#milott

“I’m sure you have some stories of your own,” Milo murmurs, his own stories falling from his tongue. He instead reaches for Scott with his own hand, smiling as Scott merely raises a brow.

Milo grasps Scott’s palms from where they lay on his chest, turning them over to see the old scars he knows are there. Scott stills over him, the coyness of his expression dropping into something a little more guarded as Milo leans up to kiss the palms gently.

“It’s not much of a story,” Scott says, after a long moment. Milo just shrugs.

“Something left its mark on you. That isn’t nothing,” He says, though his tone neither pushes nor retreats from the conversation.

Scott is quiet another long moment before he takes his hands from Milo. Then he lays down, settling his head on the hunters chest and facing him. His expression is pensive, holding his own hands and clutched protective near his chin as he thinks. Milo doesn’t disrupt him, instead reaching to run a hand through the others hair and smiling as the green eyes he’s grown to love so much stare up at him.

“People in the Overworld are scared of magic. You know that,” He mutters looking away again into the clearing.

“I know,” Milo agrees softly.

“My town wasn’t very appreciative of my talents,” Scott huffs, as if attempting a dry laugh. He reaches and, though his hand shakes, beckons a lily from the earth.

“Their loss,” Milo murmurs with a smile, reaching for the flower and plucking it up to tuck behind Scott’s ear. The man snorts with some small amusement. The small glow of affection settling warmth in Milo’s chest amidst all the ache of seeing Scott so wary again.

“I didn’t know to hide it when I realised I was… good with plants,” Milo doesn’t correct him, letting Scott call it what he wants. “I showed off a lot. So my parents took a belt to my hands hoping it would free me. Or maybe just stop me from doing it again.”

Milo has heard of cruelty, he understands it uniquely through his mothers spiralling paranoia and the stories she spun. Of witch hunts and the dangers of man, the cruelty of a life he hasn’t any memory of.

Here, Scott presents him with a new kind of horror. One he can’t even imagine, especially as Scott speaks so calmly. Guarded, as if talking about it could cut his hands anew. Or even that he is embarrassed by the confession.

It doesn’t make sense to Milo. His mother in all her paranoia had never hurt him on purpose. She had been smothering, raised her voice at times, but she was never cruel. She would have given anything to protect Milo from pain, and she ruined both of them for it. But the point stands, she had tried.

The easy smile on Milo’s face drops more tense than he has been in a long, long time. He stares at Scott. At his hands.

“Your parents,” Milo parrots, voice broken. It’s what finally takes Scott's gaze from the clearing back to Milo, frowning.

“Sorry, I told you it wasn’t much of a story,” he murmurs, tucking his hands clasped again to hide the palms. As if he can just put them away after Milo knows what's been done.

“Your parents tried to beat the magic out of you?” Milo sits up forcefully. Scott yelps, his head falling into Milo’s lap instead.

There’s a wild look he finds in the hunter's eye. It makes him gulp nervously just as easily as it flushes his cheeks.

“And my teachers, with rulers or pointing sticks,” he says, though he can’t imagine why. Milo already looks horrified.

“Why?!” Milo asks, suddenly desperate. Because he has known cruelty in theory, but this beyond anything doesn’t make sense.  “You were a child, and they hurt you. Tried to take away such an important part of you!”

“Didn’t work well, now did it,” Scott mutters, lifting his hand to touch the lily still in his hair. “They were scared, I guess.” 

Milo lets his mouth gape before closing. Unable to find the words. Nothing worth saying comes to his mind.

Milo knows what fear does to people. He knows what it did to the villagers who so greatly betrayed his mother, and he knows how it warped his mother herself. He gulps, mouth feeling dry. He understands, he does on a technical level alone. What Scott has said makes sense. Afraid people do drastic things.

Scott’s parents scarred his palms for fear of his magic and what he was capable of.

Milo’s mother isolated him for fear of the world, and what it might do.

“Well, that's not a very good reason,” Milo mutters, throat unusually tight. Scott shifts in his lap, squinting up at him for a moment before the expression softens impossible.