an eye for an eye

Milo got back to his dorm room around noon. He could've done so earlier, but he'd taken a long walk, to clear his head. It hadn't done much, really. Being alone with his thoughts was just leaving him more wound up. His movements were robotic. He just showed up, started stripping off his clothes, and threw his blankets over his head as soon as he started distantly hearing Nilesy shuffling about.

"Milo! Holy shit! Where have you been? I started thinking the worst, you fucking asshole! Not even one text? Just taking your damn time, then, not considering me at all?" Ah, what a lovely, reassuring, incredibly nagging voice his best friend had. He felt a pressure on his bed from Nilesy sitting on it, and then, a very childish tug of war occurred with the blankets. Of course Milo ended up winning, he always won with these things.

He mumbled some things so he'd be left alone, but Nilesy knew how to recognize smiling in his voice by now, even without seeing his face. The other man sighed very dramatically, and gave up. "Okay, okay. But if something's up, give me the details later, yeah? I'm holding you to it, no need to agree. I have to get to class anyway, and you, of course, can go ahead and sleep the whole damn day. It's fine, you get away with everything."

"Thanks," Milo said cheekily, peeking out briefly to grin.

"Ugh. Have fun napping forever, I have to be productive." Nilesy stuck his tongue out, then tugged his heavy messenger bag over his shoulder. "Love you, bye! Good job not being dead or arrested yet, keep it up!"

"Neeeerd," Milo called after the other as he left. That was his version of a return 'I love you', while also serving as an accurate description all on its own.

After a while, though, his face fell, and he remembered his sharp new miserable feelings all over again. It was nice being back in his room, at least. And when he passed out, his rats joined him, so it wasn't just him.

He was so tired.


Milo sat on the kitchenette counter and shoved strawberry cake in his mouth. "I'm fine. Nothing happened. The potion you gave me was nice, very helpful, I'll use it again in the future."

"Are you sure you're not stress eating sugar? What is that, your fifth fucking slice? And what were you having earlier, like, two kinds of ice cream and a bag of frosted animal cookies?"

He shrugged. "I'm bigger than you, and an entirely different species, I eat more, it's perfectly normal. Besides… it's good. If I want to eat tasty things, I'm doing it, it's not like violence is the only thing I'm indulgent in." He definitely was stress eating, yep! He attempted his best innocent smile at Nilesy, and got an unimpressed deadpan in return. He just shrugged again.

He saw Vincenzo every time he let his mind wander, every time he closed his eyes, and wondered if he'd made a mistake. And if he had… would he even be able to acknowledge it? Could he cope?

These things went unanswered. Milo ate the entire cake by himself, and Nilesy made the most personally offended noise he'd ever heard.

Milo was still off, but he'd been going to some of his classes. Why hadn't he heard any news about his recent murder? There was usually something by now, but he'd give it more time. Nilesy was always there to drag him along to things and snap him out of his dazed modes. The other knew something was up, and Milo was going to tell him eventually, he just… couldn't, not yet. It was too soon.

Nilesy started rambling at him immediately when they sat down for some spell related class, and Milo squinted critically at him, trying to listen but just kind of… not processing… then, he was out like a light. He was paying for that later in the form of even more chatter, he was sure, but he couldn't be bothered over it now. He dozed.

It didn't take Nilesy that long to start shaking him back awake, though, hissing things far too close to his ear. Milo made an irritated sound and swatted at him, then getting swatted at right back. Fair enough. Milo opened his eyes fully when he got flicked on his rather sensitive nose, and glared at his friend, ready to snap at him. The other was making a weird face and shaking his head a lot, though, so he didn't, raising his eyebrows instead.

"What, Niles? Come on, just let me nap and have everyone only quietly dislike me for it, don't draw more attention," he said, voice hushed.

Nilesy pressed his hands together, tapping them on his lips, and made a muffled strangled noise. Fascinating, but not exactly answering Milo's question. When he tried to go back to sleep, the other finally spat it out at all once, a mix of excitement and horror in his tone.

