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Bisco kneels down on the concrete floor of the sewers, watching the doctor unlatch his case of medical supplies. His fingers drum restlessly on his knees—every second here is a second he could be dealing with the rabbit-masks, a second that the doctor could be treating Jabi.
The doctor chooses a cloth from the case and settles himself in front of Bisco. “I’m going to clean up the blood first, okay?” he says. His voice is soft, gentle, a complete turnaround from how he sounded a moment ago. “Can you close your eyes for me?”
Bisco obliges. Considering how fiercely he gripped onto Bisco’s arm earlier, the doctor is surprisingly gentle as he wipes up the blood from Bisco’s face, taking extra care around the eyelids.
The cloth disappears from his face, and Bisco hears movement—rustling, the quiet clink of glass. Seconds later, fabric presses again to his forehead, this time damp with something that stings. Antibiotic, maybe.
The cloth is set aside. More rustling. He can guess what comes next.
“This might hurt a little,” the doctor says, breath ghosting Bisco’s ear. Bisco braces himself, fingers gripping onto his sleeves. Jabi’s had to stitch him up more than a couple of times since he started his training, and it’s never pleasant.
“Try not to tense up,” the doctor says, and the needle pierces through skin. Bisco breathes in sharply, waiting for the pain to stab him, but all he feels is a dull throbbing and a slight, repeating sting as the doctor quickly threads the string around and around again.
Bisco breathes out, shoulders releasing, and opens his right eye to observe the doctor. He doesn’t seem to notice the added attention, his eyes fixed to his task with an intense look of focus, lips pressed together thinly, eyebrows furrowed.
Finally, the doctor unthreads the needle and ties up the stitch. He rubs a new cream into it and covers the wound with a bandage.
“Good job,” the doctor says, smoothing the band-aid down with his thumb, as if Bisco did anything to help other than sit there, as if he thinks Bisco needs to be, deserves to be comforted. In the short couple of hours since they’ve met, Bisco has threatened him, taken him hostage, blown up his clinic—forced him to hide in a sewer, for another—and yet the doctor has offered him nothing but kindness.
He’s like the princess of a children’s fairy tale, Bisco muses, all smiles and sunshine and hopeless idealism. Has the face for it, too.
“There, all done,” the doctor says, leaning back slightly. He looks up at Bisco, a little wide-eyed, his steady focus replaced by hesitant nervousness. “Um, does it hurt?”
Bisco’s beginning to get why everyone in Imihama speaks so highly of him. “No. I see now how talented you are.”
Bisco rolls over in his sleeping bag, pressing his hands over his ears, but he can still hear Milo and the jellyfish girl’s hushed whispers, talking about—what, merchandise? Traveling? He thinks he hears his name come up, but he can’t even be sure if they’re talking about the biscuit or him.
He turns around again, half-hoping that they’ll quiet down if he glares at them hard enough, but with no luck. He watches Milo, who smiles a little as he talks, even laughing at something the jellyfish says. Inexplicably, Bisco thinks back to the kiss Milo shared with her earlier and feels a little queasy.
Impatience rising, Bisco sits up and snaps, "Would you guys shut up? You're giving me a headache." Maybe the jellyfish girl doesn’t have much to do tomorrow, but he and Milo are on important business, dammit. They can’t afford to lose sleep like this.
The jellyfish girl fights to keep a straight face, mouth twitching like she can’t decide whether to laugh or shout at him, but Milo doesn’t look bothered. Instead, he sits up a little straighter. "Really? I can help with that," he says eagerly, and then clears his throat, coughing into his hand. “Um, can I?”
Bisco blinks at him. Is he really that desperate to medicate people? Is this some kind of doctor problem — don’t treat someone every five hours and you start shaking? Bisco shrugs. "Whatever, s'long as you shut up."
Milo kneels behind him, placing his hands on Bisco’s shoulders. His hands are warm, even through Bisco’s clothing. “I’m just going to massage you a little,” he says. His voice is soft, gentle. Bisco imagines that he’s practiced this exact tone of voice — loud enough to be clear but soft enough to feel gentle, almost personal —on his patients towards perfection, but even knowing this, Bisco can’t help but be soothed anyways.
Milo starts to massage his shoulders, gentle and rhythmic, working his way from the base of his neck down to the ends of his shoulders. “Is this okay?” he asks. “Should I change the pressure?”
