Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

WINTER

Milo’s night is going spectacularly right up til the moment his date goes rigid in his arms.

One second they’ve got their head tipped back so Milo can kiss their throat, their hands roaming his back enthusiastically, and the next it’s like he’s holding a live wire thrumming with unspent electricity.

“Whoa!” Milo drops his hands off them, immediately, because that is not a happy reaction right there. “Shit, hey, are y—“

He takes a step back, just enough to start to register that they’re frowning over his shoulder — and then something happens behind him and his date squawks and disappears.

Milo reflexively yelps with the shock of it, stumbling a step with their body abruptly no longer tangible in front of him, and he spins around to find—

Nothing.

Well. Not entirely nothing.

Milo’s bedroom isn’t exactly the pinnacle of interior design here. The bed is a full size, not queen or king, because that’s what’s easiest to move. He found his nightstand on the curb one trash day. The wallpaper’s yellowed and beginning to peel above the window. He’s only recently started making an effort to frame his posters and photos. But it’s all perfectly respectable. The table lamps give everything a nice soft glow. Milo neatened up the books and stuff on his dresser earlier, in case this date ended how he thought it might. He made the bed and everything. Nothing in here should’ve caused that kind of reaction.

Fuck, are they okay? They phase-cloaked to get away, which Milo knows didn’t cost them the same kind of herculean effort as it would another Stealth, because they’re talented as hell, but that doesn’t make it any less of a fuckin’ red flag.

“Are you okay?” he asks the air where his date was standing a second ago. He stands with his hands raised, palms out, to show he won’t touch them if they want to phase back in – he’ll give them their space. “Do you need me to g—”

His freshly-made bed yowls.

Milo looks back at it.

There’s a lump under the duvet. A lump with a sleek gray tail sticking out under the edge of the blanket, furiously lashing back and forth.

“Aggro, what the fuck,” Milo says, exasperated, and he hears the whoosh-chime of magic behind him and turns to find his date visible again and fairly bristling.

Milo’s instinct is to step forward, is to reach for them, but he’s not about to do that after the way they’d shot to attention all corded muscle in his arms. “Hey. You okay? What do you need?”

“I’m,” they say, and the two of them haven’t known each other that long so Milo may not have a big basis for comparison, but this is the first time he’s ever seen them genuinely at a loss for words. “You, uh.”

He takes another small, assessing step backward. “You need some space?”

“No — it’s just, uh.” They start over. “You have a cat.”

Is Aggro the problem? “Yeah,” Milo says, glancing backward again to make sure Aggro’s not, you know, committing ritual human sacrifice back there or something. Nope, he’s still just laying there, motionless except for his exposed tail, convinced he’s invisible because he’s under a blanket. “He’s gotta work on his hide and seek skills.”

Milo’s date makes a sharp noise, which he thinks was supposed to be a laugh, and all at once they press their hand to their face. “Fuck, that got me, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and I just—” The exact meaning of their broad gesture isn’t entirely clear but it’s dramatic and it gets the point across: poof.

“What’d you think he was, the Mothman?” Milo asks incredulously, reassured that they’re okay.

“I don’t know what I thought; there wasn’t exactly time to think!”

Okay so Milo didn’t fuck this all up. His date is fine. His cat just startled them. They look genuinely embarrassed, which is the only reason Milo doesn’t immediately start clowning them over fearlessly facing down a feral Shade but being startled by Milo’s sweet little man.

“Okay,” Milo says. “Yeah, no, that’s fair.”

Investigator Hotstuff was in Milo’s apartment alone twice, back in the day (all of a month or two ago now). The fact that they didn’t snoop around enough to spot Aggro’s litter box speaks well of how little they’d invaded Milo’s privacy – well, beyond the enormous invasion of just entering his apartment in the first place, anyway. And it definitely speaks to just how long Aggro’s willing to silently hide when he’s faced with an unexpected new person.

It may also speak to Milo not having enough cat toys or climbing perches lying around. Does his apartment really not look like a place a cat lives? Somewhere in the back of his mind, he makes a mental note to get more toys for his boy.

More crucially in the moment: is his date scared of cats? It’s funny – Milo absolutely would have pegged them as a cat person, or at the very least as a cat meme person. And why is that thought ringing a distant bell now?

His date lowers their hand from their face and shakes out their shoulders, a visible attempt at a physical reset that has no right to be as cute as it is. They toss Milo a winning smile. “Sorry — I was just a little startled, I guess,” they say. They’re making a real effort at getting the mood back; at showing they’re footloose and fancy-free. They take a slow step toward him. They tilt their head. “Where were we?”

It’s all a very intentional show of seduction and it’s definitely sexy as hell, but the problem is that Milo has figured out why he thought of cat memes.

He manages to hold it together for another second or two, as his date reaches out to him, but then he can’t hide that he’s trying to swallow a laugh.

“What?” they ask.

“Have you- have you ever seen those videos where people show their cat a cucumber?” Milo manages.

Their eyebrows furrow. “And the cat jumps like ten feet in the air? Yeah...”

With one hand, Milo pantomimes a shocked, dramatic leap.

They look at him for a long moment. They groan loudly and Milo busts up laughing. “I did it,” they say into their hands, “I killed the mood. I’m the cucumber cat.”

“Hey,” Milo says, still laughing. “Hey, no, it’s—” He reaches out, then pauses. “Okay to touch you again?”

“Yeah,” they say, muffled, and Milo catches their ribs and slides his hands down to their waist. They let him pull them in.

“Don’t worry about it. The mood’s fan-fuckin’-tastic.”

It really is. They’re funny and confident, frank and clever — all things Milo likes in a person and that make for a lively date. They’re also, he knows from the hunt for the Shade, principled, brave, altruistic. A regular do-gooder. They joined the Department because they’d save the world if they could — and they think they can, at least one small piece of it at a time. That’s a new one to add to Milo’s list of qualities he’s apparently attracted to: deep, genuine optimism and earnesty.

They’re hot as fuck, too. But Milo’s known that from the second he laid eyes on them.

He cups their hips and rocks them back and forth, and they grin back at him. “You wanna meet him?” he says.

“Meet … the cat?” they ask, and when Milo nods, they say: “You have a cat.”

“As was previously established,” says Milo.

“You, a werewolf, have a cat.” They’re smiling.

“You got a problem with cats?”

“You’re cute,” they say. “Sure, yeah, why not! Let’s meet the cat.”

Milo takes their hand. It’s not exactly necessary, just walking the three feet to the bed, but he already likes their hand in his. Judging by the little pleased look they toss him and the way they wind their fingers through his, the feeling is mutual.

“Aggro, this is my date,” Milo says to the twitching tail. “This is Aggro.”

“Hello, Aggro,” they say gravely, one side of their mouth ticking up, and Milo likes them even more for it.

“C’mere, you weirdo,” Milo says to his cat and he flips back the comforter.

