46: I Love You. Endlessly.

HAKON

Milo's family is almost exactly how I expected his family to be. Goofy, gentle, loving, a bit of a fucking wreck, but trying with all they have. It hurts me, just a little, but they roped me in so quickly I didn't really even have time to feel like an outsider. His dad served Helen and I some leftovers and Milo and Rey bickered back and forth in quick Czech, something I've never heard him do before, speak so naturally and informal with someone. Sure he speaks Czech with his mom but it's more of an english blend, this is just his language.

His sister is almost identical to Helen except her hair, she's smaller in frame and exceedingly kind behind a tough little front. She's got his hair and they're definitely siblings, sharing tiny mannerisms and seemingly warming back up to each other as fast as possible after years apart.

His father was a bit of a shock to my system. I opened the door for Helen and was met face to face with what I genuinely thought was Milo. I panicked for a moment, having an existential crisis, wondering how I could've possibly missed like 30 years, or wondering how he got his hair dyed salt and pepper without me noticing over facetime the night before.

Then I realized that Miloslav is a little shorter, his shoulders a little more downtrodden, eyes an odd shade of seafoam instead of glass bottle green. He's built the same, tall, gangly, long fingers and longer arms, high cheekbones, all of it. He's just older. A lot older.

But it's like staring into Milo's future, the grey hair, the wrinkle patterns around the corners of his eyes, the crease in his brow, it was weird as hell. It almost made me a little nostalgic.

Of course, that's not my Milo. My Milo practically knocked me over when he saw me, making my heart swell up and flutter a little, wrapping him up in a hug. My Milo is in a significant amount of trouble with his mother but not as much trouble as his dad is in.

I really didn't understand a single thing that happened that whole time. I caught him when he fell into me, pulled him back into a chair, held him tight, knowing he needed me there but not knowing why.

Then we ate a little, I listened to more Czech that I've ever been exposed to in my entire life, which, coming from Milo, is a whole lot more of a turn on than I wanted it to be. Especially with the only other context he speaks this fast in Czech around me being when he can't think straight: while he's angry or in a heavily sexual situation.

And his parents, who appear to be warming up to each other again, awkward as hell, yes, but... stealing little glances, bickering, flirting here and there, arguing about something and the next, letting each other get just a little too close before backing away.

I've never seen Helen Stojanović get awkward. This woman could face hell with just a wooden spoon and sheer fucking willpower and the devil himself would let her pass by, she could stare down any man (me included) and make him turn around and say sorry. But with Miloslav she's holding back from getting close, clearly hurt by him but working on it. He's working his ass off to try to sweet talk her but it's working just about as well as it does when Milo does something he knows he's gonna get in trouble for. Like finishing off my box of cereal in one sitting without telling me. Miloslav is awkward and clumsy and reminds me violently of his son, to a point where I find it somewhat entertaining watching Helen respond to her somewhat husband's antics in different ways than I respond to Milo's same exact antics.

It gets even better when Miloslav in one grand gesture asks Helen to dance to the radio that's been playing most of the time and she actually agrees (it was a shocker for the three kids)

And even better than that when I reach over Milo to ask Rey for a dance because why the hell not and I find it fun to irritate Milo. He complains the whole time, sitting on the counter and staring at the four of us.

Eventually I pass Rey off to Miloslav and pick up his hand, in a stupid little gesture kissing his knuckles and then making fun of him for being so crabby about me asking his sister to dance.

He didn't find that nearly as funny as me and his mom did.

Which brings about the most horrifying realization of this whole interaction which is:

"Hey, Hel," I lean over to her, sipping my tea and watching Milo, Miloslav, and Reyna dance a badly planned out jig. "If that's your sorta husband, and that's my boyfriend..." I take another sip. "Do we have the same taste in men?"

She pauses for a moment, then bursts out laughing. "What, skinny hyperactive socially stunted Czech guys?"

"Yeah," I hide my smile behind the lip of the mug.

"Sure, HÃ¥kon." She shakes her head, laughing softly.

"So how..." I breathe in. "what's the deal with the Miloslav situation? I mean, he seems okay."