Milo starts to rub circles into the skin between his shoulder blades, and Bisco’s breath hitches. “No, you’re good,” he manages to get out. More than good. He closes his eyes, focusing on Milo’s touch, Milo’s warmth, the rhythmic touch of Milo’s fingers. If Milo wasn’t already such a talented doctor, he could probably do this for a living.
“I used to do this for my sister a lot,” Milo says. His hands move up to press at the back of Bisco’s neck, finger pads meeting bare skin. Bisco swallows, hoping Milo can’t feel the movement. “She wouldn’t say so, but I think she was under a lot of stress from her job.”
“Mm,” Bisco says absentmindedly, eyes still closed. Milo’s thumbs rub twin circles into the base of his neck, and he leans back slightly into Milo’s touch.
Milo removes his hands, and Bisco opens his eyes reflexively, wondering if it’s already over. But he feels Milo messing with his hair, and a second later, he hears a small click and his head lightens, hair falling down to tickle the sides of his face. Milo sets his goggles down next to them.
“Hey, don't just—” Bisco splutters. “Give a man some warning, would you?”
"Sorry," Milo says, not sounding the part.
But Bisco doesn’t have time to be mad at him, because the next second, Milo’s pressing his fingers into Bisco’s scalp, making gentle up-and-down motions. Bisco sinks into his touch, trying to soak in as much as he can.
“Tilt your head back a little,” Milo murmurs, and Bisco obeys, embarrassingly compliant. Milo starts to massage Bisco’s forehead, rubbing gentle circles around his temples, carefully avoiding the bandage.
Bisco leans back further, feeling light and hazy. He’s not sure what he’s thinking when he asks, “If I had one of those stomach maggots, would you kiss it out of my mouth like that?”
“Of course,” Milo says, without hesitation. His hands still, and Bisco misses the motion immediately. “Why?” he asks. His voice lowers, becoming urgent. “You don’t think you could’ve gotten it, do you?”
“Just wondering,” Bisco says. He hopes futilely for Milo to keep massaging him.
Milo lets go. “Are you sure?” Concern creeps into his voice, and he crawls in front of Bisco. “If there’s even a possibility, it’d be better to deal with it earlier on.” He grabs Bisco by the head, turning his face up towards him, and orders, “Bisco, open your mouth.”
Bisco tries to shrug Milo off. “I’m telling you, I don’t—”
Bisco is cut off by Milo prying his jaw open. Milo leans closer to peer into his mouth, and the fringe of Milo's bangs tickles Bisco's face; Bisco can smell traces of the driftweed from earlier, fragrant and dewy.
He flushes, finally managing to knock Milo's hands away before losing his balance and falling backward onto the sleeping bag, head hitting the ground.
Momentarily dazed, Bisco rubs his head. He rolls over, elbowing his way back up to a seating position, and scowls at Milo.
Milo looks at him passively, sitting down on his knees with his hands folded neatly on his lap, as if he wasn't practically wrestling Bisco a few seconds ago. He gives his professional diagnosis: "Well, you seem fine."
"That's what I was trying to tell you," Bisco growls.
"Sorry," Milo says, still not sounding the part. "Just making sure." He looks at Bisco, lip quirking upward like he’s struggling not to laugh. “You, um, have a little bit of grass in your hair.”
“I don’t care,” Bisco tells him flatly, but Milo leans over anyways, deftly picking out the single blade of grass.
“Your hair is a mess, too,” Milo says, and pats down Bisco’s hair. When he’s finished, he sits back, nodding to himself. "Is your headache feeling better now?"
It takes a second to register when he said and remember why they were doing this in the first place. "Almost better,” Bisco half-lies. “You're pretty good with your hands."
“I’m glad,” Milo says, cheeks dusting pink. It’s amazing how someone this talented can still be this moved from each compliment. “Want me to continue?”
Not trusting his voice, Bisco nods.
Bisco was a little skeptical when they were starting out—Milo felt fragile, in the beginning, pinned under Bisco’s arm to take shelter on the floor of his clinic—but Milo has shown his potential with how he handled the temple. It might be time to start him with the bow soon.
They're setting up camp under a tree—the pink-haired jellyfish girl is still with them, for some reason—and Bisco's about to go to sleep when Milo pulls him aside.
