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Pythagoras looked at his hands, illuminated with the soft glow from the sunset, the weather had finally picked up from weeks of clouds and rain, his body wasn’t made for British weather, ironically even though he spent most of the time avoiding the outside world, he looked up and sighed in contemplation. What he would do to be at home right now, with his equations and without he incessant nagging of work on his mind, he could skype Arkus, see how he was doing. He could catch up on that latest episode of Game of Thrones curled up on the sofa with Icarus, he could-
A load of mud disrupts his vision, Pythagoras grimaced and reached up to shake the mud flecks from his eyes; “Jesus Icarus, you are burying a dead body not trying to blind me.”
Icarus sniggered “Sorry Sunshine but you were drifting, had to get your attention somehow.” He resumed digging, the sinews of muscle in his arms moving rhythmically, coarse hair’s somehow mirroring the sunlight, if that was even possible, but then again, Pythagoras considered, Icarus was an impossible man.
Dragging his eyes away he reached down and took his own shovel, felt the grim, rusty metal in his hands and tore into the earth. “And you couldn’t just say my name or gesture, you had to go and attempt to blind your boyfriend?”
Rather than answering Icarus asked: “What were you thinking about?”
“About how much I would rather be doing anything else with my Saturday night”
Icarus laughed, “Yes, because you have such an efficacious lifestyle”
Pythagoras continued digging, the pile of mud beside the duo steadily growing, “one, efficacious means to be successful in producing a desired or intended result, and 2 if you don’t keep digging I’m kicking you out of my efficacious lifestyle”
“Whoa big threats from a skinny man, Sunshine” Even so, Icarus shook his head and carried on, the hole steadily getting deeper.
***
“Well I think that’s it, I refuse to dig anymore” Icarus threw the shovel to the ground and he ran his dusty hands through his curls. Pythagoras circled the ditch, assessing it.
“Yes, I do believe its deep enough. I suppose it’s time to do the deed, it is…logical I suppose.” With hesitance shrouding his mind Pythagoras looked towards Icarus who was studying him, his head tilted to the side, like a new-born looking at the world the first time. It unnerved Pythagoras when Icarus looked at him like this, not in a bad way, he had yet to figure out why Icarus chose him, looked at him in a way that made him feel important and wanted, like he was more than what he was. “Are you alright?” he asked finally.
Icarus walked around the ditch, seemingly an elephant in the room so to speak, and grasped Pythagoras’s hand tightly. Feeling the callouses of Icarus’s hand, created from his work with his father, earned and worn, against his own; skinny, long and dusty, made Pythagoras’s breath hitch, electricity sparked up his spine, and he felt his blood rise to his cheeks, suddenly thankful for the darkness that crept up on them.
Icarus’s fingers locked with his and yet at the same time he was able to rub his wrist, get close to his pulse. Finally his whisky coloured eyes locked with his and his hold tightened.
“If we get caught-“
“We won’t”
“But what if we do Pythagoras? We are aiding and abetting. We are in as much danger as Jason and Ariadne and Hercules”
Pythagoras shook his heads, lips tightened, “I won’t abandon them”
“I’m not saying abandon them-“
“What are you saying then?” Pythagoras dragged his hand from Icarus grasp and stood back.
Icarus tilted his head back, hands resting on the back of his neck as he groaned in frustration, “I don’t know what I’m saying, all I’m thinking is that I’m terrified about what’s going to happen if we are caught” He let his hands drop to his sides, with a look so raw that Pythagoras felt pain strike through him.
“I’m scared for you Pythagoras, I won’t be able to protect you, and I don’t know what I’m going to do without you if were caught, if you get hurt I won’t be able to forgive you or me. And if anything happens to you, I swear to all the gods I won’t survive it”
His voice broke at the last word, tears of anger or sadness formed in his eyes, but Pythagoras knew him well enough to know Icarus would not let them fall. Instead of standing back, Pythagoras walked closer and cupped Icarus’s face.
“We make our choices and we live with them Icarus, you of all people must know that” He began, he tucked one brown soft curl behind Icarus’s ear smiling sadly, before continuing. “I take care of you and you take care of me, we will survive this my Angel Winged Man I promise you” Pythagoras gulped, he felt exposed and raw, like he was being given a never ending electric shock, one that hurt but it was enlightening at the same time.
He knew he had to remain strong, rather that succumb to his own fears.
“And we are both smart enough to know what we are doing, we won’t be caught I can assure you of that, but we have to work quickly unless we want to cause suspicion” Pythagoras let go of Icarus’s face and with a small smile led him to the body bag.
