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The gods find out separately – Helios sees a flyer pinned to the bulletin board in the entrance foyer of the retail store; Apollo is chatting up Leroy and Elverna at the flower shop when they mention wanting to see the 4-H kids’ garden and crop entries.
Icarus doesn’t realize they’ve found out about the city’s Summer Jamboree until it’s too late – the gods, perhaps anticipating Icarus’ usual excuses, catch him the moment he returns back from walking the dogs that morning, and frogmarch him back out and into Apollo’s chariot, ignoring his protests and threatening to tie him up if he tries to get away.
Icarus points out that this is technically kidnapping, but otherwise subsides with a minimum of grumbling. Secretly, he had been interested in the carnival, but of course, he can’t let them know – they already take far too many liberties with his life as it is, and conceding an inch will mean they take fifty miles.
———————-
They start by watching the parade, with locals in homemade floats and children and teenagers marching with their bands or Scouts or other groups (Helios embarrasses Icarus by insisting on going after the candy and cheap toys the marchers are handing out), and then they follow the crowds to the carnival grounds.
They get their faces painted. Helios gets an ice-cream and a cupcake on his face; Apollo opts for a sort of twinkly flower/stars design. Under enormous pressure from both of them, Icarus relents and gets a sunshine motif on his cheeks that sends them both into fits of delight.
They examine the ‘animal zone’ – there’s a quarter-acre or so with goats, miniature donkeys, ducks, a camel, and baby deer that all tolerate being petted in exchange for treats at the feeding stations. Apollo and Helios both are less interested in this than Icarus, but they agree to go. The deer flock to them (“They probably smell Artemis or Selene”), while Icarus bonds with a fat, spotted duck. Then they go to watch part of the dog costume contest. Icarus watches longingly and puts in his vote for a wire fox terrier wearing a frog suit.
They eat endless junk food. The food trucks offer literally nothing healthy, but Helios and Icarus both tell Apollo he isn’t permitted to comment. He complies, but not without sulking about it.
“It’s carnival food, and you were the one who wanted to come here so bad,” Icarus says. “The farmer’s market is every week if you want healthy food.”
“Maybe you can try not being such a snobby dillhole and just eat the damn elephant ears,” Helios suggests. Helios buys a number of fried confections himself, as well as cotton candy and the Dippin Dots ice cream, but seems more interested in stealing whatever Icarus got for himself. Scolding him only makes him laugh and steal more aggressively, often right out of Icarus’ hand. He claims it tastes better that way. At one point, the paper cone holding a sweet snack unexpectedly gives way, and melting chocolate syrup leaks over Icarus’ hand. While he’s searching for a napkin, Helios takes hold of his wrist and licks the syrup off one of Icarus’ fingers. The sensation almost makes Icarus sees stars, and he makes a weird stunned/shy face, and Helios laughs and reiterates that it really does taste better coming from Icarus.
—————–
They play the arcade games. Skeeball is Icarus’ favorite; he pleasantly spends a few rounds at one of the booths before realizing that he hasn’t seen or heard from Helios or Apollo in a while. He panics when he spots Helios at the Whack-a-Mole and Apollo headed for the kissing booth; he just barely manages to snatch them both up before they spend their tickets at these games of doom, and prevents them from creating any serious property damage or lawsuits.
“Please, Icarus, ‘lawsuit?’ I wouldn’t try to truly seduce anyone in such a crass manner. I was only going to offer some tips for success,” Apollo complains.
“Eh, it would be wasted anyway,” Helios puts in. “I went over there earlier, and they don’t exactly kiss for real. I just got a peck on the cheek. I mean it was a nice kiss, and the guy was pretty cute, but it’s not the kind of thing you need tips for, you know?”
Icarus is luckily distracted from a brief, unexpected swell of jealousy as the two gods notice the dunk tank – Icarus forbids them from this as well, forseeing a war breaking out between the two of them. At their complaints, he guides them to acceptable games
A few shooting games (unsurprisingly, Apollo dominates and wins several plushies, which he graciously gifts to Icarus).
A few strength games (Helios shows his skill here, ringing bells by pounding a platform with a hammer and similar contests. He appears torn between wanting to give his plushies to Icarus and wanting to keep them for himself. Icarus tells him to hold on to them for now; the compromise pleases Helios).
