Chapter Text
The weather is starting to turn. Thick gray clouds blanket the sky and Livio hazards a look out the car window, just to see the black treetops standing stark against it. His eye flicks over to the road stretching ahead of him again, sand and saltwater on one side. He’s almost to his destination, after some twenty-six hours of driving. From a shithole in rural Tennessee to a shithole in rural Maine. Not that he isn’t dying to settle down and sleep somewhere that isn’t his car, but the trip brought him some kind of peace of mind he hasn’t felt in a long time. It allowed him to pass his time drifting through a candid fog where only he and Razlo existed, occasionally talking about the things they saw passing by or the next gas station or Razlo reminding him to pay attention when they reached intersections, though it never quite delved into anything substantial.
Twenty hours plus six to sleep, not nearly enough to keep the body in top condition but enough to get them out of Pennsylvania at sunrise, headed towards the coast and then Maine.
The cabin they found was described as “a bit of a fixer-upper”, with how cheap it was it didn’t come as a surprise that it looks like shit, but it has heating, electricity and a fireplace and most importantly no close neighbors.
It isn’t that he dislikes people; dealing with them is just difficult. No matter how hard he tries, everything he does seems wrong to himself. His smile feels too forced. His pitch isn’t natural. His tone fluctuates too much. He tries his best to control it but his voice is not meant to leave his chest.
He isn’t sure how long the money from the old man’s inheritance will last, but he doesn’t doubt that he can find a gig. If he can’t he’ll just leave again, as long as he has his car he’ll be good.
He passes through the town, spots a place sporting a sign looking for a barista. It’s a start. He hates customer service, but he can make it work, assuming his glass eye doesn't get him turned down.
If he had to guess, he'd say it's one of those places that have been open for decades and always get the same ten customers, like the one he remembers from back home. It doesn't sound that bad, really; once the difficult part is done and he's gotten used to it, he'll be fine.
There’s a pickup truck already parked by the cabin, all painted in yellow. It looks beaten up in the way only a well-loved vehicle can be, stained with mud at the bottom and decorated with bumper stickers. Livio tries his best to take a good look at them, but it's not an easy task when he has to focus on parking.
He does so at a respectful distance from the truck, on the other side of the entrance, steels himself and hops off, using the time it takes him to trek around the car to rehearse his script. (Save for a moment he really needs to take so he won't fall to the ground like a plank after sitting for so damn long.) “Howdy. I’m Livio Evergreen, are you the one here to show me around?”. He knew there was going to be someone there. This isn’t a surprise.
The person that comes out of the truck is a bit of a surprise, since Livio was half-assuming he’d be greeted by an older woman. This one seems to be in her twenties and looks like she tries to make up for the sun’s absence, all dressed in browns, oranges and yellows that complement her tan, freckled skin (or at least Livio is pretty sure they do; he doesn’t have an eye for color as much as Razlo does, but he thinks the woman looks nice). The wind blowing from the sea bats at her brownish-blonde hair like the paws of a cat.
“Hello!” She chirps before he can say anything, probably for the best. “Mr. Evergreen, is that right? I have the house keys right here!” She pats the central pocket of her overalls, patterned with sunflowers.
Livio matches her smile as best as he can, lifting a hand to wave at her as he walks over. “Howdy. That’s right. You can just call me Livio, though.”
It’s refreshing to see that she doesn’t look intimidated- maybe because she’s almost as tall and broad as him.
"I s'pose you aren't Mrs. Hazel?"
"Milly Thompson, it's a pleasure to meet you!" She enthusiastically shakes his hand, before readily depositing the keys in his palm.
"She would've shown you around herself, but something came up all of a sudden, so now it's up to lil' old me!”
“I’m grateful regardless, miss,” he says as she points out the front door key.
“You can just call me Milly!”
“Ah, sure…”
He notices that the lock might have been changed quite recently, the key is still mostly shiny and doesn't look like it's been used much. Either that, or they gave him a newly-made copy. (It's just about the only thing that looks new about the house.) He isn't sure how much he likes the thought of someone else possibly having the keys to his own house. He doesn't like it at all, actually, but it isn't all that likely that they wouldn't tell him, is it?
