“And I’m going to do the dishes,” Robin added, on a roll, although half an hour later, standing at the sink, he regretted his insistence.
But he grimly washed and dried everything except the dish he decided to let soak until morning even though it didn’t need it.
He watched the rain for a moment through the window. It must have started while he’d been asleep and had been hushed for most of dinner, but it was starting to come down harder. The sky would have been blue-black even before the sun set, the long winter nights grown even longer. The rain was almost too much for the land to take.
The world around Ravenscroft crept into their borders. It would take strength to deal with that and keep as much of the town going as they could. Not the coven, at least, not most of them. But the Kings of Summer and Winter, and Lucas too. Maybe that was Lucas’ great purpose.
Robin did not like that idea, not at all. He had no doubt it would involve sacrifice because that word always popped up sooner or later when Lucas was near, as if everyone else knew it too. Lucas would make one, or be one himself, giving his everything to whatever or whoever might help the most.
And Robin could stare into the window until he could no longer see his reflection, until the lights in the glass would dim and then brighten, and he’d know what would happen. What Lucas might allow them to do to him.
“I don’t like it,” Robin said to the glass instead. Lucas read signs. He must have warned the coven. Amy Parris had tried to do the same, hadn’t she? And yet they all sat in town planning their revels without any consideration for the future.
What Robin had said earlier stuck in his thoughts; he didn’t think those in charge would do much if a witch trial were to happen now. Flee, maybe. Offer up a few victims in hopes of appeasement.
Figures moved in the glass.
Robin blinked and looked down. The smooth surface of water in the soaking casserole dish showed him dark hair with a white patch and one eye looking unmistakably upward.
Robin turned away.
Not a night for getting serious work done, he decided shakily. He stayed with his back to the window, breathing in and out until he would seem calmer, before going to the living room and settling on the couch with a blanket and one of the remaining coven gifts-in-progress.
Lucas had returned to the armchair, possibly because Flint seemed to like sitting on the top for her scritches. He had taken a blanket with him, although he hadn’t settled because he was looking for the TV remote. Robin imagined him as an old man, still in his socks, hair completely silver, glasses perched on his nose while he read a book.
Of course, Flint might not be with him by then. But he also might have a new familiar. Lucas treated Flint the way Chester Sibley treated that cat of his. If he could have, he probably would have Flint on his shoulder whenever he was in town.
No wonder he’d been so hard on Josiah Hawthorne.
“I told Josiah to contact your siblings if he needed advice or help with his mother.” That wasn’t quite what Robin had said to him, but it was close enough.
Lucas looked over but didn’t ask about the non-sequitur. After several moments, he nodded, then went back to his search for the remote. He found it under his ass. Robin didn’t hide his amusement. Lucas needed more teasing for normal things and less for the parts of him that scared people.
“You can watch whatever you like. I generally don’t bother, with my eyes on my work. I might listen, but choose what youwant,” he assured Lucas. Robin hadn’t grown up a house full of siblings and wayward children, but he had lived with several nitpicky adults and he understood the rarity of getting to watch what he wanted when he wanted and be undisturbed while doing it.
It took Lucas two rows of the somewhat dull scarf to decide on something, and it was, of all things, some sort of Christmas movie, and not a big budget one. It took Robin a few more rows to realize why Lucas had chosen it, when he looked up in time to catch an intimate, almost-a-kiss moment between the two men onscreen.
Lucas kept his gaze on the television but he had stopped petting Flint, who let out a series of gentle clicks to get him to remember her. Robin put down his knitting to watch the movie as well until Lucas relaxed and resumed adoring his familiar. Robin hadn’t expected to see anything like that on TV… but it really wasn’t a very good movie.
Lucas must have agreed. Eventually, exhaling loudly in irritation, he changed the channel. Robin looked up again to see an oversized, jolly elf of a man, dressed like a traditional Holly King even if no one said so, complete with a wreath of red and green in his hair.
Robin made a face to himself.
When he looked up again, the looming, dark figure of the future stood in a graveyard.
It was as if Christmas celebrations, carelessly called Yuletide by so many, couldn’t help revealing what they were meant to be about. It was interesting what crept into their holiday anyway. Like mistletoe. Kept around, but reduced to an excuse for kissing.
But then again, kissing was very nice, as far as Robin remembered.
He grew a little more tired just thinking about how long it had been since he’d even been touched by another person. Aside from Lucas, which had been done in innocence, sadly, with only Robin’s health in mind. He’d like it, he suspected. Too much, probably. Definitely too much to aim for something casual while Lucas was here.
Lucas was not the casual type anyway, although his curiosity must have led him places on his trips out of town.
Or maybe it hadn’t, because Lucas might not be interested in, as Flora might have said,earthy matters.
Robin was barely interested in them, but in his case, that was more about the soul sickness, and physical sickness, that had brought them here. He’d been alone and sad and tired too long.
He watched Lucas pet Flint along her beak and down her back and imagined it felt wonderful. Lucas had nice hands, somewhat rough from his work but he took care of them, and he would be gentle. Perhaps even reverent.
