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Ice did not have wings. This had been a topic of light teasing in their marriage on occasion, which over the years had evolved into jokes so familiar they had their own house key. My husband, the land mammal, Maverick would say when introducing Ice at parties. A maintenance-heavy raptor who forgets his service intervals, Ice would call Maverick after too many drinks.
But the lopsidedness of wing possession in the Kazansky-Mitchell marriage was hardly a point of contention. More than anything else, it was a relief. Wings were a lot times four. Wings times two already meant feather cataloging and molting schedules and special detergents that had to be ordered from a catalog with a falcon wearing an ascot on the cover. Enough to keep a wingless man busy for several lifetimes as the support partner. Beyond that, wings meant intimacy rules even between couples, due to their inherent sensitivity—don’t touch the coverts unless asked; never allopreen the secondaries if you haven’t at least read a pamphlet about it; touching primaries equals third base—and an entire etiquette column’s worth of suggested variations for: “My apologies for accidentally brushing your alula, sir.” They were thankful for the relative simplicity.
But wings were also, as Ice was soon reminded, ecosystems. And that made them anything but simple no matter how many were in the house.
Maverick came home from a winged-only deployment with a sunburn on the bridge of his nose and that cheerful, wobbly gait of a man running exclusively on adrenaline, vending-machine jerky, and the promise of touching his husband. Ice collected him at the pier, accepted a public allopreening session in plain view of several crew chiefs, and drove Maverick home with the aura of a man escorting a live grenade through a Pottery Barn.
At home, they loved on each other. They ate an irresponsible number of dumplings together. They loved on each other again, but naked this time. After, Maverick draped one wing over Ice in bed like a smug blanket and fell asleep mid-sentence with his mouth open, already drooling. Ice lay awake in the domestic glow, mind pleasantly blank.
Then his ankle itched.
A little. It was almost nothing. A whisper of a tickle. Ice scrunched up and addressed the problem by hand, but no sooner had he drawn back than his left hip submitted the same request. Ice scratched again, thinking that was the end of it. Then the back of his right knee joined the party. Ice was just starting to wonder if he ought to've put on bug spray before heading out that day when something that felt like a microscopic parade marched up the side of his thigh.
Ice froze. The wing draped over him twitched. A single feather detached itself and floated to the top sheet like the sinister promise of a dandelion seed on a monocultured lawn.
Ice did not panic. He rolled onto his side, gently extricated himself from under Maverick’s Heavy Blanket of Valor, and went to the bathroom. He turned on the light. He looked at his own leg.
Tiny red bites.
He turned off the light. He walked calmly back to bed. He lay down. He stared at the ceiling fan.
“Ice?” Maverick mumbled. “You okay?”
“Yes,” Ice said, in the tranquil way of a man who is deeply not okay while in full control of his own mannerisms. “Go to sleep.”
“Mm,” said Maverick, and did.
By morning, the bites had multiplied. They had formed committees. The committees had drafted legislation. Maverick was in the kitchen making coffee, humming and ruffling his wings up like a cold pigeon against the sunlight when Ice laid a calf on the countertop like a closing argument.
“What,” Ice said, somber as death, “is this.”
Maverick, to his credit, leaned in for a closer look rather than wisecrack immediately. He made a thoughtful “huh” sound.
“Huh?” Ice repeated. "Mitchell, I know you know what this means."
“Baby,” Maverick said, and Ice would like the record to reflect that he continued to behave with dignity even as the pet name detonated something traitorous in his ribcage, “It's not mites. I did my anti-parasite routine on the ship.”
“To the letter?”
Maverick’s mouth made a small, eloquent shape that translated to: I did approximately most of the letter. The upper half of the letter. The serif.
"I mean," Maverick hedged. "You know...sometimes the protocol can be condensed, a little. There's stuff you should do and stuff you must do."
“So what,” Ice said again, because variety is the spice of life, “is this.”
Maverick cleared his throat. “Okay, there might have been some…feather mites on the carrier. A lot. Some lieutenant had to make an unscheduled landing in the jungle when a tropical storm blew in. We all got infested. But we did the shower protocol. Twice.”
"And you followed the protocol in the correct order? Both times?"
"I...yes? Yes."
"I am brimming with confidence."
"Okay, okay, I skipped the pre-wash. But I finished with the strong stuff! That's the critical one."
