Milo - Post Chapter Seven (Patreon)

A/N: Assuming you slept with Milo at the end of chapter seven.

I hissed in pain, arching up off the mattress as something cold and wet swiped across my belly.  Eyes flashing open, I stared up at the piped ceiling of a rusted distillery.

“Sorry. Sorry.” Milo’s voice was soft and warm in the chilled night.  A rag was clenched in his hands as he sat next to me, naked.  I blinked the grit from my eyes, trying to gain my bearings, but feeling every muscle in me scream in protest.  “We need to clean your wounds,” he said, holding the rag between us as if to further his explanation.

I was a mess. This much I knew. The Deep had taken its toll and while I had managed for a time, the wounds that I had were more than I was used to and the aches that were settling across my body were screaming now that I had had time to rest.

Laying back down on the sheets, I nodded at him.  Much more carefully this time, he began cleaning me up, trying to find which spots were dried blood and what was something he needed to grow concerned over.

“I want to say I’m impressed with you, given how beat up you are.. But I also think that might be a dickish thing to say given what you’ve gone through,” he tried to joke.

“What do you mean?” My voice was raspy as I stared at him, shifting my head on the pillow.  There was a dull ache at the base of my spine and I vaguely remembered slamming against a rock.

“You sure as hell know how to treat a man right,” he said with a small chuckle. “And now I’m really hoping you didn’t open any wounds in the process.”

I looked down at myself. I was still naked, a flannel sheet covering most of me. Milo’s bed had no sense of order to it. It was all mismatched blankets and quilts and bits of fabric that looked as if they had been mended through the years.

Hissing as he passed over a particularly sore portion of my ribs, I blinked up at the ceiling, trying to keep the wetness from my eyes. I wasn’t sure if it was a reaction to the Deep itself, or just the pain.

“I’m sorry,” his voice was shredded.

“It’s okay. If anything, maybe I should be apologizing.”

“You didn’t hurt me,” he confirmed.

I smiled at him, remembering the way he felt beneath my hands. “I meant for not listening to you about the Deep.”

“Oh.” He laughed a bit at that, scrubbing a hand across his face.  I could tell he was tired and with only dirty windows set high against dusty walls, I had no idea what time it even was.

“Have you slept?” I asked gently.

He shook his head. “Can’t.”

“Why not?”

His eyes ticked to me, looking at me hesitantly. Grabbing a few bandages he began wrapping my waist.  Broken or cracked ribs for sure then.  “We need to get you to Hazel’s,” he said. “She’s way better at this than I am. Plus she’ll have tonics that will fix up whatever you have going on.”

“Milo,” I said softly. “Why can’t you sleep?”

He was silent as he continued to tend to me, his fingers soft against my skin, running across me with this little sense of wonder I wasn’t sure I understood.  “I just get that way sometimes. Always have.”

“Surprised you haven’t asked Hazel for something.”

“I used to,” he said, taping up the edge of the bandage.  “But it gave me weird dreams and I struggled the next day with being super groggy. Ended up just not being worth it. I know she probably could make something different or tweak the formula but…” he tipped his head upwards, blinking towards the rafters.  “I don’t know.  I hate asking her for things, to be honest.”

“Why?” Hazel was one of the most giving people I think I knew.  It almost felt like an insult not to allow her to help.

“Because that’s all anyone's ever done. From the time I can remember, everyone has always asked Hazel for things. Hazel make this. Hazel do that. Hazel do you have any food? Can you watch my pet? Could you fetch something from the market? Whip up a tonic?” He dropped the rest of the bandage off to the side, curling his legs under him and grabbing a pillow to hug to his chest. “I don’t want to be one of those people.  So I usually try to figure it out on my own.”

“But she would probably like helping you. And you’re not taking advantage of her,” I pointed out.

“I know. Just not something I’m comfortable with. Besides, the insomnia passes. It always does.”

Shifting experimentally, I tried to figure out what hurt and what was okay to do.  I sat up a little but knew that I didn’t want to risk much more. I was going to need to send Milo to the apothecary in the morning to get some healing herbs.  Everything ached far too much to walk back tonight, however. Especially now that the adrenaline had worn off.