Exactly one confidence trick – the shell game, which Apollo sees straight through using his gift of clairvoyance.
“Since Apollo's cheating,” referring to the clairvoyance, Helios enters a ‘guess your weight’ game and cheats by manipulating his body mass through subtle shapeshifting.
Icarus gets obsessed with trying to win a pet betta fish: he tries repeatedly to toss a ping pong into an empty fish bowl, which shouldn’t be hard! But every time he’s sure he’s lined up the shot right, the wind will blow, or someone will startle him with a loud noise. Eventually, sharp-eyed Apollo leans into him, way too close, pressing his chest to Icarus’ back, and taking his wrist, murmuring tips into his ear, and guiding the ping pong ball easily into the bowl. The girl running the game is blushing as hard as Icarus when she gives him a ticket and tells him to get the fish when they’re ready to go.
Icarus decides after that, it’s time to move on from the games.
—————–
They head over to the rides. This starts out fun enough – the ‘bobsled’ ride is fun; the ‘scrambler’ ride is fun; the ‘madhouse’ ride – with the illusion of movement – is delightful. They try out the devil’s wheel: a fast-spinning plate designed to use centrifugal forces to fling the riders off into a foam pit. Icarus almost immediately starts to be dragged off the edge, until the gods drape themselves on top of him, holding him in place. They seem more than a little delighted with the arrangement, and don’t immediately climb off of him when the ride stops, waiting until Icarus finally laughs and struggles to climb out from beneath them.
They check out the Haunted House – an actual large multi-story building on the fairgrounds, which has been converted for this purpose. Windows are boarded up, and the exterior is painted black. Icarus doubts this little small-scale city carnival is likely to have anything really terrifying. It actually seems a little silly, given the surrounding atmosphere of chirpy loud music, colorful lights, and fairgoers with cotton candy milling around; but as soon as they enter the building, the ambiance shifts markedly.
The walls must be impressively soundproofed, because they can’t hear the music from in here. None of the colorful flashing lights are visible from inside – in fact, there’s barely any light at all – just the flickering LED lights imitating candles or broken light bulbs. Fake spiders and stuffed dummies posing as corpses decorate the corners.
As Icarus predicted, it lacks anything particularly scary, but relies mostly on jump-scares. Lights go out and when they come back on, the group is surrounded by teenaged zombies, groaning menacingly. A man with a chainsaw (actual chain removed for safety) chases after them, shrieking maniacally. A ghost girl with long, stringy black hair climbs out of a well and starts crawling in their direction.
They look exactly like what you’d expect for a small-scale fairground display, but Icarus keeps reacting to the damn spookies. Every time some idiot employee in a scary mask jumps out at him, or there’s a scream a few feet to his side, or the floor shakes or whatever, Icarus reliably freaks out and makes an embarrassing squeal and jumps eight feet.
The only redeeming thing about it is that Helios and Apollo are equally as affected, though they try hard to act like they’re not. They cover up by clinging to Icarus and pretending they’re protecting him from all the employees pretending to be monsters.
“It’s just – it’s just cheap,” Apollo grits out, gripping Icarus’ hand not quite hard enough to crush bone, but pretty close. “Hermes would wipe the floor with these fake, cheap scares.”
“Yeah, seriously,” Helios says, muffled, from where he’s clinging to Icarus koala-style and burying his face in Icarus’ neck. Icarus wishes he could enjoy this more but currently he’s trying to keep himself from shrieking every time a zombie grabs at him from behind barred doors in the darkened hallways.
When they finally find the exit and step out, blinking in the bright sunlight, they don’t let go of his hands right away and Icarus doesn’t do anything about it, trying to be nonchalant.
There’s only one dark spot on the day: they’re wandering around, looking for things they haven’t done yet, when suddenly Icarus is distracted by a whoosh and a chorus of shrieks.
He turns to look; the carriage in Lucifer’s Drop has fallen and is slowly rising again. The ride looks about four stories high – not that high, in the grand scheme of things, but it’s enough to give Icarus chills.
The people cling to the safety bar as it raises them slowly into the air. How high is four stories? Depends, doesn’t it? This ride looks about 60 feet…. Maybe it’s more than four stories. Five or even six.
The carriage drops, a completely real-time fall through the air. The passengers scream; it stops just a few feet from the bottom.