"Not so fast, Bisco,” he reprimands him. “I still need to treat you.”
Bisco shifts his weight, surreptitiously checking his arm out of the corner of his eye. The sleeve is still in place, pulled down all the way to the edge of his glove. “Treat… what?” he says slowly.
Milo levies him with a stern look. “Don’t tell me you didn’t get injured in the fight.”
“I was up the temple the whole time,” Bisco protests. “There wasn’t any time to get injured.”
“So,” he says, placing his hand on Bisco’s upper arm, “if you rolled your sleeve up…” He traces a line down to his forearm, hand coming to a rest only a few inches away from the scrape. “...here, I wouldn’t see anything?”
Bisco frowns. “How’d you figure it out?”
“I noticed that you’ve been trying to avoid putting pressure on it. Besides, you don’t usually wear your sleeves rolled out that low.” His fingers find the edge of Bisco’s sleeve. “Can I?”
Bisco nods brusquely. “Go ahead.”
Milo pushes his sleeve up, delicately folding it up above the scrape. Bisco shivers imperceptibly. The scrape isn’t even that bad—barely over an inch wide, not deep enough to really draw blood, but Milo treats it with the same sharp focus, as if it merited the same attention as a bullet wound.
Bisco knows from experience which kinds of wounds need to be dealt with and which ones won’t bother you if you leave them, and he’s used to disregarding the smaller ones in favor of conserving resources. But Milo is the type of person who wants to fix everything and treat everyone, who wants to ice every bruise and bandage every papercut.
Milo sticks on the band-aid, another neat little square, gently smoothing out the corners, and then he ducks his head down to kiss the bandage, feather-light, so quickly that Bisco would have doubted it happened if the spot wasn’t still tingling from Milo’s touch.
“There you go,” Milo says, standing up straight, and looks expectantly at Bisco’s forehead. “Now I just have to change your other bandage.”
He doesn’t know how Milo can just continue as if nothing happened. He reaches out to subtly touch the band-aid, face feeling warm, and looks away, hoping Milo won’t notice. “Leave it,” he says. “It hasn’t been that long.”
Milo shakes his head. “I’m already letting you go long enough as it is. You’re supposed to change the dressing every day to safeguard against infection.”
“It’s not that serious,” Bisco says. He’s been through worse. “Save your supplies."
Milo seizes him by the shoulder. "It's a bullet wound, Bisco! Even if it was just a graze, it's still in danger of infection. It's important to take care of it from the start, before it becomes harder to deal with, and trust me, you do not want that to become infected.” He breathes in, and his voice softens. "I'll buy more supplies once we reach Akita, okay?"
Akita. That’s right. After they reach Akita, get the mushroom, and go home, Milo will probably rebuild and return to his clinic. Even though they've known each other for such a little time, it's strange to think that in just another month or two, Milo will stop traveling with him and they could never see each other again.
Milo latches onto his silence and says, hopefully, “Are you thinking of the best way to say ‘yes, Milo, I’ll stop being stubborn and let you bandage me’?”
Bisco snorts. He’s one to talk—he’s just as stubborn as Bisco is, maybe more. “You’re not going to give up, are you?”
“No, I’m not,” Milo says firmly. Then, he braces his shoulders and says, cautiously. “You’re not going to try to knock me out, are you?”
Bisco cackles. “Why, d’you want me to?”
Milo flushes. “No,” he insists, “What I want is for you to let me change your bandage.”
Bisco looks at Milo, looks at the determined lift of his eyebrows, and decides that this is a losing battle. "Fine, if you say so.”
Bisco sits up in his covers, scooching over to make room. Milo explains, as he retrieves his supplies, about the one time Pawoo knocked him out, and by the time Milo is ready with the antibiotic, Bisco is convulsing with laughter.
They have to wait for him to calm down, which is harder done than said, especially with Milo staring reproachfully at him the whole time.
“It wasn’t that funny,” Milo mutters. He crouches down in front of Bisco, and Bisco reflexively lowers his head so Milo can reach. Milo meets his eyes for half of a second before directing his attention to Bisco’s head wound. “It might hurt a little,” he says.
“Just get it over with."
Milo cups the right side of Bisco’s face to brace him and peels the bandage off, so swiftly that it barely has time to hurt. He daubs it with antiseptic, waits a second, and then he’s covering it with a second bandage, smoothing it down with his thumb. Bisco is hyper-aware of their proximity, of Milo’s palm on his face, and wonders if Milo’s always been this touchy, tries to remember if he was this close when he first stitched it up.
