Caged

Time went on, and with that time, things grew better for the two boys.

Brian had helped Zack with many things—learning the ways of humans, the foods, the environment, upon other things—and the two had slowly become closer and closer friends.

On the third day of Zack’s living with Brian, the older boy had gone out on a mini shopping spree with what money he had, buying clothes for his friend that he thought would fit to his style; mostly the style he’d built off of the one outfit that Zack had arrived in. The small wardrobe consisted of mostly sleeveless tee shirts, along with some band shirts and skinny jeans. Zack had never heard of any of the bands, of course; still, Brian found the shirts fitting. He’d even bought some dark colored eye shadow and eyeliner, recalling the younger man’s love for wearing makeup.

One day, Zack had convinced Brian to let him put eyeliner on for him, saying that it would just be for fun. Surprisingly enough, though, the taller boy loved the look; how the dark lines made his eyes stand out more. Zack had laughed, pulling the usual I told you so, since Brian had started wearing the makeup every day since.

They laughed together, and sometimes still cried together; there only seemed to be a few quirks in their friendship. One, being that Zack was never able to leave the house, for fear of attracting attention to himself. Who wouldn’t want to stare, Brian had asked himself at one point.

The only other odd spot in the bond: The sexual tension that Brian could never seem to shake; the moments when they’d lock eyes for reasons unbeknownst to them, one blushing and the other muttering something inaudible about the other. This was the only thing that the 18-year-old couldn’t seem to come up with a solution for.

It seemed that Brian had already made his feelings apparent; at least in his own opinion, he had. So if Zack felt the same, why didn’t he just say so?

Even now, as Zack stood behind him with the bottle of hair gel that he’d convinced his friend to buy, Brian wondered this.

“I think you’ll like it, though.” Zack smiled, carrying on the playful argument that they’d begun moments before.

“But my hair’s okay…” he murmured, giving a quiet giggle at the fact that he himself didn’t believe that.

“Yeah, but you should do something different… why do you think mine’s purple, huh?” the smaller boy laughed, taking a brush and running it through his friend’s tangled locks as he looked into his soft brown eyes through the mirror.

Those eyes seemed amused, but also unconvinced. Twisting the ends of Brian’s hair around his fingertips carefully, Zack gave a smirk. “I don’t see why no one paid attention.”

Brian shook his head slightly, his curious gaze colliding with Zack’s joyous orbs. “Meaning..?”

“You.” he said, tone bouncy. “I don’t understand why no one paid attention to you.”

At this, Brian’s cheeks flushed a deep crimson. Zack made these kinds of comments constantly, nearly on a daily basis, now. There wasn’t much he could do besides take
them; he figured that constantly complimenting in turn would come across as flirting, which he always tried not to do intentionally.

“Well… I never really tried to be noticed… I’m not that interesting, I suppose.” he shrugged casually, reluctantly trailing his eyes away from Zack’s, whose bright olive color sparkled in time with the light glinting off of his silver lip rings.

“You are, though.” he smiled as he began taking small sections of Brian’s hair and gelling them up into long, uneven spikes. The russet eyed boy’s brow furrowed slightly; he found the look of the lengthy, pointed sections of hair odd.

“Am I supposed to look like the statue of liberty?” he teased lightly, earning a soft chuckle from Zack.

“No…. and you won’t for long, so don’t stress it.” he laughed, continuing his work on the seated boy’s hair. “Anyway, why would you say that you aren’t interesting?”

Brian sighed. Why did Zack have this habit of bringing him into their conversations?

“I don’t know… I’ve never really had friends…” he mumbled, his face flushing further. Zack tilted his head, running a hand through Brian’s hair to separate the gelled-up strands so that they looked less like single spikes. The style—like the newly dark-lined eyes—was beginning to suit him quite well.

“What about that boy… the first night when you found me..? He’s been around a few times, hasn’t he?” Zack questioned. Brian laughed softly and nodded.

“He was drunk the first night, though…” he recalled, shaking his head slightly at the
memory.