Looking at it, it literally looked like a black bag with shit inside, because ironically that is what Telemon was. A piece of shit. Let’s not forget, a piece of shit who tried to murder both Ariadne and her bodyguard Hercules for their business enterprise: Atlantis Cooperation’s. Jason made sure he would never see the sunrise again.
“I still say we burn it” Icarus muttered.
“Burning still leaves traces of DNA, fingernails, fragments of dental evidence. We can’t risk it, better we bury it for the time being, anyway, if we are caught it won’t be our DNA on the body, will it?”
Icarus looked at Pythagoras with confusion, his eyebrows narrowed, Pythagoras should don’t have found it endearing and should not have felt his stomach flip. Nope.
“Well if it’s not ours then who’s will it be?”
“Pasiphae”
***
Pythagoras nodded to Icarus who went to grab the bottom of the bag where Telemon’s feet were, Pythagoras gripped the top, near his crushed head.
“1…2…3”
Together they hoisted the body up and nearly stumbled with its weight.
“Jesus, what did this guy eat?” Pythagoras groaned and his feet started to drag him towards the ditch.
“The souls of women and children” Icarus joked, his voice strained slightly, their arms began to sway threatening to drop the bag all together.
Pythagoras snorted while trying to hoist the bag higher, “Bet you’re really proud of that one, I'm sure you rehearsed it on the way over here.”
Icarus grinned as they got close to the ditch, “Only the best for you Sunshine.”
“Well I’m flattered but we better drop it.” Pythagoras started swinging his arms.
“3…2…1”
They flung the bag into the ditch watching it fall into the darkness, and listened to it land with a sickening crack of bone upon earth. They stayed silent for a few moments as if in memorial, until Icarus said “Well, if he wasn’t dead before, he is definitely dead now Sunshine”
Pythagoras just looked at him and said “I would say that the probability of him being alive doesn’t seem very high does it?”
***
They walked back to the car far from where the body now lies, seemingly care free, hands locked together swinging between them, until Icarus pushed Pythagoras against the car door, his hands locked around his waist, Pythagoras’s hands on his jacket covered chest.
His heart began pumping, pushing blood all over his body as if in a race against time. Icarus brought their foreheads together, a position, familiar to them.
Lips barely brushing, shared breaths warm, eyes flickering, never staying in one place too long.
His face completely composed, Icarus whispered “Did you know, when you bury a body with someone, you take a bit of that someone’s soul?”
Pythagoras snorted, “Since, logically, your soul cannot really be taken from you until death or until maybe reincarnation, I doubt that’s possible.”
“But it is!” Icarus insisted, his smile causing his cheeks to crinkle and his eyes to spark with a soft fire. Pythagoras wanted to bathe in that fire, let it wash over him.
“I have a piece of your soul my wonderful Sunshine” Icarus whispered, his smile growing smaller, more timid.
Pythagoras’s heart warmed, and he smiled, he could’ve told Icarus that a long time ago.
Pressing closer, he whispered “And what are you going to do with that piece of my soul my Angel Winged Man?”
“Protect it, Cherish it,” Icarus answered immediately. “Love it”
Emotion. It’s like an animal tearing your insides, you feel nothing and everything at once, you want to hate that animal, you want to be rid of it, purge it from your body so that you feel nothing at all, but it’s always and forever there. That animal inside you, the one that is tearing you to shreds wants to you feel something, to let it out, but that’s illogical to Pythagoras, there is no such thing as a metaphorical animal ripping into your body, but also to Pythagoras; Icarus is completely and crazily strange and different and wonderful and illogical all in that moment, he is not afraid of giving into the animal.
Pulling him closer by threading his hands through Icarus’s hair, Pythagoras leaned towards his ear; “There is nobody I would rather bury a body with, no one I would rather entrust my soul to than you Icarus. I love you more than words could say, more than any logic or my theorems could dictate – umph”
Before he could finish, Icarus had surged forward silencing his words with a kiss, Pythagoras opened his mouth slightly, and groaned, he became pliant under Icarus’s hands and he was pressed into the car door once more, which reminded him…
He pulled away suddenly, Icarus’s lips still pursed as they tried to follow them, but Pythagoras kept a hand on Icarus’s chest.
Breathing in heavily, “You realise, we brought the body in your car, right Icarus?”
Icarus’ shook his head slightly, as if dazed. “I do realise that, yes uh we did.”
“And that means that the fibres from the body bag are quite possibly in that car which is now possible evidence?”
“Yes…”
“We have to get rid of the car”
“Wait. What?”