"He's..." she pulls in a breath. "It's complicated. Miloslav and I met when I was fifteen and he was sixteen, I knew he was it right then and there and he did too. We were inseparable for twenty straight years and then I made the easiest and hardest decision of my life to choose my son over him, to keep him safe. Miloslav gave me everything and then ripped it right back away again because he was too insolent and undereducated to understand something simple. We were both like that, for a long time. Both of us were raised like that, him a little more so. So were your parents, so were you. You know how it is and how fucking awful it is to suddenly come to an understanding that you've been raised to be a bigot." She sighs, taking a sip of tea. "I just didn't expect him to force his own son out over it. So I took him, I did what I had to and god I was so scared for Rey. I thought she was going to be raised the same way and frankly this whole thing, showing up and having a daughter and a sorta husband that went out of his damn way in every way to make sure her transition was as perfect as he could get it and doing all the research he had to and more. I dunno, it's... active evidence he's okay now."

"But you can't make yourself forgive him for what he did. I understand."

"Right."

"My parents did it to me," I sigh. "I can't forgive them for crushing me at such a young age but I can move on. This is about to be a shitty metaphor, I hope you're ready. It's not at all a testament to my relationship with your son, this is purely for metaphor purposes."

She raises an eyebrow.

"I can't forgive Milo for eating my entire box of cereal absentmindedly as a snack. Sure, every time he goes to the store for us from here on out he's probably going to get that cereal and so far he has, mostly because seeing it reminds him that he fucked up that one time, he can replace as many boxes of cereal as he wants, but I'm not going to forgive him for it, I'm going to just move forward."

She laughs into her tea, taking another little sip. "Are you sure you don't have a little cereal feud?"

"Okay, so maybe a little but that was a lot of exaggeration."

"Alright, you make a good point."

"What I'm saying is that he's not gonna be able to go back and un-eat the cereal, he might want to, with his whole being, and he's going to spend the rest of his life getting you that same cereal. You just have to decide if the initial act was atrocious enough to not accept and move on, in this case I honestly wouldn't blame you if you didn't move forward."

She thinks about it for a long moment, staring at him while I watch my boyfriend show off his ability to do the splits which is just as shocking and scary as it was the first time he did it in front of me.

"It's up to you," I lean back against the counter. "He regrets it, you can see the guilt in his eyes, even as he's just standing there, it's eating him. And I know what he did was absolutely inexcusable and some things are meant to be like that, but I think you want him back more than you're letting on to."

She nods, softly. "I do. He was..." I watch her pause for a moment, wincing as Miloslav tries to copy Milo's split. "He was to me something I couldn't replace. He just knew. Everything. Knew what was wrong at all times and exactly how to fix it, he could read me better than anything out there and that's asking a lot from a guy with Milo's type of ADHD, you know how it is with them."

"I do," I nod. "Never quite sure of their footing socially."

"Right," she mumbles. "But we just fit right together. I'm almost scared it's different now."

I pull in a breath. "There's only one way to find out."

"Full psych eval."

"No, Helen."

"I was kidding." She looks up at me, elbowing me in the side. "But you think I should try to move forward from here with him?"

I scratch the back of my head. "My gay romantic queer eye ass side is saying hell fucking yes that's your one and only and you're not going to get another guy like that. My straight, logical and science-side is saying you should put one foot in and see how it goes just to make sure he's actually who he's acting the part of right now. You haven't interacted with this man in 10 years, he's not the same, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, you're different too."

She nods. "I'm gonna listen to your gay side, for once in my life."

"Woah, hold on-"

"Nope, some things you have not a lot of time for." She sets down her mug of tea and walks toward Miloslav, who looks up and spots her coming over.

He shoots off a line in Czech. I've learned the hard way that his english is the worst, followed by Rey. She says something back, hand coming to rest on the front of his t-shirt, fixing his collar, then she grabs his hand.

Milo is staring at me, eyes narrowed, knowing I'm the reason for the PDA.

I wink at him, then go back to my personally orchestrated disaster. She should probably be informed that I'm the wrong type of gay man to be getting advice from. Don't ever take advice from gay men in jogging sweatpants and a hockey t-shirt. Or just men in jogging sweatpants and a hockey t-shirt. Frankly, we're no more put together than anyone.

