Chapter Text
We won't stay, we run
Love like melting suns
Please don't leave, don't run
Why don't you stay in tonight?
Taste my lips, don't let go
I'm in your head
Even in death, everything was in constant motion.
It didn’t matter who died—a person, a carnation, or a swan; the earth moved, roots grew, and trees swayed from the breeze anyway. There wasn’t any mercy in death, really. It happened; whether it be fast or slow—or alternatively, painful or numb to the victim.
Were things that died victims, though? Or were they just freed from the binds of living?
When fire roared, it danced to a melody that it itself made by burning through leaves and soaring through the air—and though its touch could mangle one and ridden them unidentifiable, it was gorgeous from a distance.
Everything had eyes, and what sees must encapsulate and ingest a mass that decayed before them.
Everything breathed; whether it be inhaling smoggy smoke emitting from a forest fire or the blades of grass upon the ground—all things reckon it fresh or suffocating, and their colors changed depending on such.
Zack was breathing in the zephyr. It flew into his nostrils, and filled his lungs up gently. Not too fast, not too slow. The oxygen was dipped with petrichor, the streets beneath glossed over and reflecting things above them. The rain had ended, but it would come back at some point.
The sun wasn’t present yet, though its rays of light rose beyond from where they could see—seemingly, where the edge of the world resided. Nothing could be seen beyond such a point; no mountains, no land, or any other signs of life. Just rays of light, showcasing the upcoming arrival of the sun.
Clouds dotted the sky, colors of purple and red mixing together to create something vibrant. The empyrean was a dark blue, bordering a deep indigo. It painted the buildings a nice color—and the road before them looked like black water, with the cars driving by being ships.
The wall they were sitting upon was textured, rough and ridged against skin. A bridge was what it was—a bridge that allowed cars to drive high above the ones below, crossing from one higher slope to the other without having to tumble to the dip in between. The street of the bridge was bare, cars barely flying by; but when they did, the bridge shook potently, the headlights always highlighting their backs and making the stars dissolve momentarily.
Crickets squealed their last chirps as the night sky faded, and soon the bellowing of mourning birds would take their shift.
The moist air was thick, though smooth like a rich cream.
Almost as velvety as the voice that suddenly said:
“You’re like Icarus, you know.”
The statement was a whisper, barely reaching Zack’s ear. Maybe it was an observation that Zack wasn’t meant to hear. Inhaling, Zack felt the cold air pierce his lungs softly and kindly. For a while now, there had been a burning presence on the side of Zack’s face, begging him to turn and look at the very eyes boring into his face.
“Yup.” The beholder of the flamed eyes susurrate. Zack, without hesitation really, looked at the face of the boy and grinned easily. Next to him sat Henry, who had just finished his shift as Kid Danger, no longer in his hero getup.
They had decided to meet up to watch the sun rise together.
It was something little, but it was sort of monumental.
Henry’s eyes were darker in this atmosphere—and maybe it was stupid, but Zack wanted to see them at their purest shade. “You definitely would try to fly into the sun.”
“What?” Zack choked out a tiny chuckle, feeling a little perplexed by the statement. “You good, man? Did a bad guy hit your head a little too hard or something?” He leaned forward just a little, peering at Henry’s face like it was something complicated.
“The hell? No?” Henry sounded repulsed, like he ate something terribly wrong. “I’m just…” His eyes trailed away, and eventually his head followed—gazing at the cars below them, the way they ran and how fast they were, Henry looked as if he regretted speaking. “You’re just… the way you act is odd.”
“In what ways?” Zack shifted closer, his palms scratching against the rough wall they were sitting upon. He knocked their legs together, which caught Henry’s gaze. It was indirect, but Zack knew that the boy was curious about something—specifically, about Zack—just solely based on that finicky statement. “I can answer any questions you have about me.”
Henry’s head lifted, an amused expression twisting onto his features. “Is that because you’re full of yourself?”
“Shit,” Zack snorted out and dipped his chin to his chest, smiling until it furiously ached his cheeks. His face was warm, much more than usual, and perhaps they were red, but hopefully it was too dark to notice.
