Subject: [OTL]: [Robin] In the Blood [9:11] Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 08:14:16 -0700 (PDT) From: D Benway In The Blood [9:11] Saturday, June 2 (II) drawn by Benway This story borrows some Bat-characters from DC for not-for-profit use. This story is not recommended for sensitive or innocent readers. __________________________________________________________________ The Boy Wonder makes it through another day. I catch up on my assignments. No, I don't. I stare at them, and keep trying to figure out why Bruce isn't telling me. I study for my exams. No, I don't. They're in three weeks, and if I don't get As my scholarship to MIT gets flushed. I can probably string together some excuses and get it cleaned up during summer school, but that's going to piss everybody off. I have brunch and dinner in the dining hall with the other boys with no homes to go home to. No, I don't. I use up half my instant coffee supply instead. I've only had to take two oxycodones today. I phone my dad and tell him I'm coming home for dinner, and that all is forgiven. Phone my dad. Yeah, right. Which one? Tomorrow's going to be Monday, and Alfred's going to be back in the morning. He's going to haul me off to see Leslie and then Bruce will get away with this. The sun's gone down. I've been sitting here at my desk for six hours. Maybe I'll think better in the dark. I reach for the light switch. Then I feel the hand on my shoulder. It all comes together. I'm off the chair and up in the air and 180ing to land in a crouch on my desk, hands in a defensive position, head pounding. I knew it couldn't be Wesley or Alfred or Steph. They're not so silent. I knew from the size of the hand that it couldn't be Bruce. Instead, it's her. She's in her suit, that fucking mask still on. Didn't come, she croaks. Last night. I was busy, I say. What do you want? She goes to the window and closes it. She drops the blinds. Somehow, she manages to do it without making a sound. My desk light only has a 40 Watt bulb, and I can barely make her out in the gloom. She doesn't answer. She pulls her mask back over her head, then brushes the hair back from her eyes. Did he send you? I say. She shakes her head. She has a hundred different ways of shaking her head. This one seems to mean no, and something else. What do you want? I say. Don't like me, she croaks. She's staring at me. She stares and stares and stares. It's like going to Arkham. I've sometimes wondered if that's where she should be. I have to look away. No, I say. She takes my head in her hands. I tense up and draw back. What? I say. No lies, she says. That stare. But to see it, I must be staring back. It goes on for a long time. Staring. I breathe. She breathes. Her leathers give off little creaks and sighs. I forgot, I finally say. Who you are, she says. I don't know who I am, I say. Knew, she says. Forgot. Never knew, I say. Forgot, she says. I DON'T KNOW! I say. No, I yell it. Shut up, Drake, someone shouts from down below, but no one comes up the stairs. Know, she says. Who knows? I say. She points, straight to her heart. How could you? I say. How could someone like you know? My tongue's become a switchblade, slashing the faces of everyone near me. I can't look at her, can't see the reaction. She takes my head in her hard, tiny hands again. She can turn my head, but not my eyes. Look, she says, and I look. There is no rage in her features, no sadness, no blood. Her eyes are clear white around near black holes, staring at me, drilling into me, telling me nothing. I can't see, I say. Then I become aware of her hand, slowly making its way down my face, along my neck, my collarbone, down, further, down, all the way to where I've gotten really, really hard. No, I say, but I can't look away. She draws me closer. She tastes good, oh so good. Her hand wraps around my back, and she brings me in tight, and it's too much, her taste, her tongue, the feel of her hardness against me, and mine against hers, the soft creak of the leather, my mouth melting into hers. We're not on the bed, it would make a sound. Instead we're on the floor, on the part that's above the utility room on the third floor and not above Kingsley's room, but he's away until Tuesday anyway, and I know the same thing went through her mind, only before, and I think she planned this just like I did with Steph, but now she's somehow got my t-shirt off and she's on me, all soft leather, and our mouths... It goes on for some time. I know because she came in at sunset, just after 8, and when she leaves it is 11. She leaves me on the floor, exhausted and soaking, climbing back into her suit in her mask in one fluid gesture. I am spent, worn through. I know that the whole time, we barely made a sound. I feel the tears coming. It wasn't supposed to be like this, and not with her, but it was, it was, and I know I'll never feel anything like it again unless I give up like she's going to ask me to, and I can't. She crouches down beside me, and lifts my head. The mask stares back at me. She picks up my t-shirt and wipes my cheeks. Still not understand, she says, and puts something in my hand. It feels like glass. Two glass tubes, filled with blood. One is marked Control [X] and the other is marked Treatment [BW]. Thank you, I say to an empty room. I have the four condoms that I didn't even feel her put on me flushed away and the room aired out by midnight. The headache doesn't come back in the morning, and I get just enough work done to make it look like I've been keeping up. I phone my old home and don't give anything away, only telling them that I'm coming next Saturday with some important news. I manage to tell just enough lies to Alfred so that I make an undetected trip to the post office before breakfast on Monday morning. [next: Thursday, June 7]