Jimmy knocking on his door, stumbling inside drunkenly; Brian had asked him what he was doing, why he was there, but all Jimmy had done was mumble something incoherent about the angel—Zack—who had been shyly peeking out his bedroom as Brian had answered the door. It had been 2 in the morning.

He’d come around once after that, to apologize, but that was all they had seen of the lankier man so far.

“I guess he could be considered a friend, but I don’t know him all too well…” Brian chuckled slightly as he felt Zack tousle his hair once more before stepping back to admire his work, smiling.

“What did I say.” he laughed, smiling more immensely. Leaning forward, Brian shook his head slightly, smirking back at the younger man.

“Why are you so good at this, huh?” he grinned, standing and turning to smile fully at Zack instead of through the hollow mirror before him.

Zack shrugged simply as his lip rings again glimmered with the fluorescent bathroom light, and the sleeveless, hooded shirt he wore showed off his pale, inked over skin.

Brian remembered the first time he’d seen the art covering Zack’s arms and shoulders.

***

“Bri, can you come help me, please?” Zack called as he struggled to get into one of his new shirts. It was a difficult task, since most of them had to be altered to fit around his wings; which for Brian, meant tearing slits up the back of the shirts so that Zack was able to fit the edges around his wings, and then safety pinning the tears to fit. He promised his friend that he would eventually figure out how to sew buttons into the edges of the tears so that they wouldn’t need to pin them up constantly.

Brian smiled to himself and got up, walking into the bathroom to see a shirtless Zack, struggling to fit his wings underneath of the thin fabric which made up the newly bought Iron Maiden shirt.

He had managed to fit it over his head, but couldn’t seem to work it down over his wings’ crests. The green eyed boy looked up sheepishly as Brian entered the room, smiling crookedly.

However, at seeing Zack’s bare skin, Brian’s eyes had widened. “You have tattoos?!” he grinned widely, letting his eyes wander over the brightly colored pictures that were inked into his friend’s skin. There were several.

At this, Zack had given a gentle laugh and had blushed. “Yeah… another reason I wasn’t too well accepted at home.”

Brian shook his head slightly, still tracing the outlines of one of the tattoos with his eyes. “You’ve gotta be kidding…” he murmured, but the expression on Zack’s face clearly said that he wasn’t. “I’ve wanted one for so long. Did they hurt?”

The older boy had continued attempting to make conversation, both so that Zack’s mind wouldn’t linger on his home world and bring him down, and for the fact that he was truly curious.

Zack smiled. “Not as much as you’d think.”

Brian walked around to Zack’s backside, reaching around him to extract a shaving razor from the counter in front of them.

With that, he stretched the fabric out and placed the blade to its hem, slicing the shirt up the back until he could slide the edges down around one of the bases of Zack’s wings;
he then did the same with the other side, all the while questioning Zack on his ink.

From there on, they ended up doing the same thing to each of the new shirts Brian had
bought for Zack, and the conversation continued on for hours.

***

“Well, maybe I’m just a bigger girl than you.” Zack teased, breaking Brian from the
memory of just a few weeks ago.

Brian narrowed his eyes slightly, grinning. “You sure you should be saying that to
me..?” he questioned, even as a slight blush settled into his cheeks with the words.

Zack smiled. “Damn straight.” he giggled, reaching to fluff up Brian’s hair once more.
The taller man widened his eyes in mock surprise.

“I didn’t know angels swore!” he ‘gasped’, covering his open mouth with one hand.
Zack narrowed his eyes in turn, shaking his head

“I don’t know what angel you’ve been looking at, but I swear.” he giggled. Brian shook
his head, mirroring his friend’s actions.

“We both know who I’m talking about.” the older of the two murmured, reaching out to
brush his fingertips over the crest of Zack’s wing to prove his point. This caused the
smaller man to shiver and bite down on his lower lip gently, blushing at the sensation that
had given him butterflies. Brian simply smiled and turned to walk into his bedroom,
pushing aside the chair that they’d brought in from the kitchen as a “salon chair”.

