It took a few seconds before Alex’s words perforated the sudden cloud strangling his thoughts. “You… what?”

Alex tsked, visibly irritated. “Hallowe’en costume party. Work. On Hallowe’en. We’re going, aren’t we?”

“Why?” His mouth felt stuffed with cotton wool; his throat didn’t want to co-operate. “We haven’t been before.”

“Because the world felt the need to turn to shit every single previous time.” Alex propped his head on his palms, his elbows on his desk, and gave Milos the kind of look that made his stomach flip for all the wrong reasons. The reasons he’d associated with Alex when they first met. “Like the time you abandoned everyone and while I was off fetching you someone decided to try to murder our co-workers. Although I can only assume they didn’t hold one that year.”

“Oh.” Sensible words failed him. “Do… do we have to?”

Alex stared at him until Milos couldn’t meet that abyssal gaze any longer. “There’s a problem with that?”
Milos swallowed painfully and found himself re-reading paperwork he’d already spent the last hour studying. It said exactly what it’d said an hour ago. “No. I’ve got rooms to paint though.”

“You don’t know what day it is.”

“I’ve got a lot of rooms to paint.”

Without moving his chin from his palms, Alex leant forward and stared so hard at Milos he felt colour flush through to the tips of his ears. “Why are you trying so hard to get out of this?”

Get out of it? He wasn’t aware he was in it in the first place. “I’m — I’m not. But—”

“You’ve had weeks to start painting.”

The file was three years old and he knew it off by heart from the times Alex tested him on it, but it became the most fascinating thing in the room. “I only got approval for it last week.”

“You walked into Nazarian’s office and asked, and that was only because I made you.”

Milos wished he’d heard a hint of amusement in Alex’s voice. The cold logic set his nerves on edge. “Yeah, and now I’ve got it—”

“Tell me why you’re avoiding it.”

“I’m not avoiding it!” Milos shouted, loud enough he knew Nazarian would be wincing down the hall. “I just don’t fucking want to go!” And, after taking a deep breath, he continued, “you keep trying to take me to these things and I don’t want to go! I don’t know anyone! People talk at me out of pity and give me drinks I don’t want, then they get bored and go and talk to more interesting people and leave me standing like a fucking idiot all alone. And why the fuck would I want to go in costume, when I’m already a fucking monster?” He flashed his claws at Alex without even thinking about it, the crushing pain from the first awful transformations now little more than a twinge. “Like they didn’t think I was before this!”

“Half the department are just like us,” Alex said, with the exaggerated patience that usually preceded a smack around the back of the head. “It’s just a bit of fun.”

“How is it fun?” Milos asked bitterly. “How is one single thing about Hallowe’en fun?”

Alex opened his mouth, then closed it again, but his dark eyes never once left Milos’s face and Milos had the awful feeling Alex was assessing him. Even after all this time, assessing him was dangerous. Assessing led to the completion of forms Marrok started six months ago, and a long walk toward Research. “So… I can’t persuade you, then?”

Heat blasted through him again; he knew the tips of his ears had to be a vivid purple. Slowly, so as to forcibly suppress the urge to throw the file at Alex, then all the stationery in his desk, and then the chair, he rose from his seat and strode from the room.

If he didn’t take out his pent-up fury on something that wasn’t human — or whatever it was the Skilled counted as — he’d be heading to Research within half an hour, leaving a mauled Alex in his wake.

* * *

The pool received his attention once he reached the staff gym. Cutting through the water with long, powerful strokes soothed his bubbling anger and pushed all his muscles into aching surrender, and the vigorous towelling-down he gave himself after expunged the last of his temper, along with rubbing himself raw in several places.

The office was quiet when he returned. For one blessed moment Milos thought it was empty, that he could slink back in and pretend that his explosive exit had never happened; a quiet click-clack had him almost swallowing his tongue in fright. Alex was behind a laptop — Milos swallowed again, even more painfully. Alex hated computers. Alex usually left using them to Milos, although Milos couldn’t help his suspicion it was mostly so Alex could point and laugh when things inevitably went wrong.

