Blue
Robin makes shitty choices and Dana comforts him about it once.
Words: 2123
Dana, he had learned, kept a stash of alcohol in her room. Just one bottle of rum for “emergencies.” Kai and Vivian would have been furious if they knew, more for Kit’s sake than for his. But Robin had to admit, it was well hidden. Kit never would have found it.
But Kit wasn’t psychic. Robin was.
And he was also trying very, very hard not to get high. Which was far easier said than done.
Today had been a rough day. His powers had acted up. He'd seen some things he didn't want to see.
And that was exactly how he'd ended up in Dana's room, stealing her rum and telling himself to buy her a new bottle later.
(Of course, if he were wise, he wouldn't do that, because the odds of him drinking that were pretty high, too. But he wasn't wise and he knew it. Having the bottle in the warehouse was like having a shitty safety net. It was exactly the sort of thing addicts weren't supposed to do, but Robin had never been good at avoiding those behaviors.)
He'd had... too much of the bottle before Dana found him, sitting on the floor of his room, back to the wall, shot glass abandoned on the desk. He'd tried rationing it out at the start, but that hadn't lasted long.
He heard the door open and his eyes slid open, glancing at her. She looked angry, but he wasn't surprised.
“I owe you new rum,” he mumbled by way of apology, the words slurring together.
“Don't bother. I'll just go to a damn bar next time I need a drink.”
He nodded, shutting his eyes again as the world moved a bit too much with the motion.
“Sorry.”
“Are you really?”
Her footsteps moved closer and his grip on the bottle instinctively tightened, not that it mattered. He was easily the weakest person in the house and Dana had the strength of a dragon behind her.
“That I'm drunk? No. That I stole from you to get drunk? Yeah, a little.”
But the nearest bar had been too far and besides, Robin didn't like drinking in public. The point of getting drunk or high for him was just some peace. Bars weren't peaceful.
“Guess I should've known better than to keep this here,” she muttered. He didn't argue with that, because she should have. She lived with two addicts now. She'd have to get used to what that entailed.
At least Kit was clean. It tended to take a lot to push someone back into a relapse once they'd been clean for this long. If he'd only been sober a little while, Robin never would have agreed to move in here, knowing it would be too easy to push him over the edge. He wouldn't have jeopardized Kit like that. But it was... fine enough, he supposed.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” she asked settling down beside him against the wall.
He opened his eyes and looked over at her. “About what?”
She gestured to the bottle, now just out of easy access. “Why you went through like half of that while we were gone today?”
A shrug. It was rare that Robin felt like talking about anything to do with his powers. His... poor habits were a consequence of them, a shit coping mechanism that would never work as well as he wanted it to. “Not really.”
“Look, I'm not exactly... good? At the whole comfort thing. But I know that you're only gonna do this again if you don't tell people what's going on with you.”
Right again. And hardly the first person who’d ever said something along those lines to him, not that he’d ever bothered to listen before. Then again, he hadn’t been this drunk around someone offering that advice before.
He was quiet for a long moment, but she stayed beside him until he finally spoke.
“The only person I’ve ever met who knew jackshit about my powers…” His eyes moved to the ceiling, intentionally avoiding eye contact with her all while trying not to remember the encounter too vividly. “Used them to literally torture me.” Another pause. Dana didn’t interrupt. He wondered if she knew he had more to say or if she just didn’t know how to respond. “My powers aren’t… The things I see aren’t always set in stone, you know? A lot of times it’s more like… if one thing happens, then the second thing will happen. But if you can stop the first thing, then the second changes.” Which was generally a good thing. It meant he could maybe fix the really awful thing.
His fingers balled into fists at his side, the gloves the only things stopping his nails from drawing blood from his palms. “And he knew that. He fucking knew that. And he used it to show me…” He shook his head, wanting another long drink out of the bottle to chase away the too vivid memories. “I foresaw my roommates dying. Over. And over And over. And it was always different but it was always bloody and awful.”
It had been the wrong strategy for the hunter to use. The more death he saw, the more resolute he’d become to not give them up. But it had been miserable.
“I’m not drunk enough,” he muttered.
“You’re plenty drunk. So what happened today?”
“Hmmm?”
She leveled him with a look. “Don’t bullshit me, Robin. Something made you think of that today, so what the hell happened?”
He reached for the bottle, but she pushed him away from it with ease. Honestly, it was a little ridiculous how strong she was. He let out a heavy sigh. “I saw Vivian die.” He could see the horror in her face, before he elaborated, “Foresaw. Foresaw it. She was out on a hunt and her gun jammed. It’s fine; I sort of stole the gun from her which should be enough to change things.” The future wasn’t hard to intervene with. One little tweak was enough to make major differences. “She’ll be fine.”
Dana looked at him for a long moment, understanding slowly coming into her expression. “You saw her hunting.”
A nod. There was nothing to say to that.
