Milo was clearly having a bad night. He had that hard, distant look on his face that made Rory nervous—it was the expression Milo had worn that awful morning after Sabrina's wedding, when he'd been so cruel, so hurtful.

Rory wasn't sure if there was anything he could actually do to help Milo, though.

Milo was reading first, followed by a line-up of people that of course Rory had never heard of. Rory watched Milo as he waited near the microphone as the host of the event—a woman with a very jarring asymmetrical haircut—introduced him. Milo was glaring darkly into the distance, but, if Rory hadn't known better, he would have simply thought Milo was lost in some deep, philosophical train of thought.

Rory shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He felt extremely out of place, sticking out like hunter safety orange in a sea of camouflage. He'd put on a nice shirt and sweater for the event, but Rory had clearly missed the memo regarding the dress code. Everyone was dressed nicely, yes, but they also all had that same effortlessly cool air about them that Milo exuded. Rory thought any of them wouldn't have looked out of place on a runway—meanwhile, he was dressed like he'd just gotten off work at the bank.

All of that faded away, though, when Milo stepped up to read.

And—holy shit—it was better than anything Rory could have imagined. Milo, under the bright glow of the recessed lighting of the performance area, was transformed into a larger than life version of himself, sardonic and clever and charismatic as he introduced himself. His voice was a little lower than usual, a dark amber quality that went straight to Rory's dick.

His writing was flawless, too—Rory remembered being impressed in high school with Milo's writing, but that was nothing compared to what Milo read now. Rory still wasn't a big reader beyond business school case studies and lifting forums online, but this—this was stunning.

When Milo finished and slipped into the seat beside Rory, Rory was still clapping so hard his palms stung.

"That was incredible," Rory whispered as the host announced the next reader. Milo made a non-committal noise and Rory elbowed him. "No, seriously, you were really fucking good."

Rory figured he'd wait until later to admit that listening to Milo read had given him a hard-on.

Rory tried to pay attention to the rest of the reading, but it was very difficult. For one, a lot of it seemed to be very abstract poetry that sounded nice but didn't seem to mean much. Rory figured it was going over his head because he was completely lost for most of it.

And he really just wanted to slip away and get Milo naked and in bed—if Milo didn't believe Rory's praise, Rory had a few ideas about how he might be able to demonstrate how he felt.

* * *

According to Milo, readings also mandated polite mingling afterwards, and so Rory awkwardly sipped at a plastic cup of wine as he followed Milo around the room like a lost duckling.

"Milo, who's your… friend?"

Rory went tense—for the most part, people had been ignoring him. Milo was talking to a guy who was almost brutally good-looking, his handsome features gathered into a perpetual sneer.

"I'm Rory," he said cheerfully.

"I haven't seen you around here before, have I?" the guy said, not volunteering his name. "I would have… remembered you, I think." He gave Rory a very slow up and down look that was decidedly unfriendly.

"No, this is my first reading," Rory said, faltering. He plastered a smile on his face. If there was one thing he'd learned after years of business classes and interviews and internships, it was how to maintain a pleasant smile even when he was terrified.

The guy looked back to Milo.

"Interesting choice," he said, as if Rory were something Milo had ordered at a restaurant, rather than Milo's date. He shot one last cool glance at Rory before sauntering off.

Milo's face darkened.

"Um," Rory said weakly. His face flushed red. He was wildly out of place here, and he should have known better than to even come. Rory had been so excited about the prospect of Milo inviting him to something—however reluctantly—that he hadn't stopped to consider that there was no way he was cultured enough—cool enough—to fit in here.

Rory heard a sharp crack and looked down—he realized he'd been squeezing his plastic cup so hard he'd broken it, and now wine was dripping onto the floor.

"I'm… gonna go throw this away," Rory said softly.

"Let's get out of here," Milo said. Rory's eyes snapped up and he saw Milo was glaring after the guy who'd talked to them.

"Yeah," Rory said gratefully. And then, to his great surprise, Milo took his hand and towed Rory towards the exit, leaving a dripping trail of wine on the floor. Rory tossed the cup into the trash as Milo pushed open the doors and hauled him outside.