I refocus on my disaster. He looks a little overwhelmed with the attention but I know that look, he's overwhelmed but excited. Milo, my Milo, is less hyped.

Oh this is like watching middle schoolers interact.

I take another sip of tea, knowing I don't know the first thing of what they're saying and don't really want to know, considering the horrified look on Milo and Reyna's faces. Of course, they haven't seen parental PDA in ten years so this is wildly uncharted territory.

I watch the interaction unfold and mentally cheer Miloslav's very awkward personality on when he kisses the end of her nose, then I cheer on Helen's very bold personality when she takes the hand she wrapped up in his and pulls him toward the back porch.

"You set this up, didn't you?"

"Might have, you wouldn't know." I wrap my arm around his lower back. "C'mon, your parents are adorable."

"They're kissing out there." He hisses.

"They married each other, normally that's what people that married each other do." I kiss his forehead. "My parents do this all the time, it's normal."

"It's gross." He mumbles against my shoulder. "Ew."

"I think it's sweet." I set my cheek on the top of his head. "See, if you're nice to me, that could be us in 20 years."

"If I'm nice to you?" He mumbles. "I'll have to consider."

"Milo."

"I'm thinking about it," he yawns. "Might or might not be nice to you."

"Mhmm?"

"As long as one of us doesn't randomly become a girl." He gestures at the porch. "Ick, heterosexuality."

I pull my arm a little tighter around his back.

"You're exhausted, aren't you?" He looks up at me.

"Yeah," I respond. "My jet lag is confused."

He coughs out a little laugh. "You look dead on your feet."

"Thank you, real vote of confidence."

I slip my hand around his ear, pressing my thumb to the bottom of his chin, lifting his eyes up to mine.

"What?" He mumbles.

"Nothing, can you ask if we can go to bed? At least me, I'm on the edge of passing out."

He smiles, then opens his mouth, pulling his head out of my hand, then firing off quite a lot of really fast consonants out to the porch.

Reyna looks between us.

"Same house, you two. These walls might be old but they sure aren't soundproof."

I choke on my tongue.

"Rey!" Milo beats me to it.

She makes the 'I'm watching you' gesture.

"Rey I do not appreciate what you're suggesting." Mom says, narrowing her eyes at her son, walking back into the room, Big Milo tailing her. "Milo do not tell me-"

"I'm almost 24, Mom, really, it's fine."

"I'm going to ground you further."

"Mom," he winces.

"Are you being safe about it?"

"Mom!"

"Because I can't have you making unsafe decisions-"

"Mom I swear I remember every single word of the discussion we had when I was thirteen."

"But are you using it?"

"I do not in any way run the risk of children but yes."

She looks between us. "Don't hurt him, HÃ¥kon."

"Uh," I clear my throat. "You know what, yeah."

"Hm?"

"No! Mom!" Milo slips his fingers into mine and pulls me up a thin staircase that's not quite tall enough for both of us.

He makes one little side step and then we're standing in a small room with light blue walls and things scattered everywhere. There's a teddy bear on a shelf, a goalie stick in the corner, a desk with a few books on it that he seems way too old to be reading now. The bed has dinosaur sheets and the curtains are also dinosaur print.

"Nothing's changed since I was thirteen, sorry." He looks around.

"No, no," I stop him. "It's fucking adorable."

He pauses, staring at me. "I hate you."

"No you don't."

"I might."

"You don't."

"I might."

I look over at him, smiling. "You don't."

"I might decide to."

"C'mere." I wrap my arms around his hips, lifting him straight up so he can wrap his legs around my core. "I love you."

"I love you." he sighs. "I know, I don't hate you."

"Mhmm," I nudge his nose, eyes closed already.

"I love you, you stupidly large Swedish man," he kisses me once. "You and all your little antics and you and fooling me into thinking you were 100% a top," another little kiss. "You and the way you smile and you and the way you make me want to curl up inside your skin just to be closer to you and you and you and you."

"Ugh," I groan. "Don't make me cry."

