02

THE THING ABOUT FATE is that it doesn't like to be ignored. No matter how hard you push against it, it always finds a way to push back.

Milo's headache blooms slowly at first, nothing but a dull pain. But then the volume of the diner begins to creep up, as though someone's turning an invisible dial. He takes a slow sip of what's left of his milkshake. Unsurprisingly, it does nothing. He thinks it must be fatigue; sleep has always had a way of evading him.

But it's getting worse.

Dull pain ebbs into a sharp, throbbing stab that makes him hiss in pain. He almost doesn't hear Anais's voice over the mounting cacophony that's beginning to fill his ears.

"Milo?"

He tries to shake the mounting dread that's beginning to creep beneath his skin. These feelings are not his own, they don't belong to him.

Why does his head hurt so damn much?

"Sorry," he manages, averting his eyes from Anais. "Migraine."

This does not feel like a migraine.

Milo is no stranger to unprecedented headaches, but they are nothing like this. This feels like his skull's being chiselled away from the inside-out.

Anais puts a hand over his clenched fist, "Do we need to go?" she asks softly. The way she speaks sounds so unlike herself it does nothing but worsen Milo's current dysphoria.

He doesn't see it happen, but when he looks up at her, Anais' hair is no longer hair, but tangled thorns cutting her pallid cheeks, painting them with a deep crimson. Her eyes have turned an inky, soulless black, her already pale skin draining of colour until she is nothing more than a ghostly, shapeless form; something that barely exists, something on the precipice of disappearing altogether.

Milo is too afraid to speak.

His ears fill with the sound of pouring rain.

He blinks and she is Anais again; bright green eyes, flushed cheeks that make her look constantly flustered. She is real.

This is real.

The neon lights are too bright, bleeding blues and violets and fuschia into each other until colour becomes white and absent altogether. He knows everything is loud, but he can't hear anything at all. Time is static. Time is flexible. His thoughts are about nothing and everything.

He needs to leave; get his head on straight.

"It's fine. I just–" Unable to finish his thoughts, let alone his sentences, Milo gestures vaguely across the diner. "I'll be back," he blurts, rising unsteadily from his chair, pushing aside the wave of vertigo that threatens to topple him like a young deer.

He makes a beeline for the bathroom.

- ✧ -

As Milo stumbles through the door, pain is a blade searing sharp and fast behind his eyes. With his back to the wall, he lets himself sink to the floor with a dejected groan, holding his head in his hands.

He doesn't know why, but he is aware that the pain isn't his. It's strong and real and there, but it doesn't belong to him.

And then it stops.

Milo looks up from his still shaking hands and discovers he is not alone. Sitting opposite him is a boy who is almost a reflection of himself, only paler. Much paler. His back is also to the wall; head tilted back, eyes closed, jaw clenched. He doesn't move.

Milo doesn't know whether he should speak and make his presence known or leave and pretend he was never here. His thoughts are still molten and his head throbs gently, almost rhythmically. A distant memory of pain.

Milo clears his throat. The boy stirs. His features are entirely dark—dark eyes, dark brows—and completely at odds with his startling white-blond hair. It's striking in a way that's unsettling, until Milo realises that he is not in the presence of a mere boy, but rather, an Iverson boy. A poster child for old money and privilege; a potential heir in the making.

Not a boy. A god.

When he looks at Milo, Milo swears his eyes darken even further. A shadow over a dark lake. Milo looks away, which is difficult given the limited space the male restroom provides. He wipes his sweating palms on his worn jeans and thinks that he should probably get off the floor, that he should probably leave. Only, he doesn't think he'll be able to stand; every muscle in his body seems to ache.

And so silence stretches taught between them. It's deafening until the moment it snaps.

The Iverson boy is the one to break it, his voice low and somewhat strained. "You look like shit."

Milo isn't as startled nor offended by the remark as he feels he should be, though he's not surprised given the dullness of his senses. He also doesn't doubt that this observation is true and finds himself somewhat grateful that he can't see himself in any mirrors from his vantage point on the tiled floor.

"You're not looking too great yourself," Milo finds himself replying, his own voice distant in his ears, as though he's miles away from his body.

Maybe it's the bathroom's sickly fluorescent light, or simply the fact that both parties have witnessed each other at their lowest, but the longer Milo looks, the harder it becomes for him to imagine the boy sitting before him—eyes vaguely bloodshot, face as grim as death itself—as anything more than himself.

Not a god. Just a boy.

Milo considers saying something else but his already scattered thoughts become further disbanded by the sudden opening of the restroom door. He winces at the volume of the entrance.

"Milo, I called Val."

It takes Milo's brain a moment to process the voice as belonging to Anais. He thinks to ask her what she's doing in the male bathroom, but he's too slow to get his words in before she does.

"She's driving us home."

Milo is struck by a wave of nausea and panic seeps back into his thoughts all over again. No, he thinks, nononono–

"Anais," he croaks, "I'm fine. We don't have to–"

Before he can finish his sentence, Anais hooks her arms under Milo's and hauls him to his feet. He considers protesting her aid but decides against it when he finds himself hardly able to stand.

"Sorry to intrude like this," Anais chirps to the ghostly Iverson boy without a hint of sincerity, barely sparing him a glance. "Come on Mi, you're a hot mess."

Having lost any semblance of strength to argue, Milo nods tersely in defeat. Wrapping an arm around him and propping the door open with her foot, Anais guides an unprotesting Milo out of the bathroom, leaving the diner and the Iverson boy behind.