“There, all done,” Milo says, but he doesn’t move, hands still lingering at the sides of his face, thumb lightly stroking the band-aid. Bisco wonders briefly if he’s going to kiss this wound, too, but then he hears footsteps and Milo lets go, leaning back to inspect his handiwork.
The jellyfish girl sidles up to Milo. “Doctor,” she sing-songs, “I think I have a headache. Could you look at me, too?”
“Of course,” Milo says, standing up, and Bisco watches him leave.
Milo is more than happy to take the reins on Akutagawa, and while Bisco’s glad for him, it leaves Bisco with nothing to do, other than aimlessly stare off Akutagawa’s back at the same repeating scenery. Akutagawa is steady but slow, and Bisco can’t help but compare it to how fast they could go if they had the mine carts.
After Milo changes Bisco’s bandage, they section off into their sleeping bags, and Bisco doesn’t move, staring up at the stars. He wishes they could use this time for travel, but it’s been hammered into him from experience that it’s not worth the risk to move and chance disturbing some of the more difficult night creatures.
From his left, he hears Milo breathing, slow and quiet, but not quite snoring. Bisco hears him shift and roll over, and he somehow doubts he’s sleeping, either. Bisco turns his head the other direction—Akutagawa, at least, seems to be sleeping soundly.
Maybe if he shoots a couple of arrows, he’ll be less restless. He climbs out of his sleeping bag and gets his bow out, and he’s picking out an arrow when he hears a voice. “Can’t sleep?”
Bisco turns around and sees Milo, sitting up with his covers bunched around him, rubbing at his eyes. From here, the black marks around his eye make it look like he has comically large eye shadows on half of his face.
“Nah.” Just in case, he asks, “Did I wake you?”
“No, you didn’t,” Milo says. “I’m having a hard time sleeping, too.” His lips press together and his eyes flicker to the side, avoiding Bisco’s gaze.
“What, nothing to do now that you don’t need to sneak out to practice with Akutagawa?”
Milo flushes, reaching up to tuck an errant strand of hair behind his ear. “You noticed that?”
Obviously. “We’re partners,” Bisco reminds him.
“Yeah,” Milo says, smiling a little. He leans forward a little. “Hey, is your head feeling okay?”
That came out of nowhere. “Huh? Yeah, it’s fine.”
Milo fidgets with his hands. “Are you sure?” He looks meaningfully at him. “Nothing I could help you with?”
Bisco scrutinizes him. What, does he think there’s something wrong with the bullet wound? Or does he—oh. “Actually,” he says, “I think I might be feeling a little bit of a headache coming on.”
Milo almost smiles. He gestures Bisco closer. “Can I?”
Bisco nods and joins Milo on his sleeping bag, settling into a sitting position. He takes off his cloak and sets it on his lap, exposing his bare shoulders to the chilly night air. Milo hesitates briefly before setting his hands on Bisco’s shoulders and starting to massage him. Bisco closes his eyes.
He’s starting to drift asleep when Milo speaks up. “I wonder if…” he says quietly, and trails off. He continues to rub Bisco’s shoulders, gradually increasing the pressure. Bisco waits for him to continue, but he doesn’t.
“What?”
“Never mind, it’s nothing,” Milo says.
“Spit it out,” Bisco says. "I told you, we're partners now. One person's problem is both of our problems."
Milo’s hands still momentarily before moving up to Bisco’s neck, lowering in pressure, becoming more gentle. “I’m just worried about Pawoo,” he says, barely audible. “I think she should have three months left, but that’s only if she takes the medicine, and I couldn’t even explain it to her in person.” He pauses and laughs awkwardly. “I hope she doesn’t think you kidnapped me, or something.”
Bisco relaxes his shoulders and thinks back to how he taunted Pawoo when they fought. And — yep, wow, she’s definitely gonna think he kidnapped him. Ha. He wishes she could have seen Milo beg to come with him. If anything, Milo reverse-kidnapped him.
“If she doesn’t take the medicine, that’s on her.”
“Bisco,” Milo chides.
Bisco sighs. “Look, it doesn’t matter if she takes the medicine or not. We’ll get the cure fast enough either way.”