Aggro freezes just long enough for Milo’s date to get a look at him, to start to say, “He’s cu—” and then Aggro explodes into a gray tornado. He pinballs back and forth across the mattress a couple times in a frenzied scrabble of paws and claws, then launches himself straight off the bed and streaks headlong out of the room.

“He’s, uh, not great with new people,” Milo says.

They hum. “I wonder where he learned that.”

“Hey,” he says, “I’m exceptional with new people, sweetheart. Charmed you, didn’t I?”

“Mmm! A gentleman.” They nod, their mouth set in an overly-earnest line and their eyes dancing. “You said.”

Milo’s being mocked. And in his own home! “I was a perfect gentleman.” Half-outraged, half-laughing, he says: “Need I remind you, you were a stranger in my apartment! I think I was very hospitable, considerin’!”

They finally break – they laugh, and they keep laughing as Milo playfully dips them back and buries his face in their neck. He rumbles low in his chest and breathes them in. They smell like leather and something delicate and floral. They arch into him with a low sound of pleasure and fuck, they’re responsive; the two of them are having such a good time—

Aggro zooms directly past the bedroom door.

Milo knows this, even with his mouth busy getting acquainted with his date’s throat, because Aggro running has the same effect as a bag of rocks falling down the stairs. Cats are supposed to be sneaky. Milo’s boy, historically, sounds like a whole-ass second person blundering around the apartment. Milo has no idea how a cat Aggro’s — completely ordinary! — size makes that much of an uncoordinated racket. The downstairs neighbors have literally made noise complaints.

The galloping thumps don’t stop — they just fade into the near distance as Aggro moves farther away from the bedroom in his racing circuit of the apartment.

The two of them pause there, hung suspended together, Milo’s date dipped back in his arms and clutching his shoulders; Milo with his teeth closed over their skin.

Something crashes in the kitchen.

Milo slowly leans back. “I’m just gonna, uh,” he says, and he gestures. “Door, I’m gonna get the door.”

Their voice overlapping with his, his date immediately agrees, “Yeah, door, yep, door.”

Milo jolts. Everything’s a disorienting dark smear at first and then the room comes into focus and he wakes up enough to realize he’s tangled up in bed with his date, his chest pressed to their back and his knees tucked up behind theirs. He can’t see if their eyes are open but they fell asleep in his arms earlier so he’s got an idea of how soft and relaxed their body feels when they’re sleeping, and this ain’t that.

Milo snuffles into the back of their neck, his nose and mouth tickled by the hairs that have fallen loose from their thick braid. “Hey,” he murmurs, gravelly with sleep. “You awake?”

They don’t answer for a couple seconds, and Milo, who really is reasonably sure they’re not asleep, wakes up further. He blinks a couple times and leans up on his elbow a little. “You o–”

Just inside the open bedroom door, there are a pair of big green eyes glaring up at the bed.

“Oh god,” Milo mutters.

“He hasn’t moved in at least five minutes,” their voice says. They sound very awake. “I don’t think he’s even blinked.”

“Sorry, he’s really not used to somebody else bein’ around,” Milo says, and then – well. That’s a little telling, but he said it and maybe if he powers right past it, they don’t have to acknowledge that he just admitted to it having been a while since anybody’s been in his bed. Maybe they won't catch the implication that he's spent the last few months too interested in a certain cheeky investigator to chase anybody else. “You’re in his spot.”

“I’m … sorry?” they say slowly, sounding faintly incredulous.

Milo chooses to take that at face value. “Nothin’ to be sorry for,” he says, and he strokes the warm skin over their ribs. “He’s the one who should be sorry, the little creep. I’ll get rid of him.” He tucks a kiss in the nape of their neck and then reluctantly digs himself out of the nice cozy bed wrapped up with them.

The air conditioning’s on and as Milo pads across the floor, barefoot, he shivers at the brush of chilly air across his back. Aggro meows at his approach. “Yeah yeah, you’re innocent, I know,” Milo says, and when he leans down and scoops him up, Aggro immediately tries to ooze out of his arms. Milo’s wise to his tricks and holds him close to his chest with all four paws up, swaddled like a disgruntled gray-furred baby.

“We don’t stare at people when they’re sleepin’,” Milo scolds, carrying him out into the living room. “We got a guest!”

Aggro vocally disagrees.

“Can’t argue with me on this one, bub,” Milo tells him.

Aggro’s favorite cat bed is in the shape of a tart crust – when he curls up in it, it’s like he’s the fruit filling in a little pastry. He likes to drag it around the apartment. Searching by the thin light of the streetlamps filtering in through the windows, Milo finds the cat bed under an armchair and pulls it out with his foot. He kneels to set Aggro in it.

Aggro sits in his bed but stares at Milo balefully. He caterwauls again.

“Nope,” Milo says firmly. “One night in your own bed isn’t gonna kill you.” He rubs under Aggro’s chin, and Aggro, with every possible show of feline reluctance, arches helplessly into his favorite scratches. “I’ll make you a deal. You sleep here tonight, and tomorrow we’ll try out that harness and leash I got you. That sounds like a good time, right?”

Aggro shuts his eyes and leans more aggressively into the petting.

“Look,” Milo says, lowering his voice further. He strokes the soft fur between Aggro’s eyes. “I really like them, okay? Just – be good for me. I need a wingman here.” He encouragingly pats the squishy bottom of the bed, which he may or may not have liberally sprinkled with catnip last week to bribe Aggro to nap in it so Milo could get a picture for Instagram.

Aggro shoots him a long, steady look, because sometimes Milo would swear his cat can understand English. Then he butts his head up against Milo’s hand and flops down on his side, a perfectly baked cat tart with soft gray fur.

Milo squishes his little face. “Thanks buddy.”

When he goes back to the bedroom, he finds his date still awake – if barely.

“Sorry,” Milo says softly. He can’t help but smile at the sight of them blinking owlishly in his bed, though, so he probably doesn’t sound that sorry. He shuts the door behind himself.

“S’okay,” they mumble. They shuffle backward with a rustle of blankets and Milo climbs into the warm spot they just made for him. They add archly: “I was in his spot.”

“Shut up,” Milo mutters, laughing. He puts an arm around them and holds them close. They curl up with their head tucked beneath his chin like they were made for it.

“I know I’m throwing off the whole routine,” they say, softer. “I get it.”

“We’ll live,” Milo says into their hair, and he feels them quake with sleepy silent laughter.

The first thump is like something out of a horror movie – the door rattles in its frame. Milo jumps; his date swears. Then he hears it: a low, muffled meow. The scratching sound of two grabby paws reaching under the door.

Aggro throws his weight against the door again.

Milo groans.

His date presses their face into his chest and laughs.

Chapter Text

WINTER

Milo’s new beau, it turns out, didn’t grow up with cats.

(“I’m not opposed to them!” they’d said, when they made that revelation.

