Milo - Post Chapter Eleven (Patreon)

A/N: Takes place sometime before chapter eleven.

I opened the door only to have a bouquet of bent flowers shoved in my face, the pollen bursting around me in a shimmering cloud. Coughing, I waved my hand, trying to displace the dust as I peered through the golden fog to see Milo standing on the other side.

“What the…?”

“H-hi. I– I’m Hazel’s friend. She said to pick you up here?”  His eyes were round and innocent, his hand trembling. I only returned his look with a blank stare. The sad bunch of flowers were between us as if acting as a barrier to his nerves. “She did tell you, right?” He shuffled his feet awkwardly but when I still didn’t answer, he winced, dropping his hand.  “Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.”

“Milo, what are you…?”

“Oh! So you do know my name! For a minute there I thought she hadn’t told you about our date. I know blind dates are kind of old hat but I really thought we could make a go of it, yeah?” He winked at me, his lips curling at the sides before falling back into an awkward bumble.

Feeling the confusion bleed away, I laughed. “Alright, I’ll play. It’s nice to meet you, Milo. Hazel has told me so much about you.”

“Excellent. I have made reservations at a beautiful riverside café.  Frogs on tiny gondoliers serenade you as kelpie burst from the water in synchronized swim. It is quite stunning. Although, do not get the fish for dinner.  Abysmal really.”

“Even though it’s a riverside café?” I asked, grabbing my jacket.  “You’d think they’d specialize in fish.”

He shook his head as we exited Hazel’s, walking down the back steps and out into the garden before rounding the house to make our way to wherever it is he was going to take me.  “No. No, fish folk never specialize in their own kind. Because of cannibalism and all.  They’d much rather cook with hearty staples of the earth. Have you ever had stone soup? And I do mean actual stone soup.  It’s also not good but occasionally you can catch a hint of oregano in it that leaves you wholly unsatisfied.”

“Well, you have sold me. The café sounds delightful.”

I followed Milo along, feeling my heart flutter with whatever it was he was up to.  It had been a few days since I had seen him, the two of us having gotten caught up in our own life for a while.  He looked better rested than the last time I laid eyes on him and it looked as if he had actually done laundry for once. His clothes weren’t wrinkled.

“Thank you for agreeing to this. I know that blind dates can be a little tedious. You never know when you are going to get a troll. And I don’t mean that in the sense of someone being unattractive. I don’t believe in someone being unattractive. I do, however, have experience with literal trolls showing up at my door and let me tell you,” he shuddered a bit.  “They know how to dance.”

Taking my hand, he twirled me around, ducking under my own arm before pulling me back to his chest, arms locked around me in a tight embrace. Milo didn’t look like someone who was the strongest guy, but when he had me in his arms like this, I could feel the muscle corded across each bicep.  We walked awkwardly along, him singing something in my ear, off-key, making me laugh as we stumbled through the streets, pressed together.

“I don’t think this is appropriate behavior for a blind date,” I told him, smiling at him over my shoulder.

“Ah,” he released me with a flourish. “You are correct.  I was going with the fae customs I had learned where you mock capture your date in a fit of war.”

“Know a lot about fae customs?”

“Very very little but what I say sounds correct.”

The café in question truly was a riverside one.  It was located near a small tributary leading up from the docks where a series of wooden mushroom tables lined a boggy little creak.  Frogs hopped about but not in the way Milo spoke of and I didn’t quite know what a kelpie was but I certainly didn’t see one in sight.

Going up to what looked like a bar, located beneath a curtain of dripping algae, Milo leaned against the surface, looking at the toadlike pouring small mushroom caps of a plum colored liquid.. “I had a reservation for Monsieur Next, plus one.”

The frog blinked at him. “Fuck off, Milo. Go sit at your usual.”

Milo tapped the bar and nodded. “Thank you kind, sir. May you and yours be doing wonderful this eve.”

The toad rolled his eyes at Milo but looked at me with a small bow.

“Come here often?” I asked, as Milo lead me around back towards the more watery area of the… tavern? Restaurant? I wasn’t really sure where we were.

“I may be seen as a regular. Who’s to say.”  Holding out his hand, he dragged me towards a small portion of the silt river that split into several rows of still ponds and ebbing creeks.  Wooden row boats littered the area, anchored down so they did not move.  I could see groups of people enjoying their drinks from within and when Milo pulled me into one, I was almost surprised at how clean and kept the boat itself was.

Hopping up on the table that bisected the boat, Milo spread his legs wide and pulled me close.

“Hi,” he said with a smile.

“Hi.”

“I’m done pretending I don’t know you.”

“I kind of liked it.”

“I’ll do it again then. But not tonight.” Tipping his head forward, he caught my lips in a hungry kiss, hands kneading my sides.  “I missed you.  No one laughs at my jokes like you do.”

“I’m not sure what that says about me.” I leaned into him, wrapping my arms around him in return and threading my fingers through the back of his curls.  He moaned a little as I scratched at his skull and it sent a bolt of heat through me. “Hazel said you were running a delivery for her,” I said. “Near the outskirts.”

He hummed in response. “Not a fun one. A very wet one, in fact. I think my feet will never get dry.”

“Then why did you take me to a café where we are on a boat?”

He stopped, as if he actually hadn’t considered that at all.  When he tilted his head to the side, contemplating this answer, he shrugged. “I’m not the brightest man,” he said. “But, I can say, that I thought you would like it.” Turning me, he pulled me back against him again, resting his head on my shoulder.  “I don’t think you’ve really gotten to see the parts of the Night Market that I like,” he said.  “With everything going on you’ve seen a lot of danger and a lot of busy but the Night Market isn’t like that. There is such beauty in this world.”

I stared out over the expanse of meandering rivers and grass cut islands. Little boats scattered around us, different individuals huddled together around the floating candle lanterns for warmth.  I grinned. There was a peace here. Something a bit more slowed down than the other parts of the market.

“I didn’t always think this way, you know,” he told me, his voice much softer. “I used to hate it here. Kept saying I’d find a way to get out.  Used to tell the people in my life that I’d just one day be gone. I’d get a job and then I’d disappear. No goodbyes.”

“But you’re still here,” I pointed out.

He nodded. “I got the opportunity to go once.  I couldn’t do it. The money was in my hand. I had actually secured passage through a gate, and I just couldn’t do it. I realized that during all my bitching and complaining about the trash heap of this world, I fell absolutely in love with these streets. Made a family for the first time in my life.  Had a home that I chose.  Why would I leave that?”

I rested my hands upon his, lacing them together low on my belly. “I’m glad you stayed.”

He said nothing to that as he tucked his head closer to mine, nuzzling my neck and dragging slow presses of his lips across my skin. “Want to come back to my place after we have dinner?” he asked.

“You’re not too tired?” I teased. “Such a long and wet journey you had.”

He snorted. “Honestly, I don’t give a shit what we do tonight.  I just want to be with you like this. For a bit longer.”

Craning my neck, I looked over my shoulder. “You have me, Milo. I’m not going anywhere.”

His amber eyes flickered. A sharp knife of light and pain, blazing brightly before fading back to the mischievous burn that always lingered across his gaze.  “You’re too good for this damn world,” he said.

“I thought you liked this world.”

“I like you better.”  A waiter came to our boat, dropping off two platters of food that made the two of us move.  Milo sat as close to me as possible, keeping his thigh pressed to mine. I looked down at the food, none of which I could name, and felt Milo sling an arm around me. “Best to just take the plunge, darlin’. Don’t think. Just do.”

And didn’t that just sum up the entirety of Milo Next.