Milo is silent, his thumbs continuing to rub circles around the same part of his neck. Moments later, he says, “Maybe you’re right.”
“There’s no ‘maybe,’” Bisco tells him. “I know what I’m doing.”
Milo pauses and absent-mindedly traces a line from beneath Bisco’s ear to the end of his shoulder. “And that’s why the mine carts got destroyed?” he says lightly.
“That was out of my control.”
Milo exhales and resumes the massage. “I know.” Quietly, he says, “If I had been a little faster, it probably would have…”
Bisco growls. “Don’t worry yourself over that, idiot panda. It was the damn temple’s fault. Maybe the jellyfish’s fault, if you really wanna point fingers.”
Milo doesn’t respond, just inches his fingers up to the nape of Bisco’s neck. “I’m going to take off your goggles now,” he says, and seconds later, the goggles unlatch, discarded onto the sleeping bag.
Milo starts to massage his scalp and Bisco sinks into his touch, closing his eyes again. “I mean it,” Bisco says. “Seriously, you’re doing way better than I thought you would.”
Milo hums, almost inaudibly.
The next night, after Milo changes Bisco’s bandages, he hovers around like he’s waiting for something, fingers lingering halfway withdrawn from Bisco’s face.
When Milo starts to pull away, Bisco says, “The sun’s always getting in my eyes, I think it gave me a headache.”
Milo brightens up a little and pats his sleeping bag.
The next day, Bisco tells him he has a headache before Milo even changes his bandages, and the day after that, he doesn’t even say anything, just sits down on Milo’s sleeping bag, and Milo gently rubs his shoulders.
It becomes their routine. Bisco would feel bad, relying on him this much, but Milo always looks so happy when he asks, he figures he’s probably doing him a favor, letting him act on his weird doctorly compulsion to constantly be caring for someone.
“Bisco. Bisco,” Milo says, and shakes Bisco’s shoulders. “You’re falling over on me. Are you asleep?”
Bisco sits up again, finding his balance, and rubs his eyelids. “No.” He opens his eyes blearily.
“You almost squished me,” Milo chides, and runs a finger around the shell of Bisco’s ear. “If you’re tired, you should just go to sleep.”
“I know,” Bisco says, trying and failing to hold back a yawn.
Milo laughs and lets go of Bisco. “Here, lie down.” He shifts into a kneeling position and pats his legs invitingly.
Bisco considers refusing for half a second before rolling onto his side and laying his head on Milo’s lap, facing away towards the endless expanses of grass. His arms bunch up awkwardly in front of his head.
Milo brushes the hair from his face, carding leisurely through the red strands. He starts to hum something, some unrecognizable lullaby, and Bisco almost drifts away, lulled near sleep by Milo’s fingers in his hair.
The humming stops, and Milo’s hands pause at the top of Bisco’s head. "When all of this is over,” he says, “you should come over to my clinic.” He twirls a lock of Bisco’s hair between his fingers. “I'll patch you up whenever you want, no charge."
Bisco breathes in and out slowly, almost pretends to be asleep, before finally responding. His throat closes up a little, but he manages to say, “Sure, if I find the time.”
The kids’ prison is about as comfortable as one would think, by which he means his back and wrists are already getting sore. He wishes Milo was here with him. He hopes he’s at least being treated better.
He looks up out of the prison and calls, “Could you brats at least be polite enough to imprison me with my partner?”
Their leader—Nuts, he thinks his name was—looks down at him. “Why?” he asks, suspicious. “You trying to escape?”
He can escape with or without Milo here with him, but the kids don’t need to know that. “Well, he can do this amazing thing with his hands that—”
“Ew,” Nuts says, wrinkling his nose. “Why are you telling this to a bunch of kids?”
“What are you—” Oh. Bisco scowls and cups his hands around his mouth to yell, “That’s not what I meant!”
“Adults are so weird,” Nuts mutters. Louder, he says, “No, we’re not letting you be with your boyfriend.”
He’s a little impatient when the kids finally let them go. When Milo sits down on his bedding and pats the space in front of him, Bisco scrambles into place, trying not to look too eager.
Milo peels off the bandage and inspects the wound carefully. “I think the stitches are ready to come out now.”
“Already?” It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long, although he can recount with vivid detail every time Milo has leaned in, only inches away, to cradle his face and change the bandage.
