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“Y'know what I like about you, Holbrook?”
Holbrook raised an eyebrow, but otherwise didn’t respond. Her expression stayed neutrally blank.
“You never fake a smile. When you’re pissed, everyone knows it, but everyone else knows when you’re happy , too. Even when you try to hide it.”
Holbrook stared at her. “Seriously?”
Robin smiled, all teeth and all honesty. “Yeah! I hate having to deal with social cues or guessing what people are feeling, but I never have to do that with you. It makes you so easy to talk to.”
Robin was not gentle, but she tried to be. Holbrook noted this as the girl nervously held and fussed over her wounded arm. The gash was painful, but the sting and ache was the last thing on her mind. Robin was a mess of a human being, clearly in too many places at once, but she tried. With her fumbling fingers and ramblings and concern written across her face, she tried. It wasn’t gentle physically, but it was in Robin’s own way. Holbrook pressed her lips together and felt her own pulse in her neck. Robin was so focused on her well-being and
it made her feel sick.
It was sickening, being treated this clumsily and kindly. Robin always meant so well, and it was more than Nancy Holbrook had ever done for anyone.
(except quentin, because it was always quentin; her and her tunnel vision, too violent towards everyone but him. she hadn’t made her own cage, but she added all the extra padlocks.)
Robin’s hands were rough. They looked used to work, wear and tear. They were hands that had punched and held weapons and worked job after job.
Holbrook knew her own hands were soft. Her right hand had a callus from holding pencils too tightly, a habit she’d never been able to break. Other than that, nothing. She worked a part-time job as a waitress once, before her world was set on fire. Dream demon terrorizing her or not, she’d been planning on quitting due to her hatred of customer service.
How privileged.
She didn’t deserve this kindness. It took all of Holbrook’s self control to not wrench her arm away, if only because she knew it would hurt Robin’s feelings. She had done nothing to deserve that.
Paradoxically, Holbrook wanted to hurt her. In some way, a specific way. Holbrook wanted Robin to realize that she was not a good person and was far too fucked up to have ever been. The life-or-death situation just exposed all of that. There were a lot of ways to hurt someone.
Regardless, she did nothing
Robin looked up at her from her position on the ground. She looked tired, incredibly so. They’re all tired though, aren’t they? Tired of rotating sleeping shifts and monsters in closets and so much more.
It is, however, incredibly striking just how different Robin is from Nancy Holbrook herself. She’s tired, sure, but she’s still got a light in her eyes. There’s humor, life, a shine that Holbrook doesn’t have. Worst of all, Robin won’t stop looking at her with that look . Like she won’t give up her quest for friendship or whatever the fuck.
Holbrook is, admittedly, curious of what things shake Robin and what things do not.
“Can I ask you a question, Robin?” she asked quietly.
Robin raised her eyebrows. Of course it’d be a bit odd– up until now, she’d never bothered to say things like ‘do you mind if…’ or any other sort of request for permission.
Robin fumbled with her words for a second before finally settling for, “I mean, yeah? Yeah, of course.”
“Have you ever kissed a girl?”
The answer to her question was clear as day, Robin’s face went both flustered and blank, obviously stuck somewhere in the “processing” phase of registering others’ sentences.
For once, she didn’t ramble. No words came out at all. Mouth shut.
So, Holbrook reached out a hand and carefully cupped Robin’s cheek. Slow, clear movements, so she could push her away at any time. Robin doesn’t move away. She doesn’t move away, so Holbrook tries , with all the gentleness in her rough and jagged self, to be gentle when she leans in. Always giving her space to stop this.
Anxiety flashed in Robin’s eyes, something unsteady and like a growing panic was in the process of being vigorously beaten with a hammer. That alone was enough to cause Holbrook to slip her hand away and begin to lean back, but before she knew it Robin was pushing forward, upward towards her from her spot on the ground, and her mouth was on hers.
Robin’s movements were rushed and near desperate, like she'd disappear the moment their contact stopped. Awkward, clunky, a bit too much teeth. Holbrook didn’t hesitate to reciprocate, didn’t move away in the slightest when she slightly parted her mouth to breathe.
There were a lot of things about a person’s lips you could note when you’re up close and personal, Holbrook noted— Robin’s bottom lip was smooth in the way they get when picked raw. She really was so much softer on the inside than her odd outside. Robin from a poor home with her rough hands—one of which has since moved to the back of her hair, truly holding her like she’d disappear— and mismatched steps and her very soft mouth.
They pulled away, foreheads leaned against each other, and Robin looked up at her with wide eyes. Breathless. Real pretty and bright eyes. Very, very pretty.
“I guess the answer to that question is ‘yes’, now,” Holbrook said.
Robin blinked up at her, and then (and it was quite a nice sound to hear) broke into laughter. She laid her head on Holbrook’s lap and the girl herself even smiled. It was such an odd feeling, smiling. She hadn’t smiled in a while, huh? And yet here she was.
Every part of her wanted so badly to move into self-sabotage mode. The girl inside her heart screamed to say something cruel, that she didn’t deserve this, that she didn't deserve intimacy and needed to stick around in her self-imposed swamp of misery. Wallow in it, damnit. Run. Get mean. Bite the fucking hand that twirls your hair.
It would’ve been easy. But for Robin’s sake, Holbrook pushed it away. Sent the heart-girl to go sit in a corner. In the same way she regularly bit back cruelty for the sake of not disturbing teamwork and not hurting her, she tried. She played with Robin’s hair as her head didn’t move from her lap.
“Yeah,” Robin responded with a breathless chuckle. Her eyes drifted shut. “I guess so.”
Holbrook could really use a nap, preferably with her, but these breaks never last forever. There was a quick knock at the door before Quentin rushed in, eyebrows knit together—
“We’ve got a problem.”