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[Jul. 13th, 2009|12:14 am] |
Sullivan had not been happy about giving up the hunt. But he could at least agree that they needed to come home and regroup. Wendell was working on tracking and Sullivan himself was poring over the updated maps Wendell gave him when he had new information. At the moment, he was in the garage, the place he went to be alone. The map was up on the wall with little pins stuck in it like a big investigative operation.
The trip had worn Robin out. One of the many reasons that they had decided it was time to come home. The longer they were on the road the harder everything was for him. He couldn't sleep, he wasn't eating right. He was absolutely exhausted. So when they got home the first thing he did was eat a meal that Wendell prepared and to disappear into his bed for the better part of two days. Now that he was up again he shuffled into the garage of the main house with every intention to go into the kitchen to eat. But when he saw Sullivan sitting there, going over the maps, he walked over to the little table and leaned against it. "Hey."
Sullivan glanced up at Robin and smiled briefly. He'd been preoccupied with this, he could feel it in himself, but Sullivan was extremely tenacious. It was clear he could easily lose himself in this. "Feeling better?" he mumbled as he plucked a pin from the map and examined the city name beneath it.
"Yeah, I am.' Robin tilted his head down and brushed a kiss across the side of Sullivan's neck. While he worked, he brushed his fingers back through Sullivan's long hair, just raking out all the tangles as gently as he could manage. "I was going to go inside and get something to eat, would you like me to bring you something? We can share."
The brush of lips was pretty distracting, but Sullivan jabbed the pin back into the map. "I'll get something to eat later," he said, going to look at one of the news articles Sigmund had clipped for him. Sullivan was not the most booksmart of the wolves, so things like this took his brain much more effort. He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, obviously getting a headache.
"Take a break." Robin said softly. He could tell that Sullivan was stressed out and that he was borderline obsessing over all of this but he didn't want the boy freaking out over everything. With his hands resting on Sullivan's shoulders he gave a gentle rub, pushing his thumbs into the muscles so that he could try to relax the tension. "Come inside and eat with me. Just be with me for a little while?"
"Where's Haben?" As if to suggest that he could be with Robin and then they could both leave him to work. But the tone of that made him wonder why the hell he was so intent on this project and why he could see nothing else. "Yeah, okay. I could eat." He nodded and pushed his hair out of his face with a reluctant sigh.
Robin felt momentarily put out but then he smiled at Sullivan's agreement. Wrapping his arms around Sullivan for a moment, he pressed a kiss to the side of his head and he just grinned at him. "Come on, come inside and spend a little time with me. We don't have to find them today or tomorrow. We have time."
"I hope we have time," he said ominously. A million whatifs ran through his head, the biggest of which was the what if they decided to turn around and hunt Robin down? Who knew what they were capable of. Shutting the light off in the garage, he went into the kitchen and leaned against the counter, fully expecting Robin to be getting the food out.
There was plenty to eat in the fridge, so Robin just set about plating everything up and putting it in the microwave for the appropriate amount of time. Once it was all warm he put the plates on the table and went to get them some soda and silverware. There was no comment on Sullivan's remark about hoping they had time. They would. He was confident that they would have time to figure this whole thing out and to make it all even. "Eat something and then maybe we can go for a walk or sit in the hammock for a while."
Sullivan watched him, curious at the ever-growing confidence he could sense in Robin. Maybe that had been the real attraction, the sense that there was a dominant wolf inside of Robin, waiting to grow up. "If you get any bigger, I think you could take Austin in a fight." He was half joking, but there was truth to the statement. "You're like a little fucking alpha sometimes--look at you." He smirked, passing off that he was just making fun of Robin.
When he said that bit about being a little alpha it made Robin make a face at him. Putting the sodas down on the table he sat down across from Sullivan and propped his feet up in the other boy's lap. "Just eat your dinner and then we are going for that walk out to the hammock. Don't argue with me." If he was going to call him a mini alpha then he was going to act like a mini alpha.
"Or you're just a spoiled brat." Who might not think he got his way, but always seemed to be making people jump through hoops for him. Sullivan dug in to the food and was quiet while he ate. Being used as a foot stool wasn't all that bothersome, given that he felt it gave him an advantage, and power over Robin's legs. He was starting to embrace his status, rather than fight it. Second.
Robin slid his feet down between Sullivan's knees and he leaned forward so he could eat. He stayed quiet, ignoring the comment about being a spoiled brat because he was pretty sure that was much more the case than the mini alpha thing and he wasn't going to argue with the other wolf. Instead he was just going to keep on eating and then strong arm Sully into the hammock with him.
When they were done, he picked up the plates and stuck them in the sink. "Come on," he gestured with his head toward the door. The way he said it was a command, but really he was just doing what Robin wanted. He seemed to do that a lot.
Robin got up and he walked over to take a hold of Sullivan's hand. Lacing their fingers together, he just held his hand loosely and started to walk off in the direction of the hammock. It would be nice to just lay around for a while, even if it was virtually all he had been doing lately.