Milo nods. “But my scissors aren’t clean right now, so we’d have to wait for them to sterilize in boiling water.”
Bisco almost groans. “Can you do it tomorrow?”
“If you want,” Milo says. He leans away and turns to his case to get the antibiotic. “Why? Feeling sleepy?”
Bisco shrugs his shoulders, restless. “My head hurts.”
“Aww,” Milo says, peeling the plastic from the band-aid. He sticks it on carefully. “Okay, we can massage you first.” He lowers his hand, and Bisco turns around.
Milo sinks his fingers into the back of Bisco’s shoulders, and Bisco exhales, deeply. “I’ve been waiting for this,” he says without meaning to.
He hears Milo laugh softly into his ear. “You’re so needy,” he says fondly.
Milo changes angles, and Bisco leans backward into his touch. “‘M not,” he grumbles.
“You’re like a cat,” Milo continues, and pets his hair like he is one, “or a crab. All sharp and tough on the outside, even though you’re so sweet on the inside.”
Bisco wonders how Milo can look at him—rough and demanding, foul mouth and calloused fingers—and get ‘sweet’ out of it. “That’s a shitty metaphor,” Bisco grumbles, but Milo’s fingers feel good pressing down like that, so he’s not really complaining.
“And to think you’re a wanted criminal,” Milo says, rubbing circles into Bisco’s neck. “I can’t believe people think you’re a cannibal, even though you’re this cute.” To accentuate his point, he reaches out and smushes Bisco’s face.
“Stohp it,” Bisco mumbles, and Milo laughs and lets go. “Stop teasing me, you pushy panda.”
Milo strokes Bisco’s hair and tilts his head backward to massage his forehead. “Well, we are partners,” he says.
Milo takes to archery with enthusiasm and a persistent dedication. He practices every moment he can find, mostly when Bisco is scavenging for food or preparing a meal. Bisco even had to drag him to bed to stop him from staying up practicing last night.
He’s making slow but steady progress. Nowhere near the precision he’ll need in a fight, but he’s at least close more often than not, and the best experience comes from the battlefield, anyways.
“Dinner’s ready,” Bisco calls, and Milo releases the arrow he was pulling back. Milo watches it land a couple of feet in front of the target and turns around to Bisco, a little sheepish.
Bisco starts to hand him a bowl of soup but stops short when he notices how raw and shiny the finger pads of his right hand are.
“You’ve got blisters,” Bisco points out. It’s been such a long time since his last archery blister, he’d practically forgotten about them—he was pretty thick-skinned from the start, so it wasn’t that much of a problem. In a way, it’s almost impressive that Milo’s gotten blisters on three of his fingers this fast.
Milo looks down quickly at his hand, as if seeing the blisters for the first time. “Oh,” he says, and quickly pulls his hand away to hide behind his back. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of them.”
“I can do it,” Bisco says.
Milo hesitates and shakes his head. “You don’t have to,” he protests. “I can take care of myself.”
“So can I,” Bisco says, jutting his chin out. “I took care of the old man just fine before we met you.”
Milo gazes at him thoughtfully before relenting. “Okay, fine. The supplies are in my case.”
Bisco sets the bowl of soup down and lays the case open. His eyes wander to the collection of needles. “Do I have to puncture it?”
Milo laughs a little. “No, it’s not serious enough for that. You only have to bandage them. I have band-aids in the right—yes, and to the left a little—yeah.”
Bisco takes out one, two, three band-aids, one for each blister. Milo holds his hand out, fingers spread, and Bisco peels the first band-aid. He matches the padded part with the blister and wraps the ends snugly around Milo’s ring finger.
“Um,” Milo chokes out. "A little too tight, Bisco."
"Whatever, you can take it," Bisco mutters, but he loosens the band-aid anyways, carefully peeling off the sticky flaps, and rewraps it, this time more loosely. Milo doesn’t complain this time, so he assumes it’s fine and bandages the middle and index fingers. "This okay?"
"Yeah," he says, smiling. He adds, tongue in cheek, "Your bedside manner is terrible, though."
"I'll show you terrible," Bisco says. He lifts up Milo’s hand, lowers his head, and presses a kiss to the back of Milo’s ring finger, right over the band-aid, like Milo kissed his arm the other day. His heart thrums, illogically quick, in his chest.
