stilljustandrew | [oopfsb / darkest timeline] Millman, Session #1

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[oopfsb / darkest timeline] Millman, Session #1

"So can you bring me up to speed?" is the first thing Dr. Millman asks him, once they're settled in one of the infirmary's consultation rooms. "Nita didn't give me too much of the context."

Previously on Milliways, he thinks (with what he really wishes were more genuine humor), and takes a deep breath. And plunges in.

The first time he met Matt, trying to read auguries in the fragments of a broken teacup. How quickly he'd warmed to him, talking shop about different magic systems; how he'd offered to show Matt the Council Library sometime.

"And that's not something I should have even considered with a guy I just met, you know?" he adds in an aside. "I mean there's sensitive stuff in there, information that could be seriously dangerous in the wrong hands ... I don't think he took anything but the point is I didn't know, I -- god," he groans, "that was so irresponsible."

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"... Maybe I should just tell this in the order it happened, though. I mean in the order I found things out."

"Works for me," Millman says, "if that's the way it'll make the most sense to you."

Andrew breathes out heavily. "Okay. Yeah. I said yes. I mean of course I did, he was ... he's gorgeous, and he asked me, and I thought -- I thought he --" For a moment his voice thins to breaking, with an ache of hopeless yearning. "And I was so happy. For like a week or two, while it was going on. I was really happy."

A long pause.

"And I should have known," he whispers. "I keep thinking that, that I should have known."

"Should have known what?"

"That he didn't ... really want me. Not like that. I mean, h-he said ..."

His eyes are screwed shut, though he doesn't remember closing them; his face burns with humiliation.

"He said I was beautiful. And I'm not, I know I'm not. I'm not ... anything anybody would want."

"Leaving that aside for the moment ... at the time you thought he did."

Millman's tone is gentle, with no judgment in it.

"And that changed?"

He sniffs, nods. "Later. That was after... a few days later I think? He came into the bar from home, he was all ..." He gestures unconsciously to his chest. "Hurt. Bleeding. He'd been stabbed. And he was in shock, panicking, and ... he sort of set the place on fire."

It's easier to tell this part, somehow: the wound in Matt's chest, the fires starting, Matt collapsing; his own terror as he ran over; Nita stepping up to heal him. Getting him to the infirmary together. Coming back there later to visit Matt, with books -- and he remembers so vividly how much time he spent choosing exactly the right ones, how badly he wanted to hit on a selection that would please him.

Matt asking him for a kiss, there in his hospital bed. Coming to himself with his head resting on the edge of the bed, with no clear idea how long it had been, with Matt stroking his hair and smiling at him.

Staggering upstairs afterward, alone and dizzy with happiness, to fall into bed and sleep for most of a day.

"Did he drug you?" Millman asks, his voice steady.

"Not ... exactly."

He's stacking and restacking his fingers in his lap, studying the pattern of shadows they make.

"He's ... he does magic."

A faint frown. "Like wizardry?"

Andrew shakes his head vehemently. "Not like wizardry. Something else. He can ... he's got a sort of high-powered charisma. He can draw people. Charm them. Make them like him." He swallows. "And under the, the right physical circumstances, he can ... drain people's life-energy. Which is why I was so tired all the time after we, after we started ..."

For god's sake, why is this still so hard to say --

"Sleeping together."

Millman looks sober, and a little alarmed. "Are you still? Tired all the time?"

"I got help," he mumbles. "Nita ... I talked to her a little after that. She's the one who noticed how drained I was. She did a spell to work out what was causing it, and ... it was him."

A long beat.

"So I went to talk to him about it. Because he was out of the infirmary by then, he'd been put in the cells for one day for unintentional arson, and ... I knew while he was in there he wouldn't be able to use his power on me."

"Makes sense," Millman agrees. "So what happened?"

Another long pause. Andrew bites his lip.

"I asked him why. If, if that was the whole point of ... of picking me up in the first place." The memory isn't any less painful; it's not as difficult to make himself say the words, now, but it hurts more. "He wouldn't answer me. I mean, he, he talked to me, but he wouldn't answer that question. Or ..."

Beat.

"Or?"

"He told me I might be dying."

The whisper scrapes his throat coming out.

"From what he did to me. He said he'd done it before and they died. And I asked -- I asked him if he was even a little sorry."

"And he wouldn't answer that either." Millman's regarding him steadily, compassionately.

Andrew shakes his head mutely.

"So what did you do?"

"I went to find help." Muffled. "And I left a note for Security to tell them he'd confessed to attempted murder. And ... made a bad decision."

Millman raises his eyebrows.

"So I'm sort of in charge of the cells? It's separate from being on Security, it ... there's an AI who controls them, and I'm in charge of her. And I told her to, to ignore any release order for him until I okayed it."

God, it sounds so ugly when he says it like that -- "I didn't mean to, like, keep him there without -- I just wanted to make sure he didn't get released before they had a chance to look at the other charge, or ..."

He trails off. Can't look up.

"So that was the first bad call I made. That I knew was a bad call when I made it."

"... But not the last?"

"But not the last," he confirms heavily.

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