The cabin is furnished, for the most part. It's barebones and doesn't make Livio feel eager to spend this night and the next there, but he can't really blame the previous tenants for trying to bring with them what they could of their life. And either way, as soon as Milly is gone, he can start moving his and Razlo’s belongings inside. It isn't much, but it should help.
While he muses about that, Milly prattles on. Usually, Livio would find that annoying, but right now it's comforting to have someone so bright around.
“Sylvia is a family friend, real close- it wasn’t a surprise that she sold the house, she was always complaining about the humidity and the leaks. But not that I can blame her for that, no no! She’s getting quite old, you see, and this kinda heavy humidity is no good for your joints, past a certain age."
He just nods along, following Milly through the living room to another doorway.
"Here's the kitchen!” Occupied only by a table and a single chair, plus the stove and a beat up-looking dishwasher. No fridge, but Livio can work with that for the time being.
From there, a hallway branches off towards a bedroom, bathroom and another door that leads to an almost empty storage closet. Razlo seems to have left for now, but he’d probably make a pet spider joke if he saw the sheer amount of cobwebs in there.
"See, there's a little problem with the bathroom, though…" Milly then sheepishly puts forward as she points towards the door in question, scratching the back of her neck. Not a surprise, if anything Livio’s grateful she’s being upfront about it. "The flashing directly above it got damaged during a storm, and Sylvia never got around to getting it fixed, so it leaks a bit."
"No worries, I should be able to pull it off on my own." He reassures her with a smile. "S' there a hardware store in town?"
"Right, of course! I can take you there now if you'd like, it should be open!" She offers.
"No, thanks…" Livio shakes his head. "I'd rather get my stuff situated first, y'know? I appreciate it, though."
Milly nods with a hum. "I'll leave you to it, then!"
Livio follows her to the exit (does she think it's creepy? He just needs to get his luggage from the car. Maybe he should have stayed inside and waited for her to leave.) and says his goodbyes as she climbs into her truck.
“Thanks for showin’ me around, miss- uhm- Milly.” He stammers slightly. "If you ever need anythin', you know where to find me."
She gives him a two-finger salute from the window, before slowly but surely taking off.
After Milly's yellow truck has disappeared down the road, he starts unloading his car, bringing each box inside and sorting through his belongings. He managed to grab most of it, but some things he had to entrust to a shipping company, including Razlo's paintings, despite his protests. He wasn't happy about having to hand them off to strangers, so to ease his worries a bit and to make him shut up, Livio individually packed them himself as securely as possible.
First, he makes the bed. No nightstand. Since there are no bookshelves yet either, he takes the cardboard box his books are stored in and places it next to the bed, along with the little desk lamp he’s had for… how many years now? He isn’t quite sure. It hasn’t given up on him yet, though, so he’s got nothing to complain about. It just might need a new lightbulb soon.
He gradually gets lost in the motions of unpacking things and putting them away in their rightful places, as much as he can at least. The towels don't have their own place yet, but at least his silverware does.
At some point, it starts raining, droplets gently pattering on the roof and reminding him about the leak in the bathroom. Being half-way through unpacking his cooking utensils, it isn’t too hard to find a bowl he can put out to keep the rain from hitting the floor, in case it’s bad enough that the water would leak all the way through.
When there’s nothing left to unpack, he lets himself fall on the couch, thinking. The house is pretty clean, so he doesn’t need to pick up the broom yet. Nothing he can do to fix the roof now. It's too early for dinner.
Livio’s gaze lingers on his phone for a moment, hoping for a notification to come up, or for it to ring, even though he’s pretty sure that won’t happen. He gets up and clicks on the light, it is getting too dark to see, but in reality it’s just an excuse to waste some more time and hope that maybe, if he doesn’t think about it for a second, miraculously, Nicholas will text him. He clicks on the screen, but the only notification there is some promo e-mail from a gym he hasn’t been to in years. He unlocks the phone and heads for the text messages, tapping on Nicholas’s contact and trying to ignore the rest.