Bisco lets go, but Milo’s hand just stays there, motionless. Bisco looks up to see that Milo’s a little wide-eyed, face flushed red.
"What?"
Milo pauses. "Just a little unexpected, that’s all," Milo says faintly. He looks down at his hands, spreading and moving his fingers almost reverently.
"What about it?" Bisco snaps. He feels his face warm and ducks his head, averting his eyes. “Anyways,” he says, clearing his throat, “you should make sure that your elbow isn’t too high when you’re pulling back the drawstring, or it’ll put more pressure on your fingers.”
Milo lowers his arm and nods. “Thank you.”
Milo insisted that Bisco stay behind while he visited the nearby village for supplies. Bisco had tried to convince him to let him tag along, offering to at least help carry stuff, but Milo had that look in his eyes, the same one he had when he insisted on treating Bisco’s head wound, so Bisco quickly gave in.
He tries to practice archery a little, but finding new trees to aim at becomes too much effort. He keeps thinking of Milo, wondering how much time has passed, wondering if he should be back by now. Knowing him, he probably took a detour to cure half the village of something.
He slings his bow over his shoulder and stands in front of Akutagawa. “He’s probably fine,” he tells the crab, who makes a noise of assent. “Why am I so worried about him, anyways? He can take care of himself.”
He tends to act irrationally, different, around Milo. They’ve only known each other for a little while, but he’s never comforted—or been comforted by—someone so much, and he’s never been this affected by medical treatment. He doesn’t blush when Jabi tends to his wounds, but then again, Jabi doesn’t bring his face in that close, doesn’t touch him that tenderly, doesn’t sound that gentle.
“Do you think I’m sick?” he asks.
Akutagawa clicks and nudges him gently with a pincer.
“I don’t know,” Bisco says.
Akutagawa looks at him reproachfully.
“You’re probably right,” he says, covering his face with his hands. He breathes in deeply, but his voice cracks a little when he says, “I think I like him.”
Akutagawa tilts his head a little.
“No, I’m not gonna tell him,” Bisco scoffs. He can imagine how Milo would react, smiling politely, trying to find the gentlest way to let him down. He wouldn’t begrudge him for it, of course, but it would sour their relationship, make things awkward.
Akutagawa clicks his disagreement.
“It’s a waste of time, anyways,” Bisco tells him. “We need to focus on getting the cure.”
Akutagawa headbutts him gently, and Bisco rests his arm on Akutagawa’s head. Quietly, he admits, “We probably won’t even see each other again after this is over.”
Because, for all his grand talk about them being partners, connected even in death, their partnership is provisional. Milo’s just filling in for Jabi, so naturally, once Jabi is cured, he’ll return his spot and Milo will return to his clinic, where he belongs, and Bisco will be back to traveling all over Japan, never staying for long in the same place. He can’t imagine only seeing Milo once or twice a year, the lost time furthering the gap between them until they become strangers, unrecognizable to each other. It’ll be easier to cut him off cleanly.
Akutagawa clicks sadly and pulls him in with a pincer into what has got to be the world’s weirdest hug, and Bisco stays there, head pressed into Akutagawa’s claw until Milo taps him gently on the back, holding a bag of groceries.
They pass the rest of the day in silence. Bisco lays down on Akutagawa’s back, staring up at the annoyingly bright blue sky, while Milo takes the reins.
Milo remains quiet, even as he peels off the bandage. He crumples the band-aid in his hand, staring at Bisco’s forehead. His lips are pressed together, but his usual focus is gone. He’s just sitting there, staring.
Bisco starts to feel antsy under his gaze. “What is it? You have some kind of problem?”
Milo shakes his head mutely, and then lowers his hands to his side. His cheeks are a little flushed. “No, not a problem. I think your wound should be good to go, now.”
“Oh,” Bisco says. He raises a hand to his head, rubbing his finger over the skin. It’s almost smooth, only a little rougher than its surroundings. He’s not sure he would even notice it if he didn’t already know it was there.
It’s scary how quickly time passes. He had gotten used to the bandage, and he had gotten used to Milo taking care of it each night, applying antibiotics or massaging it with oil after the stitches were removed, but now it’s gone, just like that. He feels a little queasy.
Milo must mistake his discomfort for something else, because he says, “There’s a little scar, but it’s only noticeable if you look closely, I promise.”