In truth, Zack was aware of his so-called cockiness—but he had thought that maybe, if he embraced it, it wouldn’t be perceived as bad. And it wasn’t that bad anyway, or anymore; despite what Zack thought, he decided to play along.
“How could you tell?”
Henry beamed proudly, though it was a little dull. “I can read your mind.”
“You’re fucking telekinetic now? Is that a new superpower you… obtained or whatever?”
Henry drew his eyebrows in. “I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not.”
Zack squinted at Henry, unlocking his jaw—his mouth hung open, agape and filling up with oxygen until he himself realized that he couldn’t tell if he was genuinely asking or not either. Clamping it shut, Zack looked to the remaining stars and wished upon just one. What he wished for? Zack didn’t know—his mind was very scrambled, so he might’ve wished for a lot of different things.
Henry’s eyes poked around Zack’s face, briefly studying it before giving him an incredulous look. “I think you need to be checked for ADHD.”
Retorting, Zack immediately threw out an insult without another thought, “Well, I think you’re… imbecilic!”
Henry blinked a couple times before his lips cracked a smile, his throat contracting as he held back a laugh. “Great comeback, babe. You even used a big word! A big step forward if you ask me.”
Zack’s eyes lit up, and even though the remark was obviously sarcasm, he still embraced it like it was true and honest. He grinned brightly, kicking his feet childishly.
He stopped immediately when something locked in his left knee.
Zack was well aware that he’d winced. That he gritted his teeth, which definitely resulted in his jaw muscles clenching. His eyes twitched, stinging moderately until it went away after a moment.
He knew he had held his breath.
He knew that his face was heating up from the shivering conflagration that shot there in his knee, up and down and swirling around in the area.
And he was afraid that Henry would notice.
But he didn’t.
Because Henry couldn’t hold back the laughter that he’d been trying so hard to keep within. He was laughing joyously, like he was innocent and blooming like a flower packed full of pollen. Laughing, loud and proud, like he was unafraid and nothing was wrong. Like he wasn’t crumbling under the pressure of Kid Danger; like he was a normal teenage boy.
Zack melted. Or perhaps he was mistaking it for burning; a blazing admiration, and a flaring sense of infatuation. It could be just that.
But maybe he was melting.
Because maybe, just maybe, he was Icarus.
And even though it had been random, it was still fitting. It was a little strange, the subject that had ejected from Henry’s mouth that spawned out of nowhere, but it made sense; but the correspondence was pretty random.
Curiosity was a weakness of Zack’s.
“Sorry,” and the need to speak was a weakness too. The desire to know, to find out where the trope-like thing came from was burly and overwhelming—something Zack couldn’t beat. He could only succumb to it, “but why did you make that Icarus analogy? You really sounded like Cody, and I find that off putting… and a little disturbing. I do not want my boyfriend to remind me of my brother.”
The thing was, Zack had known Henry for years now. Ever since they were both twelve, to be exact.
After living with his Grandparents for a couple years, Carey had finally gotten a job opportunity at the Tipton in Swellview; a while away from Seattle, but Carey had been so determined enough to rebuild her—and her sons—life that she decided that the trip would be worth it.
And it was worth it.
Zack had great friends; Max, Tapeworm, Bob, of which he had made all on his own—then there were Charlotte, Jasper, and the one and only Henry, of which Max had introduced him and Cody to.
At first, Henry hated Zack; Zack never hated Henry, but there were moments when he would get ticked or annoyed with how he would act sometimes. Henry had been a confusing guy to Zack. To his innocent, twelve year old mind, Zack didn’t understand why Henry hated him, and a reasonable reaction to his premature mind was to ‘hate’ him right back. Deep down, Zack didn’t hate him. He just acted like he did. It was a weird reaction, to be frank—but an odd case of reasoning to such a retaliation was: ‘If I pretend to hate Henry, then he’ll regret hating me, and we’ll be best friends because he’ll apologize!’
Again, innocence was the defect.
They ‘hated’ each other—one-sidedly, admittedly—for years. Just two, to be specific, but it had been a very long two years for Zack.
Zack wasn’t sure when Henry had started to warm up to him. He couldn’t pinpoint the day, week, or even month. It was a gradual process, like how if clay was placed over a relatively warm stove; slow, achingly so.
