Forged In Fire [Robin]

[Vexen]

It didn’t take long for the slow whir of the elevator to reach her ears, and as the doors opened, she led him inside. She moved as if she had always escorted a blind man around as though it was nothing. Ensuring that his back was to the steel wall, she pressed in the button to her floor, before grabbing his hand. Their fingers were soon interlocked, and she was leading his hand to the button pad, allowing him to feel the cracks and raised edges along each dull piece of plastic. “I’m on floor four,” she explained, their fingers soon finding the ‘four’ on the pad. It had a few different cracks in it, the button a little more raised than the rest. “If you need to come by, that’s where the four is. I’m not sure if you can read Braille, but I read somewhere that touch helps.”

Once the cart began to move, she dropped her hand and brushed off the front of her pants, her attention on the man as his words ran on repeat in her mind. It was if the term ‘blood doll’ became stuck on beneath the needle of a record player. She couldn’t erase it, she couldn’t make it disappear. It wasn’t a term she understood – and it wasn’t one that she thought sounded healthy – but it sounded exciting. However, it was the name he introduced that she focused on first. “Is he the one I met briefly at the Christmas party? I don’t remember much from that night, but he sounds vaguely familiar,” she admitted just as the doors opened again. Reaching for him, she lead them from the elevator and towards the left, her door only a few feet away.

“As soon as you said you were a blood doll, I wondered if that was where you were going with this. You, at least, seemed to come out alright in the end. At least you died doing something that gave you that high, right?” There was the slightest of tremors in her voice as she pressed her hip to the door, Dove’s sharp bark already echoing through the hall. “I don’t regret what happened to me, I just… sometimes I still feel that fear when I’m above the world.” Carefully pushing the door open, she bent to scoop Dove into her arms, her eyes dancing with mirth.

“Open your arms. You need to meet my guard dog,” she teased, her fingers moving carefully through her silken fur. In truth, she spoke of her as though she were a hundred pounds, but she barely broke twenty on a ‘splurge’ day.

[Robin Little]

Touch was something that Robin had become accustomed to, though was it possible to become accustomed to something even though one was not used to it? Touch replaced sight, and Robin wanted to touch everything. He wanted to grab Vexen’s hand with both of his own so that he could trace the lines of her palm and explore the curves of her wrist. He wanted to trace the line of her arm, over her elbow, over her shoulder, her neck, along her jaw, her lips, nose, brow – to remember, through touch, exactly what she looked like. Instead, he settled first with the touch of the elevator buttons, and then the touch of nothing – of the still air, his fingers stretching into oblivion.

They were still mostly strangers, he and Vexen, so he thought is strange though comforting that she should take measures to tell him where he should go if he needed to come visit. It was an invitation, one that he tucked away, and though he didn’t think about using it there was no doubt that he would.

”Mm, probably,” Robin said. He couldn’t fully recall the event himself, though he knew that Maddison was there. Yes! He’d seen Vexen, had mentioned her to Maddison. Had wanted to say hello, but never quite got around to it. Had he had another argument with Maddison that night? Something about wine…

He shook his head.

”Braille, no. I mean. I’m trying but it’s hard,” he said. Eventually, if he wanted to keep reading as copiously as he used to, he’d have to learn. At least through Bookface he had the contacts he needed to order what he wanted – though not every book had been translated. It was something he might begin to advocate, eventually, once his frustrations reached peak.

Robin laughed as Vexen suggested he had come out alright in the end, but had no time to explain his mirth as they were at Vexen’s door, the sound of the dog on the other side. It didn’t sound like a big dog, and Robin remained unfazed. Robin held out his arms, feeling a little foolish as he did. ”I don’t know if I’ve ever been alright, but I’m glad you think so,” he said, waiting for the wriggling ball of fur.