The cold hit him so suddenly it stole his breath. Snow was coming down steadily, the roads and sidewalks already silvered. Rory barely had time to zip up his jacket before Milo spun around, pulling Rory to him, and kissed him hard on the lips right there in the pool of light spilling from the gallery window.

Rory let out a shocked little noise as he melted against Milo like the falling snow, opening his mouth to Milo as Milo's hand tangled in his hair. The kiss was fierce, all teeth and tongue, like some kind of conquest.

After a moment, Milo broke the kiss, leaving Rory totally breathless.

"What was that for?" Rory asked, touching his lower lip where Milo had bitten him. Milo ran a hand through his dark hair, which sparkled with snowflakes.

"Because they're assholes," Milo said, his voice a little unsteady. "And you're not."

"Sorry if I…" Rory said, not quite sure what he was apologizing for.

"Don't apologize," Milo said hotly. He retrieved a pack of cigarettes and took one out so viciously he almost sent the rest flying into the snow. "They're all elitist fucking pricks."

"I don't think he liked me much," Rory said.

"They don't like anyone much," Milo said, taking a long draw of his cigarette. "I'm fucking sick of it." He glanced sharply at Rory. "Want to come back to my place and fuck?"

That was exactly what Rory wanted to do.

"Hell yeah," Rory said, smiling.

"Okay if we walk?" Milo said. "It's not far and I need to move."

"Sure."

Rory had never seen Milo wound up like this, practically vibrating, radiating a tense, angry energy.

"I need to get out of this fucking town," Milo said as they walked. He was moving so quickly Rory had to struggle to keep up. The streets were deserted, and the snow was falling hard now, the whole world gray and white and black. "These fucking people are so pretentious—it's such a goddamn circlejerk all the time."

Rory wasn't sure what to say—Milo almost seemed to be talking to himself more than to Rory, so he just made an affirmative noise and let Milo keep going.

"It's all form and no substance," Milo said, his voice harsh, his words coming out like quick slashes of a knife. "It's all what everything looks and sounds like, and nothing's real, no one lets anyone just enjoy something—"

Rory couldn't quite follow the thread of what Milo was saying, but Milo didn't seem to need more than someone to listen to him at the moment.

At one point, Milo stopped abruptly on the sidewalk. They were on one of the many bridges of Linfield, although this one spanned a dark canal of train tracks rather than the river. His anger seemed to have fizzled out, and he frowned as he looked out over the railing.

Milo's profile was silhouetted against the odd snow-glow of the clouds, and Rory was reminded viscerally of that night, almost a decade ago, when he'd first kissed Milo at Elliot Djubasek's graduation party, how Milo's features had seemed to not quite fit him yet. His nose had been a little too big, his brow a little too furrowed, and he'd been handsome not in spite of these things but because of them.

Now Milo was handsome by any measure, but Rory could see the ghost of that awkward high school senior still lingering in his features, who'd been hostile and flighty and had still kissed Rory so sweetly.

So much had changed, and yet so little.

"It's beautiful, isn't it," Milo said softly, and Rory turned to look out over the vista. From here they could see most of the city, the edges softened by the snowfall, all glow and sparkle and silence.

"Yeah, it is," Rory said. It felt peaceful, like they were the only two people in the world. On impulse, he reached for Milo's hand, and he didn't pull away. Rory hadn't thought to bring gloves, and his fingers were numb with cold, but it felt good to have Milo's hand in his.

"Sorry," Milo said. "For… all of that. Rambling. I'm—it's been—I just—"

Milo faltered and turned to look at Rory. Rory was surprised to see that Milo looked relatively sober. He'd assumed, given the state he'd found Milo in before the reading, and Milo's uncharacteristically effusive outburst, that Milo was fairly drunk, but his gaze was clear and sharp.

Milo turned away again, looking back out over the city. He squeezed Rory's hand, and Rory squeezed back.

The moment felt dreamlike, as if they'd been magicked into a snowglobe, with a smooth, curved layer of glass protecting them from the rest of the world.

After what felt like a very long time, Milo spoke, and Rory had never heard his voice like that before—thin, tense, almost scared.

