golden wings melt like blue slushies // JJ Maybank

-This Side of Paradise-

Extra update for @LaughingIGuess for their hilarious comments <3 u made my day 

Icarus blinked once, trying to use her eyes instead of her hand across her throat in a 'cut it out' gesture. Kiara was holding up another small black box, and she assumed it was a tape recorder, but couldn't see the details through the dim room.

"Isn't that what-"

"Do we have a pet canary? I only thought we had the chicken," JJ trailed off, a thoughtful look on his face. He looked around the room as if a small yellow bird might just fly out of a cage.

John B straightened up a little, and wiped at his face as if everyone would believe he hadn't just been crying. He walked back over to the table, where the two tape recorders were placed on the map. Icarus used Pope's shoulder to get back across the room again. She had left the borrowed wheelchair in her room.

"Isn't that what my-"

"Do you reckon he gave a tape recorder to the rooster?"

"JJ shut it!" John B snapped, and then rubbed his face tiredly. He picked up the tape recorder and turned it over to reveal a strip of masking tape with the word written on it in the same messy handwriting. CANARY.

Click.

"Dear Iggy."

Everyone looked up at Icarus with raised eyebrows, as if she knew the reason for it all. She just shrugged and turned back to the tape recorder, which was currently making scratched up sounds, like someone was fiddling with something. Well, not someone, Big John.

"Uh, okay kid. You might wanna listen to this...alone."

Click.

John B passed over the paused recorder, and Icarus took it cautiously. It wouldn't bite her, but it also wouldn't be the weirdest thing to happen that day. She gulped, suddenly feeling the pressure on her shoulders that John B must've felt when he held the first one. Her friends' eyes were on her.

"Well, I can't exactly walk out of here, can I?" Icarus asked quietly, "scram."

"Right, right," John B muttered, and they left the room. The fly screen door clanged shut behind them, and Icarus watched as her friends settled down in the assortment of hammocks outside, only illuminated by the dark blue sky behind them.

Click.

"There isn't an easy way to put this, but hopefully you'll already know, and we'll all be laughing at this from Costa Rica. You probably heard what I said to Seabird, I hope you're still friends. You can trust, him, he's a good kid. So are you, Iggy...Because it's in your genes."

Icarus sucked in a breath. She blinked once, her chest tight with an emotion she couldn't quite place.

"Yeah, you're... his big sister."

She slid down, her back pressed to the wall. Her hands shook, and the tape recorder of secrets fell to the floor, but didn't stop ejecting the voice of Big John. She wished it did, and whished it didn't, at the same time.

"I met your mother before I met his, at a party. We were young, and she moved down to Australia that summer to get away from this island. I didn't even know she ended up having you until I saw you both together a few months ago, at the smoothie shop. I must've thought if I didn't mention it, it would go away."

Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she pulled her knee up underneath her shin. Her eyes were wide and reflected the candle light.

"But then JJ brought you over, and well. I won't explain your own life to you, will I? I wasn't even there for sixteen years of it."