Rowan
Author’s Note:
JUST KISS EACH OTHER – consensually.
Something was very wrong.
He was sprawled out across his bed, with no danger in sight.
A soft noise came from the living room, but before Rowan could even begin to guess at what it was, his hawk screeched a third time, decidedly not helping the matter. Rowan strained to listen, but outside of his head, the apartment was silent and still.
The harder he listened, the more the lack of sound pressed in around him until he had almost convinced himself he’d imagined the noise, but then it came again, only louder.
It reminded him of the keening cry an abandoned hawk would make.
Rowan had only heard the sound once, when he was very young, and he and his brother had gotten lost in the woods one of the many times their parents had gone out of town.
It had been a rough week, filled with Raina and Riley arguing, and Ruben getting into all sorts of trouble.
Instead of staying human and using his much bigger lungs to call for their sisters, Ruben had shifted and cried out with the saddest, tiniest shrieks until Riley came bursting through the underbrush, with Raina in tow.
At the time, Rowan had been too young to navigate back to the house, and he’d never been much of a crier, so instead he’d sat in silence, holding Ruben bundled up in his shirt until rescue arrived.
He was much older now, and his instincts were pulling him towards the noise. It almost felt like a fishing hook had snagged Rowan’s heart and was tugging him forward.
He stumbled out of bed, and moments from the night before flooded in. He definitely hadn’t drunk enough to black out, or even brown out, but he couldn’t remember going from sitting on the couch with Milo to being in bed.
Perhaps that was why, when he emerged from the bedroom to find Milo curled up on the couch crying, he practically shouted, “Milo?”
Milo curled up even tighter, whimpering softly.
Rowan vaulted over the couch, like he was some sort of superhero who could scoop Milo up and carry them to safety.
The problem was, there was nothing tangible to rescue them from.
Their eyes were closed, and their face was scrunched in pain as they fought off whatever horrors lived inside their head.
Milo’s lips parted around a grimace, and Rowan’s hand reached out of its own accord, as if to touch their arm or maybe grab their wrist. As usual, though, before he could make contact, his nervous system took over.
It was as if he’d tried to reach for a red-hot stove and his senses kicked in just in time to make him recoil.
For as long as he could remember, his body treated touch like an imminent threat.
Milo wasn’t a threat, though. They were Rowan’s friend, and at this point, he would go so far as to say they were his best friend.
There was just something right between them, a safety he hadn’t ever known with another person.
His hawk bobbed his head, and Rowan took that as permission and guidance. He settled the weight of his hand on Milo’s shoulder and applied just enough pressure he hoped they’d be able to feel him through the blanket and the mesh shirt they’d worn to the club.
Milo’s next whimper died on their lips, but instead of jerking awake, it was like they slowly came back to themself.
Their eyelids peeled back, and their spine loosened until they sort of melted into the side of the couch.
Their hazy gray eyes settled first on Rowan’s face and then traced his arm down to where his hand was resting on their shoulder.
As if having some sort of delayed reaction to waking up, their eyes rounded and their hands flew up to cover their face. “Oh, shit, I’m sorry. I fell asleep.” Milo’s fingers ran down their damp cheeks, and dawning realization tightened the lines around their eyes. “Oh gods.”
“It’s okay.”
“Oh, gods! I’m so sorry. I…” Milo pulled out of Rowan’s grasp, lifting their knees up to their chest and wrapping their arms around themself. “I…have nightmares sometimes.”
“It’s okay,” Rowan repeated, even though it felt far from okay. His hawk was doing that anxious hopping about from before, and for the first time, the act of pulling his hand away from another person felt wrong.
“What time is it?” Milo grunted, turning to see it was 4:30 am. “Oh gods, it’s only been, like, two hours.”
Milo dropped their head onto their arms, and where they’d been loose and relaxed a moment before, now they were like a tight little ball of tension.
“We can go back to sleep,” Rowan said.
“I can’t,” Milo groaned, even as a yawn took hold, pulling their shoulders forward to the point it had to be painful. “It's really hard for me to go back to sleep after a nightmare.”
Milo yawned again, and their arms began to shake around their legs.
Each one of Rowan’s blinks was longer than the last, and he fought to keep the wariness from his voice as he said, “I don’t think I can drive you home right now.”
“No,” Milo murmured. “And I definitely can’t drive like this. It was…a bad one. I kinda feel like I ran ten miles in heels to get away from a serial killer with a knife.”
