A decade, he reminded himself. Longer than that. Robin had put his head down for over ten years. He didn’t need to be silly now, even if romantic silliness was a family problem.
The couch was too far away from the fire, in any case, and he didn’t want to move it back. It didn’t belong over there anymore. He’d simply have to sleep upstairs… and be cold and alone again.
Robin got up for more wine, since he’d been so busy not Looking into the cup that he’d emptied it again. He didn’t usually drink, so, in the kitchen, he stopped to make a cup of herbal tea to go with his next mug full of wine. The wine was tradition, and for now, it made him warm. But it also made him thirsty.
He stopped at the bathroom, then picked up his cups from a table in the hall and went back to the living room. The fire was big and bold, the room livelier than it had been in years. Robin turned the TV off, sat in silence for a while, then got to his feetagain to drag the afghans and blankets and one couch cushion to the floor in front of the fire.
He put his drinks down near him and then turned to face the flames.
All the better for waiting.
Robin didn’t know how much time passed. He didn’t have words to say or powers to make himself heard. None of his family had stayed behind to listen, not his immediate family. Robin had ensured they had left the world happy, that they’d had no reason to tarry here with the others who hadn’t had much chance for a real life.
But he did wish that they might have lingered a while. Until now, at least, tonight, when he finally had something to tell them.
He thought they would approve, if he was right about why they’d brought Lucas here all those years ago.
“Were they really matchmaking?” he asked the ones still with him. “I should be offended. I come out to them and they try to set me up with the first boy in the area they think might be queer too?”
Or, just as possible, Robin had done something appropriately moody and teenage-boy-with-a-crush around them at the mention of Lucas’ name, and they had read the leaves or looked in a glass and decided to meddle.
“But surely,” Robin argued with those who couldn’t answer, “whatever the tea or the glass revealed, it should have shown them that Lucas is meant for something. The sun, the moon, and the stars…. That’s… light ahead. Success. Prosperity but…beyond money. That’s… destiny, all those things together. That’s Lucas, always. He’s meant for something important.”
That didn’t necessarily exclude Robin. But it didn’t promise him much happiness, either, staying in the background while Lucas faced trouble, or struggle, or danger, as he surely would. Destiny always seemed to involve such things. Lucas would run around throwing himself on altars if he was convinced the need was true.
Ridiculous, and not allowed. Not on Robin’s watch. Certain people within the coven would say many things were needed if it would get them what they wanted. Robin knew better.
“I suppose,” he began cautiously, wetting his lips first with tea, then with wine, “I could try to be there for him. For that. For his destiny. If I can pull myself from my work and look up once in a while, I might be able to help.” He said that a bit sourly, knowing himself and his tendency to get lost in his projects. He should still try. Taking care, supporting a loved one, was what people did, after all. Although only a few of Robin’s relatives had been happily partnered, some before his time, so he had not witnessed a lot of nurturing, supportive unions as an adult.
Then he wondered what he was thinking of. A few sips of wine and he was practically planning marriage. Whatever he and Lucas were, they were not married or likely to be.
The wine shimmered again, golden bright.
Ending up as something like family to Lucas, that seemed more possible, for all that Robin planned on enjoying the kisses now. He could support Lucas when he needed help, even if Lucas didn’t admit he needed it, or know he needed it. Just like Lucas had done for him.
Robin stopped, then slowly put down the cup.
That seemed a thought worth dwelling on. But the flickering shadows about the room, darker and clearer despite the light of the fire, abruptly vanished.
Robin immediately turned his head toward the doorway a moment before the sound of the front door being opened carried down the hall.
A hand to his chest did not stop the sing of electricity through his body nor the sudden urgency in his heartbeat.
Lucas appeared in the doorway from the hall, wearing a coat and a dark sweater, with an equally dark scarf that had also come from a store. The washing instructions tag was visible.
Robin took a deep breath and let it out while Lucas looked over the room, and the fire, and the wheel, and then finally Robin on the floor.
“I thought you wouldn’t be back tonight.” Robin didn’t mean to sound cranky, but just once, it might be nice for Lucas to not find him on the ground, or falling to the ground, or half-asleep on some strange surface.
Flax startled them both by leaping from the spinning wheel to alight on the back of the couch. Flint, perched on Lucas’ shoulder, joined him. Lucas didn’t seem to notice her flight, although he had to have felt her leave.
“I mean,” Robin corrected himself before Lucas could develop a frown, “I am happy to see you. But I thought you were staying with your family tonight.”
Lucas, still in the doorway, seemed to notice Robin’s two cups, and the frown came into existence anyway. But when he met Robin’s gaze, what he said was, “I was going to. But I was sitting on the staircase watching some of the younger ones dance, and a spider came down from its hiding place inside the banister andlanded on my shoulder. I carried it outside, yet it came right back to my hand. I figured it meant you wanted me here.”
“Not everything is an omen. The spider probably didn’t want to be out in the cold.” Robin looked Lucas over.Boots. And to a family party. But maybe he’d put those on for the drive over here. Maybe another storm was on the way. “You didn’t want to dance? Is it raining?”
“They will drag me into dances sometimes. But mostly I sit on the stairs, and then, in their turn, one by one, the others will come sit with me for a while. And we’ll eat and drink, and they’ll joke, and they will introduce their girlfriends and boyfriends and children and familiars to me. They’ll bring me drinks I don’t ask for, and those with an art, like you, will sometimes show me something or ask my opinion. I help keep the fires lit, and I clean up, and I go to bed, usually with a few cousins snoring on the floor of my room.”