"Okaysolisten, I don't know how to put this, um, lightly? But. I think the person you just murdered. Isn't dead at all and is like. Right fucking over there, in our class, right this second. Oh my god, Milo, what did you do?"

Milo blinked a bit stupidly, and, of course, tried to look over. That couldn't be true. Nilesy had been watching too many soap operas, and they were rotting his brain.

"Milo, ohmygod! Don't, it's suspicious!" Nilesy squeaked.

"Everything happening right now is suspicious, shut up," Milo groaned, massaging his temples. Besides, he was imagining things, Vincenzo wasn't… he'd definitely killed him, checked repeatedly to make sure, felt the fucking loss. "Besides, I wore a glamour, so even if, uh. Christ, I'm just going to disprove this out of nowhere theory so you don't have a heart attack. I'm not worried."

He should've been, though. He did a double take, then just stared. Vincenzo Maria Fontana. Was he dreaming? He had literally just gone to sleep, so it was reasonable to consider. His gut reaction, terribly enough, was an overwhelming wave of happiness and hope, which probably flashed across his face- and which Nilesy was now giving him all kinds of incredulous looks for. Not that his mind was anywhere near on his friend or class. Wow, she was gorgeous, too...

Then came the dread. Oh. Oh, god, he was a little bit fucked, wasn't he? Maybe that was an understatement.

Nilesy waved a hand in front of his face, like a total jackass would, and Milo swatted him again. Fucking fuck.

Milo just remained dumbfounded, once again at a loss, almost innocent within it. This could only mean bad things. He was so relieved to see her again it felt like his chest was going to burst, and continued staring. She didn't disappear, and he didn't wake up.

She ended up breaking their eye contact first, but he didn't turn away. He'd already been ready to sleep through this, so what the fuck did he care? Nilesy would take a scary amount of notes, and it'd be more than enough for the both of them.

Speaking of, Nilesy kept trying to get his attention again. It didn't work. Milo's eyes were glazed over, distant. Reliving memories. Vincenzo was alive… and, uh, getting up and heading their way, he realized with a jolt. There definitely wasn't any time to brace for a slap. Milo blinked rapidly, lips parted, and he heard a huge gasp from his friend beside him.

His attention on her was intense, but it still took a moment to make sense of the words now hanging over them in the air. He stiffened, inwardly screaming a bit as he understood, and by then it was far too late to correct anything. It had always been too late.

There were fucking pictures being taken, ridiculous, didn't their classmates have anything better to do? Nilesy was nudging him, and now hissing about affairs, tone that of an interrogator. Of course he bought this, Milo's weird behavior for the past few days probably didn't help. Nonetheless, he felt great irritation towards his traitor of a best friend.

Milo stood up all at once, putting his hand up firmly to tell Nilesy not to follow after him. He gave the rest of the class an icy, sweeping gaze. The room quieted. He didn't have anything to take with him past what was in his pockets (thanks to his friend, who hoarded everything school related), so he just walked out, offering a very serious apology to the teacher as he passed.

The hall was even more uncomfortably silent. What was this? Was Vincenzo going to try and kill him, or worse? How had she survived, immortality, regeneration? That was fucking cheating. He was so glad. He shouldn't be, but he was, and the feeling wasn't going anywhere. He fidgeted with his scarf and tried not to feel painfully awkward. What the fuck should he say? He didn't know, so he just didn't say anything. She was the one who dragged them out here, so he imagined there must be something she wanted to do.

Oh. Maybe an 'I told you so'. Haunting, right.

Well, this felt a bit like karma. Milo respected that, in a way. And he still couldn't get his mind off how uplifted he was right then, after the last few days of depression- so he wasn't about to complain. Not until he was forced to really acknowledge how terrible this was.

