DAY 20: SOME THINGS ARE IMPOSSIBLE TO MOVE ON FROM
“babe?” piper’s voice calls from the other room. “babe, where’s the other box?”
“in the living room!”
happy with the answer, he can hear piper waddle off to the living room to grab the last of the donation boxes. they’re moving into their first house together. it’s exciting, the thrill of everything has him buzzing. several boxes were formed of things the couple planned to donate to charity, and angel was packing up the remainder of his own clothes and shifting through them.
they didn’t need to downsize, but it was a new start. angel wasn’t the same person he had been when he first moved in to the home. there were many memories he had made. looking around the bedroom, it’s completely void of everything aside from a few moving boxes and the dresser he’s pawing through.
he opens the top right drawer, scoops out the first handful of dress pants and ties. he packs them away, then turns back for another swoop. it goes smoothly, but he feels his hand bump against something familiar. he reaches in and grabs it, then holds it in front of him.
looking down, the plush velvet ring box is heavy in his hand. he swipes a thumb over it, feels the luxurious fur, watches the black shift between dark to bright in the light. he thumbs open the box, and sure enough it’s still there. the ring.
milo’s ring.
his heart feels heavy looking at it. he can’t get rid of it, he never will, but seeing it reminds him of all of the memories he made in the home to begin with. the memories he made with milo, the way he thought he had found forever. he shuts the box and holds it to his chest, then looks around the room once more.
if he tries hard enough, he can see it all over again. the first time he brought milo home. how there were boxes, but they were moving milo in. how they had redecorated to suit both of their needs. the curtains milo picked out. how milo would look at himself in the mirror. how mornings felt when the sun would shine through the window...
“babe!”
angel turns. piper’s in the doorway. “are you almost done? the trucks waiting.”
“yeah, sorry-” angel sets the ring box in the box and pulls on a smile. “ill be right out.”
piper grins back, all content, enthusiastic, and motivated. he blows angel a kiss and taps on out.
while milo may have been the love of his past, he’s his future.
“i know we agreed not to do anything crazy for christmas this year,” angel opens as he sits next to his hot chocolate drinking boyfriend, “but i got you something really special.”
“angel...” milo drawls, and angel shushes him.
“c’mon, i wanted to do something nice for you.”
angel turns a wrapped box to a reluctant milo. it’s thin, neatly wrapped, and has a lid on the top beneath the paper. after removing the lid, it becomes evident the contents are nothing more than a singular sheet of paper. on the paper are two plane tickets, printed for two flights to paris in the coming year.
“you didn’t.”
“i did.” angel smiles. he leans and taps the ticket dates. “look when we’re going.”
milo squints and covers his mouth after he realizes. “paris during fashion week?”
“yup, just you and me. i got us tickets to the show, too. it took a lot of strings but-”
milo jumps him before he gets the chance to finish.
the vast expanse of the sky above them extends far beyond what either can see. thousands of stars glitter across the velvet and twinkle like diamonds, winking down at the two of them. they’ve been there for hours just watching, waiting.
unlike most people in their 20s, angel had somehow still managed to have never seen a shooting star in person. thus, this trip was created to take the two of them to the most optimal location possible to increase their chances of seeing one. still, it was to no avail.
that is, until a shooting star unlike anything either have ever seen rockets across the sky. compared to the other stars blinking idly, this one is the star of the show (pun intended).
angel laughs at the question. they’re tucked together in bed one morning, angel’s lips previously attached to milo’s neck where he sweetly kissed over his golden skin.
“of course i love you. i tell you every day.”
“okay, but how much.”
angel’s smile grows and he pulls back to lift an eyebrow and look down at milo, postively amused.
“we’re that couple now?”
“well... how much?”
he cups milo’s cheek and leans down to kiss him a moment. pulling back is hard, but it’s necessary. “I couldn’t love you more if i tried. you’re my everything, milo.”
angel hates when milo’s sad. he learns it quickly into their relationship... he also learns it relatively unfortunately.
milo’s parents aren’t exactly the most approving of him. they don’t accept their son for who he is, and the expectations that’re placed on him to be the perfect posterchild are ridiculously strict and obsessive. with angel, milo’s never had to be anything but authentically himself. still, there were days that milo would leave and come back home to him visibly distressed. angel didn’t have to think too hard about where it was coming from.
on the first night, he scoops milo up into his arms and holds him. asks him if there’s anything else he can do, what milo needs to feel soothed.