‘I got here safe’, he writes, stares at the blinking cursor, then erases it and scrolls back up their previous conversations. His blunt fingernails catch on the cracks in the screen. Just a few dry words about the old man’s inheritance, that Nicholas didn’t get to see a dollar of until Livio decided to split it evenly, then a gap of three years before he gets to read back over the first half of their last fight. After the shit he said and did, it's real self-centered of him to think Nicholas wants him to stubbornly cling onto a place in his life that Livio doesn't deserve anymore.
… It’s probably the exhaustion talking. He hasn't been sleeping well at all and being in a new, unfamiliar place won't help, but at least he'll be in an actual bed. He’ll text Nicholas tomorrow, when he feels a bit better.
A familiar yellow truck pulls up to his house the following afternoon, and once again Milly hops out, heading straight to knock on Livio’s door. Sucks that he’s on the roof, so she doesn't see him at all and he has to gracelessly scramble over to the edge to wave at her.
"Hey, up here!"
She backs away from the front door and looks up, shading her eyes with a hand. After the rain from the night before and the last , the clouds broke apart to let some sunlight come through.
"Ah! Hello, mr. Livio!” She smiles. “Did you find more leaks??"
"No, I just figured I should also check the rest of the roof while I was at it! I'm gonna see if I can clean it a bit, too."
It probably wasn't a good idea to come up there, with the tiles still being sort of slippery from the rain, but Livio wanted to get the job done as soon as possible and Razlo isn’t the only one entitled to making impulsive decisions.
“Gimme a second, I’ll come down.”
He carefully crawls his way over to the ladder on the other side of the roof and climbs down, trotting over to Milly. What could she be here for..? Maybe it’s something important.
“Oh hey, didn’t see ya there,” he jokes, basking in the feeling of pride he gets when she laughs and goes along with it.
“What a coincidence meeting you here, mr. Livio!”
Milly’s bag of choice for the day is a tote embroidered with sunflowers to match her overalls. It looks a bit strange and asymmetrical, probably a hand-made gift from someone. It’s carrying something pretty heavy by the looks of it, too. She reaches into it and pulls out a jar filled with something yellow that she pushes in Livio’s hands.
“Here, I figured a welcome gift was in order. I know it’s gonna be tempting, but don’t eat all of them at once!”
On the spot, Livio doesn't really know what to reply. Upon closer examination, the jar is full of peach slices and syrup.
".. Ah, you didn't have to.." He stutters.
His stomach does an unpleasant flip when Milly's brows furrow, and her smile drops slightly. "Do you not like peaches?"
"No, I do! Uhm- not allergic or anything either." Livio shakes himself out of his momentary stupor, trying to look happier- not that he isn’t, but he can’t shake the apprehension that he can't thank her right or enough. "I just wasn't expecting it, that's all. I appreciate it a lot. You wanna come in for coffee?"
Not the smoothest way he could have offered, but Milly’s smile picks up again and he breathes a sigh of relief. He tries not to have more than one coffee per day, but he really wants an excuse to hang out with Milly. Hang out with anyone, really, but Milly is nice- he appreciates that she keeps bothering to reach out and he wants to reciprocate however he can.
The moka pot was one of the first things Razlo had dug out of the boxes that morning. He doesn’t like espresso in the slightest and Livio came to in front of a half-drained mug filled with milk, sugar and cocoa and only the barest hint of coffee, which was… fine, it tasted good, Livio usually just didn’t bother doing anything to his coffee and only drank it because they needed the energy. Razlo couldn't stand the flavor no matter what, so making it so that it could barely be called coffee anymore was his compromise.
Either way, the pot and ground coffee bag remained there on the kitchen counter for easy access and Livio didn’t expect to ever use it for guests, but he can’t say he’s displeased.
He fills the water container, then carefully spoons the coffee into the filter, shaking it gently to make sure the grounds are evenly spread out before putting it back in place.
“Say, Milly, d’you know if anyone in town’s lookin’ for someone to work for them?” He speaks up as he twists the top and bottom parts together and places the pot on the stove, turning back towards Milly. He was so absorbed in the process for a moment that he didn’t even notice the stretch of silence.