He was a killer, he'd never experienced anything like this in his life. Most people didn't just get back up- honestly, humans broke fairly easily. That's Manta Carlos for you, seemed to be the catchphrase around these situations. And it was reasonable enough to say, but at the same time… the fact that Vincenzo was the one he was dealing with seemed just as relevant.

God. He was going to be in shock for a while, this hadn't all sunk in yet, not at all. A sort of calm settled over him. She was alive, and would stay that way, apparently. There was a kind of peace, safety, in that. No matter how rough he might accidentally or purposefully be, she'd be there.

He was pretty sick, wasn't he? It was just. He'd been thinking about her far too much, and the murder had been an attempt at finishing things, but it hadn't worked. This wasn't better, but he wasn't quite sure if it was worse.

He frowned at the continued theme, honestly, it… rubbed him the wrong way, after how they'd interacted, and with how he still felt about her. A whole lot of gross squirmed around in his stomach. He didn't want to be known as the man who hurt girls all of the sudden, didn't want to become what he'd been so afraid of, didn't want to do anything like that to Vincenzo. He flushed with shame and followed after her, long strides clumsier than usual.

This would definitely give them a lot of, obviously dangerous, isolation. Fine. Milo was still quiet, though buzzing with concern. He allowed himself to get pushed around without putting up any signs of a fight, limbs rather slack. Damn it, though. The heat in his cheeks was settling in more deeply, and he cleared his throat lightly before trying to reply.

"Is that what we're doing now, Vincenzo?" he asked, voice fairly passive, but with a lingering sharpness at the edges. "I'd leave you alone, if that was what you wanted- even let you shake me up a bit now, have some revenge, then be able to stay the fuck away from me afterwards. But if you want to retaliate so ambitiously, and continue spending time in my presence? I'll have no choice but to do the same, to keep it equal." He paused. "Just make sure you understand that."

"…It's Milo, by the way. Milo Constantin." He shifted, feeling embarrassed by his own inner tone switching, as well as the color in his face. He liked her. He absolutely loathed the things she'd done, but he liked her, so, so much. What was he supposed to do with that?

Fuck. It was striking, couldn't be ignored. She was vibrant, with pushy energy and a strong personality wrapped around something else, which was likely far more vulnerable. Not just another pretty face, and sometimes, not too pretty at all. Nasty, lashing out, impulsive. He liked her, he liked her, he liked her... even with her at his throat, he couldn't get it off of his mind, couldn't avoid finding more little things to be endeared by. He didn't doubt her when she talked about making his life hell- she'd done it with others, and clearly hated him. He wouldn't ignore that. But he was... fond. There was no helping it.

He really liked her.

"I don't know, maybe you'd rather not be murdered again. Sounds unpleasant," Milo replied, softly, but certainly not kindly. "You brought my attention on yourself through your actions, you seemed to have suffered for it, and now you're repeating that. Alright. Why not."

He then opened his mouth to genuinely attempt a return greeting, but it was rather distracted from with his being fucking shanked, severe pain making his vision spin and dragging a rough hiss from him. She twisted it. That was fair. Pleasant, strongly sweet smelling fae blood filled the air rather thickly, and he quickly moved to clutch a hand to his stomach and hold it there.

Sweetheart? He sighed, making a face, then looked at her with narrowed yellow eyes. "I will, darling, don't worry about me so much." He gave a smile, or really, more of a baring of his teeth. "I'm pretty durable myself. Not like you, but it helps." It wasn't a challenge, just a cold statement of fact like most of what he said, but she'd probably take it as one anyway.

He paused. Fuzzy. Ah, hearing her say his name was nice, wasn't it? Really nice. If that would be happening a lot, he could definitely live with it. He should get this checked, yes, she could've had poison on her knife or any number of nasty things, but he… he'd just seen her again, he wanted to bask in that for as long as possible before she disappeared. She claimed to be coming back, but when or where exactly, who fucking knew? He didn't have anything solid to go on there, even with their shared class.

It was funny, him getting accused of being the one who wouldn't call, because he felt more spooked by the opposite concept.