He watches Bisco nervously, searching for dissatisfaction, and Bisco realizes that even though Milo has been tirelessly taking care of his wound every night, he hasn’t even thanked him since the first time he stitched it up.
“Thank you, Milo,” Bisco says, and forces a smile, trying to show how much he means it.
“No problem,” Milo says. His cheeks pinken a little, but he still seems nervous. He doesn’t meet Bisco’s gaze.
“You sure nothing’s wrong?”
Milo looks up, startled. “Um,” he says. His fingers curl into his cloak. “I heard you talking to Akutagawa.”
Bisco stiffens, mouth going dry. It explains why Milo’s been acting so uncomfortable. “What part?” he asks, but he has a feeling he already knows.
“A lot of it, I think. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but you mentioned being sick, so I thought…”
So this is it. Milo’s going to reject him. He feels oddly calm, like free-falling and knowing there’s nothing he can do to stop it. They’ll only be together for a month or two, he reminds himself. He can last the awkwardness. “Oh,” Bisco says.
Milo’s eyebrows furrow. “That’s all you have to say?”
Bisco avoids meeting his gaze, eyes landing on Akutagawa, instead. He wonders if Akutagawa knew that Milo was there, listening. He probably did, the traitor. “I think you already heard enough.”
Milo seizes him by the arms. “You’re really not planning on visiting my clinic?” he asks, hands shaking slightly. “You’re just going to leave me.” His fingers bunch up in the cloth of Bisco’s sleeves. He looks up at Bisco, eyes fierce, but his voice comes out quiet, unsure. “You don’t even want to try?”
“Does it matter?” Bisco snaps. “You and your clinic will be better off without you hanging around a man everyone thinks is some kind of evil cannibalistic terrorist.”
“Do you really think I care about that?” Milo says, and Bisco looks back, almost involuntarily. Milo leans in, so close that he’s only a breath away, his grip on Bisco’s arms tightening. “Maybe I’d rather try,” he says.
Bisco swallows, mind racing ahead of him, desperately trying to connect the dots favorably. “Try what, exactly?”
“You could start by visiting me, for one,” Milo says, burying his head into Bisco’s shoulder.
Bisco breathes in. “If Governor Kurokawa lets me,” he scoffs.
“I don’t care what he says,” Milo mumbles into Bisco’s shoulder.
“Okay, fine,” Bisco says, carefully wrapping his arms back around Milo. “If I have to, I’ll break the law to sneak into your clinic.”
“You’d better.”
Bisco leans into Milo’s shoulder, getting a faceful of blue hair. He hopes Milo can’t feel how quick his pulse is, and then, desperately, he hopes he can. “And?” he asks.
“And?” Milo repeats, muffled.
“You said you heard all of it, right?” Bisco says. His hands grasp at the fabric on Milo’s back. “Isn’t there—” His voice breaks off. “I don’t know, anything else you want to do?”
“Maybe,” Milo says, lifting his face from where it was buried into Bisco’s cloak. He puts a hand on Bisco’s shoulder, leaning closer, and cups his face. “I don’t know,” he says quietly, brushing a thumb under Bisco’s lip. “I couldn’t be sure I didn’t mishear you.”
Bisco swallows. Saying it to Akutagawa is one thing, but saying it to Milo is a completely different challenge. He opens his mouth, but the words don’t form. Milo watches him expectantly, still clinging onto Bisco’s shoulder, still half-caressing Bisco’s face. Bisco tells himself that Milo probably—probably—wouldn’t be doing that if he was planning on rejecting him.
“I think I like you,” Bisco says. He barely hears himself speak.
“And?”
“Guess,” says Bisco.
Milo’s mouth twitches upward. “Can you close your eyes for me?” he asks. He’s using his doctor voice, soft and gentle, but it has a teasing lilt to it.
One second Bisco is closing his eyes, and the next, Milo is leaning closer, his bangs tickling Bisco’s face, and then the gap is bridged and Bisco can’t think about anything but the warmth of Milo’s mouth and the way he presses up into Bisco. One of Milo’s hands finds Bisco’s shoulder, fingers curling into the fabric of Bisco’s cloak, and Bisco wraps his hands around Milo’s head, fingers carding through Milo’s hair.
He realizes, belatedly, that Milo hasn’t said the words back to him, but he figures that they can do that later. They have all the time they need after they save the world, after all.