Still, his attention was fixed firmly on the screen, so if Milos was quiet enough, kept his head down, then he might be able to sneak past and into his seat before Alex noticed. Feign ignorance, say he’d been there ages and he’d be fine—

“You’re back sooner than I expected.”

Alex hadn’t even looked up, so Milos consoled himself with the knowledge that he hadn’t — Milos hoped — seen how he froze mid-step. “Went for a swim.”

He could just imagine the head-to-toe shudder occurring behind Alex’s table, and took the opportunity to start for his desk again.

“You still haven’t given me an answer.”

He was a heartbeat from spinning on his heel and leaving again, and wished wholeheartedly that he’d brought his wet towel with him to pitch at the bastard’s head. “No. How about that for an answer. No, I don’t want to go to a fucking Hallowe’en party.”

“That’s all I wanted to know,” Alex said mildly, without looking up.

“Then you got what you wanted.” Milos flung himself into his seat, and winced as the seat promptly issued a loud, squeaking complaint. Better oil that before Alex got any ideas — any further ideas.

“Mm.” Another series of clacks, more rapid than Milos expected, but it wasn’t like Alex did anything anywhere below excellence; why was he in any way surprised Alex’s typing speed was phenomenal? “And the rest of the conversation?”

The file was exactly where he’d left it. Milos had half-expected Alex to have replaced it in its cabinet while he was away. At least it gave him more than the bare desk to stare at while he continued to avoid this fucking discussion. “What conversation?”

“Why you’re avoiding Hallowe’en.”

Milos seriously considered simply picking up his chair and hurling it this time. Yes, it’d sail through him and bounce off the wall, and Milos would have to explain the resulting crash, dent and scuff to Nazarian, but he was pretty sure his supervisor would understand. He was pretty sure Nazarian harboured much the same urge. “Why are you so interested? It’s none of your business.”

God, he hoped Alex wouldn’t want to come home with him. Sharing a house with him — better than a two-room bedsit, but not by much — when they were both in this mood seemed like a special kind of hell he wasn’t prepared to endure.

“You know I won’t stop asking.”

Fuck, yes, he knew. It didn’t mean he felt like sharing.

“I’m waiting.”

It was so tempting to ball the whole file up and pitch it at Alex’s head. The resulting pain wouldn’t be worth it, but it’d make him feel much, much better in the short term and that very almost made it appealing. He stared sullenly down at it instead, at the lines of text so familiar he could recite them in his sleep.

“And you know I won’t stop asking.”

“No, you won’t, will you?” Milos said, so softly he barely heard it himself. Alex made no indication he’d heard: no cock of the head to hear it better, no squint as he processed the words; he stared at his screen and continued to tap, tap, tap. Anyone else and Milos was sure they’d miss things; he knew Alex heard everything and he’d certainly heard that. Milos stared at the pages and wished he wasn’t sure his ears had flushed red again.

Silence reigned, with only the rattle of tapping to his right to break it in small barrages, and when he glanced up from under his eyelashes Alex’s attention was focused solely on the screen. They passed a perfectly silent ten minutes of Alex working and Milos staring in futile hope that the human would stand up and take the laptop away again so he could escape a second time, before the silent pressure the human exerted finally got to him. “Why’s it such a big deal why I don’t want to go anyway?”

“It’s not a big deal,” Alex said, so innocently Milos choked and very almost coughed all over the file. “But it seems to be affecting you badly, and I’ve seen first-hand what happens when something upsets you.”

Like he needed that reminder. He stared still longer at the papers until they formed one amorphous blob. “I don’t…” But there’d be no escaping it, would there? Alex didn’t let things drop, he’d get it out of him at some point or another. Better here, now, where he could run home, lock the door behind him and hide under the quilt until all those awful memories of two years ago subsided again.

