He takes a step away, but I catch his arm. “If only they knew what?”
“That it’s not you. None of it. That I saw you.” He moves closer to me, his hurt hand landing on my chest so I want to grab it, shield it, protect the wound from my coarse shirt. But I let him press it to my heart as he wants to. “You, before you were captain again. When you said all those things to me. Made all those promises.” He drags a finger down, taps my chest. “But you’re so fucked in the head, Marco. You’re so fucked in the head that I don’t think you even know who you are anymore.”
The alcohol’s hit him all at once. A haze about the eyes. A softening of the shoulders. The fleeting alleviation of pain about his brow.
But his tongue remains as sharp as ever, even as his fingertips trail across my neck, up to my cheek.
“You go back to captain every time. Every single time, because it’s too real. And you know what? I don’t even blame you for that. Not anymore. I don’t even care.” His head shakes, his eyes fixed distantly on mine. “You’re not even in there half the time, are you? You’re somewhere else, somewhere far away. And I won’t ever be able to get to you.”
Fingertips hot on my cheek, soft at my lips, and all I want in the world is to kiss them. I want so badly to tell him he’s wrong. That I’m here, all of me, for him and him alone.
“I think I would have died out there today if not for you,” he continues. “Because you’re vicious. And you’re cruel. And you trained me.” His lips so close to mine that his breath drifts across my cheek, “Can you even imagine what it’s like to want someone like that?”
His hand slips from my lips, and it takes everything in me not to chase it, to not hold it to my heart and tell him everything I can’t.
“I wish I were like you,” he says softly. “I wish I were only part man. I wish I could turn it off as easily as you do.”
“Do you think this is easy?” The words spill of their own accord before I can shut them down, harsh and bitter.
But he only replies, “I do. For you. I think whatever you’re feeling, when you let yourself feel, it must gut you from the inside. But it’s nothing like I’m feeling. Because you can walk away. Because you can tell me that I’m not a good enough fuck for you, even when I know I’m the only man who can make you cry out like that.”
His fingers curl around the tip of my robe, his lips so close to mine I taste their warmth.
“I know you want me.” He kisses me softly, cruelly, even as I turn to stone beneath his lips. “But I know you’re just too fucking broken.”
And he has no idea. Just when I thought I couldn’t break anymore, he’s put a new crack in me, wide and caustic. Another ugly scar.
This is Robin after one game. After one kill.
A Robin who has his anger, jealousy, and vengeance to fall back on.
Who has me to spit it at.
If there was ever a Robin who found solace in me, who found a man who adored him, and who would do anything to keep him safe, he wouldn’t be a shred of this person once he’d bludgeoned me to death.
There’d be nothing left.
It would kill us both.
So I tell him, “You’re right. Glad you figured it out, baby bird. It’s about time you grew up.”
“Fuck you, Marco.”
“No. Unfortunately for you, not today. Maybe there’s someone back at the dungeon who can put up with your theatrics.” Then, before I can even stop it, “How about Cas? He’s always hanging all over you. Bet he’d give you a shoulder to cry on.”
“What?” He shouts the word, the echo of it screaming at how ridiculous I’m being. But I can’t stop myself.
“Maybe you can hold hands and weep, new boys together, since I’m so fucking awful.”
“You are beyond awful, Marco. You’re the worst person I’ve ever met. And in this shithole, that’s saying a lot.”
“Good. Thanks. Glad we had this chat. I’ll leave you to lick your wounds.”
I make it all of three strides before a shower of sparkling glass cracks apart against the wall above my head, the tinkling sound of a thousand shards drowned out by his shouted, “You’re a piece of shit, Marco! I can’t believe I keep doing this! But this is it. This is the last time!”
I get one step further before a second shout fills the space, Robin’s pained cry, then, “Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
“What is it now?”