He had to admit that it was nice just to focus on being with Robin instead of assuming he had to rescue him from the memories of what had happened. "So I guess you're feeling better. You smell closer to before," that was the best way he knew how to describe it.
"Yeah." Robin pressed a kiss to the side of his face as they slid into the hammock and leaned against one another. He laid his head on Sullivan's shoulder and brought his knees up so they were tucked between them. There were still moments when Robin felt vulnerable and a little scared but he tried to hide it as best as he could. "I am feeling a lot better."
Satisfied with that answer, Sullivan let himself relax a little. The evening was nice, warm but they avoided some of the hottest days by being up in the mountains. "You've done really well," he praised lazily. "I wouldn't have come out the other end of that."
"Yes you would have. But you wouldn't have even gotten yourself into that sort of situation in the first place." Robin sighed a little bit and he turned to nuzzle his face in against Sullivan's throat. "I'm glad that you came to find me, I don't think I would have made it if you hadn't come with Hunter."
"You wouldn't have. They had every intention of killing you." He was tired of the pack not being safe, of him not being able to make it safe. Sullivan sighed, suddenly feeling as if he should be back at work.
"That's not what I meant." If Hunter had come alone, or come with Austin, he was pretty sure that he would have just wasted away in Aubrey's apartment. But Sullivan being there saved him. It gave him the last little bit of will he needed to survive. "I know that they wanted to kill me. They talked about it. He was going to strangle me with a neck tie. I'm pretty sure they had plans for my corpse too."
Robin would leave a pretty corpse, he was sure. Sullivan shifted uncomfortable beneath Robin. "I see." He understood what Robin was saying now. "That's probably why Hunter let me go." Or he knew Sullivan would have found some way to follow after anyway.
With a soft sigh he shifted around because Sullivan did and he just went quiet. The conversation was approaching uncomfortable and he knew that even if he was ready to talk about it that didn't mean anyone else would ever want to hear it. "Have you even slept since we got back?"
He sensed the tension in Robin. "No," he said casually. Sleep was his absolute favorite, but he just couldn't close his eyes after having been in that house again. Looking through pictures of the people that the two of them might have gotten their hands on--Sullivan exhaled a long breath. "Will you ever tell me everything that happened there?"
"When you are ready to hear it, I will." Robin said softly. "I just don't think you are ready yet.' Sullivan was uncomfortable when he mentioned the bit about them wanting to kill him so he wasn't sure if he could handle all the rest of it just yet.
Sullivan clenched his jaw, disliking that answer. "You don't know if I'm ready. I'm ready. I don't think you're ready to talk." Typical for him to turn it into a challenge. Sullivan was under the impression that he could handle anything.
"I was walking home to the hotel room that I was staying at. It was sort of an out of the way walk on a hiking trail through the edge of the campus. He came out of no where, drugged me. When I woke up I was tied to a post in the basement and I could hardly even breathe over the stench of sex and death." He started, and he looked at Sullivan to see if he could handle more.
Sullivan's face was a mask of collectedness. He was trying to detach himself from the words, but he needed to hear them. Knowing how they worked might help them be tracked. He swallowed, raising his eyebrows so Robin would continue.
"I don't remember all of what happened. I was in and out of it, but they kept injecting me with stuff. And when I would wake back up I could hear them talking about what they wanted to do to me. The younger one, he was new, I guess. I was supposed to be his first. He was going to rape and murder me, that was the plan. But things weren't going well and they figured out that my metabolism was killing me. I shifted, I tore this tiny room they had me in to pieces but I was too weak once I shifted back, so they put me in the bath and cleaned me up. And then they took me to the bedroom, and the younger one raped me while the older one watched."
Sullivan's heart was beating faster with the little jolt of adrenaline that Robin's words had caused in him. So it was the newer one who'd done the most damage, the one who'd claimed what Sullivan claimed as his. His jaw clenched a little and he was silent, unable to think of anything to say to what Robin had revealed.
"They fooled around with each other afterwards and took me back downstairs. They stopped feeding me, kept torturing me. It wasn't long after that that you found me." Completely on the brink of death.
His stomach churned wildly. Something about that last little bit that made Sullivan so furious he had to untangle himself from the hammock and get up. Walking to the line of trees, he bent in two and threw up as he propped himself up against a stump. The bile kept coming, and all the food he'd just eaten. The vivid scent memory from the house rose up to egg him on. When he was emptied out, he leaned his forehead against the tree.
The reaction surprised Robin and he got up to follow him but stopped when he realized that Sullivan was being sick. It felt like such a private moment and he felt as though he was invading, but when it was over he walked up on him and squated down to put his hand on Sullivan's back. "I'm sorry."
Sullivan shrugged the hand away and stood up straight, walking away from the scene of his weakness. "Don't be sorry. It's just disgusting, that's all." Really, it was the thought of those things happening to his Robin, and he hadn't been able to stop them. And now, he couldn't even find the sonofabitches to give them what they deserved.
