rozwhite·:
Part of her was expecting him to send her away, giving her any excuse in the book to get her to leave and go home where she probably should have been right then — and he wouldn’t be wrong. It was nearly five in the morning, nocturnal animals were beginning to burrow into their respective dens despite the sun not peaking out from the horizon quite yet. There’d been countless moments like this where she’d be gazing out the window, watching the sunrise with a forlorn expression as she wondered if she’d be able to make it through another day — and she almost did the very same thing only minutes earlier, but her mind had been occupied on other things.
On someone.
And it bugged the hell out of her.
Swallowing thickly, Rosalyn stepped inside his house, eyes looming the unfamiliar space with a slight hesitation. She didn’t go over to people’s houses — to men’s houses, no less. The woman wrapped her cardigan tighter around her small frame, the loose braid that gathered her long, dark dresses unkempt and tangled over her shoulder. She looked like a mess, she felt like a mess, but at least Robbie appeared to be in a similar boat if not more so. To be fair, he probably had more reason to be than she did.
Rosalyn hesitantly sat down at the table, perched stiffly upright. Tense, and she could tell she wasn’t alone in that. She looked up at him from her seat, tongue poking at her cheek when he refused to meet her gaze. "And even if I was?” she questioned, rather than answering him outright. “You let me in anyway. There must be some part of you that is.” A bad attempt at humor, sure, but even she wasn’t laughing.
“You’re pissed that I helped Fletcher,” Rosalyn began, pushing a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “You resent the fact that you weren’t told of my involvement. I get it, but…” she shook her head. “It wasn’t my secret to tell. It was his. You know that, don’t you?”
the reason he let her in, it wasn’t for a fight. and if he was honest, and perhaps the hour permitted it, fletcher’s words kept twirling in his mind you pissed off your girlfriend and your boss for the sake of decorum and robbie had definitely other things to be upset about beside rosalyn white being called his girlfriend. and fine, maybe that wasn’t the ‘girlfriend’ mention irritating him, more than the fact that once again, robbie seemed to have disappointed rosalyn again.
her words flood his kitchen, and even though his usual response to those kind of conversations was pretty much flight or fight (with selina, it had always been flight. with rosalyn, always fight), robbie stood his ground. let her voice join the surrounding sounds, taking its place within the empty walls of his home. like its always been here.
“listen,” he poured her coffee in the loveliest cup he has, in his opinion, at least. placed it in front of her, while nursing his own on the seat next to her. “i...understand why he did it, alright? and why you didn’t tell me. it’s fine.” the night’s anger, that pursed through his vein, pushed against the exhaustion alongside the adrenaline of the night’s events, seemed to leave him at this moment. sagging a little against the back of the chair, a sigh escaped robbie’s lips and his fingers went to his hair.
“i apologize. for the way i acted.” at least towards her, and though her behaviour had been the most dangerous, especially for her name and business, she was still only a consultant. not the instigator of this situation. fletcher was. and in his desire (obsession supplied a small voice, in the back of his mind) to solve this case, he’d done a faux-pas. and if robbie had listened to him, and minded his own business, he would’ve never known. would have walked out of his office, but not out of the case. the weight of his own action still lingered heavy on his shoulders, and the anxiety of wondering if he’d done the right thing eating at him, softening his edges.
rosalyn was in his kitchen, still. at five am, looking for a fight. and robbie knew, oh lord that he knew, he’d give her everything tonight if she pushed. his own tongue seemed to work on its own volition, untied by the exchaustion. “i was-- am, just scared. for you.” and this honesty, easy and dangerous, selina had always wanted it. had it, once. before violence and death stained him to the core, before his whole being became a festering wound she could no longer clean. robbie wasn’t looking at her, at this very moment. embarrassed by his own words, expecting a witty response from her. the usual. “dead corpses disappearing in the day, and just … people acting cagey.”
how could one convey, without letting the other know, that the current circumstances were pretty much abnormal, and that perhaps, knowing the other had been dragged to the heart of it all, was more frightening that all the rest? “i had no right. i’m sorry.” abdicating, robbie looked up at rosalyn, offering a small, tight smile.