“make it go away,” he says, “help me forget about them.”
angel beats his fist against the plexiglass. behind it are row after row of saturated fats,all brightly packaged and taunting him with their letter-number name combinations.
the thing is, he already caved. he bought a pack of chips for the stupidly overpriced price, and the machine APPARENTLY ate his coins. he raps his fist against the glass again. shakes the machine on either side as though it’s going to somehow wiggle his chips out the rest of the way.
using his brain because he’s clearly incredibly smart, he figures putting more money in on the same slot will make the machine turn twice and effectively push out his chip bag. plus it could cause a second to fall out too. one for him, one for milo. he’s sure the boy he’s trying to court wouldn’t complain.
the coins go in. the machine fires up. the chpi holder twirls and twists... but falls short yet again. now the two bags of chips he has to his name are stuck on the vending twirl.
“you’re kidding.”
another rap of the fist. another shake. still, the machine doesn’t budge. suddenly very upset that this stupid hunk of metal is making him miss the movie that’s currently playing in the theater where he’s supposed to be wooing the pretty boy he just got the number of, he winds up his foot and kicks the machine with all of his might.
it backfires.
nothing good comes out of it. fifteen minutes later, angel hobbles back up the movie theater steps and sits next to milo.
“what happened?” he whispers. he gestures to the lack of chips, then to the newly acquired limp angel slinked over with.
it’s probably the dumbest thing that angel’s ever noticed. it’s so simple, so small, so ridiculously minute. there isn’t a single reason in the world why he should make the comparison that he does, but it’s in his head and he can’t get it out. he looks at both things a few times over and wonders if it’s even worth mentioning.
it’s so, so, so ... miniscule.
the show they’re watching on tv has turned to background noise as his voice turns over and over in his head wondering if it’s worth bringing up. milo’s relaxed in his arms, safe and reclined back watching the office with him on the couch.
is such a tiny thing worth bringing up? especially when his sweet man is so enraptured in dwight’s mannerisms?
he’s quiet for a little while longer before he can’t take it anymore.
he reaches over, pauses the tv, and holds his wrist out so milo can see the bright blue of his hoodie sleeve. he gestures to milo’s socks.
DAY 12: TELL ME I DID A GOOD JOB. I TOTALLY NAILED IT, RIGHT?
angel’s beaming when he comes off the stage. it’s the third show he’s had this month, the third time he’s read off the poem that sparked widespread attention, and the audience is still clapping even as he walks to meet up with milo. the success of the reading is written all over his face, all bright eyes and happy flashes of teeth.
“go on, tell me i did a good job. i totally nailed it, right?”
the smug grin on his face disappears only in favor or planting a kiss directly onto milo’s cheek, pulling him in by the hands. it earns him a happy little laugh in response, angel’s smile spreading against skin.
DAY 11: SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO THINK OF YOURSELF AS A PRIORITY
“where are you going?” milo asks softly. angel’s in the doorway tugging on his boots in spite of the fact it’s ridiculously early in the morning.
“kat needs me,” he answers smoothly as he fiddles with the laces and snags his keys. “she’s struggling with her work.”
“her... work.” milo echoes. angel nods, and milo’s face twists into an upset little pout.
ever since angel’s sister kat had started college, he had been at her beck and call. it seemed every other day angel was heading out to help her with minute individual tasks like doing laundry, homework, etc. normally it wouldn’t be a problem, but it was ripping so much into angel’s freetime that the only time they really saw each other was when they were asleep.
“i’ll be back soon, i promise.”
he walks back over to where milo’s curled up in bed and makes the sweet gesture to kiss his forehead. milo’s hand catches the back of his neck before he can pull away.
“you know, you don’t have to go help her with every little thing.” the pout in his voice is evident and cracks angel in an instant. “you need to start thinking about yourself as the priority. i feel like i haven’t really had time with you in... a month.”
angel sits on the bed beside him. he frowns, then kisses the top of milo’s hand before toeing off his shoes and pulling out his phone.
“where’d you go?” angel asks. it’s early morning, 4 am easily, and milo’s in the middle of slipping back into their bedroom. the way he freezes indicates he likely hadn’t anticipated he was going to be caught in the middle of whatever it was.
“oh,” milo mumbles, “don’t worry about it, everything’s okay.”
it’s not the answer angel’s looking for, but it’s too early for him to push any further. he’s groggy, the world around him as far as he’s concerned is completely void of evil, and he knows milo wouldn’t be getting into anything bad.
maybe he just went to get something from the other room.
milo toes off a pair of shoes and sets them by the door. he slips into bed next to angel and is immediately pulled into the sleepy man’s arms.
It’s the first thing Angel says to the stranger, and it evidently catches them off guard. The pretty man laughs awkwardly, the book he was passively looking through suddenly less intersting. It’s not the smoothest way Angel’s started a conversation, sure, but it’s definitely straight to the point.
“Thanks?” Pretty man smiles.
“What an intro, wow, ignore that-” Angel smacks his forehead gently. The pretty man laughs again, this time genuinely amused.
“No, it’s okay. I liked it.”
He extends a hand. “Angel.”
“Milo.” Pretty boy, Milo, introduces. He shakes his hand and Angel swears they’re the softest he’s ever felt.