Henry’s parents adored Zack. Ever since that first day he’d come over when they were twelve, trailing behind the wild pack of kids, they liked him. And they still did.
But it was just unfortunate that Henry still hadn’t told them about their now recently bloomed relationship.
After Henry had gotten over his random-ass hatred for Zack, they had grown to be close—just like how Zack predicted and always had wanted. So close that Henry had dared to call Zack his best friend in front of Jasper, which the boy had taken immediate offense to. Now knowing better, Zack was aware that Henry had been growing a crush on him by that point.
Meanwhile, Zack had liked Henry since they were fifteen. But, maybe—and truthfully—Zack had always liked Henry, back when his eyes first laid on the other boy.
Zack would never tell the other that though. Henry would feel guilty, and he already suffered from enough guilt. Whether it be hating Zack unreasonably for two years, or not saving enough people as Kid Danger, it was always there within Henry.
Perhaps it was the ‘cockiness’ talking, but Zack truly believed that he knew Henry better than anyone else.
Which was why Zack was giving him a tad bit of grace for not telling his parents about them yet. Of how they’d started dating two months ago, after a longer-than-normal amount of time spent pining. It was why Zack gave Henry grace for being the way he was, whether it being snippy towards him occasionally or being overall distant.
Because he knew Henry.
He knew that Henry would come around, because he had before.
It just takes the boy a little bit.
Just a minute or two.
And because Zack knew Henry so well, he knew that he wouldn’t just compare him to Icarus out of nowhere. It wouldn’t have just popped up in his mind just like that. Henry would’ve thought about it for a couple days.
So, in conclusion, that damn comparison had been in his head for a while now.
“Because it’s true?” Henry defended, his voice high-pitched.
Another thing ticked off the imaginary checklist labeled: Things Zack Knew About Henry, Confession Edition.
It was in a certain order—sometimes, Henry decided to switch shit up and go out of order, for whatever damn reason… but he also wasn’t aware that Zack had a mental checklist…
The point was, the checklist didn’t always go in order.
But, it helped Zack to brace for things that others weren’t prepared for.
Like, number one: Henry’s right away decision was to lie, but the hilarious catch was that he was a terrible liar.
Henry pushed out the sentence like it was something he knew and was confident about—but his brain seemed to viciously argue behind his back, like deep down he knew he was wrong, or along the line of inaccuracy. The sentence was wrong, Henry would try to reason with himself; maybe it was just the wording, he would think, so he would try again—clear his throat, and say it deeper to make it more convincing.
“Because it’s true.”
“Right,” Zack said in return. He made sure his vocal cords were doused with disbelief, not even pretending to act like Henry made a credible claim. “But I didn’t ask if it was true or not.”
Zack, truthfully, didn’t really know what he himself was talking about at the moment. His lips were simply moving; his brain was transporting jumbles of things he was pondering, molding them into sentences before pushing them out his mouth. He knew what he was saying was true to his heart, true to his tongue, and true to his brain.
“I asked why you think that.”
Henry’s face twisted.
And now came number two on the checklist: Henry was going to play dumb.
“What do I think again?” Henry grilled so hotly that his tongue sizzled.
“You think I’m Icarus,” Zack deadpanned.
“So?”
“Why?”
Next up on the checklist?
Henry’s forehead crinkled, forming like waves that crashed onto a beach from a bird's eye view. “Because I just do, Zack.”
Defensiveness.
“What?” Henry snipped when Zack simply stared—perhaps it angered the boy more when Zack’s eyes were bare and empty, devoid of any emotion that signified that he was affected by Henry’s snootiness. “Am I not allowed to compare you to a fictional fucking person?”
“Henry,” Zack attempted to catch his attention with a soothing voice.
“Not everything has a deeper meaning!”
“I never said that.”
“You implied it!”
“Henry,” Zack said sharply, abandoning the idea of calming the boy down.
Zack was never a harsh person. He was always calm.
Maybe that was why Henry stopped talking.
