for Thomas

When Robin woke, his fingers immediately went to his neck. Not only was the blood gone, but there was no wound. He wondered for a moment if he was dead... but no, he felt too shitty to be dead, he decided. Even if it was mostly non-physical.

He registered vaguely that he was in Thomas' bed and didn't care, just rolled over onto his stomach, put the pillow over his head, and groaned.

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Despite Robin's lack of reaction, Thomas continued to be careful--and caring, tending to the wounds he'd inflicted as gently as he could. When he finished he set the cream aside and stretched out next to him again.

"I think I'm going to be staying here tonight," Robin said, turning his head to the side to face Thomas, finally. He sounded slightly more himself.

"Good idea," Thomas answered, brushing Robin's hair back from his face.

"You really thought I'd just taken off for good without a word?" Robin asked.

Honestly with everything else going on it was hard to even remember why he'd left in the first place.

"...If I'd thought that, I wouldn't have been there when you needed me. I wouldn't have been trying so damn hard to find you," Thomas pointed out. Though there had been part of him that thought that might have been just what Robin had done.

"You have too much faith in me," Robin muttered. He moved, as if he were about to roll over onto his back, but then stopped himself just in time.

"You haven't given me a reason not to." Thomas closed his eyes, but didn't move, staying curled close to Robin.

"I left you, I almost got you killed, and then I confessed one of the worst things I've ever done," Robin pointed out.

"Were you going to come back?" Because Harry almost got him killed on a regular basis, and he didn't take that personally, and if being responsible for the death of two people because of sex was the worst he'd done...Thomas could top that one easily.

"I hadn't decided yet," said Robin.

Then added reluctantly, "... probably. I fucked a very mediocre bartender and bought an overpriced suit first though."

Which was about what Thomas had expected him to do, that first night. He knew Robin better than the puck would like, probably.

He rolled onto his back, folding his arms behind his head. "How much do you know about me? About White Court vampires, I mean."

"A lot more since that little party the other night," Robin said.

And then scowled. "Etruscan. Honestly."

Thomas smiled a little and shook his head. "Yes, yes. Etruscan. But that's not what I meant."

He stared at the ceiling for a moment and then started talking again. "We're born with our demon inside of us, but it's dormant. Until sometime around our mid- to late-teens." He thought of Inari and smiled fondly. "If we fall in love before that happens...the demon dies, and we can lead a normal life."

Robin snorted. "I bet I can guess how often that happens."

"Yeah," Thomas agreed dryly. "Not very often. It happened for my baby sister, though." Which was a bigger relief than Thomas could ever hope to convey to anyone. Inari was even less suited to this life than he was, and any of his other sisters would be quick to point out what a less than stellar Raith he made in so many ways.

"For the rest of us, the first feeding...is always fatal," he continued.

Suddenly, Robin tensed.

"I know what you're trying to do," he said stiffly. "I don't need camaraderie about unintended murders. Somehow I don't think killing people with sex is the kind of thing you start a club for."

He'd meant it when he said he didn't want to talk about it. And Thomas bringing this up now was doing nothing but making him think about a situation he wanted to forget.

"You really don't know my family," Thomas muttered and sighed, falling silent. Part of his point had been to point out Robin wasn't alone--but part of it had been a roundabout way of trying to understand why Robin was so upset about it. He wasn't exactly thrilled about the people whose deaths he'd caused, but he wasn't being eaten up with guilt about it.

That was his story and he was sticking to it.

"Maybe not," said Robin. "But I do know you."

And he had no intention of saying anything else on the subject, even if he did relax a little.

"Do you?" Thomas asked quietly.

"I don't know," Robin muttered, looking away. "Maybe. Look, I almost died and everything, maybe it's time I got some real sleep."

Thomas was pretty sure Robin was just fine, physically. Lea had held up her end of the bargain better than he'd expected her to. But the emotional scars were there, he knew, so he let it go and nodded. "All right. Good idea."

When Robin settled down on the bed, he might have curled up just a little closer to Thomas than was entirely necessary. He didn't say anything else, though, just closed his eyes. And hoped that by morning Thomas would know well enough not to talk of any of this again.

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