Milo - Post Chapter Three (Patreon)

A/N Milo and Gabriel tied and this was just the story that came to me easier tonight. But Gabriel will soon follow. :) This is post Chapter Three, assuming Milo has romanced the MC.

“Miloooooo.”

He ignored it.  The voice outside his door.  Hair plastered to his face, curls gone dark and sticking to the side of his head, he stared at himself in the broken mirror.  His shirt was discarded somewhere in the corner, along with his pants. He had managed to find a clean pair of trousers to pull on before he caught sight of the scars. The one on his side, jagged and moon shaped. The burn mark across his shoulder that was still discolored.  The starburst near his hip that he couldn’t even remember getting. Roadmaps, he had always called them. To different moments in his life. Important events and times worth remembering only because it changed everything.

“Milooooo.”

He sighed. Lashes brushing the tops of his cheeks as he closed his eyes in discontent. Grabbing a clean shirt, he shrugged it over his shoulders and shoved his feet into his boots.  The chains around his neck were tucked neatly inside the folds of his shirt, cool but dry now.  Only the leather cords wrapped around his wrists were still damp from the rainfall from earlier. That and his hair.

Stepping outside, he turned and locked the door, sticking the jagged key into his trousers pocket. Ever was there, sitting up on an old grain barrel placed in the shadowed part of the alley.

“Took you long enough,” she said with a giggle, kicking her feet back and forth on the barrels tarnished binds.

He didn’t look at her. “Not tonight, Ever.”

“Why?” she pouted. “Is it because of that door opening?” She clicked her tongue in disapproval. “You gonna get upset now every time some refugees run on through? I was a refugee once.  Remember? Just a poor little lost girl who flung herself into the market just like Mama said.”  Milo’s head hung between his shoulders, his fingers twitching against the lock of his door. Maybe he should just go back in. Get some sleep.  Hazel could take care of things tonight.  “Do you remember that, Milo? Remember what Mama said?”

Sighing, he turned on his heel and looked at her. She was a waif of a thing. Forever little with big, wide set green eyes and lank honey curled hair.  She had the fat of youth on her cheeks though. The only thing about her that wasn’t skin and bones.

“No, I don’t remember that, Ever. I don’t know your mother.”

She frowned at him, tilting her head to the side and pausing her kicking for a moment. “Oh,” she said sadly.  It was the same each time. She always hoped for a different answer.

Running his fingers through his hair, he approached her.  He should have had more patience for her. She was stuck, after all. Died in the alley right outside his front door.  Too young to understand what had happened to her but not young enough that the Night Market let her go.

“So why are you sad tonight if not the door opening?” she asked.

Hopping up on the grain barrel next to her, he leaned back, crooking a leg up and draping an arm across it. “Who says I’m sad?”

“Your eyes are red and puffy.”

“Dust does that to you.”

“Uh huh.” Tilting her head to the side, he watched as her hair fell across her shoulder, revealing the scar near her temple.  “Is it because of that person I’ve seen you going around with?”

Milo frowned. “How are you seeing anything? I’ve not brought them back here.”

At this, Ever looked excited. “I’m stretching. I can sometimes get away for a full twenty minutes at a time.”

Milo refrained from commenting that ghosts shouldn’t be able to do that.  Restless spirits were to remain restless in their spots. He maybe needed to come home a bit more often.

“They don’t make me sad,” he said.

“They remind you of Mal?” she asked.

Snatching the cigarette from behind his ear, he perched it between his lips. By the Knowing, he wanted a smoke. “Mal is the only one that reminds me of Mal.”

“Then what?”

“Dunno. They’re just different, I guess.”

“Ah,” she said with that knowing smile that only little kids with buckets of confidence could have.  “You’re falling for them then.”

Milo snorted. “Such a kiddie term. Falling for someone. Makes no sense when you think about it.”  She shifted by his side, frowning a bit.  “Besides, I’ve taken plenty of lovers over the years.”

“None that you kept going back to,” Ever pointed out. “What makes them so special?”

Taking the cigarette, he twirled it between his fingers, wondering when the enchantment on it would wear out.  How the damn cigarette was still intact after all this time was beyond him.  Holding it out, he stretched out his arm, the lamp light from above dripping down on them in the occasional fat raindrop.

“Ever,” he said, “if you could choose one thing in the entire world to have, what would it be?”

“You’re changing the subject.”

“I’m not, actually. Just go with me on this.”

She paused, seeming to think long and hard about that one.  Ever’s life had been confined to a short little stretch of space right outside an old whiskey distillery.  She was such a fixture in the alley that Milo sometimes didn’t even notice she was there. He wanted to feel more guilty about that.

“I would want a cow. Not a real one. A stuffed one.”

He peered at her out of the side of his eye, his heart aching. “Why would you want that?”

“My brother gave it to me. When I was a baby. Still in the pram.  I tried to grab it when Mama told me to run. I think I dropped it somewhere in the mud.”

Swallowing thickly, Milo didn’t look at her. The lanterns above were swirling. Their amber light soft and warm and reminiscent of a life that was stretching on and on and on…

“What does this have to do with what we were talking about?” she asked.

Hopping off the whiskey barrel, he turned and looked at her.  “Gotta go to Hazel’s tonight. I don’t know when I’ll be back. Anything I can bring you?”

She shook her head, her small fingers curling around the edge of the barrel. He wondered if they had been worked to the bone before death. Or if she had been spared from field work and chosen to bake bread with Mama instead.

“I don’t think so,” she said.

“I’ll see you later then, my Never Ever. Try to get some rest.”

He turned, not able to look at her much longer.  He hoped she did sleep. He knew it helped her pass the time.  Tucking the cigarette back behind his ears, he shoved his hands in his pocket. Behind him, he could hear her shuffling as she began humming to herself, drawing on the walls and making the most out of the life she was now trapped within.  He needed to get to Hazel’s. They needed to discuss the doors that were opening. Too many were forming and too quickly and no one knew why.

First though, he’d stop off at the market.  He had a stuffed cow he needed to find.