Zack gave a strangled laugh and followed after him. “Bri?” he asked gently, readying
himself to be serious again.

“Yeah, Z?” Brian smiled back, his lips pulling up over his teeth slightly.

“Can we do something tonight..?” he spoke, returning Brian’s smile brightly. “Maybe go
out and see the stars like you promised me we would?”

At this idea, Brian’s heart involuntarily fluttered; he wasn’t sure if it was because Zack
had actually remembered that detail of their first night as friends, or because of the intimacy
the scenario posed.

He had come to the conclusion already that what he felt for his Aralaysian friend was
much more than close friendship, and he couldn’t get past the feeling that his presence
caused; that flutter in the pit of his stomach.

Brian nodded, what seemed like several seconds later in his head. “Sure. I know of a
real nice place… it’s pretty beautiful at night.”

Zack nodded softly. “What I’ve seen so far, I like…” he murmured, bringing his eyes
towards Brian’s. The smaller man could already tell that it was about to turn into another of
their intense, heated stares.

Zack didn’t know exactly why this always happened to him, but he knew that whenever
his eyes found Brian’s, he didn’t want to look away, and it seemed that Brian didn’t either.

“I think you’d like it more if you knew more… saw more.” Brian said gently, stepping
closer to Zack, who seemed to shy away slightly. Only the older man realized the double
meaning in his words, and he blushed at it. Like always, though, neither of the two looked
away for several seconds.

And when one finally did, it was Zack. “What time is it?” he asked softly, finally breaking
their gaze to glance at the clock in Brian’s bedroom. Brian bit his lip.

“About 7:30…” he murmured, turning again to glance at himself in the mirror as he ran
a hand through his hair. “We should probably wait until around midnight sometime to
head anywhere, though.”

Brian didn’t want to wait so long, but he knew that Zack was extremely skeptical about
putting himself out in public; being so… so different from everyone around him.

“Alright… what should we do in the meantime, though?” the angel wondered aloud as
he brushed past Brian, striding further into the small bedroom.

“Well… wow, I guess I’m just realizing how boring my place is… um…” the spiky-
haired young man stammered, chuckling slightly. Zack scoffed.

“Hardly boring. You’ll never know what boring really means until you’ve lived in
Aralaysia. Anyway, we’ll find something.” he smiled as Brian stepped to sit down on his tiny
bed. Zack followed suit.

The younger of the two had most definitely lightened up and opened up more over the
weeks, and Brian had come to know that despite his softer, sweeter side, Zack possessed
a side that loved to tease, to joke and laugh about the stupidest things possible. Brian
loved this side as much as the first.

After sitting in silence a moment or two, lost in his own thoughts, Brian heard a soft
hum from the boy beside him, and glanced up to find Zack’s curious eyes lingering on
something behind him.

Raising an eyebrow, the older boy perked up slightly. “What’s the face for, Z?” he
smirked slightly, drawing Zack’s gaze back to his, jade eyes sparkling and wide.

“What’s that?” he asked simply, pointing to the area he’d been staring into just a
moment ago. He hadn’t seemed to pay any mind to Brian’s teasing tone of voice, so Brian
turned, in search of what his companion was asking about.

A joyful smile splayed over his features as his eyes fell upon his beautiful acoustic
guitar; the guitar he’d lovingly named Storm.

“That’s my guitar… her name’s Storm.” he smiled widely, reaching back to grip the ebony neck of his baby and pulling her into his lap.

“What’s a guitar..?” Zack murmured softly, his cheeks taking on a soft pink glow. He always got embarrassed when he didn’t understand parts of his friend’s world; it made him
feel incompetent. But Brian smiled gently. It never came as a surprise to him—at least, not anymore—when Zack didn’t know of the obvious parts of his world.

“An instrument… it makes music.” Brian smiled, giving a soft strum to the six strings as an example. Fascination flashed in Zack’s eyes.

“Oh… music.” he smiled, and Brian couldn’t help but be reminded of himself at the age of seven, first discovering the instrument himself.

