Page 23 of Icarus

“Pull me in,” he demanded. “I don’t have ropes.”

Helios hoisted him in. Icarus dropped to the floor on his toes, silent as a cat.

Helios rubbed at his arm, which was no doubt bruising rapidly.

“Why are you . . . where’s your stuff?” Helios whispered, taking in Icarus’s disheveled casual appearance.

Icarus shrugged.

“I’m here. What now,” he said bluntly.

Helios moved back from Icarus and the window, slipping into the darkness behind him. Moonlight blue flowing down his form like the tide.

“Here,” he said and slipped back onto his bed, pulling the curtain to the side for Icarus to follow him.

The drapery around the bed was thick enough to block most of the light and a good deal of noise. It was warmer behind these cloth walls and smelled curious. Like animal, like dust: this combination of young and old Helios.

Helios stuck his arm outside the curtain and rummaged around on his nightstand to pull in a flashlight as Icarus toed off his shoes.

Then, they were face to face, legs crisscrossed. The light between them casting their features in pink, red, and shadow.

“How have you been?” Helios asked. “Were you able to return the statue?”

Icarus hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “It’s back where it belongs.”

The silence between them was heavy. Icarus could feel the warm puff of Helios’s breath in the small space. His knee was close enough to touch, but Icarus made sure they didn’t.

Helios followed Icarus’s gaze.

“It feels weird to be able to talk to you, but now you won’t say anything,” Helios admitted.

Icarus cleared his throat and tried.

“Do you still have my mask?”

Helios rolled his eyes and reached beyond the curtain again. Icarus heard a drawer opening and closing, then Helios shoved a familiar piece of cloth at him.

Icarus snatched it gratefully and without thinking, held it close to smell it.

“It reeks of chemicals. You do too,” Helios commented, leaning back. “Like a Home Depot.”

“That’s probably what my house smells like,” Icarus admitted, pulling the mask over his head.

“Wait—no. Don’t put it back on!” Helios exclaimed.

Icarus paused. “What? Why?”

“I want to see your face.”

Icarus grimaced. “It’s not special.” He tugged the rest of the mask on anyway.

Helios’s frown was exaggerated by the flashlight underneath his chin.

“You seemed really upset when I took it off the first time. Worse than just the shock of getting caught,” Helios said, clearly to himself. “I don’t know why I expected any different now.”

“I wasn’t—it wasn’t. I don’t know you, and you were touching me,” Icarus hissed.

“Oh. I was planning to ask about that. You’re really weird about that. You don’t seem to have any difficulty manhandling me, but god forbid we do the reverse.”