Chapter Text
Prologue
- November -
Camus walks out of his temple and squints up at the intense blue sky, the low winter sun nearly hurting his eyes, but pain doesn’t feel so bad, now. His body is back. He is back.
(His own skin feels like an ill-fitting garment, one that Camus can neither shed nor fix.)
Free from evil, the Sanctuary should feel holy at long last, should feel like shelter, like home. Instead there is no air. Camus made sure to be sent out every chance he got, on every cleanup mission, on any errand no matter how menial, but every time he comes back it’s the same.
His feet take him down the marble stairs. He’s looking for Milo, though he doesn’t realise it until he’s in front of his house.
His forgetful hand reaches for the door handle instead of knocking, and he has to stop himself. It’s not proper, he can’t presume to just waltz in like they used to do as kids.
(And much later than that. Camus has invited himself into Milo’s space for years, until last time they were both at the Sanctuary together. He doesn’t stop to think about what’s changed, what happened between them since.)
Milo is at the door in a moment. He has a finger jammed in the middle of a book, and he gestures at Camus to come in, before turning around to look for a bookmark.
When he finally looks at him, Milo smiles tiredly and pushes his reading glasses up in his hair.
“Hey.”
“Hello.”
Milo opens his mouth, then hesitates for a moment. “How are you?” he asks, more subdued than usual, but his voice is still full of warmth and kindness.
Camus wants to smile back, but his mouth won’t move properly, like it’s too heavy. There is too much and so he ends up saying just: “Fine. And you?”
“Same. The quiet is a bit odd, though, isn’t it?”
“It’s good, though.”
“Yeah, of course.”
Camus wants to ask him if he also feels like a piece of himself must have been lost, left behind in the Underworld, like his soul isn’t back quite right, but Milo seems okay. It’s probably nothing, it’s probably just the unprecedented calm, and if he finds something to keep himself busy, he’ll be fine.
So he proposes: “Do you want to go train together?”
Milo accepts easily, and covers his half-drunk cup of coffee to protect it from flies, because he will come back to it and keep drinking it cold, which never ceases to disgust Camus. He can understand iced coffee, but room temperature coffee is beyond him. In any case, he’s always been more of a tea person.
They walk down to the arena in companionable silence, make inane conversation while stretching. Milo asks about Hyoga, Camus asks about the book he was reading. It’s pleasant.
But when Camus trips over his own feet during the simplest grapple, Milo doesn’t laugh. It’s strange, and it’s strange that it’s strange. Milo has never been unkind to him, so that should not have surprised Camus, but it does. There’s no ribbing, no silly name-calling. The first time Milo saw him in a suit, he’d called him “pretty little penguin” for a whole week, and Camus had been less annoyed than he let on. But Milo offers him a hand and pulls him up without comment, which should be good.
Camus doesn’t undestand why it isn’t.
They fight some more, not putting in much effort, more for the joy of moving than to train hard, then sit on the side to look at what the others are doing.
Aphrodite is sitting on Deathmask’s chest, who to be fair doesn’t seem to be fighting too hard to free himself: it might be the rose casually held against his neck, or the fact that he has a hand on Aphrodite’s ass. They are, as always, slightly concerning and possibly about to start something nefarious.
“Hey, Milo!” Aphrodite yells from his perch, “Are we doing something for your birthday?”
Camus feels a shiver of something. He hadn’t thought about Milo’s birthday yet. They rarely had time to celebrate properly, but Milo always managed to get his hands on some sweets, or even a cake to share, if auntie Penelope was in a good mood and had time for it. Clearly he cared enough to celebrate, and Camus is feeling a step behind, like’s he forgotten something important.
“There’s a place downtown that has live music on Fridays and Saturdays,” Aiolia suggests without stopping his set of pushups, “And the food is fantastic.”
“You mean the city proper, not Rodorio?”
Despite his position, Aiolia manages to convey a shrug. “Rodorio’s nice and all, but we should live a little. Try new stuff, you know?”
“Sounds great!” Milo’s smile is bright. “Everyone’s invited!”