“You know she’d never--”
“Of course I know that. I’ve met her. I’m not an idiot. At least not a complete one anyway. I know she wouldn’t hurt anyone here and I like Vivian, but I can’t trust her, okay? I’ve tried. I’ve tried really hard, but she scares the shit out of me.” Not all of the time. In fact, he was usually fine around her-- or as fine as he could be-- but there were days when she’d startled him and his heart was still racing like an hour later.
“You could talk to her?”
“And say what? ‘I know you’re not going to murder me, but I’m still kind of terrified you’re going to murder me’? It’s not like she can do anything about it.” It wasn’t her fault, not really. In fact, she was one of the nicest people living in the warehouse and he knew that. He just couldn’t get all of his brain to accept that.
“So what? You’re just supposed to suffer in silence? That’s not great either, kid. This is supposed to be your home, too.”
He shrugged. “She was here first.”
“Doesn’t make it less your home.”
“It doesn’t matter. I can’t just… It’s not going to be easier for me and then she’s just going to feel bad and we’ll both be miserable. It’s my shit to sort out.”
She scowled at him. “But you’re not sorting it out. You’re getting drunk.”
“What else am I supposed to do?” he snapped, throwing his hands up in frustration.
“See a therapist?”
“Right, right. Because I can totally mention the psychic thing without sounding like I’m out of my fucking mind.”
“Dude, that clinic near here has doctors who can handle the supernatural. I’m sure there’s a therapist or two specializing in us.”
He suppressed the urge to roll his eyes at her argument. “Even if we could find one, how am I supposed to pay for that?”
A derisive snort escaped her. “Like we pay for everything.”
“Therapy’s a lot more expensive than our weekly groceries.”
“Kai could make it work. Would you try it? If we found one?”
He considered that for a moment, gaze flickering down to his hands for a long time before he looked at her and offered a nod. “Honestly? Yeah. I’d be willing to try. I’d try anything that might help.”
She gave him a pointed look. “The drinking and the drug habit kind of indicated that.”
“...right.”
“You know we care, right? Like, I get that feelings and shit aren’t exactly anyone’s area of expertise here, but we do care.”
“I think Kai and Viv would prefer it if I didn’t live here,” he responded. He couldn’t blame them for that.
“They’re just worried about Kit. But they care about you, too. We all do, whether you believe that or not.” She rolled the bottle between her hands. She wasn’t very good at sitting still. It was no wonder she got along with Vivian, really.
“Are you going to tell them about today?” he wondered.
She was quiet, messing with the bottle a while before answering. “Not this time, but if you do it again, yeah.”
“You should probably get rid of that, then.” He couldn’t and wouldn’t promise not to do it again if she made it even remotely an option for him.
“Yeah, I know. It’s fine. I don’t really need it.” She still didn’t seem thrilled to have to get rid of it, but he supposed he didn’t blame her. It was good rum. “...wanna see something cool?”
His brows furrowed at her. She opened the bottle and took a long swig before slowly exhaling a breath of flames. He’d seen her do that before, without any alcohol, but it was still pretty cool. Living with so many different supernatural beings would probably never stop being interesting.
She grinned when she was done. “Rum burns blue.”
She was right. The flames had been blue, though he hadn’t considered that the reason why.
“Do you keep that on hand for party tricks?”
She snorted again. “Of course not. This is good rum. Normally I use the cheap shit for that. This one was in one of the cars I stole not long ago. I guess it got left in the trunk by the owner. I was saving it for a rainy day.”
“Well… it was kinda used for one.”
Her eyes rolled. “For me, dipshit.” She took another long swig and exhaled more fire. He paid closer attention to the blues of the flames. It really was beautiful, even if it slightly pained him to watch the alcohol burn. She finished off almost the whole bottle that way, only bothering to actually drink about one shot. But at least she got to enjoy some of it.
When she was done, he shut his eyes again, leaning his head against her shoulder. He felt her tense beside him.
“Aren’t you worried about--”
“Can’t see shit when I’m this drunk.” The words were accompanied by a somewhat amused laugh that sounded dangerously like a giggle. But it was true. This was the whole reason he had a drug problem. The less sober he was, the less his powers worked. It seemed like a decent trade off to him. He was happier any time his powers were down than he was any time they weren’t.
She shook her head. “And you wanted more alcohol.”
“Mmmm… another quarter of the bottle would’ve been nice.”
She looped her arm under his shoulders and stood. “Come on. Let’s get you in bed. And you might wanna shower before anyone else sees you tomorrow. You’re lucky no one else has the heightened senses thing.”
“Aaaaah. Is that how you found me?”
She nodded, helping him stumble over to the bed. She propped him onto his side and set his trash bin next to the bed. “I meant it, you know. I’ll find you a god damn therapist, even if it means doing cross-country skype sessions on one of Kai’s fancy encrypted laptops. You’ve got enough shit on your plate, so let’s try to clear what we can.”
“Thanks,” he mumbled, grabbing one of his blankets and snuggling into the bed. He was tired. The day had been draining enough and talking about it, remembering it all, had only exhausted him more quickly. He barely heard her shut the door before he was out cold.