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It's good to be back, he thinks to himself. It's good to be back, he imagines himself saying, smiling as Odysseus checks him back into the Crossroads, as headmistress Hecate gives him a cold greeting, then a warm one, as Melinoë—
As Melinoë does what? She'd told him to come back, and here he is, but he can't help but wonder. What if she hadn't meant it? What if she blames him after all? What if all the rest of these shades and witches and gods don't want him here the way she does? It's why he's here, looking at her garden growing poppies and nightshade and something pink and white and strangely fleshy instead of just. Checking in. Saying hi. Hopefully not being chased off.
He eyes the strange, fleshy fruit again, notes that it appears to have eyes, and sinks down to hug his knees, wings lifting so they won't touch the ground. He waits, and waits, and waits, and tells himself its a good thing that it's taking so long. The longer this takes, the farther she gets, and the more likely it is that she'll best Typhon, but the more time that passes, the more seriously he contemplates flying away and pretending this never happened at all.
But then she's there, and she hasn't noticed him yet, her back turned as she speaks to Hecate. He can't see her face, but just the strong, triumphant lines of her are enough to tell him she's somehow, impossibly prevailed yet again. Always against all odds.
She's beautiful, but she's always been beautiful.
And as he straightens up so she won't see him curled up and pathetic as he is, he can't help but think: what business does someone like him have in thinking such a thing beyond reverence? In believing it so wholeheartedly it makes him ache, makes him miss her whenever she's gone, makes him have the audacity to take and take and take until he took one of her hands too. But even then, she's still beautiful. She wears this new, ghostly one like it isn't new at all, doesn't bother her at all, and he feels so sick with guilt, but that's beautiful too.
He watches as she salutes Hecate and makes her way over to Odysseus. He watches as she pauses, feels suddenly like his clothes or his hair or some other aspect of him must be rumpled and unsightly the moment her attention is on him. He forgets what to do with his hands and his wings as he watches her mouth pull into a smile.
"A moment, sir," she says to Odysseus, getting a soft laugh and an, of course, Goddess. And then she's coming his way, and he still hasn't remembered how to act when she says, "You're here, Icarus!"
She's smiling. She's smiling and her eyes are on him, green and red both, and he. Well. He's here, isn't he? He hasn't flown away. He hasn't been kicked out.
"Yes, I..." He clears his throat when his voice comes out weird. "I'm here."
△
Sometimes he finds himself awed when he watches her fight. She's smooth and practiced and powerful as she sweeps through waves of foes, dodging out of the way of their blows, her own strikes imbued with the power of some Olympian or another.
She doesn't need his help as she makes her way through the Rift of Thessaly. He knows this as he spots her from above, a whirlwind with an axe almost as big as she is. She doesn't need him, but he never fails to stop and help and give her what useful inventions he can anyway. And the way she smiles— The way she smiles makes it all worth it, would make just about anything at all worth it.
The thought that someone like him—a shade who never could outgrow his father's shadow—could make her happy, even a little bit, even for just a moment is enough. His feet touch the creaking wood of this vessel once all the monsters are gone, and Melinoë comes to him, sweeping up a handful of coin as her prize on the way.
"Icarus," she says, his name on her lips. He's missed her. He never stopped after he left the Crossroads, but it was easy enough to forget as he threw all of himself into whatever he could to help in the war.
"Meli," he greets her back, and watches her smile, watches her produce—with her ghostly hand, the one she lost because of him, the one that floods him with guilt every time he looks at it even as he still finds it beautiful—another bottle of nectar.
"Here," she says, and she's given him one just about every night they've met—him, some mortal shade who can barely even taste the stuff, and—
"Oh, no, Meli, I can't accept another one. I've taken way too many from you already," he tells her, holding his hands up. "Save that one for yourself, won't you? Or one of your other numerous friends."
She laughs a little and tucks the bottle away without complaint. "Something else then," she says, smiling faintly, "next time I see you at the Crossroads?"
"You're making an awfully big assumption there, don't you think? How are you so certain Headmistress Hecate didn't chase me away?"
"She wouldn't, Icarus." A pause in which she frowns, thinking. "No one at the Crossroads blames you for what happened, you know."