"I fucking hate myself, Rory," Milo said quietly. "I hate that I care so much what those assholes think. I hate that I treat people who do actually care about me like shit. Like Kit and Jamie—and—and you."

"You don't treat me—"

Milo shot him a glance.

"Rory," he said dryly. "Let's not pretend I've come even close to treating you the way you deserve."

Rory hesitated, not sure how to respond to that. Milo was right, in a way—there had been times when he'd been mean or unfair or inscrutable, when Rory had been left wondering how much he would let himself endure. But there had been other times—the times when Milo kissed him so tenderly Rory thought he might die, or when Milo really, genuinely laughed, loud and undignified and unguarded—when Rory felt like he saw who Milo really was, beyond the cool veneer of the person sitting alone at the Chestnut Café all those months ago.

"You know, I fucking hated high school," Milo said out of nowhere, and Rory blinked. Milo released Rory's hand, running his hand through his hair again. Snowflakes were dusting their hair and shoulders, and the cold had seeped deep into Rory's bones, but he felt like Milo had something he needed to say, something that would get lost again the moment they stepped off the bridge.

Milo was looking out over the city again, his eyes distant.

"When I was a kid, I went to school with a bunch of guys who ended up going to Linfield Prep, too," Milo said. "This big group of guys who just gave me constant shit for years. And, looking back, I could hardly blame them. I was so fucking weird, and a teacher's pet because I didn't have any fucking friends."

Milo drew in a long, shaky breath.

"I pretended I didn't want friends, either. When I was a kid. Because it was easier to act like being alone was a choice I'd made, rather than… rather than just a product of me being… different."

Rory's teeth were chattering. He wanted to fold Milo into his arms, wanted to travel back in time and sit with that little kid version of Milo and tell him everything would be okay, that he was worthy of love, that he wasn't alone.

"The summer before I started high school," Milo continued. "I knew those guys would be there, at Linfield Prep. But I decided… I decided to make things different, to be different. So I sort… reinvented myself. And, of course, those guys still gave me shit all four years. But it was a little easier to bear, because I was—I was trying to make myself unlikeable. I learned how to be mean, meaner to anyone than they could be to me. So, in a way, I won."

Milo's mouth curled into a grim approximation of a smile, and Rory felt like his heart was breaking.

"I had no idea it was… like that," Rory said.

"Of course you didn't," Milo said softly. "You fit in. Or at least, you seemed like you fit in, from where I was standing."

Rory thought back to high school. It had been tough, of course—no one got through their teen years completely unscathed. But all in all, his experience had been ultimately positive. He'd had a group of friends he got along well with, he'd liked most, if not all, of his classes and most, if not all, of his teachers.

Rory hesitated again, not sure how to respond. After a long time, Milo spoke again, and this time, his voice was so quiet his words were almost lost to the falling swirl of snowflakes.

"I've just been pushing people away for so long I don't know how to do anything else."

Rory knew he couldn't change anything in Milo's past—but they weren't in high school anymore. They were here, now, standing on a bridge on a snowy winter night, and Milo was feeling lost and unsure and afraid.

But Rory could help—if Milo would let him.

He stepped forward and took Milo's hand. Milo's fingers were as cold as ice.

"Let's go home," Rory said gently, and Milo slowly nodded. Rory felt almost as though he were gently guiding a sleepwalker back to bed. They said nothing on the rest of the walk home—the world was quiet except for the crunch of snow underfoot.

Rory was colder than cold once they arrived back at Milo's place. He shepherded Milo up the stairs. Milo still seemed far away and melancholy, lost in his thoughts, as they peeled themselves out of their clothing, leaving puddles of melting snow on the floor by the stairs.

"Come on," Rory said, pulling Milo into the tiny bathroom. He pushed the shower curtain aside and turned the water on. When he turned back to face Milo, Milo was wearing a faint, sad smile.

"What are you doing?" Milo asked.

"I'm taking care of you," Rory said, gently stripping them both from their clothing. "And, as an added bonus, preventing us from dying of hypothermia."

He checked the water—it still wasn't quite hot enough, but it was getting there, so he stepped into the shower and coaxed Milo in after him. Rory let out a loud, luxurious sigh as the water beat down on him slowly thawing out that core-deep chill. Steam billowed up around them.