[Vexen]

It was almost too easy for her to drop the canine into his waiting arms. She had expected more of a fuss on Dove’s end, but the King Charles spaniel all but curled right into his chest, her small tongue lapping anxiously at his cheek. For a moment, she thought to feign betrayal, but the sight of the two standing in her doorway was too adorable. Instead, she shook her head as she reached over to run her fingers through her fur once more. “I have to say, this was a bit unexpected. She absolutely loathes Blake.” No sooner had his name left her lips, then the small bundle in Robin’s arms began to snarl, her tiny form trembling in fury. “See what I mean? I can’t even talk about him without her turning into Cujo.”

Taking a step back, she dropped her hand from the dogs’ fur, to rest it on his bicep. With a gentle tug, she pulled him further into her apartment, and used her foot to shut the door behind him. “What do you mean you’ve never been alright?” The question was quiet as she turned away to pick up the strewn articles of clothing and magazines from the couch, before leading him to the nearest corner to allow him to sit, if he chose. “The couch is right behind you, you’re good to take a seat. Do you want anything?” She became aware of how many questions she was asking, of how fast she was talking, and she quickly wiped her hands down the front of her pants. She hadn’t thought this far ahead – she had no idea how to entertain guests.

She wasn’t a social butterfly, and distantly, she wondered if she should go down the hall to get Bambi, though a quick glance at the clock told her that the blonde was likely in a bar – or another woman’s bed. Rolling her eyes – though mostly at herself, she shifted back through the conversation they had been having. Something about Braille – yes, she could focus on that, right? “It probably is hard, but it’ll be worth it in the end, wouldn’t it? I couldn’t imagine not being able to read. If you want, maybe I could read to you sometime.” The second the suggestion rolled from her tongue, she thought to smack herself in the face. Maybe I can read to you sometime.

Who the hell said that?

Shaking her head, she turned from him – and quickly gathered her mug. The blood was dried in the bottom, and she quickly made her way to the sink to toss it in. Anything to keep her hands busy – and, she thought, off of him. Of course, that was a thought she quickly banished – and blamed on the adrenaline. Laughing quietly to herself, she made her way back to his side and fell onto the cushions, her slender legs tucked firmly beneath her as she tried to force herself to remain still. God only knows how he thought of her now, with her babbling and moving around.

[Robin Little]

Robin had never really had pets growing up. They’d had a cat once but it wasn’t one they’d bought from a pet shop or a shelter. It was a stray they’d lured into their backyard and they’d called him Rascal; he had a kinked tail and a chunk missing from his ear. A ginger fellow who was wary to begin with, but who eventually came around. Robin and his sister would then lure Rascal into the house and let him sleep in their rooms. Of course, as children, they knew nothing about fleas and the fact they could infest a place; they’d lay eggs in the carpets and eventually their mother started screaming about being bitten, about rashes. Robin was being bitten, too, but he’d thought nothing of it.

Then one day, Rascal stopped coming around. They put food out for him, but he never came. The food was eaten by the ants. Back then, Robin and his sister thought the cat had just moved on. What they didn’t know was that their mother had called the pound while they were at school, and Rascal had been taken away. Old as he was, damaged as he was, he was probably put down after no one adopted him.

The point being, Robin couldn’t claim to know much about animals, but he’d heard plenty that dogs had good intuition, and if they didn’t like someone who seemed perfectly nice, then maybe that person wasn’t perfectly nice at all.

”I say you should trust your dog,” Robin said. He didn’t pull away from the slurping tongue, just allowed it to happen. His fingers curled into the small dog’s fur as Vexen tugged him into the apartment and led him to the couch where he was told he could sit. He obeyed, very very slowly—it would be just his luck if the couch suddenly moved and he ended up on his *** with an angry dog skittering from his clumsy arms.

”And I ah… I mean I guess I turned out okay? Responsibility-wise. I’ve never been the kind of guy you could take home to your mother, I suppose you could say,” he said, his head cocked to the side as he followed Vexen’s movements with his hearing. He continued to pat the dog for a while before letting her go. Robin laughed. ”Though I guess I’m good enough to bring home to your dog? Does that count?” he asked.

The couch dipped to his left and he knew that she’d settled beside him. He’d shaken his head when she’d asked if he needed anything, though he hadn’t really thought about it. He might have asked for a drink of scotch, but whether or not she’d keep that kind of thing, he couldn’t know. So he hadn’t asked.

