Page 134 of Stream Heat
I rolled out of my nest, yes I was finally willing to admit that was exactly what it was. Without thinking, my hand landed on one of Malik’s meditation cushion. Not mine, technically, but it had wandered in one morning and now it just… lived here. Like it belonged.
I pressed my face into the fabric and inhaled. Sandalwood and linen, earthy and sharp, nothing like Reid’s cedar and ozone, or Theo’s green tea and electricity, or Jace’s rain and snow, or Ash’s charcoal and vanilla. This was Malik, calm and layered, hard to pin down, but once you did, you wondered how you’d ever gone without it.
What would his bond mean, exactly? What part of me would he claim, and how would it be different from the others?
I let the question needle at me all through my shower, the steam sticking to my skin, clinging in a way thoughts sometimes did. I pulled on comfortable clothes as I listened to Malik’s stream still rolling in the background, somewhere down the hall, before I wandered toward him, drawn along like iron filings to a magnet.
His voice made me stop outside his meditation room, because I wasn’t about to interrupt a live stream and cause drama with his fans or screw with his headspace. The door was cracked just enough that I could see him, cross-legged on his mat, sunlight bleeding in from the big windows. Malik alwayslooked the same when he meditated, straight-backed, hands gentle on his knees, eyes half-closed but somehow focused on everything.
“…and as we close our practice today, remember: mindfulness isn’t about perfection. It’s about awareness. Presence. Accepting yourself without judgment, not as you wish you were, but as you are, right now…”
The words landed harder than I’d expected. Like a gut check, but softer. Acceptance, not just tolerating, but actually accepting. No judgment, no angle, no grind. The others had offered me relief from one chaos or another, but Malik? It clicked, finally.
This was what he brought.
Presence.
The space to not fight against myself for five seconds, to just… exist.
He finished his stream, his voice clear and even all the way to the end: “Peace and clarity to you all.” Then the faint click of his mic, the equipment winding down. I waited until silence blanketed the room, then rapped quietly on the doorframe.
He looked up, and the smile he gave was all real, no performance. “Quinn. Morning.”
“Hey,” I answered. I hovered, still holding his cushion, a little stupidly. “Your session was good.”
“You were listening?” He waved me inside, easy as everything else he did.
“Just the end,” I admitted, stepping in. His scent was stronger here, but not overwhelming. “Didn’t want to mess you up.”
His attention sharpened; he had that way of really looking at someone, not just glancing. “You never interrupt,” he said. “You’re patient. You wait for the right second. Not unlike Jace.”
It was unsettling how accurately he could nail me. “Yeah. I guess so.”
He unplugged something on his desk, then turned back. No rush. “Was there something you wanted? Or just here for company?”
This was the hard part, putting the need into words when I barely understood it myself. “Actually… could you walk me through that breathing exercise? For anxiety, I mean. I feel off today.”
It wasn’t untrue. Just not the whole truth. I didn’t miss the way he tracked the hesitance in my tone. Still, he didn’t push.
“Of course,” he said. “Sit with me?”
He pointed at a cushion across from his. The mate to the one I’d been clutching. I settled in, legs folded, picking up his rhythm.
“Close your eyes,” he coaxed, that familiar, meditative tone dropping over us. “Focus on your breathing. Four in, two to hold, six out.”
I did it. Counted in, held, let go. The pattern was simple. After a few rounds, I heard Malik shift closer. Barely a gap between us now.
“Hand over your heart,” he said. “Feel it. Don’t change anything. Just… notice.”
The contact was grounding. It slowed the racing thoughts almost instantly. I breathed out, let go of the jittery, half-formed panic that had been gnawing at me since I woke.
“With every exhale, let something go. Not forever, just for right now.”
I started small. The restlessness. The itch. Then went bigger, letting go of the worry about belonging, about the future, about not being enough for any of them. With each breath, it loosened. Not gone, but not knotted up in my chest, either.
He didn’t talk much after that, just short prompts when I needed them. “That’s it. Just be here. Now. Nothing to fix.” His voice was a background hum, gentle and low.
I didn’t know how much time passed. Minutes, maybe. Maybe more. There was just the sunlight, the soft scratch of my own breathing, and Malik’s presence across from me, steady as bedrock.
