Take Flight - 2. Chapter 2

“Fuck.” Birch stared at the aspen groves … or where they used to be. There’d been a huge a huge stand of the gorgeous trees all along this small valley. He’d seen their leaves changing, from green to bright orange and red, on a last hike before he went off to college.

Now they were gone.

Half the stream was choked by broken off logs and mud that slid down the sloping banks. The sun beat down on his neck as he stood within the devastated area. He’d been home just a week, thrown into the field by his bosses to assess the environmental damage done by a logging company that had violated their agreements and logged in areas they shouldn’t.

Judicious pruning kept the forest healthy; the companies took out dead trees, thinned thickly forested areas, and made room for new, younger trees. These guys had taken healthy groves and decimated the tree population, allowed mechanical equipment too close to the pure water streams, and created an ecological mess that was impacting a much wider area downstream.

Birch took his camera out of his backpack and documented the area visually, then sat down on a rough stump and began writing up his report. He could do it back in the office but why? He’d rather be outside, though Birch wished he were sitting against the smooth white bark of an aspen tree enjoying the shade.

The town had changed almost as much as the forest. No longer quite so small and sleepy, they had two Starbucks and a mall was being built beside the newly widened interstate that was just five miles outside town limits.

It almost made him sad. He’d avoided coming home after the first summer when he’d been unsure if he hoped Sayer would be there, though he’d never stayed in town during the summers, or if he wanted to avoid him entirely.

He hadn’t been there, and no one had seen him. He’d looked each year during registration, but he never found Sayer. He’d completely disappeared, as if he’d fallen off the face of the planet without a trace.

Birch drove back into town, one arm resting out the window. His back was sticky with sweat; the sultry air didn’t cool the cab of his truck at all, but he enjoyed the feeling of the wind caressing his skin until it suddenly died. He pulled into his driveway, already looking forward to a shower and a cold beer, and then frowned.

Someone was sitting on the porch.

He was suddenly cold.

That long, white hair couldn’t belong to anyone else.

“Son of a bitch.”

***

The fireworks lit inside Sayer as their eyes met. He’d watched Birch reacquaint himself with the town and then, as always, spend as much of his time as possible in the forest. That, at least, hadn’t changed.

Those dark blue eyes glared daggers at him. Birch’s teeth sank into the pink softness of his bottom lip. Sayer wanted to tug it out and kiss away the marks left by Birch’s anger.

He didn’t move. He’d waited so long, he could wait a few more minutes as Birch found the angry words that Sayer knew he deserved—even if it wasn’t his fault. He’d lived like a human, for Sayer, but his magical heritage had taken him away.

How the hell was he going to explain that?

Birch finally moved. The old truck, the same one he’d bought before their senior year after working his ass off to earn the money, was filthy and the door hinges shrieked in protest as the driver side door was thrown open.

He walked methodically up the walkway to the porch steps. Sayer expected him to stop, to say something. Instead, Birch didn’t pause or stop. He kept walking, skirting into the grass to leap up and grab the railing of the porch in front of the door. He clambered over and was inside with the door shut and locked, quite audibly as Sayer hard the bolt and chain lock.

Well, fuck.

Sayer stood up and knocked. No answer. He didn’t want to shout at Sayer, conscious of the humans around them. Sighing, he stepped into the recess of the porch beside the door that was visible only to someone right in front of him, and then he was gone.

The window into the second floor bedroom, which was apparently an office, was open a crack. Sayer easily flowed inside.

Oh man, the water was running; Birch was in the shower again. Sayer slipped into his bedroom down the hall and gently deposited a gold box on the pillow, then retreated to the corner.

Birch’s hand fumbled with his towel when he stepped out of the bathroom and he spied the box.

“Sayer!” He stormed over and picked it up.

“I’m here,” Sayer said as he solidified and materialized in his corner. The air made the curtains bell out for a brief second.

“Mother fucking Christ on a god damn cracker!” Birch’s face went deadly pale. “It … you ….” He shook his head.

Sayer knew he had let it all go, including his glamor. His hair was pure white. He was taller, thinner, but just as strong as his stocky human form suggested. Strangest of all, at least to Birch, would probably he his outfit … and the fact that Sayer was royalty.

“Your wings.” Birch stared, his mouth open. He blinked, tears filling his eyes.

Shit. Sayer had forgotten about those. He tucked the rainbow wings against his back.

“What are you?”

Sayer ran a hand over his hair. “I’m a fae, Birch, like an elf, or fair folk.”

“When?” Birch’s questions were breathless.

“When did I become a fae?” Sayer flinched inwardly at the question, and what his beloved was going to say when he told him, he prayed Birch wouldn’t ask that. He was not that lucky. He swallowed hard, bile making his throat burn.

“Always.”