Well, that was certainly a mental image. “Was that what your dream was about?”
Milo’s legs unfurled as if they just couldn’t hold them up anymore. They dropped their head onto the back of the couch and stared up at the ceiling, tears still visible on their cheeks.
“No, it’s always the same thing.”
Rowan’s hawk unfurled his wings like maybe they could take down this threat in Milo’s head. “Do you…want to talk about it?”
Milo blinked once and then again, and on the third blink, two fresh tears rolled down their cheeks. “I don’t know. Talking about it has never really helped.”
“What does help?” Rowan asked, an edge of desperation in his voice that would have been embarrassing in the light of day.
“When I used to live with Ray, I would go sleep in his bed. Nowadays we live one floor apart, so if it’s a really bad night or if it’s only midnight and I have to be sharp for work the next day, I’ll go downstairs to his place.
Obviously, that doesn’t work when he has someone over, so on nights like tonight, I’d probably just curl up on the couch with the TV blasting and try to avoid going back to sleep.
” Milo rolled their head on their neck to look at Rowan’s flat screen TV, then rolled it back around to look up at Rowan.
“I don’t want to bother you, though. I can just watch something on my phone, and I can probably still do the strawberries and stuff tomor—” A yawn ripped out of their chest, and they sagged sideways. “Or…we could reschedule.”
Rowan had blissfully forgotten about Ruben and Ray, and while he hadn’t forgotten about their strawberry date per se, it hadn’t been top of mind. It was a good reminder that depending on how quickly Ruben broke Ray's heart, there was a chance this would be their last hangout.
“What about sleeping in Ray’s bed helps?”
Milo blinked up at him. “I mean, we usually cuddle, which is nice, but it’s more about just…
not being alone.” Milo’s eyes unfocused, and even though they were still looking at Rowan, it was clear they weren’t seeing him.
“That’s sort of what the dream is about.
I’m…all alone, in the fog, but…unlike how it normally goes, there’s no getting out of it.
There’s no more Ethel or Ray or…you…or… ”
Milo closed their eyes, and Rowan didn’t need them to finish to know the last name was Anabelle.
There were some wounds that a person wore on their skin that eventually scabbed over and healed, even if they left a scar.
Then there were some that lived so deep inside a person, they had to be excised to start healing.
It was clear Milo still had some healing and maybe some processing to do, but it wasn’t like Rowan was an expert on that.
“Come sleep with me,” Rowan said, straightening out of his slouch. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to help Milo heal or not, but it sure as hell wasn’t going to happen with him in his bedroom and Milo out here, suffering alone.
Milo looked at him like he had sprouted his hawk’s wings.
Rowan rolled his shoulders just to check, but as he’d suspected, his wings weren’t flared out behind his naked back…although that was interesting. He usually slept in a t-shirt and boxers, but for some reason tonight he was shirtless, a fact made more obvious as Milo’s eyes drifted down his chest.
“Come on,” Rowan said, gesturing towards the bedroom.
Milo’s eyes snapped back up to his face. “I don’t want to be a bother. I tend to sprawl out, and I don’t think I’ll be able to avoid accidentally touching you in my sleep.”
Rowan shrugged like that wasn’t a very valid concern. “My ex sprawled out, too. I can build a pretty solid pillow wall, don’t worry.”
His ex had absolutely despised that, and it’s why they’d only slept together a handful of times.
“Yeahhhhh, I think there’s no way that could hold—”
“Please?” Rowan said, speaking for him and his hawk. “I won’t be able to sleep knowing you’re out here hurting. Can we try it, at least?”
Milo clenched the blanket tighter to their chest. “If…you’re sure?”
“Very sure,” Rowan said, stepping back from the couch to give Milo space to stand up.
It took them a moment, and their body creaked like they’d been lying there for a hundred years, not two hours. Hopefully, Rowan’s bed would help with that as well.
Rowan led the way into his bedroom, stopping by his dresser to pull out the smallest T-shirt he owned, something he’d gotten for free at a hockey game with Ruben.
“You can wear this if you’d like. And obviously, boxers, or, uh, whatever you’re wearing is fine.”
Rowan could have kicked himself for being too gendered, but Milo just huffed a laugh. “My clothes are fabulous, but my underwear is quite boring. Just some boxer briefs for me.”
Hopefully the shirt would go all the way down to Milo’s knees. Rowan wasn’t sure if he could handle seeing Milo in “just boxer briefs” right now.