“What did you use?”
“The blue bottle.”
“There are three blue bottles.”
“The…squeezey one?”
“Do you mean the conditioner? That's just for color correction.”
“It had a bird on it!”
“They all have birds on them,” Ice said, and then, very calmly, because a man knows when he stands at the cliff edge of his temper. “Get in the car.”
The base veterinary clinic was half Falconer’s Guild and half urgent care, staffed by a brisk vet with a buzzcut and six Purple Hearts. “Feather mites,” she said, after one look at Maverick’s wings and two winces at Ice’s legs. She snapped on nitrile gloves with the kind of enthusiasm that said she was about to deliver an audible PowerPoint with unimaginable consequences.
“Common after deployments without proper attention to decon protocols. Not the end of the world, though; Commander Mitchell will be just fine after routine treatment.” A gentle pat to Ice’s forearm. “You will also be fine. Transmission to human skin is annoying but short-lived.”
Then, the list.
Topical ivermectin for the wings. Environmental treatment for the house. Launder all linens in hot water. Vacuum every upholstered surface. Bag the vacuum contents like evidence in a mob trial. Repeat in seven days. No scratching. No casual preening. No “just a little” mutual grooming because you’re married (eyes flicked to Maverick). No “but he likes when I get the itchy spot under the scapular” (eyes flicked to Ice, who had not said anything aloud and resented the accuracy anyway).
Also: a cone would be involved. This was mandatory and not up for discussion.
“Absolutely not,” said Maverick, scandalized.
“Absolutely yes,” said the captain, with the serene authority of someone who writes prescriptions and ruins weekends. She produced a large translucent cone from a cabinet. “I've been around enough blocks to know a promise not to scratch ain't worth shit. You want permanent bald spots? Two weeks.”
Maverick stared at it like it was an enemy aircraft. “Two weeks? That’s inhumane.”
“You will remove your own coverts with your teeth to stop the itching if we do not prevent it.” She pivoted to Ice. “You, sir: tar shampoo for the bites. Mitigates the itch, reduces secondary infection risk if you scratch in your sleep.”
Ice blinked. “Tar.”
“Tar,” she confirmed. “It may temporarily discolor light hair.”
“Discolor,” Ice repeated, beginning to dissociate as a self-protective measure.
“Think of it as a sabbatical to brunet.”
Maverick made a small, apologetic noise. Ice did not look at him, for fear that he would do something regrettable, like murder in self-defense.
The captain continued. “You’ll want mittens.”
“For warmth?” Maverick asked hopefully.
“For containment,” she said, turning to Ice to administer instructions. “We have standard-issue hand mitts to discourage preening. Tape down at the wrist. Don’t let him Houdini his way out of them. If he damages them, give him a puzzle feeder until you can pick up another set.”
“I am not a parrot,” Maverick said, offended.
“You are a high-drive, novelty-motivated, problem-solving omnivore with prehensile tendencies,” she said, ticking categories off on her gloved fingers. “So: basically a parrot.”
They left with a paper bag full of bottles, a pamphlet titled MITE MIGHT: SO YOUR PARTNER IS INFECTED NOW, and a cone the size of a satellite dish. The bill itemized itself with vindictive specificity:
- Ivermectin wing gel (two tubes): $$$
- Environmental spray (lemon-scented): $$
- “Avian behavioral discouragement apparatus” (cone): $$
- Anti-preening mitts: $
- Extra mitts “in case”: $
- Tar shampoo for spouse: $
Ice paid in a trance. Maverick attempted a flirty shoulder-bump in the parking lot and almost bruised Ice's neck with the cone.
He wore it home. There, he knocked three picture frames off the hallway wall and apologized to the ficus by name. He said “ow” a dozen times, sometimes for real and sometimes in protest at basic geometry and physics. When Ice fitted the mitts (soft, quilted, beige; humiliating, adorable) and taped them at the wrists, Maverick produced the wide, wounded eyes of a cocker spaniel learning about consequences for the first time.
“Ice,” he said, which was a fully formed plea all by itself.
“No,” Ice said, softly, with love and absolution. “Absolutely not. You brought the Amazon into my home. This is your reward.”
“But…I did the showers,” Maverick said, muffled by the cone.
“You only used conditioner.”