One of Angel’s favorite things about Milo was his interests. He had many, each and every one of them perfectly unique to him and him alone. They all complimented different parts of Milo’s personality, clicked one inside of another to build the clear picture of who he was. And while choosing any one of Milo’s many habits to be a favorite above others felt hypocritical to the statement “I love all of you equally,” he did have a favorite.
Milo’s love of fashion.
His eyes were drawn to things Angel didn’t believe held potential until Milo strung them together. He knew how to make even the most simple outfit look stylish and flavorful. Angel loved to watch how he would paw through the clothes at thrift stores and find potential in the most obscure pieces.But perhaps the best part of Milo’s affinity was watching him put everything on.
There was something equally as enrapturing about watching Milo put clothes on as there was about taking them off.
He sits on the bed and watches him. Angel himself is still tangled in the sheets, face tucked gently against the pillow Milo’s head occupied before leaving him in favor of pawing through his closet. A little smile curls his lip as he watches the way Milo slips rings onto his fingers, buttons his shirt, ruffles his own hair in the mirror. There’s an elegance to the way he carries himself even so early in the morning... Something about how the mundane act of going to get them breakfast called for Milo to dress himself up so precisely.
“What’re you looking at?” He asks. He’s in the middle of securing a dangly earring in his ear, eyes catching Angel’s in the mirror.
“You.” Angel answers easily. He can’t keep his smile from growing.
DAY 5: MY HEART BREAKS A LITTLE WHEN I HEAR YOUR NAME (1.4k)
Milo.
The news explodes with dozens of stories covering the disappearance. Almost each and everyone features Milo’s family speaking calmly on camera asking for whoever took their son to bring him back home. There are videos where they stare into the camera and speak as though Milo is out there somewhere watching. They plead and beg for him to come back to them-- they ask why he disappeared so suddenly. If he were taken, if he were being held. They promise that they won’t rest until they figure out what happened to him, claim they will never know a happy day again until their son is back home. They always end their elongated speeches by telling Milo they miss him. That they love him.
Some stories cover the foresnics of the case. The lack of evidence, the timeline. Pictures of Milo’s gorgeous face and long hair roll across the screen one after another as new broadcasters relay the dramatic details of his disappearance. Alongside the one hundred thousand dollar award promised to anyone who can safely bring Milo home, of course. Who could forget the incentive.
When Milo’s initially declared missing, Angel spends hours in police questioning. He comes forward and expresses his relationship with Milo, tells them all that the man was his future fiancee and that he was acting strange on the day before this all happened. He drags on for hours about what he was doing that day, his alibi, how frustrating the entire situation is. He cries to detectives endlessly, sobs openly, deflates completely. By the end of it all his shoudlers are shaking and his eyes feel like there’s nothing left they can give.
Milo’s family are eventually brought in and asked to confirm Angel’s identity. They look to him cruelly. There’s a darkness to their eyes, an evil Angel knows he will never forget. They regard him as if he’s a dangerous insect, one which must be squashed immediately. They tell investigators that Angel is a poser-- that Milo had no boyfriend, he was straight, and that Angel’s entire story was nothing more than a sick joke. Angel immediately argues this, offers to take a lie detector test, to show them his phone records or the last text Milo sent him on the night of his disappearance. He begs to show them his camera roll, the polaroid photos he had of the two of them back at their apartment. And yet... With one look from Milo’s family, Angel is sent home. He’s told not to intervene.
He immediately shuts down. He locks himself up in his bedroom at his mother’s house, physically unable to bear the pain of being surrounded by the world he and Milo once shared. He doesn’t answer to any calls. His phone rings and rings. Music loops itself on repeat. He finds spending the days asleep make the pain more bearable. He writes endlessly, scribbles into notebooks and weeps against the pages until his tears cause the ink to bleed. His sentences lack eloquence but hold each and every emotion. Grief, sorrow, loss. He mourns through notebook after notebook until his pen runs dry.
He can’t eat. He can’t bring himself to turn on the news and see another headline about Milo’s disappearance. He can’t even turn on his phone without seeing the man on his lockscreen... A different time. A time where they were stable, secure. It’s an image of the two of them at the beach smiling, Angel nosing sweetly at Milo’s cheek as the man takes the picture.
There will never be another beach day.
It would be two weeks before Angel is questioned again. Two weeks of Angel isolating himself until the cops arrive and demand to speak to him. He looks like a mess, and the investigator is different than the few that had interrogated him previously. As much as it pains him to talk about Milo, he knows it’s perhaps the only chance he’ll have to tell the press his side of the story.
The investigator believes him, unlike the others. The investigator shows Angel a few polaroids that were taken from Angel’s home -- a warrant had been granted to search for any evidence that might suggest Angel was the kidnapper or murderer -- and asks for him to talk about their relationship. The light in Angel’s eyes dies as he talks, and it’s too hard for him to talk about Milo as though he’s gone. He can’t be gone.
