Chapter 21
Milo
After staring at his ceiling for hours on end he finally fell into a fitful sleep, only to jump awake what felt like only a few minutes later at the sound of his alarm clock.
He rolled out of bed bleary-eyed and not feeling any better than he had yesterday. In fact, he felt a little worse; sluggish and slow and like he wanted to curl up under the sheets and never move again.
Which never happened to him. He got dressed in his comfiest sweatshirt and put his titty hat on over his messy hair. Because fashion didn’t care if you felt like crap.
He snatched up his Stanley cup and headed straight to the kitchen to make a gallon of coffee. He hadn’t yet found a problem more coffee couldn’t fix. It was what had led him to his brilliant idea of chaining himself to the tree, after all.
As he sat in the doctor’s waiting room. He realized maybe he had overestimated its powers a little.
Betrayal tasted worse than the dregs of cold coffee at the bottom of his cup as he waited anxiously for the health check to be over.
It was always like this though.
He hadn’t chalked it up to being a dragon hoard thing, because why the hell would he have jumped to that conclusion? But Milo was never not a nervous wreck on the other side of the door. Every check was like rolling the dice as the years ticked by. Milo wished he could smash the clock.
“And you’re all done,” the nurse said as she opened the door.
Milo was on his feet in seconds.
“Is he—”
“Fit as a fiddle, Mr. Tobitt,” the nurse said, ushering Glenn out the door. He shuffled over to a little metal stand with pamphlets and picked some random ones to read over. “Physically, that is.”
“Yeah.” Milo nodded, looking at Glenn, who was studying a leaflet about cavities with the seriousness of a PhD student. “He does live in his own reality.”
“So long as he’s happy and not in danger, I don’t think there’s anything different you can do,” she said with a gentle smile. “You take good care of him. He’s healthy, happy, and grounded.”
Milo felt his chest expand with pride and his first instinct was to call Rowan to tell him he just got told he took good care of his hoard. It felt important. Larger than life. But Rowan was working and Milo shouldn’t be distracting him with things that weren’t that important.
“Thank you,” he said, and the nurse smiled before looking at Glenn.
“See you soon, Glenn,” she said, and he turned to her, a serene smile on his face.
“Looking forward to it,” he said before hooking his arm around Milo’s and walking out. “I am not looking forward to it.”
“Huh?” Milo asked.
“She’s nice, but there is no chemistry there, so a second date is out of the question.”
“Ah.” Milo bit his lip to stop himself from laughing. “Well, it’s good you put yourself out there anyway.”
“Indeed.” Glenn nodded as they walked down the street toward the bus station.
“Okay, so, remember what we talked about?” Milo asked.
“Get on the bus,” he recited. “Sit behind the driver. The driver will tell me when my stop is up. Ethel will meet me there.”
“Good,” Milo said, fishing out some change for his ticket as they waited for the bus to arrive.
He made sure Glenn was situated before heading for his own bus stop on the other side of the road to take him to Sips and Scales.
The anxiety in his chest didn’t ease until Ethel texted him that Glenn was back safe and sound. She was the only one who knew how to operate a smartphone.
He sighed in relief as he wrapped his apron around his hips in the back room.
“Just in time,” Lyra said, wiping some flour off her green scales. “We’re about to have another rush and Freddie’s already drowning.”
“He hates when you call him that.”
She snorted. “Frederick is pretentious as fuck and I refuse to say it.”
“And this is why he refuses to wear name tags.”
“He’ll come around,” she said confidently. “But help him out? He sucks on the register and I have this last batch of cookies to get in the oven.”
“Only if you save me one for my break,” Milo bargained.
“I’ll save you two. What does tall, red, and douchey like?”
Milo froze. “What?”
“He usually shows up on your breaks and you throw him a baked good, no?”
Milo looked down at his feet. “He won’t be here today.”
She hummed sympathetically. “Did you break up? I mean, you did imply he was a pervert in front of the whole shop.”
He snapped his head back up. “We were never dating! And he’s not a pervert!”
She gave him a strange once-over like she didn’t believe him. “Fine, keep your secrets.”
“I’m telling the truth!”
“Gotta get back to the cookies. I’ll see you out there in a bit.”
She sashayed off and Milo ground his teeth, feeling a headache coming on.
Stupid Rowan. Stupid business. Stupid tiredness.
He pushed out to the front to see a line already forming toward the door. Frederick glanced over his shoulder and looked like he was spotting a life raft in a storm.
“Milo.”
“Yeah, yeah. Your savior has arrived. Pour me an espresso.”