“Opposed to th– Are you a serial killer?” Milo had demanded. “ ‘Cause you sound like a serial killer.”

“No, I’m just–” They’d tossed him a playfully flirty, incendiary wink, because they were a little shit. “More of a dog person.”

“Still a werewolf! Not a dog!”)

They always say hello to Aggro like he’s a person, which Milo finds fucking adorable, but otherwise they give Aggro his space. That’s probably for the best, considering how Aggro feels about most people who aren’t Milo.

Like clockwork, every time Ash comes over he tries to get Aggro to play with a toy, or he babytalks him, or he wants to figure out his newest hiding place, and none of it’s helping his quest to befriend Milo’s cat. Milo always thought that if Ash just left Aggro alone and went about things like a normal person, let Aggro set the pace, then Aggro would probably come to him eventually.

That’s what his sweetheart is doing now, though, and Aggro is still keeping his distance. Mostly he stays out of sight during their visits. Occasionally he’ll post up on a shelf or a counter with a good ten feet between them, and he’ll just glare.

(“He hates me,” they said, a couple weeks ago, after they walked too close to Aggro on their way to the fridge and he hissed at them.

“He just takes a while to warm up to a person, that’s all,” Milo protested, after telling Aggro off for the rude hissing. “He’ll come around – won’t you, little man?”

Aggro growled, low.)

Milo knows Aggro had a rough start in life. The vet can reel off a whole list of injuries she thinks he had that didn’t heal right, before a local rescue operation tempted him off the street, and his notched left ear speaks to past battles. When Milo first met Aggro at a crowded shelter, Aggro crawled into Milo’s lap to hide and wouldn’t come out for love or money, but he’s never displayed that kind of immediate attachment to a person again. He’ll put in desultory appearances for Milo’s ma when she feeds him while Milo’s away. That’s about it.

Aggro doesn’t have to like anybody. Milo committed to taking care of him and loving his noisy, grumpy little ass for the rest of his life, and that’s never gonna change.

But it would be nice if he’d at least tolerate Milo’s sweetheart.

They take Aggro’s wariness in stride, mostly – they respect how much Milo loves his boy, even if they joke that they refuse to believe that the cat who gives them death glares is the same happy snugglebug who Milo posts cute videos with. They say they don’t mind if Aggro likes them or not, though Milo suspects they’re privately a little offended.

You couldn’t pay Milo to say it within their hearing, but he thinks the two of them are more alike than either of them would care to admit. When Aggro wants attention and makes deliberate eye contact as he slowly reaches out and knocks something off the counter, Milo can all too easily imagine his sweetheart doing the exact same thing. There’s a certain level of poking involved which Milo apparently finds charming.

Even when he’s lulled into a false sense of security by pizza and cuddles and lets his sweetheart pick what to watch.

“The dog dies??” Milo demands, flinching from the TV. “The fuck kind of sick movie is this?”

“That’s what you’re taking from this?” They’re laughing at him, because they’re a fucking maniac.

“I mean, mysterious bruises, creepy boarded-up cellar, stopped clocks, a dead dog – yeah, I’m gonna prioritize the dog! She was a good girl! She wouldn’t go in that house, and she was right!”

They pat his arm. “She was, honey. Gone too soon. Rip.”

“I’m feelin’ distinctly patronized here.”

“I’m agreeing with you!”

“Patronizingly!” Milo says through his teeth, laughing despite himself; warm all over, despite himself, at them calling him ‘honey’.

“You said whatever we watched had to have a happy ending!” They gesture emphatically at the TV, as if to say: this!

“The dog is dead! It’s fifteen minutes in! They got a murder basement! How is this gonna end anywhere near happy??”

“It’s fifteen minutes in,” they parrot, but deadpan.

“What the fuck’re you makin’ me watch?”

His sweetheart cackles. They’ve already got an arm slung around his shoulders; they squeeze him. Admittedly this is a great excuse for cuddles, but Milo didn’t need any excuses to begin with. He would’ve been perfectly happy to share a blanket and split a bowl of popcorn watching anything but this creepy shit.

“Oh, laugh it up, sweetheart – I’m gonna wake you up every time I have a nightmare tonight,” he threatens.

“If it's freaking you out, we can turn it off,” they say, and not judgmentally or passive-aggressively, either – they mean it. Their nickname may have originally started out ironic but Milo means it very genuinely now. They're mischievous and they like to troll, but when it really counts, like if they're worried he's not enjoying grumbling, they're the sweetest, most thoughtful person alive. They're shooting him a serious sidelong glance now. “That’d be fine by me.”

“No, because now I’m invested, thanks to you!”

“I wouldn’t let you watch shlock – it’s a good movie!” they protest, beaming again. “A modern classic of the genre!”

“Nothin’ that’s ‘based on a true story’ is a modern classic of the genre!”

“Do you have a grudge against biographical films?”

Onscreen, the paranormal investigator is giving a tour of all the horrifying relics he and his wife have taken out of haunted houses. Milo shudders. “I don’t fuck with this shit,” he says darkly.

Apparently fully reassured by Milo saying he was invested, they’re now pretending they’re not even listening to him. “Ooh, grudge – we could watch The Grudge.”

“No,” says Milo, who stays away from all things creepy and paranormal but knows that title.

“I’ll protect you,” they promise. They lean in close. Their eyes are bright. Their breath smells like buttered popcorn. They lower their voice: “My big bad wolf.”

The laugh bubbles out of Milo’s chest before he can stop it. “You’re such a fuck,” he laughs.

“You–” they start, and then suddenly, strangely, they stop.

“You good, sweetheart?” Milo asks, but they’re looking across him, and when Milo turns, he finds Aggro curled up on the other side of the couch.

Aggro is as far away from Milo’s sweetheart as physically possible while lying on the same piece of furniture. He’s flopped against one armrest while they have their feet tucked against the opposite one, Milo’s body a barrier between the two of them. But Aggro has his chin down on his white-tipped front paws with his eyes shut, and his sides are rising and falling evenly.

It takes Milo a second to recover from the surprise of it. “My guy!” he crows. “I knew he’d come around!”

His sweetheart smacks his chest and hisses, “Shhh,” which is fucking adorable and another mark against them pretending they don’t care if Aggro’s happy, but the cat just twitches an ear and keeps pretending he’s sleeping.

“He’s fine, he’s wide awake.” Milo leans over and scoops Aggro up with a hand under his belly, and Aggro chirrups at him as Milo hauls him onto his lap. “Aren’t you, Aggro?”

The second Milo stops actively holding him in place, Aggro does the cat thing where it’s like his bones are jelly. He squirms out of Milo’s hands and crawls back across the couch on his belly. He flumps against the opposite armrest again, tail lashing slowly, and he stares at Milo and his sweetheart with narrowed eyes.