The investigator asks to see their messages and Angel hesitantly shows him the text Milo sent him before he disappeared.
angel?
something’s wrong
It’s puzzling and painful all over again. Angel cries several times over the course of the interview. It isn’t until the investigator asks him what he thinks happened to Milo that Angel officially has to say it out loud.
“He was murdered.”
Something about speaking it into existence makes everything that much more painful. He sobs fervently, chokes between whimpers. The investigator shakes his head and asks if he believes there’s any way Milo could still be alive-- why he’s so sure that Milo’s dead.
“He wouldn’t just leave me.” Angel sniffles. “He would never stop trying to get back to me.”
Two months later, the body of an unidentified young man is found buried in a ditch an hour outside of the city. A bullet is loged into his skull, and surrounding him are several belongings that aid in identifying him as none other than Milo.
The media blows up again. Angel breaks entirely. Grady reaches out to him, tells him she’s going to help him figure out who did this to her brother. She sends him message after message of speculation. Angel’s phone buzzes with every notification from his nightstand.
The funeral comes and goes. Angel isn’t invited. Grady sneaks him in the back, though he’s not permitted to enter the room during the ceremony. When everyone finally leaves, he slips in during the quiet. Milo’s body is so badly mutilated that the casket is closed, though truthfully he couldn’t bring himself to look even if it were open. Angel rests his hand against the top.
“I love you.”
It’s the last thing Angel says to him.
The loss never quite goes away. Grady disappears not long after. The family goes on the news and claims these acts must be personal to the family for their political standing. Angel can’t bear to watch her investigation. He hears from a friend she was found buried in the exact same location as her brother.
Life goes on-- it waits for nobody. As painful as it is, life returns to the new normal. He packs up Milo’s things. He cries. He finds the engagement ring he planned to propose with tucked away in the closet. While he donates most of what Milo leaves him with or offers to Kat to give to Ryder, he can’t bring himself to get rid of the ring. It was meant for Milo. It would always be Milo’s ring.
Moving on is ridiculously hard, but he manages. He heals slowly, relearns how to exist without Milo’s existence tied to his. He’s fine most days, but he’s quick to shut down if he hears his lover’s name.
Learning to love again is harder. He feels guilty about every attraction, every almost he has following. In his heart, he knows he can’t give himself away fully to anyone again just yet. There’s still a large part of him that belongs to Milo, that will always belong to Milo. He locks himself up, chains himself to his work. He focuses on Kat. He spends more time writing. His career develops through the muse of sufferage rather than love.
By the time he meets Piper, it’s been almost a year and a half since Milo was declared dead. He’s beautiful, warm, inviting. He’s all charming smiles and seasalt hair, puppy love, and good intentions. Everything about him is something Angel finds ridiculously alluring, and against everything in his mind telling him not to fall... he does. He feels guilty, he feels as though he’s doing Milo an injustice by moving on as quickly as he does to another man.
But Piper’s... perfect. He’s understanding, he’s comforting. He listens to Angel, he’s patient. When Angel finally opens up about Milo, it’s the last time he says his name out loud. He says everything he needs to. He tells Piper the entire story, how traumatizing everything was. He clings to his arm and buries his face against him and sobs. The loss hits him the hardest now as he relays the details the final time because he knows he’s closing a chapter of his life. And as difficult as it is to face the reality of moving on, he manages to do it.
Angel shifts his weight between his feet behind the curtain. Beyond are thousands of people who have gathered to hear him speak. It’s nerve wrecking, and he hasn’t stopped fiddling with his thumbs since he first arrived at the venue earlier in the night. On the stage now is another poet, and the audience whistles and snaps along as their words drip from their lips smoothly.
He’s in the middle of twisting the bracelet on his wrist when he feels a familiar touch intervene with the nervous habit. His lover’s face is beautiful in the soft light behind the stage, and all of Angel’s anxiety melts if only for a moment.
“I’m nervous.”
“Don’t be,” Milo soothes. Angel laces their fingers together and slaps the top of his hand gently. His eyes dart back to the audience. Even hidden by the glow of the stage, he knows how deeply it expands.
“I don’t feel like this whole event should be happening,” Angel whispers. “I really... I don’t think I deserve this. They’re letting me perform? After only seeing me once?”
“They liked what they saw?”
A sigh slips past Angel’s lips. The audience is clapping now. The poet before him bows before slipping off to the other side of the curtain. As the announcer begins the introduction for his section, Angel squeezes Milo’s hand tightly.
“Promise you’ll still love me even if I totally blow it?”
Milo nods. “Always. You’re going to do great.”
As the speaker concludes his introduction, the crowd applauds approvingly and Angel slips out onto the stage.
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