Savior was probably a strong choice of word considering he tripped over his own foot walking toward Fredrick and barely caught himself before splitting his forehead open on the counter.
“I’m okay!” he announced as he pushed himself upright, glaring at his shoes as if they’d launched an attack on his person.
Fredrick handed him an espresso and Milo threw it back like his life depended on it before taking over at the register.
Which was also apparently an enemy, that day.
He gave the wrong change twice. He charged for the wrong drink four times before Lyra finally got the baking done and came out to put him out of his misery.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
“Yup.” Milo wiped the sweat from his brow. “Just had a terrible night’s sleep. Can’t focus for shit.”
He rubbed his eyes and glanced at the clock, expecting his shift to be half over. He’d only been working for an hour.
“Go man the pastries,” she said. “Least potential for damage there.”
“I’m fine!” he said, but he shuffled over anyway, figuring fewer people wanted baked goods than coffee so he had less room for error.
Everyone wanted a baked good.
Multiples of them. Bagged separately and charged together and “does this have any nuts in it?” and Milo started feeling overwhelmed like he never had before.
A customer brushed his hand as they took the bag and Milo pulled back as if singed. The soft hum of background music felt like an assault on his ears and his apron was tied too tight.
He loosened it a bit, but then it kept flapping around him and he didn’t like that. He kept pushing it around until all the pushing caused him to knock their little flyer display off the counter.
“Shit,” he hissed, bending down to pick up the scattered papers. He found himself in the corner between their pastry shelf and the counter.
The tight space felt grounding for some reason. He pushed his back into the corner and hunched over, gathering the leaflets spread around the floor and cradling them in his lap. He kinda wished he was home.
He was pretty tired.
Did he have a shift at the bar?
No, that was yesterday. Today was the coffee shop and then delivery tomorrow morning.
So he just had to get through his shift and then he could go home.
Maybe being around his people would help whatever he was going through. Ethel might make him her special soup if he acted annoyingly miserable enough. Which he could totally do. He was a master at being annoying. And miserable. And any combination of the two. So he should…
“Um…hello!” A face popped over the counter and Milo looked up, curled into the corner with a lap full of flyers.
“YES!” He jumped up. “Hello!”
“I just wanted my cookie,” the man said.
Milo nodded like a bobblehead. “And you should totally get it. Your cookie! You deserve one!”
“I sure do!” the man said, perking up. He flashed a smile Milo’s way. “Especially coming from someone so cute.”
Milo…recoiled.
“Um…” he said dumbly, his brain absolutely refusing to come up with anything clever and charming to say to redirect the awkward flirting. He just stood there.
Not only did he not say something clever, he didn’t even say something dumb. He just stared silently at the man with his paper bag in hand, cookie suspended just above it before being dropped in.
The rustle of the paper bag brought Milo’s brain somewhat online.
Enough to shove the bag into the man’s chest and wish him a pleasant day in the loudest way possible, virtually shooing him out of the shop before looking around himself as if someone was gonna jump out at him and accuse him of using the cookie as a flirtation tactic.
Milo had zero flirtation tactics, cookie-based or otherwise. Anyone could tell you that. So there was nothing to see there.
“He didn’t pay.” Lyra’s voice came from behind him, making him yelp and jump a foot in the air.
“W-what?”
“He didn’t pay for the cookie,” she repeated before frowning at him. “Milo, what is happening?”
“Nothing,” he said. “I’m fine. Maybe need more coffee.”
“If you drink any more coffee you’ll start tasting sounds! You need to go home. Eat real food. Sleep.”
“Oh my god don’t fire me!” he said, wide-eyed and stomach churning. “I’ll get it together. I just really need this job. I have people relying—”
“MILO!” she yelled, interrupting the rant. “Nobody is being fired.”
He deflated on the counter. “Oh, thank god.”
“It’s not even my business, for god’s sake. Go home!”
“I can’t just ditch in the middle of my shift,” he said weakly, and she grabbed his face with both hands.
“Your shift is over. And even if it wasn’t, you’re a hazard today. Get some sleep.”
“I just need—”
“Not another lick of coffee.” She pushed him out the back and toward the back door. “Go!”
“Fine!” he said, grabbing his stuff before power walking to the bus station.
He sank into a seat once the bus got there and relaxed as much as he could, eyes half-closed as the bus chugged along. Maybe Lyra was right. He needed some sleep. Some good food. Some rest.
Today was a fluke.
Tomorrow would be much better.
Notes:
Headcanon:
Milo is one of those people who try and walk off any illness they have, make it five times worse without going to the doctor, and then google their symptoms only to deduce they have negative four more hours to live.