“It had a bird on it,” he repeated, as though that helped.
They quarantined the bedroom like a crime scene. Ice stripped the bed, bagged every pillow, and ran the hottest cycles their machine would do. He vacuumed like he was being graded by God. He sprayed the lemon-scented environmental treatment until the house smelled like a cheerful chemical orchard. He shed his shirt at some point, tied a bandanna over his mouth for no medical reason except drama, and attacked the couch with righteous fervor.
Maverick followed him room to room like a sad lampshade. Whenever Ice bent to move a chair, Maverick hovered, cone catching the light, wings tucked pitifully tight so the gel could set, mitts held out like paws.
“I can help,” Maverick said bravely, attempting to pick up the laundry basket. The mitts made even simple tasks impossible. The basket tipped over, sending clean clothes onto an unclean floor.
“You can stand in the hallway,” Ice said.
Maverick stood in the hallway. He looked noble and furious and extremely, impossibly cute, which was a problem because Ice was trying to maintain an appropriate level of doom about being infested.
By late afternoon, the house gleamed and Ice itched in a way that made his soul want to exit through his teeth. He took the tar shampoo into the shower and had a small, private argument with his vanity while applying it. The bottle said “subtle pine.” The bottle lied. He emerged smelling like a medieval wharf and stared at himself in the mirror as the first hints of brunet plotted a coup at his temples.
Maverick waited on the bathmat for him to finish, cone fogged slightly with condensation. “You look hot,” he said, absolutely sincere.
“You can’t even see me properly,” Ice said, touched and appalled.
“I can feel your hotness spiritually.” Maverick stretched, accidentally head-butted the doorframe with the cone, and said “ow.” “Also, I miss you.”
“I am three feet away,” Ice said, but he felt it too—that horrible distance created by a thin layer of curved plastic. He leaned over and kissed Maverick through the cone’s rim like they were on opposite sides of a dangerous laboratory experiment. Maverick made a happy noise.
“Bedtime routine,” Ice said, brisk again, because the alternative was letting everything soften and forgetting the mites existed. He re-read the pamphlet. He administered the second pass of gel with the care of a museum conservator. Maverick held very still, eyes closed, the occasional involuntary shiver rolling through his wings when Ice smoothed gel along sensitive shafts.
“This okay?” Ice asked.
“Yeah,” Maverick said, voice low and honest, “you’re careful.”
The word lodged somewhere right behind Ice’s sternum. “Good,” he said, and then, because he still had a temper and it still needed somewhere to go, “You are never, ever skipping a protocol again. When the paper says ‘repeat on day seven,’ I want you to tattoo that on your forehead.”
“Day seven,” Maverick repeated, chastened. “I’ll do flashcards.”
“We are installing a checklist,” Ice said. “Laminated. With a pen on a string. You will initial.”
“I will initial it so hard.”
“Also,” Ice added, “I'm taking up yoga again.”
“Yoga?”
“For me,” Ice said. “So I don’t commit homicide.”
"That's fair."
They did yoga together that evening because Maverick refused to be left out of anything that could conceivably be turned into a couples' activity. The cone complicated down dog quite a bit, requiring multiple acts of repositioning and ingenuity. Ice breathed in for four, out for six, imagined his anger dissolving into the lemon-pine fog of their home, and let the domestic absurdity of it all crack him right open into laughter at the final child's pose. Maverick laughed too, then swatted the mat with his mitten and said, “I’m clapping,” which made it all worse, which made it all better.
The days acquired shape. Morning: gel, cone wipe-down, laundry rotation, tar shampoo (Ice, stoic; the brunet deepening like a suspenseful plot). Afternoon: vacuum; bag; spray; wash. Maverick sent “cone cam” selfies to the winged squadron group chat with captions like PLEASE RESPECT MY PRIVACY AT THIS DIFFICULT TIME and #FREETHEPREENS. Chipper responded with a photo of a dog in a similar cone. Hollywood sent a GIF of a seagull looking ashamed.
Maverick developed aesthetically troubling bald patches as the mites lost their lease and left. He looked mid-molt, patchy and annoyed, like a grizzled cherub who’d been in a bar fight. Ice, who loved his ridiculous husband with his whole ridiculous heart, found it disturbingly endearing. He hid this by making a schedule and enforcing it with a whistle.