“Hmm…” She hums, mindlessly rocking herself back in the chair before letting the front legs fall back to the ground with a -thunk-. “Well, there’s mrs. Adelina’s café, she needs a new barista. And my uncle Franklyn’s been lookin’ for someone to help him with his furniture shop.”
"Furniture shop sounds good, but I don't really have any experience."
"Oh, he wouldn't mind getting an apprentice, I think! Since his son moved away for college he's been pretty bummed out. Having someone else around that he can teach would be good for him."
Being someone's replacement kid is the last thing on Livio's mind, but he can put up with it if it means learning useful skills and getting paid.
"I think I passed by his shop this morning. If you manage to put a good word in next time you see him, I'd be grateful."
Like that, Livio can also dare to hope the inevitable background check won't get him turned down right off the bat.
Milly nods with a hum. "Will do!"
Chatting with her is the simplest thing Livio has done in a while; she has plenty of comments on whatever crosses her mind, so there’s rarely a lull in the conversation. In the process, Livio learns quite a bit about her, namely that she’s majoring in journalism and has a partner waiting for her back at the dorms of her university, so she’ll be leaving tomorrow. Livio wishes her the best and means it, but he can’t say the information doesn’t leave a sour taste in his mouth- he’ll miss having someone to hang out with. He can’t say he’ll miss Milly, as a person, he doesn’t know her well enough for that, but he would’ve liked to.
They talk for a good while, until Milly glances down at her wristwatch and realizes she’s very close to running late to an appointment she’d taken with one of her aunts. She doesn’t say what exactly, but it seems important, judging by the way she downs the rest of her coffee and books it out the door.
Getting to spend time with someone who wasn’t the old man or Nicholas was kind of a luxury even back home, with the house being so far from any neighbors, and school being… school. Livio and Razlo never were the most well-liked guys; Razlo’s attitude was what it was and Livio was less than stellar at conversation, too clumsy to trust himself with putting more than two words in a row together. The only person who they used to see semi-regularly was a younger kid, probably from the middle school annex to their high school. In retrospect it was pretty half-hearted and the kid had the most conversations with Razlo. The most vivid thing that comes to mind now that Livio’s reminiscing is that the kid knew exactly one sleight of hand trick, constantly pulling bugs out of their sleeves and waving them in Livio’s face so he could see each leg and hair as clear as day. Razlo loved that shit. Livio, not so much.
They only stuck around for about a year or so, though Livio wasn’t able to recall whether it was during their third or fourth year. As it came to an end, the kid showed up less and less often, until they disappeared completely. It wasn’t too far-fetched to assume they just moved away. Livio is kinda tempted to look up their name, but the thing is, he just can’t remember it to save his life.
Either way, Milly was a breath of fresh air. It was nice to be able to talk to someone without overthinking.
He goes about the rest of his day without hiccups, cleaning up the rest of the roof and visiting town again for a supplementary grocery run. He missed a few things, between house cleaning supplies and food. Every expense makes him cringe, but he tries to lift his spirits with the thought that he'll be working soon.
Once he’s home though, it’s back to sitting on the couch and looking at his text messages, flip-flopping between thinking that he should write first and thinking that he should delete Nicholas’s number. The former idea wins, if just in virtue of the fact that the latter sounds a bit too much like a self-destructive impulse born of exhaustion. He’ll text him tomorrow though, he's not in the right mindspace for that at the moment, he thinks, before laying down and resting his eyes for a bit. (Predictably, he falls asleep.)
He was hired at the furniture shop in the end. Mostly he just helps with deliveries, lifting heavy weights and cleaning around the place while he's still learning, but it's good. He gets paid decently and he likes the place. Mr. Franklyn keeps to himself and only speaks when necessary, he doesn't ask questions about Livio's personal life and he doesn't care about the criminal record, he just demands that Livio don't cause trouble for him and he's more than happy to oblige.
Gradually, he and Razlo begin settling into some kind of routine.