”That’d be nice, though. The reading thing,” Robin said. Clearly, he hadn’t thought it was awkward at all. ”How are you with accents…?” he asked. All readers of good audio books always had a way with accents.

[Vexen]

“I think I’ve heard that before,” she replied with a touch of humor to her voice. Lifting her hand, she gently pressed her fingers through her hair as her gaze dropped to the canine in his arms. She had spent too many nights with Dove curled against her chest, fur damp as her heartbreak fell from her eyes, only to wake when the sun rose with a thousand messages from her best friend deeming him unworthy. Somewhere within them, Bambi had tried to convince her to listen to the dog. At the time, she had written it off as another one of the buxom blondes antics, but now she was beginning to wonder if there hadn’t been something to her advice. “Of course, between you and I, I would never admit to either of you being right. It might go to this one’s head.” Reaching across him, she gave a silken ear a tug, and like a rocket, the pup bolted from his arms and tumbled to the floor with an excited yelp before disappearing down the hall. “She’s too much sometimes,” she laughed.


The sound was strange as it left her, and for a second, she tried to forget why it sounded strained. She tried to erase the memory that sparked in her mind. The smoke still clung to their clothes, and the soot still tainted their skin - and still she tried to forget. Clearing her throat, she gave herself a moment to adjust on the couch, before she rested her head on the back cushion. “Well, I wouldn’t be bringing you home to my family. No one was ever good enough. I think they are mostly to blame for my lack of social skills and the fact I cannot look anyone in the eye without feeling as though I’ll coat their shoes with my lunch.” Realizing that she might have said too much, she turned her head to the side, as if to avoid his stare, and dipped her hand into the couch to find her book. She wasn’t sure which one she would end up securing - she has hundreds scattered about the premises. When her fingers brushed across the worn cover of one of her favorite classics, she wiggled it free.


“Dove is just one step. You’re rather lucky my best friend wasn’t around,” she teased, fingers toying with the pages absently. “I am English. At the very least, I can manage that, I believe. I warn you, though. My Jamacain is no good.” As soon as the words left her lips, she realized it was yet another one of those entirely awkward situations where her joke might have fallen flat. Shaking her head, she tapped the front of her book and cleared her throat once more. “Are you up for hearing Pride and Prejudice? It’s what I have near-by, unless you are into the latest celebrity gossip?”

[Robin Little]

Robin could have been concerned – between Vexen’s family and her best friend, the one who wouldn’t accept him and the other who might give him hell – he surprisingly was not. Maybe if he was younger, fresh to all this dating stuff, he might have been worried. But he’d been rejected by family and friends of the girls he’d dated for so long that by now, it didn’t sting so much. By now, he expected it – so that when Vexen declared that no one was ever good enough for her family Robin didn’t feel any primal urge to prove her wrong.

Truth was, Robin didn’t think he’d even be able to fake good enough.

Truth was – and here he laughed – why was he even thinking about it? Vexen had done nothing more than invite Robin home, as friends. Friends, right? It didn’t matter whether her parents or her best friend or even her dog accepted him. Not in that manner. The dog, Dove, scrabbled out of Robin’s grasp and he let her go. He made himself comfortable, then, scooching down into the couch, toeing off his shoes before sending his toes forward, seeking, until by touch he found Vexen’s foot. With one sweeping motion, his feet landed in Vexen’s lap – whether she wanted them there or not.

”I prefer Persuasion, but Pride and Prejudice will do,” he said with a chuckle. ”I don’t know what version you’ve been reading, though, if there are Jamaicans in it…” he said. It had been a good ten years since he’d read Pride and Prejudice. At least, he didn’t think there were any Jamaicans in the text…

And there he was willing to – and would – stay. He was like the stray people were warned against feeding, because once you did, there’d be no getting rid of him. Vexen had gone and done it, now. She’d invited the stray into her home. And, bit by bit, he’d slowly start to make himself well at home.