"I swear I will if you don't say it back right goddamn now."

I open my eyes, looking up at him. "Right now?"

"Now."

I slip my hand up around his jaw and lock my lips against his, warmth seeping into me from mouth down. I kiss him like he's the heavens and the earth and everything holding them together because somewhere in me, he made all of everything twinkle like gold.

"I love you," I breathe. "Endlessly."

And I do. Like the sun loves the sky and the sea loves the land. Both whole without the other but it's never the sea without the seashore, the sand without the ocean. It's never the sun without the sky it rests in, the sky without the sun that fills it.

I love him like the first breath of air to the last and the first shine off the dew in the morning to that same shine off a windowpane at night. Some soft touch of heaven in my hands and it's enough to prove to me, as his nose brushes mine, that maybe not all is lost. Maybe nothing is. Nothing at all.

It's enough, him, here, to prove to me that maybe, there will be a space for us as we get older. That maybe not holding his hand when we get off the plane going home will mean that our kids can, and theirs. That maybe love, like love like love like love, can just be that by the time I can tuck grey hair behind his ear.

"Good for you, bottom, now put me down."

***

there's prolly spelling mistakes in this idk

anyway that's what I think the end is

maybe not.

i might drop a whole other chapter on monday but you'll have to wait and see

anyway

i'm trying to pull off something fukin insane so if you want to drop me a follow on instagram to keep up with that and to see stupid wolves memes on a weekly basis, go do that (rabideraser is my username there too).  also if you're taking this out of your library and want to still see updates, follow me on here as well because I'm going to be releasing preliminary dates for Emergency Medical Dad sooner or later. Probably after I finish AP testing, though.

as for EMD, I'm gonna release a teaser after this chapter just like I have with the last books, probably not a prologue but maybe.

EMD Is going to be a lot different in tone than the last three and I'd seriously think a little harder about it before starting it because it is going to have a lot heavier content, Jorgen is a shooting survivor and an amputee as well as an active first responder for most of what I have laid out as the plot so there will be quite a lot of content warnings.

anyway

i've written around 45k words in the last 8 days on one project and I'm really excited to drop details about that as it moves forward (hopefully to where I need it to be in ten weeks)

but yeah

this is a quarantine-child of about 250k words, two full novels, 94 chapters. all that.

i might come back and make this more sentimental later but I'm trying to psychoanalyze othello in another tab for my english teacher. the project is a solid two days late.

OH WAIT

i have a joke okay wait ready for this.

i open a bar called "taming of the brew" and everything is shakespeare related somewhat and instead of karaoke it's live action shakespeare with audience members acting and then switching out every scene. there's like fake swords to stab people with and stuff and you go with your friends and act out some shakespeare badly and get hammered. I'd totally have a blast. it's definitely what shakespeare would've wanted

anyway

night and hope you liked the book. there's going to be more action with this story here later just not right now because it's friday and I'm dead tired

-rabid

(seriously tho follow me on here I've hopefully got a couple huge things right around the corner in relation to all this)

alright

night again

-rabid

also i hope you like me closing out two full novels with a bottom joke <3

i'm a writer i control everything that happens in this universe and if i wanna to dedicate 700 hours to a project and close it with a bottom joke i'm gonna do it.

OH WAIT I GOTTA EDIT THIS AGAIN

OKAY IF YOU WANNA

I HAVE ALL THE SPOTIFY PLAYLISTS FOR THESE ON MY SPOTIFY. WHAT YOU'RE GONNA DO IS LOOK UP 'i have jfk's dick in a jar and lyndon b johnson wants it back' IN THE SEARCH BAR AND ITS THE ONLY THING THAT SHOULD SHOW UP AND THAT'S ME. THEN GO INTO MY PUBLIC STUFF AND SCROLL DOWN (LITERALLY IGNORE EVERYTHING ELSE OH MY GOD) UNTIL IT'S LIKE ASTRONOMY PLAYLIST COVERS AND THOSE ARE ALL BOOK PLAYLISTS. so if you wanna listen to the stuff i was listening to when i was writing, go for it. i will warn you, most of them are a little dated so it's a little eesh

anyway that's only if you want to.