He opens his mouth. Closes it. A strange feeling runs its course. "I. Well. Yes, you're right. Everyone was rather welcoming upon my return, actually."
"Good," she says, smiling, and he finds himself avoiding her eyes.
"Take your pick," he says, offering his inventions rather than continuing this line of conversation.
She takes one after a moment of thought, thanks him.
"Of course," he tells her. "Whatever I can do to help."
She smiles, raising one hand with two fingers extended and bowing slightly. "Death to Chronos."
His heart, which has long since stopped beating, might do something in his chest. He smiles back, makes the gesture back. "You'll get him."
△
It's a pair of twin lures she present him with the next time he returns to the Crossroads. They sit in her outstretched palm as she awaits his reply to her invitation, expression expectant.
"I never learned to fish," he warns her. "I won't be any good."
Her smile is simple and uncomplicated as anything, and lately he's reminded of their ease. The steadiness of their friendship, despite it all. She's happy to see him again, she doesn't blame him for anything, they remain unchanged and undamaged and it's strange but it's a blessing he's been trying not to take for granted.
They go fishing. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say Melinoë goes fishing. He does quite a bit of standing and watching instead, but he doesn't mind. Perhaps he likes this better anyway. Scanning the murky waters for movement, watching the way the breeze stirs Melinoë's hair. Admittedly, he does more of the latter than the former.
And then she holds the rod out to him after a while, a couple of fish caught already by her hand. One of her brows is delicately lifted, and he tries to protest but she won't have it. The rod is in his hands, and she's laughing and moving back a step to give him room to wield it.
"I really don't know how to use this," he tells her, so she teaches him, running him through how to cast the line and reel it in, and then they're watching intently as the bobber floats on the water, and floats, and floats, nothing happening it all, and he laughs at himself for being nervous for something that involves as much waiting as this.
The air fills with comfortable silence, the two of them listening to the soft sound of waves lapping at the pier. His attention, slowly but surely, returns to her as it always does, as it probably always will. She's standing with her arms crossed, ghostly over near-human flesh. She's watching for a fish far more intently than him; she trades them with the wretched broker, while he has no use for fish now; a shade doesn't need to eat, and he's somewhat afraid of finding himself unable to enjoy it if he were to try.
"Are you sure you don't blame me?" he asks, though he shouldn't. She's already said it time and time again. But something in him is so reluctant to believe it. Something in him keeps wondering if maybe she's faking it, but why would she fake it? Why would she still want him here, with her, if she hated him after all?
And she blinks, attention lifting from the water to him. "Blame you?" she asks, and that should be enough. He knows already, he knows but he can't bring himself to believe it.
"For your arm," he clarifies, pointlessly, awkwardly.
"That was my failure," she tells him. "I wasn't strong enough. I've always been far more angry at myself for it than I ever was at you."
"But if I hadn't asked asked you to—"
"That's pointless to consider," she says, firmly now, and in that moment she sounds a lot like Hecate. Wise and powerful and so certain that she's right. "You did nothing wrong in asking. It's not as if you coerced me. It's not as if you knew what would happen. Besides." She pauses to take a breath, smiles now. "Things are better this way regardless, aren't they?"
"Better?"
"You've got a bite!"
And he does. Quickly, he fumbles to reel the fish in—a moper, tiny as anything—and during it all he's so flustered that he forgets their conversation. And then it's done, and the rod is in Melinoë's hands again, the line cast out, the air quiet with waiting, and he remembers.
"You said it's better this way?"
"Well, yes," she says like it's obvious. "You've something of a proper form now, and I still have two functioning hands, even if one is a bit different than it used to be. I'd say this is as good an outcome as any."
"You don't miss it?" But then, maybe this is another one of those things different between gods and mortals.
She sighs now, softly. Meets his gaze. "I've missed you, Icarus. If I could go back, I'd still do that ritual over again. I just wish you'd have said something before you left."
△
She's successful more often than not now. Whether she heads for Tartarus or Olympus, most nights she's able to do it, though sometimes she still falls to Prometheus or the beasts on the summit where the winds are too strong for him to follow her.
She's a force of nature. A goddess in every right. She continues to fight, he continues to aid her when possible, and in those moments when the night has come to an end and they've both earned a rest, they talk at the Crossroads.