There were weak moments. One day, Maverick tried to itch his wings against the doorframe like a bear on a tree and got tattled on by the cone when it made a resonant thunk. Another day, he tried to fold a finger down and under the mitt tape and was discovered by Ice, who arrived silently like a ninja and said only, “Really?” in such a disappointed-dad tone that Maverick crumpled and apologized. Somewhere in the middle of things, Ice had an evening where his shin lit up with late-stage itch and he retreated to the balcony to inhale cold air and chant calming phrases like a penitent. Maverick shuffled out after him, sat, and pressed cone to shoulder so their warmth traveled through plastic, and said quietly, “I’m sorry. I messed up.”
“Yes,” Ice said, because honesty is the core of all true love.
“I wanted to get home to you faster,” Maverick said. “It was stupid. I thought I’d done enough and then I…didn’t read the back panel because I was busy thinking about you in the kitchen and you in the bed and you generally being so—” He stopped before he reached his critical mass of sappiness and swallowed the rest like a gentleman. “I’m sorry.”
Ice stared at the skyline, not trusting his face pointed in Maverick's direction. “I know,” he said finally. “Thank you.” He exhaled. “We’re okay.”
“We’re okay,” Maverick echoed, and nudged him with the cone again like an affectionate goat.
On day seven, they repeated everything, because the pamphlet said so and because Ice’s laminated checklist said so and because Maverick had initialed PREEMPTIVELY in three squares to demonstrate commitment. The house smelled faintly like a very clean bird sanctuary. Ice’s hair had achieved a frankly scandalous chestnut at the roots, which Maverick admired like a man meeting his husband for the first time again.
On day ten, the bites on Ice’s legs faded to disinterested freckles. Maverick’s bald patches fuzzed in with down. He lost the cone for a supervised hour and did not immediately attempt to gnaw off his coverts, which everyone agreed was growth. On day fourteen, they returned to the base vet. The captain assessed them, nodded, and signed a paper that might as well have been a marriage license renewal.
“You’re clear,” she said. “Good compliance, both of you. Nice environmental work. Release from cone.”
Maverick’s eyes went damp. “For real?”
“For real.”
He stood very still while Ice unfastened the cone, lifted it free, and set it aside like a trophy from a particularly stupid war. Maverick, naked without it, turned slowly, folding his wings in and out, testing the space around him. He looked smaller and more himself at once.
“Permission to touch?” Ice asked.
“Please,” Maverick said, voice cracking just a little.
Ice smoothed a palm over the new down where the baldness had been, and then, for good measure, poked Maverick on the nose.
“Hey,” Maverick said, aggrieved, and then leaned forward and embraced his husband. They stood there, chest to chest, breathing in the lemon and the pine and the stupid, glorious luck of getting to do this every day without plastic between them.
At home, Ice took the laminated checklist off the fridge. He didn’t throw it away. He slid it into the drawer with the warranties and the passports, a relic of a time they had survived together. Maverick carried the cone to the garage and hung it on a nail. “For emergencies,” he said. “Or Halloween.”
Ice cupped his jaw. “You’re buying me steaks,” he said. “Prime ones. For the tar shampoo.”
“I will buy you an entire cow,” Maverick said, admiring the hair again with both hands. “You look good.”
“At least there's that,” Ice said, and tugged him close by the front of his shirt, wings and all, into the kind of kiss that makes all relationship pamphlets obsolete.
Later, after dinner and after Maverick’s triumphant unmittened clapping at the television and after one (1) allowed preening session that Ice carefully monitored for signs of regression, they lay in bed. Maverick draped a wing over Ice once more: softer now, cleaner, a satiated blanket. Ice did not itch. The air smelled like nothing at all.
“Hey,” Maverick whispered into the dark. “Thanks for not murdering me.”
“It was the yoga,” Ice said.
“Thanks, yoga.” A pause, drowsy with happiness. “Next deployment, I'll do that thing you said. Laminating the checklist.”
“You will initial,” Ice said, eyes closed. "And send photos to me."
“And send photos to you,” Maverick promised, and fell asleep, one hand tucked under his cheek, wings rising and falling with his breath. Ice lay awake a minute longer and listened to the small sounds of their house, then drifted off beneath the shelter of something he would never take seriously again and, somehow, loved all the more for it.