Original -- Toast
Title: Toast
Rating: PG
Word Count: 555
Warnings: ANGST
Prompt: There's a cold voice on the air / You've been looking everywhere / For someone to understand your hopes and fears / Well, I've thought about that for many long years - Snowed Under, Keane at pulped_fictions
Summary: Milo plays with fire and with words. Neither ends well.
Author's Note: I wrote this at work yesterday. IT'S NOT MUCH GOOD. eltea tried to talk me out of writing it before she even knew I was going to write it. XD
TOAST
Milo is increasingly certain that he is the dumbest person ever to disgrace the halfway-decent name of mankind.
It’s mostly his own fault, but not entirely. Dom’s the one who made him whole-wheat toast-and left the strawberry jam out on the counter for a while before spreading it so that it wouldn’t make the bread cold. And it’s not, when Dom hands the plate to the bleary-eyed Milo staggering into the kitchen, just conscious enough to know that the good timing is Dom’s and definitely not his.
And after that… he can’t help it.
“Can we go out sometime?” he asks after he sits down, and two-hundred-thousand years of evolution are rendered moot by this cutting defiance of higher intellect.
“You go out all the time,” Dom says calmly, but a tremor ripples through the flimsy newspaper as he turns the page.
“I mean you and me,” Milo says.
Dom’s eyelashes dip as he pans his gaze down over the international news. “Mexican or Chinese?”
“No,” Milo says feebly, knowing that he knows better, knowing that he should have quit at the first word; he should quit now-but the whole problem is that Dom’s good enough to offer him so many chances to escape. “I mean for real.”
Dom stops fiddling with the corner of the paper. His whole body goes very still, which is unnerving, because Dom is always moving, always making things and giving them away.
“What we already have is real,” he says. “And maybe more important than that, it’s simple. You’re the best roommate and the best friend that I’ve ever had. Can we leave it at that?”
Milo thinks this must be how insects feel when they get stepped on-small and fragile, with the slow crush shattering the exoskeleton; with their insides spilling through the cracks. The shadow blocks the sun. Sole is such an evil word.
Dom’s voice is soft, his eyes are soft, but Milo’s skin is broken everywhere, and his toast is going cold.
“It’s just that you go through guys like styrofoam cups. And I’m not trying to say you don’t respect people, because you do; I know that. Most of them probably deserved to get crumpled up and thrown out when you were done with them, but… somewhere you must have stumbled on someone better than the others-better than me. And you got rid of him, too.” He tries for a smile. “I don’t want you to find out too late that I’m made of styrofoam.”
You’re not. It’s a scream in Milo’s head, but his tongue’s turned to polystyrene. You’re not; it’s always been you; it’s you I was waiting for; I only ever tried anyone else to pass the time, to fill the space, because I needed something, lots of things-
Milo looks down at his toast. He feels dizzy. Strawberry jam looks like beetle guts.
“You think we can find a place that combines Mexican and Chinese?” he says. There’s an industrial drill boring into the pit of his stomach, cold iron and emptiness and rust.
He can hear that Dom’s attempting at another smile. In-dom-it-a-ble.
“Not a chance,” Dom says. “But I bet I can make you an orange chicken taco.”
Appetite. Evil.
“I’ll take it,” Milo says.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 555
Warnings: ANGST
Prompt: There's a cold voice on the air / You've been looking everywhere / For someone to understand your hopes and fears / Well, I've thought about that for many long years - Snowed Under, Keane at pulped_fictions
Summary: Milo plays with fire and with words. Neither ends well.
Author's Note: I wrote this at work yesterday. IT'S NOT MUCH GOOD. eltea tried to talk me out of writing it before she even knew I was going to write it. XD
TOAST
Milo is increasingly certain that he is the dumbest person ever to disgrace the halfway-decent name of mankind.
It’s mostly his own fault, but not entirely. Dom’s the one who made him whole-wheat toast-and left the strawberry jam out on the counter for a while before spreading it so that it wouldn’t make the bread cold. And it’s not, when Dom hands the plate to the bleary-eyed Milo staggering into the kitchen, just conscious enough to know that the good timing is Dom’s and definitely not his.
And after that… he can’t help it.
“Can we go out sometime?” he asks after he sits down, and two-hundred-thousand years of evolution are rendered moot by this cutting defiance of higher intellect.
“You go out all the time,” Dom says calmly, but a tremor ripples through the flimsy newspaper as he turns the page.
“I mean you and me,” Milo says.
Dom’s eyelashes dip as he pans his gaze down over the international news. “Mexican or Chinese?”
“No,” Milo says feebly, knowing that he knows better, knowing that he should have quit at the first word; he should quit now-but the whole problem is that Dom’s good enough to offer him so many chances to escape. “I mean for real.”
Dom stops fiddling with the corner of the paper. His whole body goes very still, which is unnerving, because Dom is always moving, always making things and giving them away.
“What we already have is real,” he says. “And maybe more important than that, it’s simple. You’re the best roommate and the best friend that I’ve ever had. Can we leave it at that?”
Milo thinks this must be how insects feel when they get stepped on-small and fragile, with the slow crush shattering the exoskeleton; with their insides spilling through the cracks. The shadow blocks the sun. Sole is such an evil word.
Dom’s voice is soft, his eyes are soft, but Milo’s skin is broken everywhere, and his toast is going cold.
“It’s just that you go through guys like styrofoam cups. And I’m not trying to say you don’t respect people, because you do; I know that. Most of them probably deserved to get crumpled up and thrown out when you were done with them, but… somewhere you must have stumbled on someone better than the others-better than me. And you got rid of him, too.” He tries for a smile. “I don’t want you to find out too late that I’m made of styrofoam.”
You’re not. It’s a scream in Milo’s head, but his tongue’s turned to polystyrene. You’re not; it’s always been you; it’s you I was waiting for; I only ever tried anyone else to pass the time, to fill the space, because I needed something, lots of things-
Milo looks down at his toast. He feels dizzy. Strawberry jam looks like beetle guts.
“You think we can find a place that combines Mexican and Chinese?” he says. There’s an industrial drill boring into the pit of his stomach, cold iron and emptiness and rust.
He can hear that Dom’s attempting at another smile. In-dom-it-a-ble.
“Not a chance,” Dom says. “But I bet I can make you an orange chicken taco.”
Appetite. Evil.
“I’ll take it,” Milo says.