Chapter 20 #2
It’s tense, quiet, nothing but the sound of the drink bubbling. How beautiful this scene could be in another time, in another place. But here, this wine serves one purpose.
He takes the glass, drinks the lot. Holds it out.
“That’s enough.”
An incredulous laugh rips from his chest, then he lunges for the bottle. But I have faster reflexes than he can muster after that match. He gives up almost immediately, muttering only, “What the fuck do you care?”
“You’re hurt.” My eyes drag over his body.
I’d like to avoid looking—to not have to see this form I’ve adored torn up like this—to not have to care.
His arms are purple and blue with enormous bruises, scrapes all down his forearms from climbing the cliff.
The black surgical string criss-crossing the flesh of his leg is stark against his cold and pale skin, where Evander sewed him up.
His outfit is torn at the shoulder, across his stomach, and red and purple injuries from the fall mark him all over, from Elijah landing on him, fighting him.
And that’s just on the outside. “If you make yourself sick, it’s going to hurt. You can have more later.”
The smile is wide and mocking. “Always the captain, aren’t you? Always above all things, Captain Marco Verus. If only they knew.”
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?”
“Fuck off!”
But he’s hobbling toward his chair, a sea of glass glittering around his bare feet.
Fucking hell.
The glass crushes loud beneath my sandals as I make my way swiftly over to him.
“I told you to fuck off,” he snarls.
“And I told you the same thing.” But I grab the back of the chair anyway, twist it around behind him and shove him down into it.
“Thanks. You can go now.”
“You can shut up now.” I brush the floor in front of him clear of glass, then kneel down. Me, back on my knees again, for Robin.
What am I doing with my life? Because even as he’s swearing at me, acting like a tipsy asshole, I’m pulling Evander’s bag down off the table, grabbing a candle from the nearby dresser. “Sit still.”
“I don’t need you to—“
“I fucking know that, birdie. Just sit there and shut your mouth for one minute.”
The glass is easy to find. I don’t even need the tweezers to fix it. But I use them anyway, pull the shard out clean and in one piece.
He’s annoyingly handsome when he bites down on his lip, too spiteful to show his pain in any other way.
“You’re being such a dick about this,” I explain patiently.
He coughs down his next sound when I spill some disinfectant on the cut, then informs me, “You’re a dick about everything.”
“So you said.” Wrapping a bandage about his foot, I ask, “Where are your shoes?”
“I don’t need you to—”
“Where the fuck are they?”
“Over there!”
“Great.”
I crunch my way across the room. It’s remarkable how he managed to spread the glass this far. I guess he’s got a good arm for throwing things.
In a second I’ve snatched his sandals up, fallen back at his feet, and yanked his leg up, since he won’t do me the great honor of lifting a toe.
He lets me fit the sandals on regardless, without kicking me in the face. Lets me strap him in, wind the leather around and around his beautiful calves, still streaked with the remnants of blue and green paint. Then I release him, let him settle his feet flat on the floor.
But I can’t stop myself now. I soak a cloth with disinfectant, take his hand in mine and press the pad to his cut palm.
His head dips back as he tries to hide the pain from me, and I do it fast to the other hand as well, to get it over with. Then I pick up the bandages and begin to wrap them around and around.
Maybe it’s just to break this ridiculous silence, but I start, “Listen, I’m sorry. I’m sorry if you thought this was going to be more than—“
“Don’t bullshit me, Marco. Just for one fucking day, for one fucking minute, could you please stop?
I’m so fucked right now. I just killed a friend.
I’m going to watch every friend I have die, all of them, one by one.
And then I’m going to kill you. So could you please, just this one time, fucking stop your bullshit. ”
‘I’m going to kill you.’
Something clicks inside me when he says that. Like some two pieces fitting together. And I don’t even know why. Maybe because I’m every bit as fucked in the head as he’s just told me I am. But it solidifies something.
I wrap the bandage slowly, trying to figure out what to say to him. It’s all wrong, anything I come up with. So I work the bandage, one hand, then the other, soft and slow. I cut the fabric, seal it gently.
His fingers curl closed on mine.
And I stare at them. Our two hands.
His hand holding mine.
And I wish so badly I could leave it there.
“There isn’t anything I can do,” I whisper.
“Because of him?” The words come fast, as if they were desperate to get out.
“Because of you.” I force myself to meet his eyes. “I don’t want you to die, birdie. And I don’t want to kill you. And that makes us…”
He waits, bated breath, a thousand arguments poised on the tip of his tongue.
And all of it so utterly useless against the cold and unstoppable machine that is Deathball.
“You did really well today,” I tell him. “I’m very proud of you.”
He laughs, a bitter, hollow sound, and he lets go of my hand. “Alright, Captain. I guess I’ll see you on the sand, then.”
And even if I want to reply, make some cutting remark, or tell him he’s wrong—that it was the plain truth that I’m desperately proud of him—I don’t say either.
I get up, and I walk away.
And this time I don’t look back.