Rainbows by FangIsFexcellent

Fuck the closet. I ain't finding Narnia anytime soon. -Fex

There are rainbows everywhere.

Fang and Iggy walk down the street, grocery bags contained in their hands. Iggy is shifting his head back and forth nervously. "What's going on?" he asks Fang nervously, and Fang looks around at the people in the street. At least every third or fourth person is wearing a ribbon like the pink silk ones given out for supporting breast cancer, except that these ribbons are rainbow, ROY G BIV decorating shirts and trousers and hair.

"It's like a parade of the Care Bears," Fang tells Iggy.

"That doesn't make any sense."

Fang sighs and begins explaining.

"A bunch of people on this street have rainbow ribbons pinned to their shirt. None of them are talking. There's rainbow banners on a couple of stores, and couples holding hands. Not , like. Regular couples. Two men, or two women."

"What's the rainbow for?"

Fang searches the street for some sort of explanation, and finds none. "Excuse me, Miss." He lays on the charm to a teenager with rocker hair and a rainbow ribbon. "What's going on here today?"

She does not answer him, but instead hands him a card out of her pocket, and Fang sees that she has at least ten of them stored there. She smiles good-naturedly and walks on without saying a word to Fang, Iggy, or anyone else, adjusting her rainbow ribbon.

"What happened?" Iggy asks impatiently. He does not like being left out of the loop. Fang turns the card over and reads aloud as they keep walking.

"Please understand my reason for not speaking today. I am participating in the National Day of Silence, a national youth movement bringing attention to the silence faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their allies. My deliberate silence echoes that silence, which is caused by anit-LGBT bullying, name-calling, and harassment. I believe that ending the silence is the first step toward building awareness and making a commitment to address these injustices. Think about the voices you are not hearing today."

Fang looks over at Iggy when he's done reading the card aloud, to find his friend with a stiff back and wide eyes. "You okay?"

"Yeah...they have days for this? That?"

"Why? What, you have a problem with it?"

"No...no..." Iggy seems faraway, not really paying attention to his surroundings. He bumps into a woman with a rainbow ribbon, and breathes in, expecting a curse from her which never comes.

"I think she was in on the Day of Silence, too," Fang says. "It's kind of cool, you know? Like all these people can just be themselves, without anyone really judging them."

Iggy does not say anything.

"Iggy?"

Iggy turns his blind face toward Fang, and his shaggy hair falls into his eyes. "I'm gonna do it," he tells him. "Starting now."

"That's cheating."

"Better late than never."

XXX

"What's up with Iggy?" Max asks when the pair reaches the house in the mountains. "When I said hi to him he just smiled and went into his room."

Fang explains what happened in town, and Max gets a worried look on her face, like she doesn't quite know what to make of the situation. "Is it only gay people that do it?"

"I don't think so," Fang says. "The card that girl gave me said allies, too."

Max's forehead does not unwrinkle.

"What? You worried that Iggy's gay?"

"No," Max sighs. "Yes. I don't know."

Fang looks at Max, who is looking somewhat like a child that has been caught stealing candy from a jar. He does not speak, but his gaze remains even, and that breaks Max down faster than any words.

"I'm being discriminatory, aren't I?" she says heavily.

"Not yet." Fang resumes his stare.

"I don't care if Iggy's gay, Fang. You know that. Well, you do now. I wouldn't care if you were gay. I wouldn't care if anyone in this family wasn't straight. It just would come as a kind of shock, you know? Getting used to."

Fang nods. Max has given him things to think about. He retires to his room.

The privacy of his own room doesn't last long, however.

The door cracks open, and Fang looks up from his bed. It's Iggy, long and lean, slipping between the door and the wall easily, searching carefully with his feet to make sure the way to Fang's bed is clear. When he reaches his destination, he carefully sits down and sets his computer, which he has brought in, on his lap.

This is a special computer, the keys adorned with Braille and a button that, when pressed, reads back what has been typed. Iggy rarely uses it, but deprived of two senses, one by choice, one by force, he has resorted to it.

"You okay?" Fang asks aloud. Iggy nods, then shakes his head, then nods again. He types.

Just wanted the company.

"You know, you don't have to keep doing this Silence thing."

Iggy shrugs, types. Yes, I do. I want to.

"It doesn't really make any sense."

Yeah, it does.

"Not just that you're doing it. The whole idea."

Taktaktak sounds come from Iggy's nimble fingers as he types, the screen turned away from Fang.

It makes perfect sense to me. It's a pretty big issue, you know. Don't you ever listen to the news?

"Well, yeah, but how would you know it's a big issue?"

Iggy shifts with his computer, curling up near Fang's headboard. His thin legs are drawn up sideways to one of his hips. He doesn't make to type an answer to Fang's question.

"Have you lost hearing, too?" Fang attempts to make a joke, but it falls flat. Iggy appears as if he is biting his tongue, both figuratively and literally. "You okay?"

You asked that already, the computer says.

"And I didn't get a definitive answer."

"Fuck this."

Iggy has spoken, and his voice is angry.

"Fuck what?" Fang's tone is mild.

"Fuck all of this, I can't believe how dense you all are." Iggy's pale eyebrows meet and he tosses his computer aside. "Why do you think I'm doing it? Why d'you think I care? It's not some random happening, I'm just sick of lying!"

Fang opens his mouth to speak, but Iggy rants on, throwing his hands to and fro and nearly hitting Fang at one point.

"I'm done with shutting up when you and Gazzy discuss bikinis, and pretending to be interested in beach bunnies in LA when I actually don't care about any of them! I was scared, Fang, and I still am."

"Iggy...you know you could have just told us..."

"No, I couldn't! I have no idea what would happen. But I swear to God it wouldn't be good. You know Nudge would look at me like one of those weird celebrities that come out on national television, and she squeals over them going 'Oh, God, gay guys, they're so sensitive and wonderful!' What would she do if I told her? And Max. She acts like she doesn't care, but it's obvious she does. Angel probably knows already, but she's decent enough not to spill it all over the place, and Gazzy's a straight-up homophobe, even though he's one of my best friends."

Iggy has never said this much in one go, with this much emotion and passion.

"You left me out," Fang says, only now just realizing this. "How am I supposed to react, in your little scenario?"

Iggy seems to dissolve a bit, his shoulders falling. He bites a lip between his teeth. "I don't know," he says. "I guess I hoped you wouldn't mind."

"I wouldn't," Fang says quickly, then realizes his mistake. "I don't."

Iggy smiles bitterly. "Good, that makes one."

Fang is silent for a moment, then he stands up with Iggy. "So. What now? Are you planning on telling the rest of the flock? Coming out, if you will?"

Iggy laughs softly.

"What?"

"Nothing. Just...thanks, Fang."

"No problem."

Iggy looks as if he wishes to say something more, but he doesn't. Instead, he makes to leave Fang's room. "I better start on dinner," he says.

"I can help, if you like," Fang offers, opening the door to the hall.

Iggy smiles, and there's some element of his teeth that shows something that Fang has never seen before. A softness of his cloudy eyes that he's never before noticed. "Thanks, Fang," he says, and even his voice sounds different.

They begin to leave, but Iggy forgets his computer in Fang's room. He tells Fang he'll be along in a minute and backtracks to the bedroom.

And Iggy sits on Fang's bed for a few minutes, breathing in deep, and he types letters on his keyboard without thinking. He presses the button on the computer and bites his lip as he is apt to do when he is nervous.

"I love you," the computer says in its mechanical, impassionate voice, enunciated in all the wrong places, and with his thoughts full of black feathers and smooth olive skin, Iggy sighs.