Rory watched as Milo closed his eyes and tipped his head back, letting the water run over his hair. With his hair wet and slicked down in dark tendrils on his forehead, he looked younger, more vulnerable somehow—less polished, perhaps, Rory thought.

Rory looped his arms around Milo's neck and kissed him, slow and deep and lazy as their bodies slowly warmed up. And this time, Milo let Rory take the lead and the tempo of their kiss, ceding all control.

Rory reached for the soap, squirting some into his hand, and the small room was instantly perfumed with the lavender scent Rory had come to associate with Milo. Milo watched with amusement as Rory rubbed his hands together, creating a thick, sudsy foam, and ran his hands over Milo's chest.

"Are you bathing me?" Milo said, but Rory could hear a smile creeping in on the edges of his voice.

"Maybe you smell bad," Rory said, tracing his hands over Milo's shoulders, soap suds obscuring the flowers tattooed there, and then down his chest. He felt Milo's chest catch as Rory teased across Milo's nipples, feeling them harden underneath his fingertips. Rory grinned slyly, watching Milo as Milo's eyes fluttered shut.

Rory took his time, painting slow, soapy circles down Milo's stomach, stopping just above the dark patch of his neatly groomed pubic hair. Milo was getting hard—which was the point, of course.

Rory gently turned Milo around so he could reach his back—and so he could press his cock against Milo's ass, so Milo could feel how hard Rory was too. Milo let out a soft hum of pleasure as Rory continued to run his hands over every plane of Milo's back and neck and shoulders he could reach, using up a ridiculous amount of soap as he went, enjoying the smooth, slippery slide across Milo's bare skin.

Milo was leaning back into Rory's touch, his head lolling forward onto his chest. Rory slid one hand around Milo's waist, pressing his entire front against Milo's back, turning his cheek to rest against the ridge of Milo's shoulder blade. He teased his free hand across Milo's thigh.

Milo's cock was hard and heavy, hot against Rory's palm as he began to stroke him. Milo let out a long sigh as Rory settled into a rhythm. He couldn't help grinding his own cock against Milo's ass, too.

"That's good," Milo said, his voice low and hoarse, as Rory twisted his hand up and over the head of Milo's cock. Rory loved when Milo got talkative during sex—it happened rarely, and so Rory committed each instance to memory. He loved the harsh quality his voice took on, the way the words were almost choked out, almost strangled away by pleasure.

Rory squeezed his cock tighter and Milo's hips bucked forward into Rory's hand.

"Yeah," Rory murmured against Milo's shoulder. "Make yourself feel good."

Milo let out a lovely little whimper, reaching out to brace his hand against the shower wall. Rory turned his head, kissing along the sharp ridge of Milo's vertebrae, as Milo fucked into his fist, spreading his feet slightly.

Rory traced his free hand down, between Milo's legs, to massage his balls, and Milo moaned louder now.

"Fuck—Rory—yeah—"

Rory loved hearing Milo—normally so calm and collected—fall apart like this. Milo was moving faster now, his hips snapping forward to meet Rory's hand, and he let out one last strangled plea before he was coming into Rory's hand.

Rory stroked him through his orgasm until Milo let out a long sigh, turning around on unsteady legs to face Rory. He had a crooked, post-coital smile on his face as he reached behind Rory to turn the water off.

"I'll return the favor," Milo said. "But we're going to run out of hot water soon."

They dried off and fell into bed, finally warm again, but when Milo reached down between Rory's legs, Rory stopped him.

"Tomorrow morning," Rory whispered. "I want to come with your cock inside me—but for now, let's just—"

He trailed off, and Milo nodded. Normally, they fell asleep with Rory nestled against Milo's chest—though inevitably, Rory would steal all the sheets and most of the bed during the night—but this time, Rory pulled Milo into the crook of his shoulder. Milo was taller than him, but it worked, Milo immediately molding to fit, lacing his long arms around Rory's waist and holding tight.

Rory knew that Milo probably wouldn't reference that conversation on the bridge again. But though Rory hated to think of Milo in such pain, he couldn't help feeling a warm glow at the thought that Milo was finally opening up to him.

He slept deeply, dreamlessly.