*finished* That's not Francis [Milkman fanfic]

The audacity

The flowers Francis brought me the other day are starting to wilt. I can't help but romanticize that. I hate living in this world. I listened to the radio and heard about another incident of people dying because of a minor mistake committed by an inexperienced guard. And the fact that I'm supposed to be lucky... I don't think so. At all. But I know I shouldn't think like that. I don't even know what to think anymore. I wish I had no thoughts.

Ever since I met that monster called Jorekis I have tried to avoid Francis as much as possible. That was almost a week ago. I know, I should at least give him a chance to talk things out, but I'm terrified. Not only because my own feelings were shattered that day, but because I don't want to put him in danger.

If you want to know what happened and how the day ended, well... I don't remember everything either.

I tried to shield my neighbours, gave wrong informations and angered something inside that monster. It hurt so badly. Next thing I saw was 2 milkmen fight each other. One picked me up and carried me and... I don't know what else happened. I think I was coughing a lot. And I saw pain inside those eyes. And I remember, I was so used to analyzing facial features, I just stared at his face, checking if that was really Francis Mosses, appartment number 03-02. But I didn't need to look at him to know it was him. When I talked about feeling intimidated whenever he was around, that feeling never went away, but it evolved into adoration. It's not a specific feeling, it's just a reminder that his presence is near and I can feel it.

That day I realized I had a crush on him from day one. The Doppelgängers knew and would taunt me. It's almost funny. Maybe if we weren't in this world our love story could be cute and sweet and innocent, sometimes funny, sometimes a bit dramatic and with a happy end, maybe a plot twist that has the audience gasp and an emotional scene that makes you shed tears.

But it's this world. It's 1955. In the last 10 years the world lost almost half of it's population. It's not meant to be. Maybe I'm not meant to be happy.

The next day I woke up in hospital, 5 hours before my shift would start. I thought nobody was there, until I saw Francis had passed out on a visitors chair. He was in uniform, but his hat was on his lap. His legs were almost too long for that chair and at the same time, he looked so comfortable.

"Francis?" I whisper and his eyes meet mine. He just woke up and looked a bit dizzy but soon came to his senses. He was serious as always, but a sense of relief could be seen on his face.

I whisper "What happened?" and battle tears.

That day he told me half monsters can heal wounds quicker than others. That us half humans have exceptional pattern recognition and intuition. That it makes a difference, whether our mom or our dad was the monster. Half humans whose dads were monsters couldn't be copied by Doppelgängers and couldn't be eaten by them either. However, they could be killed, but only if the half human has triggered anger, sadness or pain in a full-blooded monster, otherwise it would trigger pain in their own bodies, pain that could be lethal.

Francis had a human father. That gave him the exceptional strength, speed and stamina. However, Doppelgängers can still copy and devour his body. He just wouldn't be as tasty to them, so he wasn't scared spending his childhood among them. They didn't desire him, they desired full human flesh and tried to use him to get that. Being half human gave him all the human empathy and emotions.

Who would want to live among their own natural predators?

I couldn't tell Francis about the conversation I had with Jo. It was too painful. The fact that it confessed to being a liar and using his identity, built a family in his name and his DNA and... now it can't find it's child and the mother.