It'd been over a week since Milo had seen Vincenzo, after their last encounter. He wondered, repeatedly, if he'd pushed it. If he should've pretended to hate him, just for a little more attention, and in order to not scare him off. They probably shouldn't be around each other, though. Milo hurt him, murdered him, and then had the audacity to fall in love. And Vincenzo, he wanted to ruin his life. So maybe this was for the best. Milo pouted and got himself in trouble for more stress eating anyway.
On Valentines Day, Milo spent most of his day volunteering at the shelter, helping couples come in and adopt animals together. It gave him a surprising amount of fuzzy feelings. When his breaks came around, he, predictably, thought about Vincenzo again.
Earlier, he'd had to help bring in a cat they'd taken from an abusive home situation, hissing and clawing, so very aggressive- he presumed, as an alternative to being terrified and having no control at all. Milo held it until it calmed down, voice gentle, not reacting to any scratches or biting he received. They drew blood.
The cat licked him later on when he came back to check on it, even though he'd already healed.
That cat would attack him if being pet got too overwhelming, tell him to back off and give it a break, but everyone kept remarking on how it
still liked him more than anyone else. He grinned every time he heard that.
The similarities to Vince were impossible to miss. He was a cat.
Despite knowing he probably needed to try and get his mind off of the person he should be leaving alone, Milo didn't do that. He was in a light mood all the way home, getting odd looks from the other people on the bus. He flashed back to Vince knocking over his lamp. Ridiculous, god, it was so
fitting.
Milo decided he was going to spend his v-day evening going on a reblog spree for his blog, and just hoard lots of grumpy, fluffy, pretty cats.
***
His mood and plans were rather thrown out the window once he actually got back. As soon as he unlocked and slipped into his room, he stepped right into a bloodbath, and his nose was overwhelmed. He closed his door behind him as quickly as possible, just as an instinct to not get anyone else involved, then clutched his hands to his face, over his mouth and nose, trying not to throw up. He screwed his eyes shut and gagged.
When his head stopped spinning as much, and the sudden anxiety settled down a bit, Milo held his scarf up as a protective mask and inched over to his bed. There were... gifts. He already knew who this was from.
"Oh, christ," he choked, now aware of the source of the scent that was setting off so many alarm bells, making his body scream and feel no end of repulsed, wrong,
awful. "No, nonono, fuck, shit, god…" He wanted to go hide somewhere, curl into a ball, but he couldn't. He had to deal with this now. It he put it off, it'd be worse.
Next, he figured out what the wrapping was, and his heart sank further. Of course he'd noticed the lost pet posters up, he always did, tried to keep an eye out with that kind of thing. They'd built up a bit more as of late, cluttering up the shelter bulletin board. He hadn't suspected anything, and he really should've. This was creative, but also reasonable to expect. Milo had very specific things he cared about.
He peeked in the box, and instantly regretted it. Congratulations, Vince, you fucking got him. Milo took a shuddering breath, taste of blood getting in his mouth, shaking from head to toe. He forced himself to hold the 'bouquet' and look at all the fliers. Someone needed to tell the owners their pets weren't coming back. He knew it was going to be him. It was his fault this was happening at all, it had to be him. Guilt weighed heavily on him, so when he put the present back down on his bed, dropping it like it burned, he slumped to the floor and stayed there.
He managed to get his phone out to call his roommate, breathing shallowly now. He couldn't speak at first. Nilesy repeated his name a few times until he snapped out of it.
"Please, please come back soon. I need help," Milo said, in a small, very weak voice. "I'm sorry. Please help me."
He didn't cry. He hadn't cried since he was a little kid, not even a little bit... but it was tempting.
***
Nilesy was a lifesaver, an angel, his ever tolerant best friend. Once he saw the room, he didn't make Milo talk further. He immediately rolled up his sleeves got to work on heavy duty cleaning spells, then after that, on magically burning the gifts. Milo kept the note, stuffed in his shirt and hidden, clutched tightly against his chest.
