns up the corners of Aiden’s mouth. “I love you, too. What was that one for?”

“Just the - everything. I don’t know. All of it. You.”

He opens his eyes, looks into mine. Answers silently, in that way he does so well.

His deep voice curls around a yawn. "Did we just pick a random gender for the bird, by the way?"

“No. I think this little guy is actually gonna be a dad, soon.” I lean over the bird, who looks up at me in pure exhaustion. “His nest is near the chimney. There are eggs in it, and another bird sitting on them. Presumably mom.”

“Aw, no,” Aiden murmurs, half-awake, his eyes drifting closed again. “She’s gonna be so worried about him.”

I glance at Aiden over my shoulder, experiencing some warm, melty sensation in my heart at how sincerely concerned he sounds about the feelings of a bird living on our roof.

“Good thing Luna only goes after mice, not birds, or we - wait, what?” Aiden opens his eyes again, blinking hard at me. “How d'you know all that? About the nest and stuff?”

“I saw it up there. Or, I - heard it? Heard-saw it. One kind of Vision has this like, vibrating sort of frequency - thing…”

“Um. Okay, sure. Yeah. Why not?” Aiden lets out a tired laugh. “Is that how you knew where to find this little guy?”

“No, I wasn’t looking in his direction. Our house told me about him.”

This makes Aiden’s eyebrows arch very high. He starts to sit up on his elbows to stare at me, but gives up and collapses back down onto the bed.

“Ugh,” he groans, his eyelids slowly falling closed again. “I’m fucking dying to hear what you saw, and instead I’m... falling asleep... can’t… help it… goddamnit…”

I’m so tired, too, but I cross to the bed and gently curl my fingers around the back of Aiden's neck. He lets out a soft, dreamy sigh as the connection eases open. Then his beautiful blue eyes flutter open, too, some of the exhaustion falling away as I spill some of my own energy into him. I can’t give him too much without knocking myself out, but he’s looking at me with clear, awake eyes when I stop.

“Oh,” he says, his deep voice much less slurred and mumbled. He thumbs my nose affectionately, warmth shining out from his smiling eyes. “Thanks, Keane.”

“Mhm,” I answer, swaying from my own exhaustion.

Aiden moves over on the bed to make room for me, and I crawl in beside him. We lay on our sides, face to face.

I left my wet flannel hanging on the back of the door, but we’re both still in our rain-damp clothes. Aiden runs his hand softly up my bare arm, then back down, then slips his fingers up my shirt. His fingertips slowly begin to stroke my waist, leaving a trail of perfect warmth in their wake.

I let out a soft sigh, melting deeper into the bedding. Closer to him. The rain falls hard outside, slanting past our open windows. An intimate, drowsy silence melts over us.

Aiden’s hand slips from my side and wraps around my fingers, where they’re resting on the bed between us. I give his hand a soft squeeze, and he gives me one in answer. I give him another, and he squeezes me back, and we repeat this slow cycle over and over until we both start laughing softly.

“What are we doing?” Aiden rumbles, his deep voice vibrating through me.

“I don’t know. I’m too tired to know. But it’s nice.”

Aiden huffs out a little laugh, leaning in to put his forehead to mine.

“So?” he murmurs softly. “You gonna tell me what you saw?”

I can’t fucking wait to tell him, so I wake myself up a little bit and launch right into it. Even though my words are sleepy and blurred, and even though Aiden can barely move, our tired, eager voices mingle together in our bedroom. Mine breathless and fast-flying, Aiden’s steady and slow.

He clearly meant to just listen, but he can’t stop himself from jumping in.

“What?” he sputters, when I tell him about our house. “Are you fucking serious?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” I smile at him, my cheek resting on the pillow. “It’s happy that we’re here, I think.”

Aiden turns his head to stare up at the ceiling. Silent now, except for the rain hammering against the roof.

“I don’t even know where to start with that,” he murmurs dazedly, and I let out a quiet, helpless laugh.

“Me, neither.”

“And the forest…?”

“Yeah, I don’t know. But it’s there. It’s here.”

