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When Julian was a child, he fell in love with the sun. He reached for its warmth, felt it like a hand brushing his cheek. The sun was steady. The sun was kind. The sun would never abandon him.
His mother thought him foolish. His father… he hadn’t seen his father in many years.
When his mother (an actress, an artist, an inventor) was imprisoned for crimes she had never explained, her young son was dragged away with her. Penance, it was said. Not punishment enough for her to rot away alone, the king demanded that she watch her only son rot with her.
Ironic then, that as the years passed he bloomed into one of the most beautiful things the kingdom had ever seen.
They became something of a spectacle, really. The beautiful inventor locked in a tall tower with her equally beautiful son. Like something out of a fairytale, like if the right hero showed up then whatever curse kept them there would be broken and all would be well. (These were things not said out loud, of course, but whispered in the dark). People came from far and wide to witness them through the big bay windows. Some days Julian would perform for them, like sympathy might save him and some days he hide in the shadows, tired of living like a zoo animal on display in a cage.
As Julian grew older the prince, spoiled but not unkind, would sneak him out in the dead of night. He would feed Julian sweet little pastries, tell him stories about his father and his friends, card his fingers through Julian’s hair. You’re too pretty to keep locked away, he would say. Pretty words. Empty words: every night Julian was returned to his tower before the dawn broke, before his beloved could embrace him fully the way he always dreamt.
Julian didn’t mind being the prince’s distraction. It was fun, it was harmless, it kept his eyes, the king’s eyes, off of the wings his mother had begun to build from pillow feathers and candle wax. Every night he closed his eyes and pretended, and every day, he turned his face to the sun.
The wings were ready on a clear autumn day. There was no room to test them, but Julian had never known anyone more capable than his mother. She’d shown him the mechanism as she brought them to life anyway, and he thought by now he might take flight easy as breathing. And they were beautiful, really, mechanical wonders disguised as angel wings. One would think they were costume pieces if they were never put to the sky.
On his final night with the prince, he believed as much. Will you wear them for me? he asked, kissing up Julian’s neck. I bet the angels wish they were half as pretty as you. That night, Julian was careful, so careful, not to trigger the flight mechanism lying there on his back in the cool grass.
The prince kissed him goodbye in the soft grey light, not knowing what kind of goodbye it truly was. Julian let his hands linger but his eyes—his eyes were already on the horizon.
His mother tightened the leather straps of his wings and he helped her into hers. Together, they shoved the frame of their old bay window up and it gave with a heavy sigh. The cool morning air ruffled their feathers, kissed their cheeks. Julian looked to his mother and she kissed his forehead. He’d take her hand, if they didn’t need them. Instead their clever fingers worked in tandem, hauling themselves up, up onto the ledge and then out out out into
the sun.
There was a stomach-plummeting moment of freefall before the wind
caught and suddenly they soared. A laugh bubbled up in his chest unbidden, giddy as he was. It was almost too much, the blue of the ocean and the cut of the air and the heat oh the heat of the sun. He looked up, grinning, like they were sharing an inside joke. He hurtled higher, warmer, faster, warmer, and it felt so good he might—
melting wax feels almost like a caress, at first. But the way the warm slide of it lingered drew his attention and Julian looked down and oh his mother and the ocean were
very
far
away.
He couldn’t bring himself to panic. He was still a little dizzy with euphoria, still a little drunk on freedom and sunshine. Even as he began his descent, he thought that this was a better way to die than rotting in a tower. He closed his eyes, turned his face to the sun and reached, not to beg for salvation
but to express his devotion.
and the sun, oh the sun,
he was listening.
When Julian was a child, he fell in love with the sun He reached for its warmth, felt it like a hand brushing his cheek. The sun was steady. The sun was kind. The sun would never abandon him.
At long last, Julian felt the heat he had longed for on every disappointing dawn. It poured into him through his fingertips and then down, down, down like he was an overflowing wine glass and it was perfect, so perfect that he had to open his eyes.
“I knew you’d come for me,” he said.
The heat pressed ever closer, brushing his cheek but never burning.
“No,” his lover said, eyes bright as a summer sky. “I was always there. You knew I was always there.”
Julian smiled.
“Tell me why.”
His lover smiled back, sweet and scorching and familiar.
“Because.” He leaned in close, just a breath away. “You’re too beautiful to keep locked away.”