It's So Nice to Finally Meet You

Alex sighed to himself and ran his fingers through his hair, he slumped down on his bed and groaned.
"How could you?! You almost got caught you stupid idiot! He can't know you, I don't care how special you think he is, I don't care how important he is to you and I don't care if you think you're in love with him, you can't risk letting our secret out!"
The boy sighed as Samuel yelled at him. Sam had found Alex when he was a little boy and he'd taken him in. Alex's was an orphan, left all alone with no one to bring him up. Sam had sensed Alex was one of their kind, a guardian, and he had taken him under his wing.

Guardian's were assigned a human and they devoted their lives to them. They kept them safe and they watched them. Guardian's were sort of like angels, but they lived among humans on earth and they were exactly like humans in ways. Guardian's could control their age. They couldn't make themselves younger, but they could stop themselves from aging and they could make themselves age faster. When Alex has got to sixteen, Jack was two. Jack had been assigned to him the day Jack was born and Alex had watched over him ever since. Alex preferred to stay the same age as Jack, so Alex had frozen his age when he got to sixteen and then when Jack had reached sixteen Alex had let himself age again. He'd aged at the normal human rate after he was sixteen, obviously. Guardians could teleport too, it was sort of important that they could do that, they needed to be there for their humans.
Guardians and the ones they protect had an unbreakable bond, a connection. Alex could see Jack whenever he wanted to, in his mind. It was almost like he had a crystal ball that only focused on Jack. The guardian could see in to Jack's past and future, he could see what he was doing at present and he could hear his thoughts and feelings. If Jack got hurt Alex did too, for example, Jack broke his arm when he was sixteen, and Alex's arm magically broke. One minute the boy was eating breakfast, the next he was in immense pain and he couldn't move his arm. When Jack was sad Alex felt it, when Jack was angry Alex felt it, anything Jack felt Alex felt, anything Jack thought Alex could hear. Jack had quite amusing thoughts sometimes and Alex would burst out laughing at random moments. Alex could see Jack's dreams as well, and they were quite amusing as well. Alex liked to rewatch the dreams Jack had about him, as Jack was younger his dreams about Alex had been innocent of course, they'd just been two friends playing and laughing, but then after Jack's eighteenth birthday the dreams got a little more... Interesting. Alex had been caught more than once with a painful boner at the dinner table. Guardians could control their humans dreams as well, and after the first few dirty dreams Alex had started adding in ones of his own. Alex had watched Jack with other people, and Alex had had sex with other Guardians, some humans too, and he knew exactly what he wanted, so he made Jack do these things to him in these dreams. He made Jack have dreams where Alex would do exactly what Jack wanted too, and Alex loved how Jack groaned and grew harder, grinding down in to the mattress until he woke up with a cry of pleasure covered in a thin sheen of glistening sweat. Just because you weren't allowed to get involved with your humans didn't mean you couldn't have a little fun with them, and Alex had been stuck as a teenager for sixteen years, his hormones were still all over the place. Alex watched Jack all the time, he knew all his little quirks and flaws, he knew that he talked to himself he was alone, he knew that every bottle he had he peeled the label off, he knew what his favorite songs and TV shows ad films were, he knew everything about Jack. It was almost like he'd studied him, but Alex didn't see it as that because that sounded creepy, Alex saw it as caring. The problem with watching someone all the time and laughing with them and getting closer to them was that you started to develop feelings that you weren't allowed to develop. Alex had fallen in love with Jack on Jack's nineteenth birthday, and the Barakat boy was now twenty four. The problem with that was, guardians weren't allowed to fall in love with their humans. Guardians already had an unbreakable bond with their humans, sort of like familiars and witches, but it wasn't supposed to go any further than that. Guardians were also supposed to be like this invisible force, they weren't allowed to meet their humans in real life and they certainly weren't allowed to talk to them. If news of guardians got out then the whole operation would be screwed. Every honest person that was destined to be different was given a guardian. Jack was destined to do great things, and Alex was so proud of him for that.

"I know Sir. I'm sorry Sir. It won't happen again Sir."
"It better not happen again. You know I love all you boys like my own, but you have to be careful Alex, ok?"

Alex wasn't the first person Samuel had taken under his wing, he had a whole house of guardians that he trained and looked after. There were four boys, including Alex, and three girls. Alex was the youngest, only having been around for thirty eight years, and Samuel was the oldest, being three hundred and sixty eight, even though he hadn't aged since he was forty. Alex sighed again as Sam slammed Alex's bedroom door shut behind him. The young guardian smiled as he closed his eyes and watched Jack, the young man was asleep, curled up in his bed sheets and snoring softly. His damp hair was starting to go curly as it hung over his forehead and he was all snuggled up in a pair of old, ripped and stained grey sweatpants and a baggy jumper that used to belong to his dad. The human mumbled to himself as he dreamed and Alex went in to his mind, crossing his ankles and folding his hands behind his head as he sighed contently and watched the mini film playing in Jack's mind.
Jack dreamed of a cloud in a dark sky, and the cloud was floating away but Jack was running after it. He couldn't catch it, no matter how fast he ran, and Alex frowned as he realized how distressing this dream must have been for his human. Chasing something you'll never catch is distressing for anyone. The guardian sighed, opening his eyes and sitting up. He was too tired for this, and he shouldn't intervene, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it. The guardian pushed himself off his bed, grumbled to himself and made his way in to the dining room in the cold.

His little group of guardians lived in Catonsville, on New Market Court, so Alex would never pass Jack in the street but he was close enough to him in case of an emergency. Everyone in the house had been assigned someone in Maryland, but the humans were all far away enough so that there was no risk of them meeting. Alex pulled his chair out, plopping down on the wooden seat with a sigh and he grabbed a beer as Amy, another guardian in the house, smiled at him from the chair opposite.
"Cheer up Alex, at least you're still assigned to him."
"What?"
Alex sat up quickly, panicking.
"Oh yeah. If the bosses up in HQ think that you're getting too close to your human or that the situation between you guys, like your relationship or closeness, gets too dangerous they'll assign another guardian to that human. If you mess up again they might just take Jack off you, simple as that, and you'll be assigned someone else and a different guardian will look after Jack."
"But what if they do it wrong Amy? What if they upset him or abuse him?"
A lot of guardians abused their humans, because they could control their dreams and they knew what they were thinking and feeling then they could influence their actions and make sure certain things happened that weren't supposed too. Sometimes they were so busy messing with their humans that they forgot they were supposed to be protecting them and then poof their human was gone.
"I know Alex. The bond's unbreakable remember? It's unique. I get it, I'm insanely and actually a little bit creepily obsessed with my human, but there's nothing I can do if he gets taken off me. I'm not in love with him though, and I'm so sorry for you, because I've been in love before, with a guardian of course, and then we were told that we couldn't be together because he went to go work at HQ."
Amy wiped a stray tear from her eye and sighed.
"It was hard, but we kept in contact. I still love him, and I still talk to him now and again. You know?"
Alex nodded and smiled.
"You're a great friend Amy, you know that? Thanks, and I'm sorry about that guy, I wish there was something I could do."
"I know you do little bro. I know."
They sat in silence for a while and Amy smiled as the clock chimed two AM.
"I better get to bed, my human has a car accident tomorrow I have ti save him from. Idiot, he's texting his girlfriend."
The pair laughed and Amy kissed Alex's cheek, whispering to him before disappearing upstairs.

"By the way... I think you and Jack would make a great couple."