“I did not ask that. I was just wondering… what fuckin’… prompted you to compare me to Icarus. I didn’t ask for a damn ‘deeper meaning’, or whatever the hell. I was just curious as to what made me comparable to the guy. Like, it could literally be as simple as me looking like the fucker.” Zack’s eyes burned; either from a lack of blinking, or because of the burning frustration he was feeling in his gut. He rarely got angry—it never felt good when he did, especially towards Henry. He blinked, his shoulders slumping as he steadied his previously tense posture. Zack looked away, out to the waterboarded street, and his chest was suddenly hollow. “But now I’m kinda second guessing it.”
Henry seemed alarmed by that. “What are you second guessing? Us?”
“No.” Zack shook his head. “No. I now think… I think your weird ass Icarus correlation does have a deeper meaning, even if you didn’t mean to make it one.”
The next few things on the checklist were always shifty—all one subject, but always changing: Running away before admitting it; Getting mad at the person accusing him, and even blaming them before running away; And last, admitting it then running away.
It always ended with Henry running.
It was pretty ironic, to be honest.
Henry charged headfirst into a battle, outnumbered by five—yet when it came to something mental, he would run away with his tail between his legs.
Zack wasn’t any better than Henry…
But, at the same time, he was better than Henry.
Zack cowardly ran away often—more than he would like to admit—but he never got too far. He always retreated, the guilt in his stomach weighing him down and making him tired. Then he would feel regretful of how he treated Cody, Henry, and others in those moments of spinelessness—truthfully, being a coward was selfish, especially when it was manipulated to protect oneself.
He found being selfish was only damaging himself more.
So, he got better. It wasn’t by much, as he never always stayed—sooner or later, Zack would run when the subject matter got too tough—but he still talked about it.
Henry did not.
He only somewhat communicated when someone else brought the subject up. He himself never mentioned it.
It was hard.
It was so, so hard to keep up with a person running who never seemed to run out of stamina.
Zack was always a very determined guy. Always reaching for the finish line, shooting for the basket, and reaching for the stars.
But he knew when to stop fucking chasing after something too rapid.
“But, you don’t wanna talk about it,” Zack stated, shrugging. “So we don’t have to.”
Henry visibly relaxed—his lined lips, his strained eyebrows, and his curled fingers that grated against the wall they were sitting upon—thinning a smile easily.
Zack twisted his body with the help of his hands, turning until he pushed and hopped off onto the sidewalk next to the road. He pretended to be dusting his jeans off, when—in reality—he was brushing them down to ease the stinging pain the textured walls had caused on his palms. It burned good, almost in an addictive way—the pain was almost identical to how Zack’s palms would feel when he was tripped during a basketball game, catching himself with his hands, or the way a harsh basketball would feel on his fingers. The land also returned the grating ache in his left knee—but this time, it lingered for a moment, beating like a throbbing headache, matching the beat of his thundering heart.
The ache made him even more pissed.
“Where are you going?” Henry asked, turning but choosing to stay perched up on the wall. Still were his fingers, and still was his entire body—frozen, like how the air suddenly seemed to be.
“You don’t wanna talk about it,” Zack repeated, his throat a broken record.
“That doesn’t mean you have to leave.”
“Doesn’t it?”
Henry’s breathing halted, his legs now kicking nervously. “Uh—”
“You’re gonna run off anyway,” Zack murmured bitterly, curling his fingers into his palms, fisting them into his pockets. “I might as well run in the other direction, right?” Almost childlike, he kicked a nearby rock onto the bare road next to him.
“What?”
“What I’m saying is,” Zack seethed out through his teeth, “is that I shouldn’t even fucking try.” To his left, a pair of headlights approached, blinding him momentarily. It grew, until the road trembled. The engine roared, and soared past Zack, barely missing the rock he kicked into the street. After the noise of it subsided, he laughed in hysterics, like the situation he was enduring was funny. And it was, in a way. At the very least, it was amusing. “Why try when you don’t even want to try! You refuse to talk about your personal shit, so why should I care? You even refuse to tell me about this stupid ass— stupid Icarus bullshit!”
Zack did care. He cared quite a fucking bit, to be honest, even if it was as stupid as the Icarus bullshit.
Henry’s wide-eyed gaze remained locked onto Zack as he scrambled off the wall, joining him on the sidewalk.
