Chapter 22 #2
“Friday at last, huh?” Rowan said as they entered the apartment later.
The ride home had mostly been filled with each of them telling the other about their day, but now that they were home, Milo didn’t plan on wasting a single moment.
“I bet you’re glad for the weekend too after having a full work week like me. ”
They removed their shoes, and Milo followed behind Rowan toward the living room.
Rowan paused briefly to gesture into the kitchen as they passed it. “I’ll be fine with leftovers tonight, so how about no cooking, no chores, just relaxation and—”
“Sex?”
Rowan tripped forward slightly on the start of the living room carpet—which at least made more sense than Troy tripping on nothing.
The carpet also looked quite nice as the burned portion had indeed been replaced.
Glancing back at Milo, Rowan proved to have some rosy color in his cheeks. “We can… do that. If you’re sure you—”
Milo launched forward and pressed two fingers to Rowan’s lips to silence him. “Please stop believing you always need to ask that. I have answered, and my answer hasn’t changed. It won’t change. But you are still distant with me, worrying that what is between us is… wrong.”
As Rowan eased out of the tension that had seized his shoulders, Milo lowered his fingers so he could speak. “You’re really good at reading me, aren’t you?”
Milo smiled. Once, it had been his job to read Rowan’s wants and needs, the entire point of his existence. Now it was his privilege. “I like horror.”
Rowan blinked at him. “O… kay.”
“After I first read The Tell-Tale Heart, which helped me understand my very first feeling, I started to read more Edgar Allen Poe. Then other horror authors too. Mostly at night while you’re asleep.
I enjoy holding you during those hours, but internally, I also read or listen to music in my head. You do not like horror.”
Seeming to understand now what Milo was trying to convey, Rowan smiled in kind. “No, I don’t. Never have. If I’m going to consume fiction, I want it to be light and happy.”
“And I do enjoy some of that as well, like romance, but horror provides such a more intimate and visceral depiction of the range of human emotion. I get lost in those stories, rooting for the heroes to defeat the villains.
“I also enjoy cooking, as you know, and even doing the dishes afterward. I do not like doing the laundry and appreciate that you have taken on that chore.”
Rowan laughed at Milo’s increasingly rapid-fire barrage of likes and dislikes. “And I'm the opposite.”
“I know! You hate doing dishes but don't mind doing the laundry. I believe the word for that is… kismet!”
Rowan laughed again.
“I enjoy tinkering with other bots, like with Anabelle and Spot. That’s something we have in common, but one among many differences.”
“I get what you’re trying to say here, Milo, but—”
“There is no but, only that I want you to know me better, as I know you.”
That seemed to catch Rowan off guard, but his warring amusement and hesitation shifted to something thoughtful. “What music have you been listening to since Monday?” he asked.
Milo beamed brightly at the encouragement. “Mostly yours, your saved albums. I especially like... oh! I will play it.”
Play “Shark Dad” by Dance Gavin Dance.
Playing…
The song started playing through the built-in speakers throughout the apartment.
Rowan laughed yet again, because while the song started quite lyrical, it very quickly devolved into what was known as “unclean singing” with a more scream-like affect. “You like this?” he said over the screamed lyrics that were shouted as rapid-fire as Milo could sometimes speak. “Really?”
“Yes, the lyrics and the sound.”
“How does it make you… feel?” Rowan asked, a question that always washed more of his tension away, as if it grounded him the more Milo described his experiences.
Milo closed his eyes and surrendered to the drum beats, overlapping guitars, and screamed lyrics. “Calm, like listening to this drowns out the world’s chaos. However, I hate...”
Play “The Gathering” by Pharoah Sanders starting at 2:30.
Playing…
The jazz song blasted through the speakers mid-song—well, not really mid, since it was thirteen minutes in total—in a chaotic mess of competing instruments.
Milo’s nose wrinkled in disgust the more the song played. “I hate this.”
Rowan laughed even louder than before. “Jazz doesn’t make you feel calm even though it’s also, sometimes, a cobbling of noise just like metal?”
“Jazz enhances the chaos, making me feel even more anxious. I can't explain why my reactions are different to the thematically similar styles, but they are.”
Stop playing.
The silence that followed was jarring after that purposely off-putting music.
“I also hate silence,” Milo said, “which is why, when it's quiet, I am almost always listening to music in my head now. That might be why I feel the urge to talk so much.”