(a few feet from the surface of the ocean, he still is still completely aware, still horrified by the falling, he experiences every agonizing moment; then he’s hitting the ocean, hard enough to be stunned by the impact, hard enough to break bones, and driving through it. the water surrounds him on all sides, nothing but water as far as his vision goes, no land, no boats. he sees the sun overhead – not the gods he was striving to reach, but the impersonal burning orb that melted his wings. he chokes on water as it drags him down; water everywhere, covering his face, filling his lungs. before he goes underwater the final time, he frantically looks in the sky for his father but doesn’t see him. he never sees his father again. he sees the burning circle of the sun right to the end before it all goes dark. the last thing he thinks he hears is laughter.)
Icarus doesn’t realize he’s drifted to a stop and is staring at Lucifer’s Drop, until the ride is over and the passengers are unloading from the carriage and he blinks, startled, as though awakening. He looks around, a bit disoriented, until his vision lands on Helios, who is watching him and grinning.
“What’s this, Mop-Head?! You weren’t scared of heights in the good old dayyyaaACK!!”
The squawk at the end is the result of Apollo swiftly catching Helios in a none-too-gentle headlock, appearing to crush the Titan’s windpipe with his elbow.
“We are deeply sorry the tragic death of your previous incarnation gave you acrophobia,” the god says, smoothly contrite and tranquil, even as Helios kicks and struggles in his headlock.
The whole thing makes Icarus feel uneasy. How much of that is a memory, versus his imagination? Not just the terror of falling – frankly, acrophobia is only a third of it. There’s the drowning, as well; the terrible burning in his lungs and being unable to move his broken limbs, weighted by heavy wings.
And then there’s the residual heartbreak and anger over being utterly abandoned by the gods who had promised him happiness – gods who laughed as he fell and died.
The same gods standing before him now… how much of the figures he sees before him, are the same as the indifferent beings of his nightmare/memory? Helios still thinks his fear of heights is a joke. Apollo just keeps that impassively perfect expression on his face… have they really changed much at all?
They’re arguing, currently:
“Upstart little shit! You probably gave me a bruise!”
“You were being disrespectful to Icarus.”
“No, I just – forgot. I wouldn’t have… fuck.” Helios looks genuinely abashed, kicking the dirt and shoving his hands in his pockets, looking angry and embarrassed and guilty. “Shit. Mop-Head, I didn’t mean to be a dick about it…”
Icarus is still feeling unbalanced and doesn’t want to talk about this. “It’s…” How is he going to finish this sentence? ‘Fine? Not a big deal? I know you didn’t mean it like that?’ None of those are really true, and as the god of truth, Apollo would know a lie the instant he heard it.
“…It all happened a long time ago. No use in dwelling on it.”
This is true enough, though Apollo cuts him a look. Icarus rubs his arm, feeling awkward and anxious.
He jumps, startled, when Apollo abruptly hooks his arm under his elbow and starts gently tugging him along (he drags Helios along far less gently by the scruff of the neck).
“Apollo, what the hell?!” Helios complains. “I already said I was sorry!”
“Yes, I know. But I’m seeing an excellent new distraction for us to try out.”
—————
The distraction Apollo has in mind, apparently, is the 5k inflatable obstacle course. It winds around and curves to take up approximately the space of a football field, containing what has to be dozens of inflatable tunnels, pits, little forests of inflatable posts, and other obstacles.
Icarus doesn’t do 5ks. He doesn’t run, and he has never done this kind of obstacle course, and he’s harboring enormous doubts about trying for the first time with two individuals who have, well, the bodies of gods.
It turns out to be fun. The course is not particularly designed with real athletes in mind – there are moms with their kids; old people; overweight people; and guys like Icarus who are just uncoordinated and lazy in general. The inflated obstacles are brightly colored and silly and nonthreatening, turning a 5k into a lighthearted play session, and improves Icarus’ mood greatly.
Helios and Apollo are capable of breezing through the obstacles much more quickly than Icarus can, so they increase the challenge by turning it into a game of keep-away with Icarus as the prize, ignoring his protestations.
Helios does a fireman’s carry through the forest of inflatable posts. Apollo intercepts and sprints across the mattress run with Icarus in his arms, bridal-style. Helios snags Icarus back and flings him up and over the high wall, where Icarus smacks into a cluster of soft wrecking balls swinging on ropes on the other side. He’s getting to his feet, wobbily, and sternly puts his hand out to the approaching gods.