“How often do you have it?”

He shifted uncomfortably. “We really don’t need to be having these kinds of discussions.  It’s not important. And you should be resting.” Something had shifted with him.  In the last twenty-four hours there was something more to Milo that I was not entirely used to. A sort of discomfort within his own skin. The kind that made him not want to talk. The usually open and brazen man was being tampered down and I couldn’t decide if I was finally seeing the real Milo Next, or if there was something more at play.

“Milo,” I reached out, tugging at his hands. He startled a bit at the contact. “Don’t you think that after the last two times we’ve been left alone together, we could have a conversation about sleep?” I laughed. I tried to make light of it, knowing that he was not all together on board for vulnerability.  Never mind that what we had just done had left him pretty vulnerable.

He huffed in laughter, his eyes looking tired in the dim candlelight coming from his bedside table. “Yeah. I guess seeing my ass does lay everything bare, huh.”  He tried to smile. Though I didn’t believe it for a second. “I used to get nightmares. Terrible ones, actually.  And I mean this is a long time ago. Like when I was a kid.  But they got so bad that I just would avoid sleep. We’re talking for days on end.  The amount of times I woke up, passed out somewhere, is ridiculous, let me tell you.  Woke up face down in a stream once, coughing and choking, had no idea where I even was.”

He played with my fingers, keeping his eyes set on them. The rings adorning his own glinted softly back at me.

“Eventually, I was able to work through most of the stuff that triggered the dreams.  Was able to realize that not sleeping was making the sleeping hours way worse. Got help. Bla bla bla. All very uninteresting and casts me in the light of a not so dashing hero,” he smiled a little at me for that.  “But, when I get under stress, it sometimes just comes back, you know?”

“You’re stressed then?”

He shrugged. “I guess. I hadn’t really examined it much but yeah, the signs are starting to get there.  Something's bothering me, and what do I do when something's bothering me? Avoid sleep.”

I stared at him. It made sense. The last few days he had been far more on edge.  It all seemed like it was catching up to him now. I wondered if it had come to a head when Hazel and I had gone down to the Deep. Seeing me banged up probably didn’t help.

Sighing, I tugged on his hand, wincing a little as it pulled on my wound. He scrambled forward at that, looking me over as if I were about to fall apart.

“I’m okay,” I winced. “Just moved wrong.”

“Stop moving then,” he demanded incredulously.

“I’ll get right on that,” I mumbled.  Keeping a hold of his hand, I maneuvered the two of us to lay down, side by side. His eyes were wide and frantic and I knew even if I asked him to, he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep.  Reaching out, I ran my fingers across the freckles upon his cheeks. The ones that led down his neck and across his shoulders. He shuddered under the touch. “Talk to me. Not about nightmares. Not about things that stress you. Just talk to me.”

He blinked owlishly at me, the words not quite coming like I thought they easily would. But I could see it. The effort he was trying to make.

Settling, Milo caught my hand in his own, tapping at each knuckle, playing with the nail beds and running his fingers across the lines of my palm.

“Have I ever told you how buttons are made?” He asked. I shook my head. “It’s a terribly interesting story. You wouldn’t think it but it is. You see, you must travel down to the button mines and fight a series of fluffy creatures for their eyes…”

“Their eyes?”

“That’s what buttons are. The eyes of the adorable.”

“That’s disturbing.”

“Gonna make you think twice the next time you put those pretty clothes of yours on, huh?”

I let out a shaky laugh. It hurt and rattled my chest but thankfully, Milo didn’t stop talking.  I listened to his ridiculous lies about the button mines and the fluffy creatures that lived there. I listened to his tale of daring defeat as he, at age ten, took down an entire army and sewed buttons on the clothes of emperors. I listened to it all until I slipped away again. And just before I did, I felt his breath ghost across my cheek.

“Dream good dreams for the both of us, yeah?”

I smiled, nodding a bit, and curling close to him.