“I swear to god he won’t stay outta my face when it’s just us. Half the time I wake up with him tryin' to sleep on my head.”

“I’ve seen the videos,” they say, patting his thigh.

There’s a break in the movie dialogue and Milo glances at the TV. While they’ve been talking, the camera cut to a different scene and now there are no more close-up shots of murder dolls and other assorted haunted artifacts.

Maybe Milo can do this – he’s just gotta keep them talking for the next 70 minutes straight so he doesn’t have to watch the movie.

*

Milo cannot do this.

“Why is it so fuckin’ dark in this house?” he objects, agonized. “I know they had lightbulbs in the ‘70s! Buy some goddamn lamps!”

“I don’t – I don’t know,” his sweetheart wheezes. Milo tried to warn them he doesn’t do horror, and he’d really, genuinely tried to keep a stiff upper lip, but that lasted up until the dog died and now he’s just given up. Luckily(?) they seem to find his commentary hilarious, which is both flattering and lacking in dignity.

Apparently the two of them are also giving up entirely on the ‘let’s be on our best behavior’ stage of a new relationship. Milo likes it, he likes how comfortable they feel, he likes how playful they are and how much he laughs with them and gets laughed at, but they’re 20 minutes into the movie and he’s about ready to climb over the back of the sofa.

They seem to be trying not to laugh, which is a losing effort when they’ve got their mouth pressed against the side of his head and he can feel every quivering hot breath puff over his ear. “Let’s add it to the list of questions for the director–”

“Sleepwalkin’ my ass, that kid is possessed. Has no one in any of these movies ever seen one of these fuckin’ movies? Don’t touch the possessed kid!”

*

“What the fuck is grabbin’ her feet?” he asks, grimly horrified, frozen with a handful of popcorn halfway to his mouth. “What is – no, don’t look under the bed! That’s what they want you to do!”

“What who wants you to do?” asks his sweetheart.

He’s barely listening to the question. “The fuckin’– under the bed, things–” he starts, eyes glued to the TV. The child who was leaning halfway over the side of her bed jerks upright with a sharp gasp and a spiking sound effect, a nasty jumpscare, and Milo yelps, “Shit!” and reflexively flings his popcorn.

Aggro bats at a kernel. At least one of the Greer boys is appreciating this.

*

When his sweetheart declares it time for a break, they try to say he doesn’t have to pause the movie while they’re gone since they’ve seen it before.

“Abso-fuckin’-lutely not,” says Milo flatly, and his sweetheart chortles all the way to the bathroom. “You’re an asshole!” he calls after them, and they blow him a kiss and shut the door.

“They’re an asshole,” Milo says fondly to Aggro, who does a big stretch and then blinks sleepily at him. Milo leans over and rubs his soft cheek. Aggro meows and tilts his furry little face for optimum petting, but Milo’s having to reach across the entire couch and it’s ridiculous. “C’mere, bub.” Aggro doesn’t make so much as a whuff of protest as Milo picks him up and lifts him into his lap. He settles down on Milo’s thighs immediately and is making biscuits in the throw blanket within seconds, the big softy.

When Milo’s sweetheart comes back from the bathroom, they pause in the doorway. They look cozy and cute as hell in a pair of Milo’s sweatpants and one of his hoodies, the hood drawn up over their messy hair. He gives them a long, appreciative once-over, and they wink. “You recruited some backup, huh?”

“You’re terrorizin’ us,” he says. “Him.”

“Oh, Aggro is scared.”

“Yes, Aggro is scared, ‘cause he’s a discerning gentleman with a brain between his ears and a healthy sense of self-preservation!”

They laugh and pad barefoot across the living room carpet. Aggro, who up til now has been a purring puddle in Milo’s lap, goes tense under his petting hands as they step closer, and then flings himself out of Milo’s lap. His sweetheart freezes halfway back to the couch but it’s too late – Aggro bolts into the bedroom.

“Well, you’re back down to only me to hang onto,” they say casually, and there’s laughter in their eyes but Milo would swear he saw a split second of disappointment, too.

Milo opens up the blanket in invitation. “I’ll hang onto you any day of the week, sweetheart.”

Focusing on cuddling them gets Milo through a couple more minutes of the movie, until he asks incredulously, “Just how many sequels are there, anyhow?”

“It depends on how you define ‘sequel,’ ” they say thoughtfully. “I mean there’s one direct sequel, but there’s also a spinoff about the haunted doll from the beginning and there’s a prequel to that, and then next year there’s something coming out about this possessed nun–”

“What the fuck,” says Milo.

*

There’s a horrible face in the closet.

“Nope, no, no no, fuck off, no no,” chants Milo.

*

“That brings us to the three stages of demonic activity,” announces one of the ghost hunters.

“Oh, this is great,” Milo’s sweetheart says around a mouthful of popcorn. “I showed some of this stuff to one of the guys at work once and he cried laughing.” Presumably, they're talking about a coworker who happens to be a demon.

Onscreen, the character rolls up a screen to reveal three words written on a blackboard: infestation, oppression, possession.

Milo guffaws.

Turns out it’s way easier to take this shit when the characters are all talking about how demons knock on walls in increments of three to insult the Holy Trinity and float around smelling like rancid meat.

*

“They’re investigators huntin’ down a mystery to help people in trouble,” Milo says. He glances at his sweetheart, the light from the TV splashing across their rapt face. He smiles crookedly. “Of course you’re into this.”

They shrug lightly, one side of their mouth rising, and their smile grows when Milo presses a kiss into their hair and quietly admits, “It’s a good movie.”

*

“It’s still good but I am sufferin’ here,” Milo says, blanket pulled up over his mouth. “I just need you to know that.”

“I know,” says his sweetheart. “You’re being very stoic about it.”

“Fuck off,” he laughs, and he feels them laughing against his side.

*

“Oh what the fuck, burn it down,” Milo chants fervently, clinging to their arm. “Burn the whole place down, salt the earth, all that – wild shit unempowered humans think works on demons–”

*

“Why!” he objects, face shoved into his sweetheart’s shoulder. They’re howling with laughter, their whole body shaking. “Fuck this! Fuck you for gettin’ me invested in this!!”

*

As penance for their sins, Milo may or may not make Sweetheart sleep curled on top of him like a living breathing blanket that night (if he does, and he's not sayin' he did, then Sweetheart didn't have any complaints about it).

When Milo wakes up in the morning, there’s a halo of gray cat hair all around his head on the pillow.

Chapter Text

SPRING

“I don’t know who’s more of a secret: your cat or the person you’re dating,” Ash says around a mouth full of pizza.

“Neither of them’s secret,” says Milo, rolling his eyes.

“I’ll give you Aggro,” Ash says. “He lets me see his face now and everything. I mean it took like a year, but we’re buds now!” He waves in the general direction of Aggro, who has deigned to enter the room purely because there’s human food to be intently stalked.