Rowan snorted, but even his softer laughs were intoxicating to Milo, so he said that too.
“I love your laugh. Your voice in general. Your freckles, as I’ve told you, and how you've been letting more of your beard grow in.”
Some of Rowan’s bashfulness showed through, as he ducked his head with a seemingly unconscious scratch at his thickening beard. “I’ve just been lazy, or, well… preoccupied lately.”
“It suits you! I love the way it looks. The way it feels when we kiss or when your face is between my thighs. I love...” Milo hesitated, and when Rowan glanced up with growing heat in his eyes and cheeks, Milo couldn’t bring himself to finish what he wanted to say.
A week wasn’t all that long to admit those words to someone.
“I love and like so many things. I hate and dislike many things too. I am my own man, Rowan. My own bot. You have nothing to feel guilty about just because you want to be with me. Unless you don’t want to be with someone who is only almost human. ”
The stricken expression that filled Rowan’s eyes in place of the growing heat was an odd comfort, even before Rowan said, “It has nothing to do with you not being human. It does, but because of me, not you.”
“What do you mean?”
Rowan started to pace, which made Milo feel like he needed to pace or at least fidget, but he tried to hold still to give Rowan the room he needed. “I chose how you look. I chose everything about you and decided what you did for almost half a year.”
“You do not decide for me now,” Milo countered, following Rowan’s pacing figure with his eyes. “If the worst thing is that I look exactly how you always wanted a partner to look, it is difficult for me to not like that too.”
“But I made sure you had the perfect appearance and voice and abilities to suit my wants.”
“And?” Milo tilted his head, not understanding the issue. “How is that different from how two humans choose each other?”
“I…” Rowan’s pacing came to a halt as his response trailed off.
“Humans go out and look for the specific things they want, choosing in a partner everything that fits their desires and compatibility. How is this different?” Milo reached out to take hold of Rowan’s hand and pulled him closer.
“Because you didn't get a say.”
“Humans do not get a say in how they are born either.”
“I mean you didn't get a say in being with me.”
Milo held Rowan’s hand tighter. Always the same concern, as if Rowan didn’t believe he was worthy of anyone choosing him.
“Rowan, I could not feel anything before the lightning, but I can remember everything from the moment I was first activated.
I can look back now before the storm with new eyes, just like I told you when we were first intimate.
And what I think on most is how you looked at me and tried to treat me as though I was real even when I wasn't.
“You would kiss me softly, even though I felt nothing, and you would look so sad that I didn’t respond the way you wished I could.
I… love those memories and the new ones we have been making together.
I decided for myself that you are what I want, just like I decided for myself that I enjoy metal music and hate jazz. ”
Rowan snorted again.
“Every new experience, all I can think about is how excited I am to tell you about it and share those new experiences with you. If I could have crafted a man to be everything I wanted, it would still be you.”
It wasn’t often that Milo saw moisture in Rowan’s eyes, but the amount in them now made his hazel eyes look even greener than usual. “If there ever comes a time when I'm not what you want—”
“I will let you know. But you are what I want. Here. Now. Anywhere. But preferably here.” Milo pulled his hand from Rowan’s and pushed him with just the slightest bit of excessive force to knock him against the wall beside the TV without risk of injury or stunning him.
“Milo…”
Milo stepped forward slowly, promisingly into Rowan’s space as those swimming hazel eyes widened in recognition. “Here. And right now.”
Notes:
So thief Milo has just accidentally said Rowan’s real name when Rowan didn’t know Milo knew he was Umbra, but they’re, like, mid grind, right? Not a good time to stop! “How long…?” Rowan asked.
Milo reached for Rowan's face, pulled the mask the rest of the way off, and tossed it aside as Rowan's ginger hair poofed out from being smushed beneath the cowl. “The whole damn time,” he said, and, holding Rowan around the curve of his jaw, pulled him into a kiss.
Breaths heavy, and bodies writhing once more, Rowan could feel the rising tide, but Milo got there ahead of him, body tensing as he bit into Rowan's neck and his hips stuttered with his release.
That dull edge of teeth on Rowan's skin made him shiver, rocking faster, faster into the mess left between them, until a tremor vibrated through him and he came moments after Milo with a relieved sigh.
No regrets, Rowan thought as his pounding heart slowed. Not a damn one.