Page 64 of Icarus

He smoothed down Icarus’s eyebrows, over the crest of his nose, tapping just once on the tip. He skimmed the paper-thin skin beneath Icarus’s eyes, lilac with lack of sleep. He fit his index finger into the hollow beneath Icarus’s cheekbone, thumbed the generous swell of it. Dragged his hand down Icarus’s jaw, felt the cleft of his chin.

And Icarus, doing his part, tried his hardest not to vibrate clean off the bed.

Every gesture was like a crescendo in strings. His bones ached, settled like steel. His skin was so raw it nearly felt bruised. He wanted to arch his back and cry out, but he couldn’t do something like that for something as small as this. The reaction was too much.

“Oh. Don’t do that, please,” Helios whispered.

Icarus opened his eyes, confused, and saw a bit of scarlet on Helios’s finger. Helios reached out again and wiped the blood from where Icarus had been biting his lip.

“I . . . I don’t want to be loud,” Icarus admitted.

Helios wiped again, the edge of his thumb nearly touching Icarus’s mouth.

“Why not?” he said, effortless.

Why not.

Helios started again, trailing his finger from the peak of Icarus’s chin to the valley of his throat, and watched, riveted, as Icarus tilted his head back and panted. He curled his fingers in the sheets, twisting them, pulling them off Helios’s shoulder in his fervor.

“Good god. How do you even go outside?”

Icarus let out a helpless whine. “It’s . . . it’s . . .” not the same, he wanted to say, but he couldn’t.

Not with nails scratching against his collarbone, pulling at the neck of his shirt. Helios skipped across the cloth and started again at the gap of soft space on the inside of Icarus’s bicep. Strained tight.

Icarus let go of the sheet, and curled close around his arm, as if to protect it, but left it outstretched: hand open and shaking. Patient for exploration.

Helios settled his fingers into the hollow of Icarus’s inner elbow. Swirled around that spot to figure out the noise Icarus would make, then traveled farther down.

“Please please please—” Icarus found himself muttering, eyes growing wet, aching aching.

Helios hummed curiously and drew his fingers away.

Icarus took a moment to catch his breath. Sweat was beading on his hairline. No one had ever taken liberties with him like this. Even he couldn’t test his own limits like this.

“What does it feel like?” Helios asked.

Icarus looked up into Helios’s brown eyes and stayed—caught to the quick.

“Holy.”

Helios sat up in the bed, his broad back to Icarus, and wrenched his hands through his hair.

“I don’t deserve this,” Icarus heard him mutter.

Helios looked back at the mess he’d left behind. “I want to make you breakfast. Are you okay to get ready up here?”

Icarus nodded.

Helios got up, rolled his shoulders, and left the room.

Stark

Icarus’ brushed his teeth and washed his face in the bathroom nearest by. He had never seen this room before. There was never any need to be inside a bathroom when he visited this house.

He looked at himself in the mirror and just felt . . . insane.

His skin was still prickly and strange. He expected to see the trails Helios’s fingers had left reflected back at him. But there was no trace except in the flush of his own cheeks.