Chapter 24 #2
Most people were like Andrew, given the surplus of bot production and… recycling of old models. Milo could only hope they wouldn’t be like that anymore once other bots were like him. They couldn’t throw away what was unequivocally real people.
Could they?
Troy: Decorations are a go!
Raina: I better not see ONE “over the hill” sign!
Troy: Of course not! That’s for turning 40.
Raina didn’t respond, not even with a slow sequence of dots. After what felt like a very long time, Troy sent another text.
Troy: I meant 50! Typo.
Raina: One would hope.
Milo didn’t think Raina was forty, but the deepest research into her profile revealed strangely conflicting data.
Raina: Do you really want to add Riley AND your neighbor to this text thread, Milo? Couldn’t that get dicey if they realize you’re different from a normal bot?
Milo: I’ll worry about that. If we don’t add them and let them contribute, they might feel slighted.
Troy: Or make other plans for Saturday night?
Raina: Doubtful.
Milo: Not likely.
Milo had a sneaky suspicion that his and Raina’s overlap of responses was in relation to a different one among the named two, but the accuracy with both was undeniable.
Milo: Besides, if anyone is trustworthy with my secret, it would be them.
Plus Milo was fairly certain Ethel already knew.
“Is something burning?”
“Huh?” Milo jolted to attention, having gotten caught up in virtual birthday plans enough that he hadn’t realized he had Rowan’s dinner on high instead of simmer.
“Sorry!” He turned off the burner and quickly moved the pan to a dormant one.
The meal tonight was fried rice, so a little extra crisp wouldn’t hurt it.
“Is everything okay, Milo?” Rowan asked as he came up behind him.
“Wonderful!” Milo spun to face Rowan. “Never better. I was…” He hated the idea of lying, especially to Rowan, but it would only be a white lie.
“Listening to music! Yes. I got distracted by absorbing the lyrics. Usually, I just read along while listening, but I felt that diverged too much from how most humans enjoy music.”
Rowan scrutinized Milo for a moment, but then his expression smoothed. “I get that. With some songs, I might have listened to them a hundred times and even sung along to the chorus, and I still couldn’t tell you most of the lyrics. What were you listening to?”
Milo simultaneously had the very human reaction of “deer in headlights” and the benefit of being a bot that allowed him to look up an answer that would make sense for commonly misheard lyrics. “‘Purple Haze’ by Jimi Hendrix!”
“Oh.” Rowan nodded, but a little too slowly, like he was seeing right through Milo.
Was he? Or was that the new sensation Milo had been experiencing all week?
Paranoia.
Milo had been honestly frightened at first when he started to feel it, until he’d looked it up.
What could describe feeling intense, irrational worry without evidence, as if one is constantly being watched, judged, and found out for the lies they are telling?
Analyzing…
The sensation described could best be explained as: delusions, psychosis, or paranoia.
Milo had instantly relaxed—at least for a time. Paranoia, it seemed, did not allow for full relaxation.
Although the sexual kind of “relaxation” helped.
“Dinner is ready! I thought something indulgent for tonight was in order, given it’s finally Friday tomorrow.
It’s been such a long week. Which I finally understand!
” Milo said as he began to plate a portion of the meal for Rowan.
“Technically, a week is always the same length, but time really is relative when you’re alive.
It’s strangely both wonderful when you want something to go faster or slower, but also terrible when your preference isn’t followed. ”
Rowan chuckled and sat at the kitchen table. “That’s the human condition for you.”
He’d told Milo that he didn’t need to serve him, but Milo had protested that he enjoyed doing so. After all, he had made the meal and appreciated just as much being able to present it to Rowan and watch his reactions when he did a good job.
Something he had experienced earlier in the week as well, since they had tested both crust and filling options one time each, which Milo believed was enough for him to perfect the recipe to where he wanted.
He didn’t want to let Rowan taste the combination, however, or his final tweaks until Saturday.
“You’re sure nothing is bothering you?” Rowan asked.
Milo realized he had plated twice the amount of food Rowan would normally consume. Multitasking was especially difficult when one’s thoughts were scattered with secret plans and outright lies. “Sorry! Maybe I’m becoming too human. My mind keeps trying to wander.”
As Milo brought Rowan his dinner—this time as a reasonable portion—he was almost certain Rowan was scrutinizing him again, suspecting, but all Milo could do was hope it was paranoid and that, come the day, Rowan would be surprised.