I slowly let my gaze rove over the room, realizing with a jolt that just because I can’t see it at the moment doesn’t mean that it’s gone. It’s all still there. The invisible forest is growing all around us, even right now. The heavy crown of leaves and branches is still overhead. The invisible doors are still here. Maybe our dreams are still here, too. Hovering just above our heads.

I bite down on a little grin, then poke Aiden’s shoulder. “So, about your dream…”

“Alright, for fuck’s sake,” he groans, a fiery blush spreading across his cheeks. “Funny story, man, I specifically remember telling you not to look at me with unknown vision. Specifically for this type of reason. Guess I just made that up?”

“I never agreed to that,” I laugh, tracing my fingertip down his collarbone. “And I’m glad I didn’t. How did you even know exactly what your dream was? I had forgotten mine until I saw it, and you didn't even see yours.”

“Yeah, but that's a dream I’ve had a ton of times, so-”

Aiden cuts himself off, realizing what he’s saying. He blinks hard and fast, opens his mouth like he’s scrambling for a way to backtrack on that. Then he pauses, listening.

I’m sure that I must be singing to him, based on what I’m feeling right now. Based on how his flustered expression melts into a deep, warm smile that crinkles the corners of his intensely blue eyes.

I lean forward and kiss him. Slowly and tenderly, but urgently.

The look in his eyes is sweeter than honey by the time I draw back. I put my head on my arm and gaze adoringly at him, one hand still softly tangled in his hair.

I hesitate for a second, then blurt out - “Can you give me my truesight back? Just for one minute?”

Aiden instantly tenses, taken by surprise. He blinks at me, then slowly sits up. He runs both hands through his chestnut hair, then clasps them around the back of his neck. Kind of hiding his face from me with his elbows.

“I don’t…” he says slowly, his deep, rumbling voice uneasy. “It's just weird to know you're seeing the truest form of me, especially when I have no idea what that looks like. I mean, you stared at me like you’d never seen me before, when you had it. I'm, um... I’m scared to ask?”

I smile up at him affectionately, then reach out to poke his arm. “You shouldn’t be.”

“Seriously, Jamie. Would I be crushed, if I knew?”

I lean forward to catch his eye, then earnestly shake my head. “Far from it.”

Aiden hesitates, and I look up at him imploringly, begging with my eyes.

“Ugh, fine.” Aiden lets out a heavy sigh, then lays down on his side again, facing me. “But this is it, you hear me?”

“Okay,” I agree eagerly, thinking to myself that I’ll find a way to talk him out of that later.

Aiden makes an exasperated sound like he already knows I’m planning to do that, but still holds out a fingertip towards me.

I reach out mine, and we press them together between us. The connection slowly melts open, shimmering and swirling and full of warmth.

Aiden already knows what he’s looking for, this time. I know he’ll be able to do it quickly. I shut my eyes tightly, trying to prepare myself.

But when I open them again, the sight of him knocks the breath out of my lungs, just like it did the first time.

Just like the first time, I'm briefly struck with the sensation that I’m going to lose consciousness. But that’s not what's happening.

With Aiden in this form, it's impossible to be aware of anything but him. What I'm experiencing right now is my entire consciousness melting and enwrapping itself around him. To me, he's the only thing in the whole world.

I stare at him with enormous, awestruck eyes. Suddenly feeling unbelievably, desperately shy. Shattered against the sight of him like this.

Aiden looks like he's feeling just as shy as I am. He doesn't say anything. Just lets me stare, keeping his fingertip pressed to mine.

“Aiden,” I breathe softly, barely able to find my voice. “This is… you…”

I give up on trying to describe it to him before I even begin. There's no way I can possibly tell him how beautiful he looks.

His eyes are filled completely with an ocean of breathtaking golden light. It glows out so radiantly that it illuminates his heavy eyelashes, turning them gold. It gilds his sharp collarbones, casting soft shadows beneath them.

His eyes are not the only thing illuminated. His entire body is glowing, too.

He glows with a golden radiance that’s unspeakably beautiful, beyond description. From another world. His bronze skin breathes out sunlight like the sun itself set him down in my bed. There's heat to it, too. Aiden glows like an ember. Just looking at him makes me feel like I’m stretched out on sun-warmed sand, or curled up by the heat of a fire.