“Daddy, how do you make it sound that way? Can you show me how?” he’d asked, one among many times before his father had settled on teaching him definitely.

As he stared into Zack’s eyes as they wandered over his beloved instrument, Brian found the same loving gleam that that little boy inside of him had had.

“Do you want to hear a song..?” Brian smiled. He had never played personally for someone, and had no doubt that he would make several mistakes simply out of nerves, but he wanted Zack to know what the guitar was capable of; what beautiful music it could make.

The angel’s eyes widened as they drew themselves back to Brian’s soft ones.
“Please..?” he grinned, the light gleaming off of the sterling rings that graced his lips once again. Brian chuckled at the spark of utter excitement in Zack’s voice, and nodded.

Knowing that his friend wouldn’t have any clue what difference it would make, the older boy thought better of asking him his preference and simply began into one of his favorites: Atreyu’s “Wait for You.”

Each time Brian glanced up while playing, the excitement in Zack’s eyes had grown just a bit more from the time before, earning a soft smile from the nervous boy.

Briefly, he thought about singing the song as he played it but ultimately decided that it was better he didn’t; both for the fact that it was better for Zack to hear the guitar on its own first, and the fact that he just wasn’t extremely fond of his singing voice.

As the song drew gently to a close, Brian glanced up at the boy in front of him, gripping the neck and the body of his guitar to keep his hands from shaking. “So… what do you think?” he asked cautiously.

The only response that Zack gave was a soft shake of the head before a bright, beautiful smile stretched its way onto his lips, and he began to clap, laughing softly. “Bri, that was amazing… I’ve never heard anything like it before.”

A soft tinge that somewhat resembled the color of a rose settled into Brian’s cheeks as he laughed softly in turn. “Well… I’m alright at it, I guess… I play by ear, and I’ve written a few originals, but there are definitely people out there who are better than me.” he explained, crossing his legs Indian style and resting his guitar, strings-up on his lap.

“Originals? Like… your own music? Wow…” Zack smiled, looking into his own lap. “I wish I could do things like that.”

“Well…” Brian mused, biting down on his lip gently as an idea formed in his mind. “You can.”

Seeing Zack’s fascination with the instrument—how it had reminded him very much of himself as a young boy—had sparked up a thought.

Zack gazed back up at his friend, eyes bewildered. “How?” he asked gently.

The older boy smiled, glancing back to the clock at his side as he took his guitar and lifted it into Zack’s arms. “I can teach you.” he smiled gently as Zack took the instrument
from his grasp with wide eyes. “We have more than a few hours until midnight.”

“I… I don’t even a clue where to start.” he smiled up at Brian incredulously, obviously unconfident in himself.

“Well, just play around with it a little bit. Try thinking about watching me play.” Brian said slowly, trying to recall how his dad had explained the process to him when he’d first picked up the completely unfamiliar guitar.

The smaller boy’s brow furrowed slightly and he bit his lip as he nodded. Brian watched as Zack shifted the guitar into the same position he’d held it in moments ago, and began plucking the strings carefully.

He picked each one separately, the E, the B, the G and on; it seemed as though he was trying to memorize what sort of sound each string made. This made Brian smile.

“Go ahead and strum at it… figure out what it’s about.” he smiled as Zack glanced up at him, nodding once again.

At first, Zack began strumming at all the strings together, tilting his head at their sound, and then began playing sweeps, top to bottom and bottom to top. But after a few moments, the angel shook his head and stood the guitar up in his lap before shifting the neck into his opposite hand. Brian raised an eyebrow at this.

“You’re left handed?” he smiled, shaking his head. Zack looked up again, a quiet
blush creeping over his ashen cheeks as he nodded.

“Yeah…” he gave a soft chuckle. “I didn’t know that that applied to guitar, though…”

Brian nodded, smiling crookedly. “It does, actually…” he sighed, shaking his head in
the slightest. “And it’s better that you don’t learn to play left handed on a right handed
guitar. It messes with the order of the strings.”

