Milo’s lip curled in an involuntary growl at her laugh. She was an inch away from fucking cackling, for Deathsakes, and she expected him not to be suspicious of her? Not a chance in hell. Of course, she probably did not know that she was talking to quite possibly of the most paranoid people ever born.
What the… child?! Did he look like a freaking child? He actually kind of wished he could look a bit younger, for fuck’s sake! Damn it all, half his life was over and the rest would be all down hill into disability and dementia. Between his burnt-out boyfriend, his spineless maggot of a son, and the pressure he put on himself to be as tough as he tried to be, he was old before his time.
“Are you blind and stupid, or do you just call everyone ‘child’?�
He looked down at her and felt something between horror and disgust when she knelt in front of him. Death almighty, was that supposed to look seductive? Of course he was aware that he was somewhat of a pathetic sight himself, but fuck… she had to have more common sense than that!
“Wish-granting, eh? Is that what happened to that guy?� asked Milo as he made a gesture toward the cadaver that had started this whole mess. “I’ll have you know, for starters, that I don’t trust any woman farther than I can throw her- and especially not one with no name. Second, acting all alluring and seductive around me won’t do you much good, because if you haven’t figured it out by now I’m more interested in finding Romeo than Juliet.�
He reached up to trap her wrist in an iron grip when her finger started to get too close to his chin. Woah there, bad kitty! He hated having his personal space invaded like that. Even Lysi would be lucky to get anything more than a pat on the hand from him on most days, he certainly wasn’t going to let some bloody stranger touch his face. If it weren’t for the fact that he was already leaning against a wall, his leg still didn’t feel any better, and it would have been taken as a sign of fear, he would have stepped back.
Oh great, she just had to use the word “stumbling�! Couldn’t she see that he was humiliated enough already?
“Yeah, fate my ass, and that’s what fate can kiss too.� There was a slight hiss of pain in his voice that made it sound even more aggressive than usual, but also more pitiful. Family and friends always did tell him he was more cranky after the… accident… that left him crippled. “Try thinking of it as something called sheer blind coincidence. I’m out late at night, in a strange city, I shouldn’t be, and I tripped over a corpse. Big deal.� For all he knew, she was probably the one who killed the poor bugger to begin with. It certainly looked suspicious to just be casually limping along, minding one’s own business, and suddenly encounter a woman standing over a dead body who immediately offered to do you any favour you wanted for a price. It was just… fishy. Very, very fishy.
Throughout the entire conversation his eyes, which perhaps should have been wide with shock, rolling in exasperation, blazing with anger or even radiant with hope were none of these things. They remained as glossy as they were before she had spoken to him, and it would not have been hard to believe that he was actually blind, except that he blinked like a normal person would. But he was not blind, or at least not in a literal sense of the word. He was just… consumed by his own beliefs, so much so that he always had a hypnotized look about him like someone who walked in their sleep. He had brainwashed himself.
He frowned- or, perhaps, he really tried to grin and ending up grimacing- at her whispered words, although his eyes remained unchanged. “Of course there is, my dear. Everyone has something they desire, I bet, even you. But if you want me to tell you, you’ll have to try harder than that.�
(Oooh I would LOVE to see a picture! And hey, I bet its probably better than you give ourself credit for. People are always so self-critical about their drawing.)