Aggro does occasionally let Ash catch glimpses of him, but usually their friendship consists of Aggro meowing from a safe hiding place and Ash meowing back at him. Usually.

Currently they’re in uncharted territory: Aggro pacing beneath the armchair just a few feet away while Ash is on the couch. The siren song of pizza has clearly compelled him.

“Is that the standard we’re measurin’ a person by? How long it took my cat to get used to your loud ass?”

“Hey, you’re the one who just compared your partner to the cat, not me,” says Ash cheerfully.

Milo hasn’t exactly had the define-the-relationship talk yet with his new beau, but ‘partner’ … it’s got a nice ring to it.

If Milo says that out loud, Ash’ll give him rations of shit for not knowing what to call Sweetheart yet, especially given that they’ve been dating for two months and Milo’s already pretty exclusively referring to them as Sweetheart instead of their actual name.

“They’re much better with new people than Aggro is,” Milo says. Like he’s been summoned, Aggro hops up onto the coffee table and goes to paw at the pizza box. Milo’s proud of how brave his boy is being, but he’s still gotta nudge him away with his foot. “Aren’t they, bub?” Aggro meows grumpily.

“So bring them to meet us,” says Asher, and, predictably, as soon as he reaches out to try to pet Aggro, Aggro books it. His sleek gray tail disappears around the corner into the bedroom as Ash mutters, “So close!”

“I am not subjectin’ them to the entire pack,” says Milo, ignoring his theatrics (it wasn’t close at all). “It is way too early for that.” He shoves at Ash’s head. “I don’t need to scare them off.”

“Aw come on,” wheedles Ash. “I’m not saying the whole pack — just your buddies! Your good pals!”

“Just you, you mean,” Milo says, and Ash spreads his hands (pizza included) and says, “Weeell…”

“Hell no,” says Milo. “I want the person I’m datin’ to actually like me.”

“Based on all the stuff you’ve said when you won’t stop talking about them, pretty sure they do,” Ash says, with another bite of his latest slice of pizza. “For some reason.”

“Shaddup,” Milo says.

Ash grins at him, all teeth and a little bit of tomato sauce. “I’m just saying,” he says, resettling himself on Milo’s couch, “you could bring them out with us sometime. I’ve got to meet the person who stole our short king’s heart!”

“This is you, not makin’ a case for me lettin’ you run your mouth at them,” Milo says, flicking a pepperoni at him.

Ash laughs. “Haters, haters everywhere,” he says airily. He plucks the pepperoni off his hoodie and eats it. “I really do want to meet them, though! I know how much you like them. They sound great.”

He means that, Milo realizes. This is Ash making sure, in his own stupid way, that Milo feels okay about introducing Sweetheart to the pack; that he’s saying he thinks people will be cool about Sweetheart not being a Shifter. Pack bonds are intense and some packs can be really insular and unfriendly to outsiders – the Shaw Pack isn’t one of them, but it’s true that most of Milo’s closest friends and loved ones are Shifters and a pack can be kind of an intense new environment for romantic partners who aren’t wolves. It’s like meeting the parents, but also meeting the entire friend group, the extended family, the boss, the coworkers, the parents’ friends who are like your aunties and uncles, the neighbors, that weirdo on the bus who always clips his nails during the morning commute … all at the same time.

It’s not by any means how things always go, but it’s pretty common for Shifters to wind up dating other Shifters, or at least people the whole pack already knows through Dahlia’s gossip grapevine. It’s not something Milo’s especially worried about. His pack is a welcoming one, led by Gabe Shaw’s example, and Sweetheart is both personable and the most riotously capable person Milo has ever met. But it’s nice, all the same, to know Ash will have their backs.

“I get it,” Milo says, “I do, and I appreciate it, Ash. We’re just takin’ things slow.”

“Uh huh,” says Ash. What the hell is he looking a–

Oh. Sweetheart’s long camel coat is draped haphazardly over the bookshelf and covered in cat hair, like everything that spends more than five minutes in Milo’s apartment. It’s definitely, unmistakably not Milo’s coat – Milo is very into his sweetheart’s whole film-noir detective vibe, but that’s not his style.

Milo is aware that ‘They stayed over last night and then forgot their coat when they left for work this morning, and I was just thinking about bringing it down to the Department with some lunch for them when you turned up here with a pizza’ wouldn’t exactly prove his point about him and Sweetheart taking their time.

Ash’s eyebrows are raised, pointedly. He’s a pain in the neck.

“You’re just tryin’ to put off gettin’ your ass handed to you again,” Milo says and he shoves Ash’s Switch controller at him.

“ ‘Again’? Is that what we’re calling what happened earlier?”

“It’s not my fault Little Mac got nerfed in Ultimate,” Milo says testily, yet again. “Or that you’re a fuckin' psychopath who plays Jigglypuff.”

“Have you seen the vein in David’s forehead when he gets ganked by Jigglypuff?” Ash says as Milo pulls the Super Smash Bros. loading screen up. “Ten outta ten. Worth it.”

“I can’t believe he let you crash with them. He’s gonna stab you in your sleep.”

“Gabe’ll protect me,” Ash says cheerfully. “A stabbing under his roof would be so much paperwork.” He hums obnoxiously along with Jiggypuff’s eerie song as he selects his character on the screen, and then the two of them get back to a very important afternoon of shit talk and elbowing each other.

*

‘So bring them to meet us,’ Ash said.

Milo finds himself thinking about it even after Ash leaves.

Milo doesn’t doubt Sweetheart could handle themself, but they haven’t been dating him that long. Introducing them to the whole pack would be a lot. A lot of people, a lot of questions, a lot of curiosity… Knowing the pack, a lot of chaos too. It’s a lot to ask of somebody.

They could do something casual with Ash and Amanda and a couple other friends who Milo’s close with, but the second he does that, it opens the door to the rest of the pack, including his ma. Milo knows that Ash in particular, while genuinely supportive, is gonna do his level best to embarrass the living shit out of him. And as proud as Milo is to be with his sweetheart and as much as he likes the idea of them meeting all the other people in his life who matter, it’s also been sweet, honeymooning with them in this romantic two-person bubble.

He’s still daydreaming about it when Sweetheart turns up that night ‘to get their coat’ and ends up staying to cook dinner. While Milo’s digging the bag of potatoes out of a cabinet, Sweetheart takes over chopping carrots. Little coin-sized carrot chunks keep flying off the knife and rolling along the counter, much to Sweetheart’s irritation. If Milo was doing this meal prep alone, Aggro would be in here gleefully chasing carrots across the floor, but he’s currently sulking and hiding from Sweetheart in Milo’s bedroom.

This is comfortable. Homey. Milo likes cooking with Sweetheart – likes that this is something they do together. Tonight is more impromptu, but usually they’ll plan out date nights when they’re gonna make dinner together; they’ll text each other recipes and bicker over who has more pantry staples at their place. Milo usually wins, because Sweetheart’s place is basically just a series of barely-furnished rooms where they go to sleep. Milo’s seen hospital rooms that’re homier than Sweetheart’s apartment.