She makes him feel welcomed. She makes him feel like he could have a home here, if he wanted it. He takes to Odysseus' company as well, both of them mortals turned shades among gods. There are some strained interactions, notably with Eris, the incarnation of Strife, but then there's Melinoë.
He's always waiting for her when he visits. He's always thinking about her smile, or her laugh, or the two different shades of her eyes, and he— He finds her beautiful. He finds her to be a lot of things that he shouldn't think about, shouldn't want, shouldn't be so presumptuous as to imagine himself having. But he's mortal, and he's never been able to do anything but want and chase after things he can't have.
He'll admit it to himself as he watches her back after they say goodbye. He thinks this feeling could be called love.
△
Even as a shade, he can appreciate the spring at the Crossroads, hot and smelling of salt and heavily enchanted. Warmth bleeds through his approximation of a body; his entire being feels steeped in comfortable sensation.
Melinoë's hair is wet, sticking to her face, dripping into her eyes. She sighs softly, shifting and settling, water on her collarbones catching Selene's light. She isn't shy; so few of these gods are, all of them so beautiful they have nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed or shy about. He tried explaining this to her the last time they'd gone for a soak together, the vulnerability of a mortal's bare flesh, the shame of it, the ugly imperfections that they try to hide, and she hadn't understood at all.
He'd told her he thought she was beautiful, and she hadn't even seemed to register it. Perhaps these ideas of beauty and ugliness and their implications mean nothing to her to gods. They'd left that conversation behind, and then after a long while she'd looked at him. Studied his face and his hair in silence, gaze quietly dipping to his chest, stopping where the rest of him disappeared beneath the water, and then returning to his face.
"I don't think you're ugly," she'd said simply, and he'd stumbled over his words so much it took a long time to pick out a proper reply. Something like yes, well. Er. Um, well. Thank you. And she'd laughed her beautiful little laugh, pushed her beautiful hair out her face, and turned the topic to the annoyance they're both more than familiar with: harpies.
Now, though, they're both quiet. His gaze drifts to her ghostly hand resting along the edge of the spring, water dripping from her fingertips. He's been curious for some time. He's always been curious, the type to break things and put them back together again to figure out how they work, how they don't, or he wouldn't be here at all, wouldn't have died like this. Melinoë's arm is a unique solution to a unique problem, and he's directed a lot of thought to it.
He's curious how it feels, for one. If it feels. If it functions the same as the old one did, how it works. But it feels an inappropriate topic. He still feels some measure of guilt and shame, if not so much as before. He still thinks of her words, over and over some nights, tinkering away at some invention or another, I've missed you, Icarus. Her smile when they saw each other again. Her green-red eyes. Her ghostly arm.
"Your arm," he says, and it seems to hang in the air between them. She gives him this look like please not this again, and a nervous lump crawls up his throat. "Not— I'm not feeling guilty and miserable again, I promise, Meli. I just." He watches her shift, eyes flicking away as he tries not to see things he feels like he shouldn't see, listening to the water ripple.
"You're curious, aren't you?" she asks, and when his gaze returns to her, there it is, her arm stretched in his direction. Her head tipped slightly to one side, a droplet spilled from her hair tracing the side of her neck and pooling in her clavicle, and—
"Yes," he admits. "I know I— Well, it feels a bit inappropriate, but I am."
She laughs, shakes her arm at him from where it's still waiting in the air between them. "That's fine, Icarus," she says. "I should have figured anyway, what with how much you love tinkering and figuring things out. Look at it all you want; I don't mind."
"Are you sure?" he asks, and she nods, slowly, obviously.
Careful, too careful, reverent, he reaches for her arm. It's warm, from the spring or from her he doesn't know. It's tangible in an odd way, too smooth, the texture like solid smoke. His fingers slide along her forearm to the back of her hand, her palm facing the sky, fingers curled loosely.
"Yes," she says, "before you ask. I can feel through it."
He traces her bones with his thumb, down her wrist and to her palm where they branch into her fingers. His gaze stays down, but he can feel her watching him. Were it still beating, he thinks he'd hear his heart.