Stardust freckles are scattered across Aiden’s nose and cheeks. As if someone working with the raw matter of magic accidentally spattered his face with it. It glitters with a thousand different kinds of light, speckled softly all the way up past his cheekbones.

My gaze travels slowly down to his wrists. I thought, at first glance, that there were bracers made of flowing laurel leaves wrapped around them. Formed from pure golden light, swirling their way up his arms. But looking closer, I can see that they’re not leaves. They’re symbols. And they're not resting on Aiden's skin, but glowing out from it.

The symbols reach down onto his fingers and disappear up into his sleeves. I have no idea how much of his body is covered with them, beneath his clothes. Rows and rows of writing in some language that no human being knows, patterned in stunning, intricate, swirling designs. In some places, they come together to look like leaves and plants. In others, constellations.

His covenant, I realize suddenly. His Guardian covenant.

Encircling his head like a halo is a diadem of golden lightning. It crackles and sparkles softly as I watch, in some places tucked into his tumbling locks of chestnut hair. The light of it seems to curl around him adoringly, lovingly.

He’s all of this. But he’s also my Aiden.

He’s in a white henley with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and blue-grey jeans. I can see the outlines of ridges of muscle that I’ve put my mouth to a thousand times. He smells like vetiver. His lips are darkened and swollen from my kisses, his bronze cheeks blushing crimson beneath my lingering gaze. His sweet, warm eyes are gazing at me, deeply shy and nervous.

He looks like he belongs to the stars. But he’s my Aiden, and he's here, with me. He’s the place that I call home.

It’s a lot for me to process.

“Y-you… Aiden, you - y-you have - there's-”

Aiden shakes his head vigorously at me.

No more of that talk, Linden, he says, then gently breaks the connection. “I don’t want to know.”

My truesight is gone the instant that his fingertip falls from mine.

“I think you do, actually,” I stammer, still wide-eyed.

“Nope,” Aiden says firmly. “No, thanks. I don’t need to know about how I look completely different on some plane only you can see, alright? I can only handle so many life-changing revelations at a time, and we’ve already had a lot of them.”

“True,” I admit, remembering suddenly how exhausted I am. “It’s been a night.”

“I’m not just talking about tonight. Honestly, I’m still trying to get my head around the fact that you want to date me, dude.”

“Wh-?” I burst into startled laughter, then press my hand over my eyes and let out a pained sound. “Holy shit, Aiden. You’re gonna kill me.”

He smiles warmly at me, then leans forward and snuggles his face into the curve of my neck.

“Seriously, as long as it hasn’t made me look worse to you-”

“No." I automatically fold an arm around him, half in a daze. “Definitely not.”

“Cool. Then I don’t care. Keep it to your fucking self.”

I shake my head in disbelief, then in love so helpless that I don’t know what to do with myself.

“Oh, shit. Wait a sec.” Aiden draws back, suddenly alarmed. “Do I look better that way, and worse how I look, like - how you see me all the time?”

I gaze deep into his eyes, bite my lip, then slowly shake my head.

“No,” I murmur truthfully, dragging my palm up his stubbled jaw. “This version of you will always be my favorite.”

Aiden smiles in relief, then closes his eyes.

“Keeping the bird warm," he sighs, in a sleep-slurred, almost indiscernible voice. "Runnin’ out of… energy…”

I forgot that he’s been spending it this whole time. With tremendous effort, I draw myself out of the bed and stumble over to the box to check on our tiny guest.

The bird is fast asleep, nestled up in the cozy warmth provided by Aiden. I smile down at him, swaying slightly with exhaustion again.

“Goodnight,” I murmur to the bird, then go stumbling back to the bed.

Aiden is asleep by the time I get there, chestnut hair tumbling down over his eyes. I climb back in next to him, too tired to even take off my jeans. Luna hops up beside me and snuggles up against my side, kneading the bed with her paws.

I give her ear a gentle scratch. “Goodnight.”

I wrap an arm around Aiden, then press a kiss onto his forehead. “Goodnight.”

I press one hand to the wall of our house, just to my left. “Goodnight.”

A soft, warm, creaky voice answers, so faintly that I think I must have just enough of Aiden’s magic left to hear it.

Goodnight, it whispers.