Re: The Icarus/The Fallen
“You’re saying that you’re not the one to learn from, then?” The question sounded wrung out out of him, words squeezed tight and twisted until they were mostly dry. Was it humor? A cock of his head as he considered this, sat up a little straighter on the bench. He wondered when he had begun to slouch and realized he had only ever had perfect posture until today. It was becoming apparent that a sagging spine and sloped shoulders came naturally to a man who had no wings and a hollow chest to his name.
Nathaniel met the gloam of the taller man’s gaze and held it steady, blinking up at him with studious intent. He didn’t shrink, but he did feel on display. Pinned to a board like some iridescent insect that still had its wings. “I don’t have a lot of experience,” he tried to explain, a notch appearing between thick, dark eyebrows as he frowned. “With feeling things on my own. Or free will, I suppose.” Because he’d always had a purpose. And maybe that was the axis from which he was now spinning free, dizzy and whipped into centrifugal spume. Left only to his own devices and at the mercy of only other men.
God help me.
“Likewise,” he nodded, squeezing his new companion’s hand in the way that he’d been told would make a good impression, man to man. And he meant it. Nathaniel was loathe to think of some alternate sorts of persons he could have met, instead of one who played piano like it would hurt him not to do it. (He wasn’t sure he was ready to meet a teenager, for example. Or a politician.) His calloused grip was strong, but he was only trying to impart sincerity, not intimidate. Curiously, he had the idle thought that Enlil seemed like someone not easily intimidated. “Can I tell you a secret?”
At last he turned slightly on the bench, bringing one leg up as he swung to face the other man more head-on. It was impulsive, which was new. He thought that he might learn to enjoy impulsive. It felt like the familiar swoop of gravity’s weight in his stomach. “And after that, I might ask you for a favor.” Depending on the answer he received, of course.