“Carrots are a trash vegetable,” Sweetheart hisses as another orange chunk goes sailing across the kitchen and rolls under the hutch that Milo uses to store extra kitchen appliances. They slap the knife down on the cutting board.

This is awfully domestic. Milo can, internally, acknowledge it’s ridiculous to keep trying to claim they’re taking things slow. The two of them spent ten minutes this morning arguing over which lettuce variety to put on their shared grocery list.

Milo shakes his head to himself and goes to look at Sweetheart – which is when he realizes they’ve stepped away from the counter to chase the escaped carrot. He turns.

Seeing Sweetheart crouched down and reaching under the hutch with a bare hand is the biggest spike of adrenaline Milo has had in months.

“Don’t!” he yelps, dropping the potatoes on the floor and diving for Sweetheart like he’s moving in slow motion.

Sweetheart’s head comes up fast. “Wha—?” they start, and then Milo tackles them and the two of them hit the kitchen tiles in a tangle of limbs. In the chaos, Milo accidentally kicks a potato under the hutch, and there’s a sharp, ominous SNAP!

Only half a potato rolls back out.

In the abrupt silence, Milo finally gets the words out that he didn’t have time for. “There’s a mousetrap under there,” he says, probably unnecessarily. He sits up and gives Sweetheart a hand up too. He looks them over, his hands on their elbows. “Sorry – you okay?”

“Thanks to you,” Sweetheart says. They bat their lashes at him. “My hero.”

Milo chuckles, low, rubbing their arms. “Anything for you, Sweetheart,” he murmurs, and he tilts his head for their incoming kiss.

Kneeling on his kitchen floor amid a bunch of escaped carrot chunks isn’t exactly the most romantic place the two of them have ever made out, but then again it’s not like they haven’t already christened practically every surface in this apartment. Milo’s wild for his sweetheart, and the feeling’s clearly mutual.

Milo slides a hand up into their hair and feels their pleased purr almost as much as he hears it; he leans in and lets them tug him closer and – hears some familiar telltale thumping footsteps. He looks up and, sure enough, Aggro is on the floor a few feet away, peering around the corner of the kitchen peninsula. He’s visibly tense from ears to tail, body pressed low to the ground.

Sweetheart looks back. “Oh look, someone came to make sure you’re okay,” they say, a laugh in their voice.

“He’s checkin’ on you too,” says Milo, and Sweetheart snorts. Aggro visibly starts at the noise, but he doesn’t run.

“Milo, I could play dead in front of your cat and the only change is he might be willing to enter the room to come get pets from you then.”

“He’d check on you first!” Milo defends, stalwart.

They arch their eyebrows. “Really?” They start shuffling their weight, clearly set on getting into position so they can lie down. “Let’s test this right now, let’s go.”

“Let’s not get hasty here,” Milo says hastily, grabbing them to forestall lying down. “You don’t—” His scoff doesn’t sound particularly convincing to him either. “You don’t gotta do that, Sweetheart.” Beat. “At least lemme vacuum the floor first.”

Sweetheart laughs, all too clearly knowing they’ve won. “Let’s not traumatize your cat any more than I already have.”

“He’s the only one allowed to make loud noises in this apartment,” Milo agrees.

Sweetheart’s mouth quirks in amused acknowledgment, and they settle into sitting cross-legged. “You have mice?” they ask.

“Haven’t seen any in a while, but yeah.” It’s pretty standard for a cheap apartment in an old Dahlia building – you make it tough for them to get at anything they’d like to eat, and you learn to live with them. Milo’s never lived in an apartment without mice. He honestly almost forgot he even had mousetraps tucked away in the kitchen.

Sweetheart points at Aggro, who instantly freezes in place with one paw still up. Judging by his angle, he was trying to sneak over to his food bowl when he realized he’d been perceived.

“You have a cat.”

“He’s smart about this stuff,” Milo assures them. “I set a trap off in front of him when I first put ‘em out, just to test, and he hated the noise. He hasn’t gone near one since.”

“No – Milo, you have a cat,” Sweetheart persists. “You have an apex predator in your home. I’ve seen Tom and Jerry! I know how this works!”

Milo says, outraged and trying to pretend laughter isn't bubbling up: “He gets kibble and wet food; it ain’t like he’s out here huntin’ for sustenance!”

They look like Milo is making their day – their entire week. Their face is aflame with delight. They’re so fuckin’ cute, even when they’re busting Milo’s balls. “Does he even chase the mice?”

“Wh – yes, he chases them!” Milo says defensively. “–Sometimes!”

“Oh you are such a liar!” they gasp, and Milo gives up and starts laughing.

“Look, mice don’t like loud, alright?” he says. “And Aggro’s a hundred and fifty pounds of loud in a nine-pound bag. He’s the best boy, but sneaky, he ain’t!”

Speaking of sneaky, Aggro picks that as his moment to go carefully slinking past the two of them to his food bowl. They both stop and watch him, Sweetheart with a hand pressed over their mouth, probably to hold back laughter.

Aggro settles himself at his bowl and angles himself so all he has to do to keep a wary eye on Sweetheart is glance over – but he still sits there, chewing. That’s progress right there. Milo’s heart squeezes. He’d applaud if it wouldn’t send Aggro running.

Milo exchanges a glance with Sweetheart, who smiles at him. He gets up and offers a hand to Sweetheart, but they shake their head, still sitting on the crappy linoleum with the carrots and the cat hair. “It’ll freak him out if I move, right?” they say with an unconcerned shrug that doesn’t fool Milo for a second.

Fuck, Milo really, really likes them.

He crouches back down with them. “Hey.” The words beat against the inside of his chest, his throat, his mouth, like something inevitable; they soar out of him. “You wanna meet some friends on Friday?”

Sweetheart tilts their head. Their mouth slowly curves. “What time?”

*

On Friday night, Sweetheart gets up and settles into Milo’s lap like they own it – which, realistically at this point, they kinda do – when Amanda turns up late and can’t squeeze into the crowded booth with everyone. Sweetheart leans across the table, still conferring with Ash over their phone, with Milo’s arm around their waist as a counterbalance against the possibility of tipping too far. The diner is crowded and loud around their group; you have to raise your voice if you want to be heard.

Milo can make out a couple words. “Hiding”; “Cute”; “Superior.”

Are the two of them–? Milo gets a look at Sweetheart’s phone, currently pulled up to show a photo of a gray blur with streaky white paws. They are. They’re competing over who’s managed to take a more complete photo of Aggro.

Milo lets his head fall against Sweetheart’s spine. Their voice buzzes against his forehead through their back as they continue their impassioned argument with Ash without skipping a beat.

“Is he alive back there?” he hears Ash ask.