And, finally, Alex’s black eyes were locked on him again.

Where the hell did he begin? “It’s not a good time to be homeless,” he muttered eventually, staring back down at the folder. Easier to sort the papers again (and again, and again) than to look at the other man. He waited for Alex to speak — sometimes it seemed he had a congenital need to make some ridiculous comment or other — but the office was quiet. Milos wasn’t sure it helped. “So many people in masks because they think it’s fun, going out and getting drunk and… you know, those masks make people anonymous. You can’t see them, you can’t identify them. And they’re drunk, so they don’t care.”

Alex remained silent.

Milos laughed bitterly; it sounded like it came from far off, from someone that wasn’t him. “And some of them were drunk enough they wanted a fumble in a dark alleyway and that’s okay, I mean, I’m used to that, right? And some wanted to play ‘kick the dokkalfa’ because that’s fun too, isn’t it? It’s not like I can identify them. And some, once—” The words caught in his throat. It was tempting to leave them there, leave them unsaid, but he didn’t think Alex would be satisfied. “And once a group of them decided to hire me. Share me.” An involuntary shudder rippled through him. “Only made that fucking mistake once.”

The silence continued. When he glanced up and across, Alex’s eyes were still fixed on him and his expression remained unreadable. “Okay.”

“‘Okay’?” Milos snorted. “That’s you giving me permission to not go to this stupid fucking party?”

“No. Just okay. I wasn’t going to make you go anyway.” With that he returned his attention to the laptop and the rattle of keys danced towards Milos yet again.

The files were arranged into the correct order, with the top sheet ready to hide them from view, all waiting for the cover to close on them and the filing cabinet to engulf them. If he’d told anyone else, the counsellors, Nazarian, anyone, they’d have made sympathetic noises and tried to offer more help than Milos knew what to do with and wasn’t sure he could cope with. But Alex, when he wasn’t making sarcastic remarks about Milos’s history, just accepted it. And why wouldn’t he, when his past was even worse than Milos’s in so many different ways?
And despite everything it felt like a weight off his shoulders he hadn’t realised he was carrying.

He still wasn’t going to the fucking party though.

* * *

The third knock at the door within the hour almost had him diving behind the couch. Only the bored voice, loud despite the solid wood and the doorway between them, had him scrambling for the latch instead. “If you don’t answer the door I’ll just walk straight through it, you know that.”

Which would be a stupid idea, Milos very almost said aloud as he flicked the catch and undid the chain, and somehow restrained himself to, “I don’t want you having a nosebleed all over my sofa.”

Shielded from the patter of the light rain by the porch, suit jacket crumpled by the laptop carrier strap diagonally bisecting his chest, Alex glared at him and thrust out a white plastic bag. “Hurry up and let me in, it’s fucking freezing.”

Milos took the surprisingly heavy bag without a word and stepped aside to let the muttering human into the hall. What the hell was Alex doing here?

“You’re just going to stand there?” Alex slid free from the strap and shrugged the jacket from his shoulders, scowling at the creased fabric. The long-sleeved and close-fitting dark blue T-shirt this revealed, along with the black jeans, weren’t quite what Milos had expected. “Some of that needs to go in the oven.”

Milos took the hint and ambled into the kitchen, plonking the bag on the counter and pulling it open, curious despite himself. Two hard plastic tubs, ready meals of some sort; a large bag of popcorn along with a pack of miscellaneous snacks; a small bottle of top-shelf whisky that he knew was for Alex alone. “What’s this in aid of? You normally eat whatever I’ve got in the freezer.”

“My turn.” Milos almost jumped out his skin at the sudden nearness of the voice: Alex leaned against the kitchen door frame, watching Milos with serious eyes. “And also you’ve got shit taste in food. If you’re not gonna do it…” He pushed past Milos to turn on the oven.

Milos turned over the bag of snacks, eyebrows raised. “They make Hallowe’en-shaped crisps now?”