Strange, the way this feels. Intimate. There's guilt that he'd feel that way. That he'd have these feelings when to her all of this must be just another part of the day. He wonders what she'd think if she knew how he felt. If she'd understood him at all when he'd told her he thought she was beautiful.
"What a thing to behold, all your witch magic," he says, and does his voice sound strange to her too? Does his touch tickle? Does it feel like something, anything at all, more than just something casual between old friends?
"This one was Headmistress Hecate's creation," she says. "At the time I doubt I could have come up with something so clever myself."
She opens her fingers when he runs his thumb over those bones too. "It's beautiful," he says, and looks up. You're beautiful, he means. Her gaze flicks between each of his eyes, though they're the same to look at, unlike hers.
"Yes, I've come to like the way it looks," she says. Somehow, their fingers lace. He isn't sure if he does it or if she does. He looks down. His hand, pale and scarred and mostly human, her bones visible through the back of her hand. He is tempted, however briefly, to bring it to his lips. He doesn't know what she would say, whether she would let him, but after all this time, he's still weak in the wake of his own want.
"Meli," he says.
"Yes?"
He likes the way it looks, the two of them hand in hand. He likes the way it feels. Likes the warmth of spring, the way she's made it so simple to not be shy or ashamed of himself. He likes her, he loves her in a way he doesn't know how to articulate after all this time, all these messes he's created and gotten them into.
"I've missed you," is what he settles on saying. "A lot. I've missed you a lot. And you've said it to me, but I'm not sure I've said it to you."
She squeezes his hand lightly, smiles. Everything comes so simply to her. He loves her enough to wish he were content with only being her friend.
"Would it be terribly strange to say thank you?" she asks, laughing a little.
"Maybe," he says, laughing too. He's still holding her hand, and he still... He can't help it, the way he ducks and presses his mouth to the back of her hand, bolder than he should be, than he has any right to be. He'll scold himself for this later, again and again, but now, he looks at her, the shape of the smile that stills and softens on her face, the damp curl of her hair. "But that's alright, between us."
"Sure," she agrees, looking right back at him. "Between us."
They don't say more on it. They don't mention the kiss, and perhaps it's better that way. Regardless, he will think of it, grow stuck on it in the moments between battles and work. Even now, still with her, he can't help replaying the feeling over and over again.
△
Things change when she finally succeeds, properly succeeds, Typhon vanquished, Chronos turned into a normal, loving grandfather. That last part, he doesn't quite understand, but he knows that she's happier, that she gets to know her family, Hades and Persephone and her brother Zagreus. But somehow, she's still fighting this war over and over, fighting the very possibility of another outcome, and he upsets her in his lack of understanding.
He wants her to take a break. Longer than the ones she takes to bathe in the springs or visit the pier or the taverna. He wants her to rest properly, but maybe that's an inherently mortal concept. Maybe gods don't need rest the way mortals do, maybe they don't crack under pressure, maybe they don't ever tire. He speaks out of turn before he brings himself to accept this possibility, but she forgives him for it easily enough. She accepts one of his inventions on her latest run to the surface and tells him she's sorry too.
Later, when he returns to the Crossroads, Hecate stops him on his way to Odysseus. She studies him in silence for a moment, two, three, frowning the whole while, and then she sighs. "I'm glad to see you've learned to fly again, Icarus," she says, and he, so nervous he's forgotten how to have hands and a tongue, trips headfirst over his reply.
"Yes, I. These wings are— um. Thank you."
He talks with Odysseus for a while, listens to his stories told in a smooth, deep voice. He's already heard about Odysseus' epics, his run-ins with Polyphemus and Scylla, his journey home, the battle of Troy. But today he asks to hear about Penelope, Odysseus' wife. Odysseus tells him how they fell in love, how she waited for him, how he fought to get back to her. He finds himself faintly embarrassed by the end, if only because of the obvious passion and vulnerability in such a tale.
And then he waits by Melinoë's garden as he always does, today growing olives and wheat and mandrake, and something in him whispers over and over, again and again, what's the worst that could happen? He keeps thinking, what if I just told her? Why shouldn't I just tell her?
But she's a goddess, and he's nothing but a shade. And yet she's his friend, and yet she acts like that distinction means nothing at all, and yet she regrets nothing about the sacrifice of her own hand so he could have this form, and yet she doesn't blame him for it at all, and yet she says she'd do it again, given the chance to go back.