"Are you going to kill him again?" Nilesy asked, tone casual.
"I don't know," Milo said, even as red took over his vision and cold flowed through his veins, head pounding, fingernails digging painfully into his palms.
"You should."
***
Milo couldn't stay in his dorm room for long after that, and his thoughts were urgent, racing, desperate. He took his tools and headed out. Nilesy didn't ask where he was going, as they both already knew.
Milo had never been human, but he felt less like a person than ever, creeping through the night with rats skittering in and out of the shadows around him, quietly following. He was animalistic as much as he was monstrous.
He planned out every little thing he wanted to do, and a quick death wasn't an option this time. He wanted to use the drill. He wanted to be more thorough in how he ripped Vincenzo up, just to be fair. Maybe he'd put his pieces in a pretty fucking box this time, ah, how very
romantic.
He stared at Vincenzo's house from across the street when he got there, insides and anger boiling, blinding. This day had gone to hell, and started out so nicely, with the cute couples and winning over the cat-
Milo stiffened.
He dropped his bag and then went along with it, settling down on the curb of the road. He scrubbed at his face and shut his eyes tightly, thoughts jumbled and confused. He needed a minute,
fuck. He hadn't caught a break to clear his head even once, he realized, despite his freezing up back in his room. That didn't count at all, and when he'd gotten out, he hadn't stopped moving. Having an intense goal and violence raging in your system was distracting, some form of coping.
Milo fidgeted, wringing his hands together as he sat in the cold and dark. He kept thinking about the cat from earlier. Then, he thought about another cat, back from when he was extremely young.
The rats had started teaching him how to care for himself. Sneak out of the house, steal the necessities he needed, avoid his mother and other adults that wanted to harm him. He was doing well with it, feeling better, more confident and healthy. He was even able to make his first friend, besides the rats.
It wasn't Nilesy yet, they weren't close until highschool- or even another person at all, for that matter. It was a stray neighborhood cat, scruffy and rough around the edges. Milo, a feral looking, skittish little girl at the time, and had found a kindred spirit. They'd gotten close- Milo would try to share food with the cat every day, and even though he couldn't speak to it like the rats, understanding animals in general was so much easier than humans.
One day, the cat brought him one of his rats, dead. Being around eight years old and, basically, just having one of your friends murder a family member was a
very stressful, miserable experience. He hadn't even known that was how cats worked yet, that it was a weird, sort of attempt at a helpful, affectionate gesture. There'd just been a lot of sobbing and sense of personal betrayal. It put him off from interacting with cats for a while.
A few years later, Milo found the cat again. It recognized him instantly, curled up in his arms, and purred heavily. He'd felt
terrible. He went back to visiting the cat constantly, until it passed away from old age. Throughout that time it occasionally killed more things for him, and he'd always squirmed, but ultimately just sighed and rolled his eyes. It was a
cat. It didn't know better. They were a little mean in nature, selfish, impulsive- not to mention with a lot of personality, very soft, and always making you feel good when they
were pleasant.
His chest ached. He took out a knife from his bag, staring at it for a moment, but only felt sick. He stood up, unsteady on his feet, and told his rats to take and hide away his tools. He didn't want it near him.
Oh, god. Why did Vince want to be hurt, hated? The other couldn't have provoked Milo to this level expecting anything less than a house visit and murder, Milo realized, with an entirely new sense of dread. This was…
Milo turned away from Vincenzo's house. He bit his lip for a moment, then, made up his mind.
***
Milo came back around a half an hour later, after being derailed a bit, making an out of the way stop before his return. He walked straight up to Vincenzo's front door, a stubborn expression on his face, and knocked firmly.
He had paper bags full of groceries balanced in his arms, and was trying not to look
too embarrassed. God, he was such an idiot, but like he kept reminding himself… it was too late. So here he fucking was. Vince was going to have to deal with it.
He shuffled his feet and hoped he could live up to those pasta standards.
