Re: The Icarus/The Fallen
“The likes of you,” he repeated slowly, stilted. Eyebrows lowered slightly, lips parted in deep thought and confusion a turbulence as brand new as the rest of it. He understood self-deprecation on an intellectual level, but couldn’t quite get a wrangle on the concept in apparent practice. Enlil looked entirely unbothered by his own dismissal of himself. It didn’t make sense. Man, as a rule, liked to be held in high regard. “Forgive me, but I don’t understand. Why shouldn’t I learn from you?”
Nathaniel’s expression faltered, and he heard regret in his words. A stone sank in the pit of his stomach. The music that the man had coaxed out of ivory and oak and wire had grasped him by the throat and reeled him in from across the car. He thought it was the closest that he’d come to feeling since he’d landed on his back in the dirt, and in that moment he had thought to soar. To think now that the man might not be his salvation, or worse still, that there was no deliverance left in his stars… Well, he’d already uttered his prayer for the night. Best not to press his luck.
He watched Enlil smooth a lock of hair back from his face, and felt his finger twitch. “I don’t feel lucky,” he said, doubt apparent on his face. “But I suppose that what they say about greener grass must be true.” The other man loomed larger in silhouette as he leaned in, and Nathaniel felt a gust of breath from foreign lungs tickle the skin at his temple where a vein throbbed. He swallowed, the sound thick and glottal between them. And as if someone had given another yank on his strings, he found himself reaching out to place his hand atop the other man’s forearm, featherlight.
“The secret,” he murmured, barely more than breath. “Is that I’m not supposed to be here.” With his free hand he gestured but it was not at the train car. Rather he encompassed the length of his own body where he sat, twisted, on the piano bench. “This body, it isn’t mine. Or if it is, then it did not exist before today.” And he waited to gauge the man’s reaction, blue eyes searching Enlil’s face beseechingly before he went on. “Which has to do with the favor.”
His hand squeezed around Enlil’s arm, thumb and index finger sliding around the delicate bones of his wrist and using the hold to lift his hand until his palm rested against the center of Nathaniel’s chest. “Tell me, do - do you feel anything?”