And then she's here, calling out a greeting, and he's looking her in her mismatched eyes and his heart that doesn't beat does something like it in his chest. "Meli," he says.
"Icarus," she says back.
He wishes he had a gift. Flowers like mortals gift to each other, nectar like gods do, another keepsake, a better keepsake, anything at all. But she's smiling, isn't she? She smiles around him a lot, and maybe she's just like that, but it has to mean she likes his company at least a little bit, right? So really, what's the harm when the ache in his chest threatens to eat him from the inside out? What's the harm when he can't stop thinking about her, night and day, day and night, when he's fighting off harpies, when he's working on a new invention, when he's patrolling the Rift or Mount Olympus and hoping desperately that he won't miss her this night?
"Do you have a moment?" he asks, and feels his heart crawl up his throat. "It's— Well, of course it's alright if you don't. This can wait, I can wait, I—"
"I have a moment," she says, mouth curling up at the edges.
His courage spills into a mess on the floor. The words hide away in a lump in his throat, and his hands are stiff, awkward weights at his sides, and he... Can he really just say it? He opens his mouth to speak.
"I wanted..." It isn't so hard. He can do it, he just needs a handful of words. One sentence, maybe two, and then he can wait for her reply. Maybe she won't be interested, and it'll set him free from the waiting. Maybe she will be, and she'll... She'll what? Where would this go?
"I wanted, well." He wets his lips. She looks at him expectantly. He's not sure he's ever been this nervous. Not in life, not in death. He can't do it. "I wanted to hear more about what happened. With your grandfather, I mean. If, um. If that's something you can even tell me, hey?"
She seems surprised, like she wasn't expecting him to say that. Like she knows that wasn't what he wanted to say. But she doesn't comment, just nods slowly and says, "You're right that I can't talk about a lot of it, but if you do want to hear more, I can share some?"
"Yes," he says, and wants to kick himself for the relief that goes through him. It's better this way, something in him says, but the rest of him isn't sure. "Yes, please do. I want to know more about you. Your family, your... ah."
"Alright," she says. "I suppose there's a lot to go through, if you really want to hear all of it. Let's find somewhere to sit."
△
His wings need maintenance. Careful, routine cleaning and oiling and inspecting. He tends to find it soothing and meditative. Now, he finds himself frustrated. Now, he can't stop thinking why didn't you do it? as he runs a cloth over the thin metal bones of the wings, what are you so scared of? as he checks the thick cloth of them for tears or damage, it's better to just get the rejection over with, as he tightens screws and tests how his wings fold and expand.
He's in love. This much he's sure of. This much he's been sure of for a while now, despite his lack of experience in the area. He doesn't think there's any other word for what he feels for Melinoë. He's found others to be beautiful, had half-hearted crushes before, but this...
He thinks about her too much. He cares about her too much. He replays her laugh over and over in his head, remembers the touch of his lips to her hand, pours any spare energy into imagining up trinkets that might help her on her way up the mountain, that might keep her safe, that might give her what little boost she needs here and there.
Odysseus spoke of love as his driving force. Icarus feels it like a part of him. An arm he can't just replace if he were to lose it.
So there's the question: Is it better to stay by her side and keep quiet about the feeling in his chest, or to tell her so one day he might let it go? Or so that one day he might love her properly, if she would let him.
He wants that chance. He wants and wants and wants, like he always has, wants her like he wants to fly, wants her like the sun that killed him. Maybe this kind of desperate greed is a fault of mortals, but he can't help but think that it would be worth it, and she would never hate him for it, and no matter what happens he would be better off.
It's good that he hadn't acted on impulse. It takes him a long time to realize this. Days in which there's an endless stream of harpies and he either misses Melinoë on his patrols or she takes her journey to the depths of the underworld instead.
He has a great deal of time to think about it. The ways he would've stumbled over his words and messed things up had he said it when he wanted to. The things he might say when he gathers himself properly, when he's ready for it, when she comes back to the Crossroads triumphant and beaming.