Another set of pale lights flew past, rumbling and providing sound to the silence hovering between them. Sometimes, when the world was too quiet, Zack would hear his own breathing and heartbeat.
He couldn’t hear either.
Perhaps he was holding his breath, which maybe halted his heart.
It was probably something else, in reality.
Henry’s top teeth latched onto his bottom lip, his eyes scampering around the scenery behind Zack. His breathing was hollow, and a little forceful, the sound whistling out his nose.
“You’re…” Henry shivered out, like he was cold. He took a deep breath, his eyes now towards the sky like he was begging for a larger force to save him. His eyes held a confession that he wanted to exhale out, but his lips prevented such breaths.
Zack continued to eyeball him from a decent distance away from Henry.
“You’re Icarus because…” Henry hesitated, flicking his tongue to get the words correct. “Because you just keep… reaching. Reaching for shit that’s out of your grasp, and no matter how many times you fall, you get back up. You do impossible things, and somehow, you make it possible. You aren’t afraid of anything.” Shining eyes blinded Zack—Henry’s eyes weren’t wide, but they sparkled like crisps of water that refracted the setting sun's rays. “You aren’t afraid of me, who could burn and hurt you just based on who I am. But you still try. And you keep on reaching for me, no matter how many times I burn you.”
The explanation was reasonable. It was, as he didn’t stammer, or raise his voice a couple notches.
But Zack knew it wasn’t entirely true.
It was deep in Henry’s eyes. The shine of them, and the way they twisted with dilated pupils. Guilt was ink, and the ink was Henry’s pupils—it expanded, claiming the irises territory, and it kept spreading like a terrible disease until his entire being was sloughy with it. The guilt was on his skin cells, building and making up every aspect of him—and Zack could almost smell it.
Henry wasn’t lying to Zack.
Because perhaps he was lying to himself—so much so, that his brain genuinely believed it. He was trying to convince himself.
Maybe it was working.
Maybe Henry was aware of the lie, but was just in denial.
A thought crossed Zack’s mind like a bolting meteor.
Without giving it much of a thought, he reached for Henry’s hand.
And as expected, Henry tensed his digits and guided his hand slyly behind his back—slowly, like if he was leisurely enough, Zack wouldn’t notice.
“What if it was the other way around?” Zack asked, watching as realization grew upon Henry’s face. Zack had seen it; probably a thought of Henry’s.
Henry simply hummed, like he hadn’t heard Zack correctly. Playing dumb—Zack mentally recollected—because, when in doubt, play dumb, right? Henry’s lips were winded into his mouth, a straight line in its place. His eyebrow raised as he cocked his head, like he was really trying to sell the perplexed act.
“What if you were Icarus?” Zack theorized. “You know, just to switch up this… hypothetical.”
“Hypothetical?”
Zack wrinkled his nose, burning his gaze into Henry’s eyes. “In your words: ‘not everything has a deeper meaning’.” To be somewhat dramatic, Zack used his fingers as quotation marks. “So yeah, we’re calling it a hypothetical.”
He sort of expected Henry to protest, to screech and demand Zack to call it something else as he was clearly opposed to it.
But what else would it be called of he didn’t want to admit that it, in fact, was a deeper meaning?
Zack supposed that in the end it didn’t truly matter what Henry wanted the name to be, because the very thing he was trying to disprove was only reassuring Zack.
“When I’m Icarus and reaching for the sun, it symbolizes… what, me achieving the ‘impossible’?” Zack waited for the clarification, but when Henry’s face just twisted in response, he continued. “So, if you were in the Icarus position, what would be the sun?”
Henry’s stature remained ever-tense, so Zack decided to inspect his eyes again.
They weren’t wide, but there was a resistance in his eyelids that kept them from opening up more. His pupils were blown still, mimicking a black sky with stars.
Something was there in them.
And it clicked that Henry’s sun wasn’t a ‘what’.
“Or, who would be the sun?” Zack pressed.
“I…” Henry weakly said, his voice falling short. His mouth was agape, his eyes drawn away from Zack and glaring at the sidewalk beneath his shoes. He toed a pebble, rolling it under his sole—side to side, side to side. His throat was muted. Nothing was going to come out.
This wasn’t on the mental checklist.
