FicWad

Their eyes drooped, heads resting in their hands as they smelt the huge mugs of coffee in front of them. For hours they'd been seated in the cramped back room of the comic shop, listening as the man waffled on about the government and all its ills. He'd then spent at least another hour telling them about the secretive Project Malakh and how it was supposed to "save" the world. Slash and Steven had listened intently, eyebrows and hackles raising as they took in what was being said.

Steven chewed on a fingernail before running a hand through his scruffy blonde hair. "So what can you tell us about finding Izzy then, dude?"

The large man set his coffee on the old, scuffed table and looked at them. His eyes swept over the two boys, taking them in as if he still didn't trust them, before narrowing into dark slits.

"The angel project was conducted in a disused military base," he began. "Somewhere out on the Oxnard Plain we believe."

Lighting another cigarette, Slash looked up, taking in the small room for a moment. What was a small room was made even more claustrophobic by the hundreds of cardboard boxes. Boxes were piled one on top of the other, each marked in scrawled marker pen. Comics, strange 'zines, books on subjects he'd never heard of. The rickety table sat in the middle of the cluster of boxes, a single light-bulb illuminating them with a painfully glaring light.

"Do you know where it is?" Slash quietly asked, eyes turning to look at Joe.

Joe's eyes twinkled as he grinned. "Actually, I do."

~~~~

Deep within Mesa, Izzy lay curled up on his bed. The wings were protectively wrapped around him, cradling him in their warmth. Izzy shuddered, a hand tightening around a bunch of feathers to pull them closer. They were all he had left after being so cruelly dragged from Slash.

And that's where his thoughts lay. The aching loneliness stretched through his body, making him shudder with cold. The fear of never seeing Slash and the terror of never seeing the outside world again flooded his body, making him alternate between hot panic and cold sweats. He didn't want to be stuck underground forever. Didn't want to spend the rest of his days haunting the long tunnels and tall silos. Was this what was to become of him? Would he, the angel boy of Los Angeles, ever walk the streets again? He highly doubted it.

Memories, sweet memories that faded a little with every playback. Soon they would be reduced to nothing, ghosts in the shell that was formerly Izzy. As if they were reading his mind, the wings moved with quiet rustles as they stroked him, trying to tempt him to sleep. Tempt him to relax and forget about the life he'd left behind.

Shivering, Izzy let his eyes slip, tightening the soft feathers to his tiny frame. Slash danced before his mind's eye, his warm smile just visible from beneath his curls. A tear slid down Izzy's cheek, a tiny sniffle accompanying it. He yawned, desperate for his body to just fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Yet every time he drifted off, the creature in the glass cell appeared, its dark, dead eyes silently pleading with him. Izzy didn't want to call it a monster because it wasn't. Not to him, anyway. Instead it was a sad and pitiful creature that had spent the last twenty years locked in a bunker, separated from whatever it called a family by a thin veil of reality. Izzy wondered about letting the creature go. Would it be able to find its own way back to its homeland? Would it be able to find another rift to pass through? Maybe it caused the rift? Izzy's heart dropped as a quiet voice of pessimism whispered, Maybe its universe no longer exists alongside ours... Could that happen? Could the creature's home world have shifted away? Izzy didn't want to know. What he did want to know was if he could help the creature get home.

Sitting up, he wrapped threw the blanket over his shoulders, letting it rest down his front. As homely as parts of Mesa could be, it was still a bunker many feet below ground with a permanent temperature that rarely rose into double figures. Opening the door to his room, Izzy quickly looked both ways before stepping out.

~~~~

"Why?!" Steven howled with frustration. "Why won't you tell us where this place is?"

Old Joe chuckled and lit a cigarette. "Because..."

Slash sat, watching with a sick fascination as Steven and Joe back and forthed, Steven trying to get the information and Joe withholding it.

"Because what?!" pleaded the blonde, a hand of strong drummer's fingers slapping the cheap wooden table.

"Because." Joe pressed his face up close to Steven's. "There's no way on God's green earth that you could afford this information."

"You can't do this, man!" Steven screamed, eyes shutting and blonde hair fluffing. "You can't tell us you know where Izzy is an' then stop! This is a matter of life or death, dude! You have to help!"

Sitting back, Slash sighed and folded his arms. He'd known this was too good to be true, knew that the man was just leading a couple of gullible street kids along. But this was the closest they'd come to any true information about Izzy. They'd found someone who knew something about the Malakh project. They couldn't give up now. Couldn't leave Izzy wherever he was.

Drumming his fingers against his forehead, Slash quietly asked, "What'll cost?"

