The song started playing through the built-in speakers throughout the apartment.
Rowan laughed yet again, because while the song started quite lyrical, it very quickly devolved into what was known as “unclean singing” with a more scream-like affect. “You like this?” he said over the screamed lyrics that were shouted as rapid-fire as Milo could sometimes speak. “Really?”
“Yes, the lyrics and the sound.”
“How does it make you… feel?” Rowan asked, a question that always washed more of his tension away, as if it grounded him the more Milo described his experiences.
Milo closed his eyes and surrendered to the drum beats, overlapping guitars, and screamed lyrics. “Calm, like listening to this drowns out the world’s chaos. However, Ihate...”
Play “The Gathering” by Pharoah Sanders starting at 2:30.
Playing…
The jazz song blasted through the speakers mid-song—well, not really mid, since it was thirteen minutes in total—in a chaotic mess of competing instruments.
Milo’s nose wrinkled in disgust the more the song played. “I hate this.”
Rowan laughed even louder than before. “Jazz doesn’t make you feel calm even though it’s also, sometimes, a cobbling of noise just like metal?”
“Jazz enhances the chaos, making me feel even more anxious. I can't explain why my reactions are different to the thematically similar styles, but they are.”
Stop playing.
The silence that followed was jarring after that purposely off-putting music.
“I also hate silence,” Milo said, “which is why, when it's quiet, I am almost always listening to music in my head now. That might be why I feel the urge to talk so much.”
Rowan snorted, but even his softer laughs were intoxicating to Milo, so he said that too.
“I love your laugh. Your voice in general. Your freckles, as I’ve told you, and how you've been letting more of your beard grow in.”
Some of Rowan’s bashfulness showed through, as he ducked his head with a seemingly unconscious scratch at his thickening beard. “I’ve just been lazy, or, well… preoccupied lately.”
“It suits you! I love the way it looks. The way it feels when we kiss or when your face is between my thighs. I love...” Milo hesitated, and when Rowan glanced up with growing heat in his eyes and cheeks, Milo couldn’t bring himself to finish what he wanted to say. A week wasn’t all that long to admit those words to someone. “I love and like so many things. I hate and dislike many things too. I am my own man, Rowan. My own bot. You have nothing to feel guilty about just because you want to be with me. Unless you don’t want to be with someone who is onlyalmosthuman.”
The stricken expression that filled Rowan’s eyes in place of the growing heat was an odd comfort, even before Rowan said, “It has nothing to do with you not being human. Itdoes, but because of me, not you.”
“What do you mean?”
Rowan started to pace, which made Milo feel like he needed to pace or at least fidget, but he tried to hold still to give Rowan the room he needed. “I chose how you look. I chose everything about you and decided what you did for almost half a year.”
“You do not decide for me now,” Milo countered, following Rowan’s pacing figure with his eyes. “If the worst thing is that I look exactly how you always wanted a partner to look, it is difficult for me to not like that too.”
“But I made sure you had the perfect appearance and voice and abilities to suitmywants.”
“And?” Milo tilted his head, not understanding the issue. “How is that different from how two humans choose each other?”
“I…” Rowan’s pacing came to a halt as his response trailed off.
“Humans go out and look for the specific things they want, choosing in a partner everything that fits their desires and compatibility. How is this different?” Milo reached out to take hold of Rowan’s hand and pulled him closer.
“Because you didn't get a say.”
“Humans do not get a say in how they are born either.”
“I mean you didn't get a say in being with me.”
Milo held Rowan’s hand tighter. Always the same concern, as if Rowan didn’t believe he was worthy of anyone choosing him. “Rowan, I could not feel anything before the lightning, but I can remember everything from the moment I was first activated. I can look back now before the storm with new eyes, just like I told you when we were first intimate. And what I think on most is how you looked at me and tried to treat me as though I was real even when I wasn't.