Zack decided to add it as one of those ‘now super rare occurrences’.
Henry, when in a stressful situation, will go mute.
Apparently.
Either that, or he was using the ‘right to remain silent’ bullshit.
Zack always hated when things were severely uncomfortable—and even though it wasn’t yet, the air was tittering on the uneasy category. Just a speck was enough to make his skin itch.
So he had to take the reins. He had to lead the conversation.
“What if I was the sun?” Zack cocked a brow, and observed how the skin blanketing Henry’s cheekbone twitched and his throat pushed a strained sound out—guttural and accidental.
It wasn’t much of a reaction, but it was something.
And it cajoled Zack, his eyes feeling as if they were twisting; his lips—once again—were in motion. All it had taken was for Henry’s breath to hitch for Zack to know that he’d struck gold. “What if I’m the one who’s burning you?” He took a small step forward. “What if you’re the one reaching for me, but can never even as little as graze me without melting?”
Zack was never good at reading people, especially Henry—at first. But, over the course of their relationship, he had learned the pretty difficult way that Henry was a boy who shielded himself thoroughly and excellently. His walls were brick instead of straw, and one couldn’t just blow them down—like a wolf, Zack huffed and puffed, but never was able to whoosh away the house with a squall.
He was going to have to get inside the damn house to reach Henry.
And that, in itself, was a bitch to do.
So, the best thing to do instead of that was to talk through the door because knocking and waiting wasn’t an option anymore—impatience was another weakness of Zack’s. He had to talk, assume, and state things that he himself thought were factually correct until Henry said otherwise.
Drag Henry out of the house on his own willing accord. Let him leave the safety of his four bricked walls.
“You’re afraid of reaching me because you’re afraid of melting. Nobody wants to melt. Nobody wants to be vulnerable. But that’s what love is, you know? Vulnerability. Burning. Melting. It’s how it is.”
Wax coated the wings of a swan, burning his feathers off until it was raw with irritated pink skin. His neck was long, swooping to create half a cordiform; his beak was the color of a star exploding, or the warmth of the sunrise—both in bold coloring; his eyes were black, shiny like reflective water—the color matched the patterns around his eyes.
The swan held a name. A small name, perhaps insignificant to himself, but not to the world around him.
“You’re scared of that. You’re scared of me melting you.”
Icarus.
“But you want it so fucking bad. Maybe not the melting part, but the…but the warmth part. You watch me, the sun, shine, and you want to be a part of it.”
Icarus, the swan—Henry, the boy—who wielded wings of wax, craved to touch the sun—Zack, the golden boy—whose neck completed his half-heart.
“You want to touch the sun, even if it’s just a little skim.”
Even if it was just a graze.
Zack felt like a swan who’d just lost his lover.
Because even though the mental checklist switched around and fluttered about, some going first and others going last in a randomized order, there was always one thing that remained the same.
The outcome.
The after.
The running.
At first, Zack was fairly hopeful that the script had changed. Henry had been stagnant, eyes staring right at Zack’s face, and even though they were blurry and bare, at least he was looking at him. And he had been staying. He hadn’t been running.
Yet.
Because once Zack’s hopes got high, high like the airplanes acting as shooting stars in the sky, and high like fluttering clouds, Henry stammered out a lame excuse—a confusing one that jumbled together, completely nonsensical. “I have to go to Junk ‘N Stuff to tend to villians,” was along the lines of what Henry had said; something to do with both being Kid Danger and Henry Hart at the same time, together, like he was two different entities. But the villains were all taken care of, Junk ‘N Stuff was closed, and the sun was finally beginning to reveal itself.
Maybe that was why Henry left. The sun was coming up, and he needed to get home before his parents knew he had been gone most of the night.
But that didn’t make sense, because his parents barely acknowledged him.
In the end, it didn’t matter.
It didn’t hurt.
It didn’t affect him that he was now half a cordiform-necked swan, directly a half.
The sun was peaking out, filtering sun into Zack’s eyes and highlighting his skin to be a golden shade.
He glowed—his skin, his eyes.
And he was warm.
But he was empty.
So to try and replace the emptiness with embers, he approached the very wall they had met at, heaved himself up, and watched the sun rise by himself.