And hopefully like being surprised.
“He’s gonna hate this.”
Milo bristled. He did like Riley, he did, but whether over text or now in person, lying in wait for Rowan to return home for the main event they had been preparing all week, she was really fucking hard to tolerate!
Milo took a breath—a moment—like Rowan had taught him.
Although cursing, even if only in his head, was quite fun.
“I disagree,” he said. “Rowan might be uncertain at first, but he will like this.”
He had to.
Milo, Riley, Raina, Troy, and a dormantly waiting Anabelle, who would otherwise be helping serve snacks and cake later, were all in the living room, not hiding yet, but close enough to their chosen spots. Milo had control of the lights, so no one needed to be by a switch to make things go dark.
He had smartly put Spot in the bedroom—at least for now—after very proudly having introduced her to everyone, Raina in particular, who had snorted at the name.
“How much longer?” Riley groused. She was definitely the most like Rowan, but in Milo’s opinion, not in the same likeable way.
“Ethel should be back any minute,” Milo explained.
It was a flawless plan. Rowan was used to Ethel making demands of him and intercepting him while coming home.
Milo had very casually mentioned that in celebration of Rowan’s birthday—the first he had mentioned it all week—he was hoping to bake him pie with ice cream, but he had forgotten to get ice cream with the weekly groceries.
“I really do want to catch up on chores though so we can enjoy today…” Milo had lamented.
“I can go grab some ice cream,” Rowan had offered—just like Milo knew he would. “What kind?”
“Cinnamon and lemon bar, please!”
“For the pie? Really?”
“Trust me. We’ll need both.”
There was a corner store for such things, not nearly as far away as they shopped sometimes for other groceries, so Ethel’s job was to “run into” Rowan on his way back and ask him to finish hauling her trash to the building’s dumpster.
If she’d done her job correctly, she should be bringing up the ice cream in Rowan’s stead, giving them just enough of a head’s up to get into place.
“And you planned all this?” Riley asked Milo. She had been asking quite a few questions since he’d added her to the text thread. “Without your master’s knowledge?”
Milo managed to not flinch at the use of master. “I am a truly exceptional bot, Superintendent Riley.”
“Right…”
The front door opening alerted Milo immediately.
Ethel.
“Mission accomplished!” she announced as she hurried inside, tubs of cinnamon and lemon bar ice cream in hand. “There may be a bite or two taken out of these already, but pay that no mind.”
Raina snorted, Riley frowned, and Troy looked… scandalized?
Anabelle had zero reaction other than to slightly turn her head toward Ethel’s voice.
Ethel, as always, moved with surprising agility for someone her age to deposit the ice cream in the kitchen, then returned to take her place in hiding in the living room.
Decorations were minimal, but Troy had done a wonderful job choosing a tasteful array of burgundy and teal streamers and balloons, along with a banner that simply read: Happy 30th!
No “over the hill” signs in sight. Subtle and temporarily hidden decorations had been set up by Milo earlier to be unfurled when the time came.
With Ethel returned, everyone took their hiding places, and Milo turned out the lights—moments before Rowan entered.
“Ethel? Why did you rush ahead? You can have some of the ice cream if you really want to. Hey, why are the lights—”
Just as Rowan flipped the lights back on upon reaching the living room, everyone leapt to their feet.
“Surprise!”
Notes:
I have a problem. Not with this fic! I already have the next chapter ready for you, and the chapter after THAT, which I freaking LOVE. Might be the best spicy scene I’ve ever written. But you don’t get to read that yet! XD
First… wtf do I do with Superhero Rowan and Milo?
So I figure, yeah, they finish their sexy times, agree to call a truce to escape the building together, and Milo is even okay with not stealing whatever he’d wanted to steal.
I could then time skip to them planning another hookup, or still just basking in the afterglow, while Raina and Troy (and Ray and whoever else would be Milo’s villain team) TOTALLY know shit went down.
Like, Rowan would be found out and, as a superhero, be all, “It’s rehabilitation! ”
Raina: “And the rehabilitation is your dick?” XD I love her. Do others make her sarcastic and hilarious? I think I may be having her channel what would totally be a young Ethel.
Anyway, we could end there, right? Crack-fic ending, funny, the MCs banged, THE END. But SHOULD that be the end? What else could I do with this, because I feel like there should be more, but what? Thoughts?