His earlier anger was nothing like the incandescent rage that sparked in Birch’s eyes.

~~~<>~~~

“Get out.” Birch couldn’t believe Sayer was there. The shock of his appearance after four years of silence, not knowing where his friend was awful. It had taught Birch to be wary. People didn’t really care, not his parents, not his best friend who abandoned him when he promised he’d always be there, so trusting strangers wasn’t something he’d been prepared to do.

Loneliness had haunted him, as it had every summer he’d spent the majority of his time alone, with no end in sight. Sayer was gone, his parents moved and he hadn’t even been given their home phone number. He’d come back to his hometown thinking to find some anchor.

Maybe some speck of hope inside him had thought if he came home, Sayer would come back. That missing part he’d felt ache like a phantom limb would be healed.

But it hurt worse. The boy Birch thought was his best friend, the one person he’d thought cared enough to share everything with him, had been lying all along.

Birch pointed at the door. He refused to look straight at Sayer.

“Get out!” His voice cracked when he repeated his demand.

Sayer shook his head. He licked his lips. “I can’t,” he whispered.

Now he wouldn’t leave.

“Fine.” Birch stormed out of the room, thundering toward the stairs.

“Birch, wait!” Sayer came after him.

His breath came in harsh gasps and his chest hurt. Birch wouldn’t wait. He couldn’t hear this, whatever it was, and stay sane. He’d leave.

“Please, Birch, stop. Open the box, please.”

Birch stopped at the top of the stairs. The small gold box was still clenched in his hand. He threw the gold box at the … fucking faery … who would not leave him alone. “And you can keep this damn thing, whatever it is.”

Sayer gasped and dove for the gold box before it could hit the floor. He caught it and slid on the hardwood floor. Birch jerked away from those flared wings, but not before the smallest whisper of a touch from the bright edges of the flared feathers brushed against his skin. His heel slid over the top stair and Birch’s arms wind-milled as he tried to catch his balance.

It wasn’t enough and he tumbled backward. The wind was knocked out of him as he slammed against the edges of several stairs. He rolled, one shoulder crunching hard as he landed on it. Pain shot through his head as he slid sideways and hit the wall. He was almost to the bottom when one of his legs caught.

Birch screamed when his leg snapped. He jerked to a stop, one leg wedged at an obviously broken angle through the spindles on the stair railing. Birch moaned; his head spun and his stomach threatened to turn inside out. The pain consumed him so much he could barely breathe.

He was going to pass out or vomit, or both.

***

“Birch!” Sayer couldn’t stop his beloved’s fall. He watched, sick with fear, as the small blond man toppled down the steps to get away from him.

“No, no, no.” He raced down the stairs when Sayer’s leg became trapped and stopped him near the bottom of the steps. “Birch!”

His beloved’s eyes were clouded with pain, his face almost as pale as Sayer’s. He was gasping for air, hiccupping sporadically as he struggled.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you.”

He was such a fuck up. Sayer deserved to have his gift thrown back in his face, and he knew it. Tradition, what he was, and the way the worlds worked … he’d had little choice, but maybe he should have chosen differently. His people had needed him, but the pain inside Birch’s eyes could not hide behind his fury completely.

He’d failed his beloved, the human Sayer couldn’t live without. If only he could fix it ….

All he could do was try.

Letting his arms fade to a whisper of a breeze, Sayer slid them under Birch’s body. His magic could cloak his beloved when they left but first he had to get him outside. That meant untangling him from the railing.

“I’m sorry.”

Birch screamed when Sayer lifted him up and slid his body sideways so he could pull the broken leg out of the railing. Birch went rigid before his whole body went limp and he passed out. It made it easier to pull him out and maneuver him into a solid grip against Sayer’s chest.

“You’ll be okay,” Sayer murmured into Birch’s hair as he cradled the smaller man. It was harder still gripping the gold box, but he couldn’t let that go either, so it took some work to get the back door open. Finally managing it with a sharp gust, they were on the porch. Another breeze shut the door behind them and then they were off. His body swirled into mist, cupping and supporting the limp body of his beloved.

The forest ringed hill wasn’t far from the town. A shimmer of magic protected it from the attention of the mortal humans who couldn’t see beyond the physical. Their dim sight saw nothing but more forest; Sayer saw an eternal spring surrounded by fragrant blossoms that nodded under a soft sun that warmed the air currents they floated on toward the portal that lined the slit in the veil between their worlds.

Touched by his feather, Birch could have seen this too but he remained unconscious.

***

“Croll!” Sayer flew through the open balcony doors into his bedroom. His shout rang through the palace. “Haverlseen!”

There was only one person he could trust with the box, because there was no one he’d trust with his beloved, not even their best healer.

Croll’s grin disappeared as he stared at Birch. Sayer held out the box. “I need you to protect this.”

The normally jovial man bowed. “It would be my honor. The amulet will not leave my hand, until you beloved can receive your gift.”