“Hey! Both of you, knock it off! I wanna try to get through this myself!”
“You’re too slow,” Helios complains, and Apollo puts a hand to his shoulder.
Helios and Icarus both are expecting Apollo to lecture Helios but he surprises them: “Icarus is quite slow, I agree. Let’s try this compromise. We’ll give you a one-minute head start, and then we’ll come after you.”
Helios cackles and starts rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “Ye-e-e-esssss, Apollo, sometimes you come up with some excellent ideas.”
Icarus’ eyes widen in alarm. “Come after me?! And do what??”
“’Something’,” Helios replies.
“You’re eight seconds into your head start, Icarus,” Apollo informs him casually.
“W-wait! I didn’t agree-!”
“Twelve seconds.” The gods both look positively predatory.
Icarus turns and bolts.
Or he tries to, at least – he stumbles through the rest of the wrecking balls, and next has to try to cross a bouncy floor.
He’s halfway through a zig-zagging tunnel when he hears Helios hollering: “Time’s up, Mop-Head! WE’RE COMING FOR YOU!!”
Icarus curses and drags himself through the tunnel as rapidly as he can, feeling that buildup of panicky excitement at being pursued.
He next tries his luck with the ‘catapault’ – jumping on a springboard to try to reach an elevated platform, which would allow him to bypass a maze of 8-foot inflatable walls, in a sunken floor. No luck. He bounces off the platform and lands harmlessly on the soft floor, but now has to try to navigate the maze, which is full of twists and dead ends that lose him time.
Behind him, he can hear the gods calling out, letting him know how much closer they’re getting, mocking him. They’re dragging it out to be suspenseful, he knows; they could have already caught him if they wanted to. He’s caught between annoyance and gratitude that they’re at least letting him try – plus, if they’re really limiting themselves to human capabilities, then there’s actually a chance he might win.
If they don’t cheat.
He slides down another wall, landing on a wobbly suspended bridge over another foam pit, with wind cannons blowing him off-balance. He manages to make it all the way across that one, but only barely – at the last couple steps, the bridge wobbles violently, and he stumbles off onto the platform. He whips his head around and realizes Apollo and Helios are right there, jiggling the bridge on the far end to try to jostle him off.
“You’re running out of time, Icarus!” Apollo can look really menacing when he wants to.
But the bridge was the second-to-last obstacle! If he hurries and doesn’t mess up, Icarus can really make it to the end-!
The last obstacle is easy, too: a large, open pit filled as high as Icarus’ waist with plastic balls. He wades through with little difficulty, eyes fixed on the final platform with the flag on it –
-and then, abruptly, he puts his foot out and there’s nothing beneath the balls! He falls hard, face-down, arms pinwheeling wildly, and sinks down beneath the balls. The plastic balls cushion his fall and he realizes that there was a deeper dropoff pit here, filled with more of the balls, hidden from view on the top. Damn it!
He senses someone diving into the deeper pit next to him and then he’s being grabbed and hoisted into the air. Apollo holds him aloft in a victory pose and shouts, “NIKE!”
Helios tackles them both. “DOUBLE NIKE!”
The three of them tumble into the chest-high pit of plastic balls and what can Icarus do but laugh about it, these two cheating idiots, as they start claiming their “victory spoils” of kisses and hugs and tickles and sneaky tweaks to his ass while he pretends to protest.
They wade through to the finish line, where a puzzled- (and familiar-) looking kitten is watching them.
“Ah – Nike. My apologies. We didn’t mean to summon you,” Apollo says to it, lifting it and giving it to Icarus. “We were only gloating over our unchallenged victory over Icarus.”
“It’s hard to get too excited about the victory when our quarry was so damned slow,” Helios complains.
“And clumsy besides.”
“Yeah, well, I’m real sorry about that,” Icarus deadpans, with no heat in his voice, as Nike the cat rubs her face into his chin. “Listen, Nike, we’re going to pick up my fish now and you can’t eat him.” She mews and doesn’t commit, one way or another.
They retrieve the stack of plushies from the holding area and head back to the fish booth. The gods are already squabbling about something else, but Icarus tunes them out. He’s smiling to himself as he strokes her back, thinking of the souvenirs he’ll have, and happy of it - in spite of himself, he does admit it’s a day he wants to remember.