“That was all they had.” A bowl swum into Milos’s view. It took him a moment to follow the arm holding it, up to Alex’s face with what Milos would swear was the hint of a smile. “Put them in that, we’re going to eat like civilised people tonight.”

“Civilised ready meals, eh?” Milos pulled open the bag and did as instructed as Alex leaned around him to pick up the plastic cartons and set to following the cooking instructions. It was strangely cosy, strangely comforting, both of them working side by side in the kitchen. “Is there really such a thing?”

“I guess we’ll find out.” For one brief second Alex’s hands settled on Milos’s waist; his mouth pressed to the back of Milos’s neck, warm against the bumps of his spine. Milos shivered, breath catching, and Alex was gone again, to fetch down a pair of glasses and retrieve the cola from the fridge. Milos was pouring the popcorn into a second bowl when the doorbell rang again, and only Alex’s quick, apparently unconscious reflex caught it before it hit the counter and skittered onto the floor. “If you drew the curtains, it’d be a lot easier to pretend you weren’t in.”

“I can’t get used to the curtains,” Milos muttered, grabbing the bowl from Alex’s hand again. “I keep forgetting they’re there.”

“Luckily,” Alex said, “I drew them when I put my laptop in the living room so we’ll just, I don’t know, pretend you’re deaf or something.” He tugged hard on the tip of one of Milos’s ears; he was so familiar with the sudden shock of pain he barely let out a sound. “It’s near enough true anyway.”

The doorbell rang again, and Alex stared at him so expectantly Milos was half-tempted to drop the bowl again just to give him something to do. “Why is your laptop in the living room?”

“Because you don’t have the sense to buy a fucking TV yet. Dinner will have finished cooking in 20 minutes.” Before he could object, Alex scooped up the second bowl in one hand and seized his shoulder with the other, and used it to steer him into the living room. He didn’t even stop when Milos tried to freeze, wide-eyed, and only released him again when he’d plonked Milos onto the sofa in front of the peculiar concoction of double-stacked TV-dinner tables that precariously held Alex’s laptop.

Milos eyed it nervously. “That…”

“…is what you get for not even having a fucking coffee table, Christ almighty. I had to improvise.” Alex sat beside him, close enough their elbows grazed with every breath. It was a nicer feeling than Milos would have ever considered two years before. “Later we’re going to go through the Ikea site and order you a—” he stared around, at the stack of paint tins and paraphernalia in the corner, at the empty walls and empty dining space, and then up at the ceiling and the way their voices echoed in the almost-empty living room; “—a bloody house or something.”

Ah yes, with the money Alex kept telling him he had but he couldn’t wrap his thoughts around the complicated idea of. Instead of answering, he stole a fluffy piece of popcorn from the bowl on Alex’s knee, deftly avoiding the slap at the back of his hand as he did so. From Alex’s grudging grunt, he was at least satisfied Milos’s training was finally starting to pay off. This time when the doorbell sounded, his flinch was much reduced.

Alex noticed anyway, he could tell from the shifting of weight beside him, the sudden contact of elbow to elbow and the quick glance from the corner of his eye.

Having him there helped. Knowing he wasn’t alone, that Alex was beside him if anyone tried to recreate those awful homeless Hallowe’ens, did a lot more to calm the hammering of his heart than any ostensible security in the lock and chain on the door.

They ate on the sofa following dinner’s announcement by a buzzer Milos didn’t even know the oven had, and Milos propped himself against Alex afterwards as they made their way through the stack of DVDs Alex brought with him. Alex’s arm crept around him in that way it had when Alex was trying to pretend it had got there by accident not design; Milos’s final thought before sleep claimed him was amused confusion that, for the first time since he’d moved in, a visit from Alex hadn’t resulted in sex.

This was, finally, a Hallowe’en Milos truly enjoyed.

https://www.paxasteriae.co.uk/2023/10/31/radial-a-quiet-halloween/