Robin stood there, watching him walk away. "That's why I never wanted to tell you." Because he didn't think that sullivan would see him the same way. Now he was some damaged and disgusting little used toy and he didn't want Sullivan to think of him that way.
"Because you thought I'd puke?" He frowned and shoved his hands in his pockets. "I couldn't help it. Those things are fucking vermin and if I don't exterminate them, I'm going to die trying. If they got a taste of one wolf, what makes you think they won't look for another? I know I'm not responsible for fucking mutts, but I wouldn't wish that fate on anyone, not even humans."
"No, that's not what I meant." he said softly. "because you won't be able to look at me now without thinking about that. About how I looked when you found me or how the house smelled. You won't be able to look at me without knowing what they did. And I know this because I can't look at myself in the mirror without thinking about it. I can't close my eyes without thinking about it." And eating was the worst because any smell that started to smell too strong reminded him of the stench he'd lived in for weeks.
"I have a lot of memories of you, Robin. I look at you and see those, not how you were when we found you. Just see you, nothing else." He shook his head, convinced in his words. And while he was obsessed with hunting these people down, it was for revenge, because it's what he thought Robin needed for closure. And it was pennance for his own inability to prevent it in the first place.
Robin just shook his head and he ran his fingers through his hair, tugging at it gently. He was having enough trouble with it and he was completely terrified that they weren't going to want to be with him now. Like he was ruined. And he didn't want them to feel obligated to be with him either. "I am going to go back to my house. I need to sleep." As if he hadn't already done enough of that since they had been home. It was just the only way he knew how to cope.
"I'll come with you in a minute, okay? I need to go brush my teeth." He pointed back at the main house and headed in that direction. When he was done, and feeling better, he headed toward Robin's house, entering and wondering if he'd already just gone upstairs to bed.
Robin had gone up to his room to crawl into bed. He was staying along at the house, though most nights Haben ended up there, crawling into bed with him. He wasn't sure if it was out of love or out of some sense of duty now that Robin had been pieced carefully back together with all of their hardwork and care. He was curled up on his side of the bed, laying so far against the edge that there was nearly the entire bed behind him.
Sullivan toed off his shoes and crawled from the foot of the bed up to where Robin was. Putting an arm over him, he shook his head enough for Robin to feel it. "Do you really think we're going to leave you? Haben gave up a lot for you and obviously I don't have the ability to quit on you."
"I would understand if you both did." Robin told him. "I'm different now, I'm going to always be something different from what I used to be. The thing that you loved." And he didn't know if he still had it. "And you both took care of me, and you both stayed with me, but you don't have to, if it isnt' the same." Because he didn't see how they could still both be in love with him and still want him after all of this. And he wasn't sure he wanted them to stick around just out of obligation. "I'm different, you said it yourself."
"When did I say you were different?" Sullivan scooted closer, tugging Robin closer at the same time so that their bodies collided front to back. His voice was right in Robin's ear and he kept it low and calm.
"I don't know, maybe I just thought that you did. I can't remember anymore." It was hard to keep things in his memory when hsi thoughts drifted so easily. "I just am though."
"You've always been a little alpha, you've always been demanding, and wounded. You haven't changed, Robin, except that maybe you've been forced to realize the world out there fucking sucks." He kissed the back of his neck, thankful that Robin had stolen his attention away from the newspaper clippings and the maps. "Everyone changes. I've changed, do you still love me?"
"Yes." There was nothing that would cause him to stop loving Sullivan. Nothing that would stop him from loving Haben either. Closing his eyes, he curled up a little more and leaned back against Sully. "I just worry sometimes.' But he always worried.
Putting his chin down on Robin's shoulder, he stayed silent for a second, then kissed Robin's neck again. "Don't worry so much," as if it were that simple to turn such a thing off.
"easy for you to say." he laughed softly and just tipped his head down so he could kiss his neck again if he wanted to. "I wish that it were so easy as all of that, I really do."
"Will it help if they're dead?" Sullivan asked. Rarely did his voice go tentative or uncertain, but that's how he delivered that particular question. "Will it help any of the memories, or the way you're feeling?"
"I don't know if it will or not. I think maybe, mostly just because I sleep and I dream about what they are doing to other people. What might be happening to boys in new towns. And what their families must be going through knowing they are gone."
"Humanitarian of you," Sullivan smirked, making fun of him. Though he'd been thinking the same thing. He remembered holding him like this, trying to will him into a sound sleep after the incident. It had never worked and he sighed with the memory of it, warm breath ghosting out over his neck. "I love you, get some sleep."
Robin smiled a little bit at that and he leaned back against Sullivan a little more before he closed his eyes. His sleep had been coming easier and lasting longer, so he hoped he could make it through the night with Sullivan at his side. "I love you. Goodnight."
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