Embarrassingly enough, he writes these things down on the back of a forgotten blueprint. Shapes his feelings into words, scratching things out and rewriting them again and again until it feels true to the heart and, if nothing compared to the work of a real poet, lovelier at least than his usual, clumsy manner of speaking. He reads the words over and over, recites them aloud to his own embarrassment, tries to commit them to memory the way he's memorized her smile.
And then he waits for the right night to tell them to her, imagining the plants in her garden swaying with a gentle breeze, imagining the look on her face after another win.
△
It doesn't happen like that. Instead, he spots her on Mount Olympus, wielding her twin blades Lim and Oros against an endless flow of satyrs. He helps from above, and when the satyrs are gone and it's time to land, a stray wind keeps his wings from cooperating. He hits the ground harder than he means to, slips on a patch of ice, and falls straight into Melinoë.
She catches him, somehow, dropping her blades and throwing her arms out. The collision is hard and fast, and he has too much momentum; they stagger a step, two, until they topple to the ground. He only just manages to twist so they land on their sides instead of with Melinoë crushed beneath him, and as he's dazed and out of breath and gathering his senses, Melinoë bursts out in laughter.
"Icarus!" she laughs, pushing herself up to sit on her hip, one hand braced on the ground. He lays there on his back, looks up at her and the lines around her eyes as she smiles. "I've never known you to be so clumsy before, is everything alright with your wings?"
A bit of snow from the ground begins to melt into her dress, darkening the fabric. He's staring, he's always staring, always catching himself and failing to stop.
"I love you, Meli," he finds himself thinking.
My wings are fine, he says aloud. Or, that isn't right.
"You— What?" Her eyes are wide. Her mouth has dropped open. The realization hits him harder than the fall.
"Oh dear," he says. "Oh no, I hadn't meant to— Um, well, listen, Meli." He pushes himself up, brushing off snow and testing his wings to make sure they haven't bent or torn and he can still make his escape. "I meant to say it at a better time. When you came back to the Crossroads one of these nights, for instance. Look, I don't know why I— I must've hit my head just now or—"
"Wait, Icarus," Melinoë says as he makes to stand. "What you said just now, did you... How did you mean it?"
And he takes a breath, looks at her, realizes he shouldn't be surprised at all that she seems confused. It's better than angry, it's better than disgusted or pitying at least. But despite how obvious and embarrassing he's been, of course she hasn't noticed. So rarely does she notice this sort of thing.
"You heard me loud and clear," he says, unable to look her in the eye. If he were alive, his heart would be thundering. His face would have turned red as blood.
"You said you loved me," she says, in confirmation or agreement. "Sure, I heard you, but how am I meant to take it? There are many kinds of love."
It could be an out, and he hates that some cowardly part of himself wants to use it as one. He's forgotten every beautiful word he'd carefully penned out, but the feelings are still there, and he'd never forgive himself if he didn't get them out now.
"I care for you," he says, looking at her now. "I enjoy our time together. You occupy a great number of my thoughts when we're apart."
It makes her smile. "It's the same for me as well," she tells him. "I cherish our friendship."
He smiles back, twists his fingers together. "That's the thing, Meli," he tries, swallowing around the lump in his throat. "I don't know if I'm satisfied with only being your friend anymore."
"You..." She blinks. "Oh."
"Oh," he agrees, and hopes she finally understands. Nervous tension builds in him, so he stands up and fumbles for the inventions he'd brought along in case he saw her, nearly dropping them, fingers thick and clumsy. "Well, Typhon isn't going to fight himself, is he? Take one of these on your way."
"Icarus," Melinoë says, standing too, brushing off her dress. He likes the sound of his name on her lips.
"Yes?"
Melinoë reaches out, laying a hand on top of his over the trinkets. "I did mean it when I said it was the same for me too," she says. "Maybe I haven't thought of it the way you have, but I'm not opposed to being more than your friend. In fact, I think I would like that. A lot."
"Oh," he says.
"Oh," she agrees, and smiles. She's beautiful when she smiles.
Half a step closer, she hesitates for half a breath and leans in to press her mouth to his cheek, warm and soft and smelling like blood and the herbs she gathers on her climbs.
"See you at the Crossroads?" she asks, plucking one of the inventions from his still frozen hands.
He can do nothing more than nod, pushing the words past the lump in his throat. "See you at the Crossroads."