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just know I'm right here hoping that you'll come in with the rain
It’s a stupid idea.
Damn it, he knows it’s a stupid idea.
But it seems like that’s all he is full of right now.
He stands at his window, the clock ticking slowly towards midnight. The curtains are open, and the window is closed but crucially it isn’t locked, and Theo’s fingers itch to do something, what it is is yet to be discovered.
His dad came in not long after Robin left last night, and Theo was in no shape to even pretend he was fine. All he could do was think of some clever half-truth about Robin moving away and that they broke up instead of doing long-distance. Broke up like it was something mutual. Like Theo didn’t practically shove Robin out the window himself and like he didn’t lock it behind him.
His dad believed it, if only after some persuasion. At first Theo could only get out the words “we broke up” and his dad nearly hit the roof, not at him, but at Robin, having it in mind to go directly to Robin’s house and ask what “exactly makes you think you’re too good for my boy”. It was only after Theo told him the rest that he calmed down, catching Theo out of his frantic pacing and holding him steady enough to let everything out before he pulled him into a tight, bone crushing hug. It’s then that the last walls of defines come tumbling down and he cries, truly cries, for Robin, for his own broken heart, for the ache in his chest that hit him the moment Robin left. Guilt, shame, anger, regret, it all builds up and fizzes through him like some disgusting, toxic cocktail that he downed without breathing.
That would certainly explain why he feels like throwing up.
His dad tries his best to help. Last night he dug out some ice cream from the bottom of the freezer and today he even went out and bought new ones. Three different flavours because “I can never remember which one you like the best”. One empty carton sits in his trash can now. Rocky Road. He scarfed that down not half an hour ago.
He offered to let him stay off school today too, telling him a broken heart is just as good a reason as any other. He was tempted, he can’t lie, but he didn’t take it. Taking a day off would only lead to wallowing, and that was for night time. Besides, it felt good, getting out, seeing his friends, finding something else to focus on. It was never a complete distraction, but it helped make the pain in his chest hurt a little bit less.
Even if it’s suffocating him now.
He steps closer to the window, cold air seeping through and creeping at his skin. He wraps his arms around himself and feels Robin’s as he does so, the way amputees feel phantom limbs. If he closes his eyes, maybe he can pretend Robin’s still here.
He’s selfish for wanting him to come back. Stupid, selfish boy holding Robin back. How had that thought never crossed his mind, he asks himself. How, in all the time he’s known what Robin is, has he not once stopped to consider that staying with him wasn’t good for him? That they were too different, too different species, and that Robin being with him would do something, somehow.
Maybe Harvey and Sabrina’s broken romance should have been a warning, a sign of what he should have known. Witches for witches, mortals for mortals, and hobgoblins for hobgoblins.
Mortal the word echoes in his head, in Moth’s voice not his own. The contempt with which she had said it makes his skin crawl, like it was something unfathomable, the two of them. And she was angry, he could see it in her eyes. Angry at him for keeping Robin away for so long. Away from running on rainbows and living through centuries.
How is a mortal meant to compete with that anyway? What could he have offered him? Maybe it was for the best anyway.
But no matter how many times he tells himself that, he creeps ever closer to the window, goosebumps prickling on his arms. Rain hits against it, racing to the bottom.
Leave your window open Robin had told him. He had promised to come back through it. Theo doesn’t know much about hobgoblins, whether or not you can trust them, but he knows he can always trust Robin. His word is binding.
Cold air stings his cheeks as he leans outside, his elbows resting on the windowsill. In just a few seconds, he can no longer tell what’s tears and what’s rain, and he likes it that way. He stares into the near-darkness until his eyes adjust, his ears straining for anything above the normal sounds of night-time Greendale. A snapping twig, a rustling bush. Anything.
“Robin?” he whispers, the word mixing with the wind. “Robin are you there?” He waits for a while, but his only response is chirping crickets. Nothing runs past and no-one appears at his window. He should be happy about that. Should be.
“I love you,” he says, a little louder this time. He waits a few seconds longer, listening to the sounds of the night, before he steps back and closes the window. And just like last night, he locks it.
He wonders how many times he’ll have to do that before it stops hurting.
Deep in the heart of the woods, beyond the realm of mortal vision, they fay folk gather together, refugees from all over, running from the mortal realm. From the eldritch terrors, the darkness, the so-called end of all things. Robin can’t deny he felt it too, a chill settling over his bones, but he began hopeful that they’d defeat it. That hope had dwindled over the days, replaced by new hope that maybe Theo would escape with him.
So much for that dream.
“You okay, Puck?” Moth asks, suddenly appearing at his side. He must have been more adjusted to the mortal realm than he thought, because he nearly jumped out of his skin at her. She chuckles, but it’s short-lived and bitter. She eyes him curiously, her features hardening. “Thinking about your pet mortal?”
“He wasn’t my pet,” he tells her, harshly, and she stiffens and mumbles some form of apology. “Don’t talk about him like that.” He slides his hands into his back pockets and looks at the ground. “And no, I wasn’t.”
He’s an awful liar, he knows it and Moth knows it. But her hand is on his shoulder then, and her eyes are warm.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” she tells him. “I know it must have been hard.”
“I asked…” he begins. “I asked him to come with me. To come here, live here with me.” He shakes his head at himself. “It was stupid.”
“Yes, extremely,” she says. “He made his choice, Robin. Like you said, he kicked you out.” There’s venom in her tone that makes him clench his fists. She can have her opinion on anything, but she knows nothing about him. “Maybe it’s in your best interest to forget him.”
Forget Theo? Never in his life.
As Moth turns her attention to the elder hobgoblin, Robin feels something tickle at the back of his neck, something weakened over its traves across realms. A whisper put out into the night, three words he said not long ago at all, three words he’ll never say again.
I love you.
It’s not entirely unusual; mortals often send whispers out in the dead of night, prayers and thoughts, and sometimes channels get crossed and they fay folk hear it instead. So that’s nothing out of the ordinary for him. What is though, is that it almost sounds like Theo.
The sad part is that he’s almost certainly fooling himself.