“He’s fine, let him have a feeling,” Sweetheart says, and Milo laughs loudly as Sweetheart reaches back and pats his thigh.

Chapter Text

SUMMER

Ash sprawls on the opposite side of the campfire, the warm glow of the flames lighting his mischievous face from below.

“Like clockwork, ladies and gentlemen, here he goes,” he intones, grinning from ear to ear. He gestures with the flaming marshmallow on his skewer. “The man’s got an important phone call to make!”

Milo maybe hasn’t been so subtle. “I gotta check on my cat!” he defends, caught in his attempt to slink away from the group's evening campsite.

“Uh huh, check on your cat,” calls Amanda knowingly, and everybody is laughing now, so the whole motley crew has definitely caught on to the fact that Milo’s ma ain’t the one feeding Aggro this time around.

(Sweetheart lives closer to Milo’s place than his ma does and also is… okay, maybe not less likely to go snooping through Milo’s stuff, but they wouldn’t do it if it genuinely bothered Milo, and also there are things he doesn’t care if his partner sees that he’d rather claw his own eyes out than have his mother find.)

A couple of Milo’s other friends gathered around the fire are making kissy noises now. David wouldn’t make fun of him (probably) but David’s at some kind of district-wide pack leadership conference with Gabe. Milo will just have to fend for himself.

Milo rolls his eyes. “You’re a buncha assholes,” he says, to a rolling wave of laughter and amused whuffs from a bunch of thoroughly unrepentant assholes, some currently Shifted and some not.

The grass is wet underfoot and the crickets are chirping away in full force as Milo walks away up the hill. The stars hang low and heavy in the sky. Behind Milo, his friends are laughing at something again, their voices raucous and happy, two-legged and four-legged silhouettes arrayed around a golden crackling fire with the shadows of tents and the forest edge looming as dark smudges behind them.

Times like these are a reminder that Milo’s the only one among his friends in any kind of a serious relationship. Half of them think it’s hilarious when he checks in with Sweetheart. Milo doesn’t give a crap what anybody’s got to say, at the end of the day. It’s not like he’s about to stop showing affection for his partner, and he knows Ash and the rest of them — the more they tease you, the more they love you. Besides, eventually they’ll all start hooking up with people more seriously and then Milo will get to give it back ten-fuckin’-fold.

For now, he’s got texts to check.

As Milo climbs higher up the bare rock hill and escapes the thickest of the clinging brush underfoot, his phone buzzes in his hand. He grins to see the notification that he has three texts from Sweetheart. Sweetheart knows the signal’s shit out here, both at the campsite and while out hiking, so since Milo arrived they’ve been tossing stuff at him throughout the days, knowing he’ll eventually see it when the whole crew’s back and winding down for the night. It’s … it’s nice.

It’s better than nice — spending the days having a good time with some of his favorite people, and then returning at night to a slew of reminders that his very favorite person has been thinking about him.

Sweetheart hasn’t said much today. They sent a couple texts this morning — one of the memes makes Milo laugh out loud as he leans against a big rock near the summit of the hill — and then they went quiet after that. He scrolls back up through their text chain from the last couple days and he laughs to himself again as he sees each day’s Aggro photo that Milo has demanded and that Sweetheart has pretended they didn’t enjoy taking.

‘Proof of life: this is the best you’re gonna get,’ said the text with that very first picture of Sweetheart’s hand holding up the day’s newspaper like a ransom photo as something furry and gray streaked past in the background.

Milo laughed so hard at that picture, on their first night camping, that his friends started yelling up the hill demanding to know what was so funny.

There’s definite progress being made in Aggro’s comfort level with Sweetheart. In yesterday’s photo, Aggro was moving slow enough that Milo could actually see his entire blurry body in the shot. It’s baby steps.

Sweetheart hasn’t sent a photo of Aggro yet today. They haven’t said anything at all since that short burst of texts when they got up this morning. They’ve been stopping by Milo’s apartment every day to feed Aggro on their way home from work, so that’s usually when they send a blurry cat picture. It must’ve been a busy day on the job today; it’s unusual for them to have sent so few texts.

‘You up?’ Milo texts.

Three dots immediately pop up and Milo grins to himself.

‘For you? Always,’ Sweetheart says with a suggestive emoji.

It takes Sweetheart a hot second to answer Milo’s call — longer than Milo would’ve expected, given that they clearly had their phone in hand already.

“Hey handsome,” they say when they finally pick up. It’s just two words, but they sound … off. Their voice is a little hoarse.

“Hey,” Milo says, immediately abandoning the flirty banter he originally had in mind. “You okay?”

“I knew I shouldn’t have answered.” They sound tired, but dryly amused, too. “Yes, Milo. I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine, sweetheart.”

“Maybe.” They huff softly. “I am, though — fine.” He hears them shift their weight; the slide of fabric on fabric. “There’s no point lying about that shit. You always know.” They snort. “I just save us both the time and tell you how it is right from the start.”

It’s not like Milo didn’t already have an idea that that’s been happening. It’s been a while now since he’s had to convince or even remind Sweetheart that it’s okay to be open with him — that he wants to know when things aren’t right.

Their whole life, Milo’s sweetheart has been the person with a plan; the one who helps everyone else. Somewhere along the way, their brain got tangled deep in the idea that their worth as a person is tied to their usefulness. Struggling with something, experiencing a moment of vulnerability or even just admitting it would be nice not to carry a weight alone? Didn’t fit into their rigid idea of what it meant to be useful. Milo’s been doing his best to disabuse them of the notion. He doesn’t need them to be anything other than their honest self. He just wants to be with them.

Over time, Milo has noticed that when he asks about Sweetheart’s day, he has started to get varied answers instead of always being told it was fine. Sometimes Sweetheart will still shrug and say it was fine. Sometimes they’ll say it was a rough one and then tell him about it. But this is the first time they’ve ever acknowledged outright that they don’t always try to put on a brave face anymore.

“Okay,” Milo says, soft with affection and with how fucking proud he is of his favorite person. “That’s good. Was your day okay?”

“Yeah,” they say. “Just long and I’m tired. That’s it. That’s the tea.” He hears a smile in their voice. “I’ll tell you all about it when you get back.”

“Can’t wait,” Milo says, and they laugh.

“Is the hiking that boring?” He can hear the mischief shift into their voice. “Or is it sharing a tent with Ash and Jamie?”

“It’s all good; everybody’s havin’ a great time,” Milo says. “Though Ash’s big-ass feet do smell like somethin’ died.” He raises his voice on that just for fun — Ash won’t be able to make out specific words from this distance, not while he’s not Shifted.

“I just miss you, sweetheart,” says Milo. “That’s all.”

Sweetheart hums softly. “I miss you too. Even your snoring.” Milo hears them shuffle around again — knowing them, wiggling to get comfortable. “I’m at your place now, actually.”