The older of the two knew this to be true, but as he watched Zack’s face fall, a sigh
escaped his lips. He hated seeing his friend upset.

“I can still play for you… teach you a few things… It’s just that if you ever got around to
playing on a lefty guitar, every measure would come out backwards, since you’d have been
used to playing on old Storm, here.” he attempted to explain, biting his lip as Zack nodded.
He seemed to understand this, and brightened up a bit.

“What’s Storm..?” he asked gently, eyes curious. Brian smiled, assuming that Zack
must have been too occupied with the instrument itself when he had told him before that he
had named the guitar Storm. Reaching to tap the body of his onyx guitar, he grinned more
widely. “Storm’s my guitar… I named her.” he laughed softly, and Zack smiled.

“That’s so cute.” he teased gently, making Brian blush again. It never seemed a hard
thing to do.

“Well, I… She’s special to me.” Brian stuttered, only making himself blush more as he
attempted to explain his reasons behind naming the guitar. He only seemed to be making
it sound like he wanted to marry the instrument.

“I get it.” Zack smiled, examining the soft color in his friend’s cheeks. It sparked a bit of
warmth in his own pallor. “Like… like a baby or something.”

Brian laughed, shaking his head slowly. “That’s exactly what I was trying to say.”

After nodding once more, Zack looked up at the other boy, eyes filled with curiosity once
again. “So who taught you, then? The guitar..?” he asked gently. Brian sighed.

“My dad did… before he went on the run. He was amazing.” he explained, keeping his
eyes on the instrument that his beautiful friend held the entire time he spoke. “He was an
in-studio guitarist; unfortunately, the position didn’t pay much, so…”

As Brian continued in his explanation, Zack noticed his tone of voice shifting apparently;
it shifted into that quick, breathy tone that Brian always tended to obtain when he was about
to break down.

At this, the younger man set the guitar he still cradled aside and scooted closer to his
human friend, placing a hand on his shoulder. Brian’s soft, chocolate orbs found Zack’s
carefully as a soft, appreciative smile touched his lips.

Zack returned the smile, instead moving the hand that he’d laid on Brian’s shoulder
down carefully to grip his hand.

Butterflies filled Brian’s stomach the moment that their fingers intertwined with one
another’s, and his face reddened, gaining a bright tint of pink. Zack’s touch always had this
affect on him. It was definitely something that he couldn’t control.

“He doesn’t even know.” Brian murmured, gripping the Aralaysian’s hand more tightly
as he spoke. “When he left, we were all okay; the money situation aside… our family was
alive, at least.”

Zack’s eyes widened slightly as his head moved from side to side slowly. “You have no
way to… let him know? About anything?” he questioned, earning a small shake of the head
from Brian.

“No communication whatsoever.” he sighed, looking into Zack’s eyes sadly. “I keep
wondering if he’ll ever just… come home, one night. It seems odd that cops would still be
searching after almost 2 years, y’know… He never even hurt anyone, and he didn’t get any
money anyways…”

After realizing what he was saying and how odd it must’ve sounded for him to be
defending someone who had clearly broken the law, Brian went silent, allowing his words
to trail off into the silence, followed by a heavy sigh. This caused Zack to grip his hand
tighter still, and stand from the bed, guiding Brian along with him into the living room.

“Where are we going..?” Brian asked quizzically as he kept in step with the divine
creature in front of him, who smiled at him.

“We’re gonna get your mind off of things…” he mused, although it looked as though he
had no idea how to do so. Still, it made Brian smile.

“That would be easier if I had more friends…” he murmured, and a slight pout took
Zack’s full lips, causing Brian’s small smile to grow.

“There’s just me though…” Zack sighed, just before an immense smile developed on
his face as well. “And, oh yeah! Wait…” he muttered before tucking his wings down and
retreating into the kitchen. Brian chuckled softly, as his brow furrowed.

Not long after, though, the other boy came back into the room, pad of paper and house
phone in hand. Brian shook his head softly; he didn’t have to ask to know what his friend
was up to now.