The older man lit a cigarette, a sly smile crossing his lips as he looked them up and down. "Well, you boys don't look like you've got a dime between you. So how about we do a trade."

Steven arched an eyebrow. "A trade...?"

"Yeah," Joe said, flicking cigarette ash on the floor. "I take you to this place and we share the angel you're tryin' to rescue."

"No, no, no, just /no/." Slash shook his head, curls bouncing wildly in front of his eyes. "Not gonna happen. Uh-uh. Do you honestly fuckin' think he wants those wings? Because he doesn't. Really, he doesn't."

Joe looked at him, eyes dead as he thoughtfully rubbed his teeth together. "In that case." He ground the cigarette out. "No dice. No trade, no boyfriend."

~~~~

Shivering, Izzy let himself into the damp tunnel. He'd slyly stolen the keys from the doctor, feeling guilty as he did but knowing he'd have to see the creature again. The creature that had, in some odd way, helped father him. Sure, Izzy had a biological father, but the creature had leant some of its DNA to him. Flicking on the light, he jumped as the metal door banged closed behind him. His heart pounded in his chest and Izzy leaned against the slippery wall, hand against his chest as he caught his breath.

Somewhere, along the corridor, he could hear the sounds of movement, the sound of long overgrown nails scraping the rough, stone surface. It sounded like nails down a blackboard but, to Izzy, it was almost comforting. Dropping the keys into the pocket of the tunic, he readjusted the blanket. The wings flicked as the scraping came again and Izzy smiled. They knew where they were and obviously felt the same way he did. It's not a monster...

Stopping in front of the door cell, he sank to his knees and pressed a hand against the hard glass. His breath made small, steam circles on the glass, growing with each tiny breath. Inside, the creature was turning tiny circles, claws scratching at the concrete. It paused as Izzy knelt, tiny, slit-like nostrils flaring as it smelt the air. Cautiously, it lifted its eyes, looking up. On seeing Izzy, it bounded to the glass, dropping to all fours and looking at him. The wings spread from its back, its whole body quivering as the wings rustled around it. Izzy watched, wondering if it was scared. Or excited.

Smiling, he stroked the glass. "Hey..."

The creature pressed itself to the glass, it's eyes wide as it studied him. Staying still, Izzy watched it, watching it as it watched him. Izzy widened his hand, pressing it closer to the glass. It cocked its head, dark eyes watching his fingers. Then, almost dog like it, it rubbed its head against the spot where Izzy's hand lay. Quietly, Izzy gasped, moving his fingers over the smooth surface, trying to stroke it.

"You ain't so bad..." he quietly repeated his words from earlier.

Moving its head, the creature looked up at him, flicking one of its many wings. It placed its head against the glass, staring at him. Dark, beady eyes watched him and Izzy believed he could see something deep in them. Some kind of acceptance. Was it because of his wings? Izzy smiled warmly, fingers still moving against the glass.

"Do you wanna go home?" he asked, wondering if it would understand.

The creature carried on looking at him, the eyes moving in the deep sockets, taking him in. The top set of wings rustled a little, moving up and down. Licking his drying lips, Izzy nodded.

"Can you get home?"

This time the bottom set of wings rustled against the concrete and the creature dropped itself back to the floor. Izzy felt his heart sink and he sighed.

"Maybe if I let you out, you can get there?"

Again the bottom wings shifted slightly and a clawed hand scrapped at the floor, the blackboard-like sound coming again. Sighing, Izzy decided to give the creature a name. He was tired of thinking of it as some otherworldly creature, some monster that had been crept captive to have its DNA farmed.

"Icarus," he whispered, watching the creature scrap and pick at the concrete, trying to dig its way out.

His own wings twitched, spreading a little as the creature lifted its head and looked at him. Slowly it moved back to the glass, its wings spreading as it appeared to sigh.

Lifting his wings a little higher, Izzy quietly repeated the name, letting it roll from his lips, "Icarus..."

The creature, Icarus, sat in front of the glass and looked at him. Its wings fluttered, body quivering.

Izzy chuckled. "You've never had a name, huh? At least on this planet?"

Icarus arched his back, head coming up as its wings began to beat faster. The leathery wings stretched and arched and, for a fraction of a second, the creature fluttered above the ground. Izzy's wings beat around him and he clapped, eyes lighting up.

"You fly!" he cried.

The creature plopped back to the ground, the top wings shrugging as it cocked his head. Still smiling, Izzy laid his head against the glass.

"I'll get you out, Icarus. I don't know how but I'm gonna," he said with a wide smile.