It’s late enough in the evening that they probably don’t mean they stopped in briefly to feed Aggro his dinner on their way home after work. They gotta be staying over. “Really?”

“Yeah. Is that — still okay?”

“Yeah! Yeah, yeah yeah, definitely; I’m glad,” he says quickly.

Milo’s apartment isn’t fancy but it’s definitely homier than Sweetheart’s bare-ass studio. Closer to the Department home office, too. Sweetheart stays at Milo’s place often enough at this point that Milo is sneakily planning on telling them to keep his spare key when he gets back. But they’d been adamant they were gonna sleep at their own place while he was gone.

“You cozy?”

“It’s alright,” they say, mock-unimpressed, and Milo laughs. They take a long, slow, showy breath in, and their voice is pitched lower when they murmur: “Smells like you.”

“Sweetheart,” he groans, pained, and they cackle. “Need I remind you, I ain’t got no privacy out here!”

“What would you need privacy for?” they ask sweetly, and they laugh harder when he tells them to go fuck themself.

“Maybe I will!” they retort.

“In my bed? While I’m not there?”

They audibly stretch, and Milo can imagine the impish tilt to their head that he likes so much. “Mmhmm. Wearing your clothes too.”

“You’re a fuckin’ monster.”

It’s good to hear them cackle, even when it’s at Milo’s expense. The two of them have only been apart for a few days, and they’ve talked on the phone most nights, but he already misses their laugh.

Fine, maybe Milo has earned some of the ribbing his friends have been doing.

“Do I get a picture?” he drawls, and he laughs when Sweetheart hums a little sound like they’re considering it. Milo leans against the big rock and stretches out his legs, sore from the day’s hike. “Where’s Aggro’s proof of life for today anyway?”

The two of them can be quiet together. It’s another in the long list of things that Milo likes about his sweetheart — that neither of them feels obligated to perform for the other. But at the end of the day they’re both talkers. When they get going, the repartee is both witty and snappy.

There’s an uncharacteristically long beat of nothing before Sweetheart says, “I forgot. I’ll have to send you a picture later.” It’s not a natural conversational silence. It is, dare Milo say … suspicious.

“Why you bein’ weird?” he says. “Where’s my little man at?”

“—Around!” Sweetheart defends evasively.

“Uh huh,” Milo says with the full force of all his natural skepticism. He slaps a mosquito away from his arm and pointedly says nothing.

Sweetheart sighs heavily, aggrieved.

“I can do this all night, sweetheart.”

He knows exactly the face they’re making — a steely-eyed unimpressed stare at the wall. They sigh again, louder this time. “One second.”

Milo can’t tell what he’s listening to them do. He laughs softly and glances down the hill as he waits, watching the shadows around the campfire. Someone is in Amanda and Sophie’s tent with a flashlight on and the resulting shadow flailing around inside the tent is some real Slenderman shit, or at least one of those long tube decorations with flappy arms that you see dancing in the wind outside of car dealerships.

“I can hear you laughing,” says Sweetheart darkly. “I could probably still figure out how to un-send this.”

Milo lowers his phone from his ear and puts them on speaker. “You sent a picture?” He doesn’t have new notifications.

“It takes fucking forever for texts to go through,” they say. “Plenty of time for me to take it back!”

“I was laughin’ at Amanda tryin’ to find something in her tent, you big baby,” Milo says. “You really gonna deprive a man of his cat pics?”

“I am, as established, a monster,” says Sweetheart, and Milo is laughing again when the photo finally pops up.

Sweetheart sent a selfie taken from the chest up, wearing Milo’s favorite black hoodie with the hood drawn up over their hair. They look soft and cozy and, yeah, tired, but they look good. Comfortable. They really are sitting on Milo’s couch; the peeling faux-leather behind them is instantly recognizable. That thing was beat to shit even before Milo inherited it from a buddy and he’s got to replace it one of these days soon, he’s thinking — and then he finally realizes there’s something looming over Sweetheart’s left shoulder.

Aggro, loafed up on the back of the couch with his front paws tucked beneath himself, glares directly into the camera with narrowed eyes.

That’s one of his favorite spots to sit with Milo. He’s up there so much that the back of the sofa has squashed down and sunk into a little nest. It’s a perfect perch for Aggro to lord over the living room, accept absent-minded pets while Milo games or watches TV, and rub his face all over Milo’s cheek when he feels like it.

Key words: that’s one of his favorite spots to sit with Milo. He won’t be caught dead in such an open position when anyone else is in the apartment.

“Holy shit,” says Milo.

“I sat down and he just hopped up and sat there,” Sweetheart says plaintively, continuing to do a piss-poor job of pretending they don’t care if Aggro likes them or not. “It’s been an hour!”

Aggro has settled himself farther away from Sweetheart than he sits with Milo, and it’s clearly taken some careful camera angling on Sweetheart’s part to get the two of them in frame together. Aggro’s got his grumpy face on. But there he is, not only willingly sharing the couch but climbing up to join Sweetheart and keep them company.

The wry twist to Sweetheart’s mouth and the arch lift of their eyebrows in the picture suddenly make even more sense. Taken together, Sweetheart and Aggro look … uneasy? Maybe a little dubious. But they’re together.

Milo immediately saves the picture and sets it as his lockscreen.

“What are you doing?” they ask wearily, clearly suspicious of the silence.

“Havin’ the best goddamn day of my life!” Milo crows, and Sweetheart squawks with outrage.

When Milo finally comes back down the hill, phone in his pocket, he finds himself walking into the middle of an argument about — well, he’s not exactly sure; it’s something about the Left 4 Dead games. Amanda, Jamie, and Miguel in particular are getting increasingly heated and Milo’s able to resettle himself in a camp chair without any fanfare. Nobody’s even paying any attention to him.

Except Ash, Milo realizes, who Milo had sat down next to and is watching him now. “Everything good?” Ash asks. Always using his powers for good.

“Yeah,” says Milo. “You got beat.” He turns his phone toward Ash and lets him see his new lockscreen — Sweetheart and Aggro looking into the camera with eerily similar unimpressed stares.

“Shit,” Ash laughs. He’s got a long stick in hand and the other end, which presumably has a marshmallow on it, is in the fire. “Betrayed by my best boy!”

“Your best boy literally hates you.”

“He hates me slightly less than everyone else,” he says easily.

“This picture I just received begs to differ,” Milo drawls.

“He hates me slightly less than almost everyone else,” Ash corrects without skipping a beat, and Milo laughs. “I’m doing the best I can! Your partner’s got an unfair advantage — they live with you.” He pulls a flaming ball of marshmallow out of the fire and blows on it to extinguish it.

“They don’t live with me,” says Milo.

Ash has just popped burnt marshmallow into his mouth, and he shoots him a deeply amused look.

Milo caves. “Yet,” he admits, and he lets his friend laugh at him.