Chapter Text
The Things We Don’t Say
Do you ever wonder what keeping a secret really does to you? The ‘good’ ones, and the ‘bad’ ones?
Robin’s kept a lot of secrets in his life. His Mom’s secrets, Finney’s secrets, his brother’s secrets.. just.. fuck- People’s secrets in general. Finney’s, for example, were pretty bad. His dad, his mom, the way he hears the world. Finney was amazing, and keeping those secrets felt bad sometimes. Anytime Finney got a bad bruise, or Gwen would show up to school puffy eyed, the urge to spill over and do something was strong. But he didn’t. He never did.
Because he loved Finney. He was his best friend.. well- Robin was pretty sure he was. They were really close, but “best friend” didn’t feel… right. It was more than that. So much more, but Robin didn't know what.
Anyway- He could keep Finney’s secrets in the back of his mind. They were there, but he could hold them with a little bit of anger.
Griffin’s? Griffin’s secret- could you really call that a secret?- was terrifying. It was like Griffin was drowning and he was begging Robin to.. to do nothing. To let him drown till nobody could get him back up to safety.
A man. A grown ass man, that Griffin didn’t know by the way, was in the boy’s house, and he didn’t want anybody to know. Robin couldn’t wrap his head around the shitty idea. A secret. Was that even a fucking secret?
Finney’s dad was a secret. A shitty, abusive puta. Sure. But Finney at least knew his dad. He knew that he’d never actually kill them, or hurt them more beyond words, cuts and bruises.
Griffin? Griffin could be killed. Die. He could die. That small, weird, insane boy could die, and Robin wasn’t supposed to say anything.
He wanted to. Fuck, he wanted to. But Griffin had said he would die if he did. Robin didn’t understand how, or why, that would happen, but Griffin had been so.. so terrified, he convinced Robin of it too. Even if he knew, realistically, he should tell someone, right? But then Griffin would die, and it would be his fault.
So. Fun. Now he had the boy’s life in his hands, and he didn’t really want it. He didn’t know Griffin, but he didn’t want him to die. Jesus.
So, now he was in a piss shit mood all day cause of that dickwad, and it was obvious.
—
“Hey, Robin..” Finney started, nervously looking between Robin and Griffin. The two hadn’t separated all day- Robin was still paranoid because of that Van shit the boy had mentioned. “You feeling uh.. good?”
..No. Fuck no. He felt like shit. He had a life on his hands. Who would be good when they fucking-
Breathe.
“Yeah, Finn’. I’m doing fine. Just didn’t sleep well…” It came out in a mumble. He was so tired. He couldn’t sleep after Griffin came over, stayed up all night staring at his window. Thinking about if the man would have followed Griffin, and if it wasn’t that, it was how the fuck he was gonna keep Griffin from being homeless without mom getting worried.
“Oh-” Finney chuckled a little, smiling. He loved Finney’s smile. It made Robin smile just seeing it. It meant Finney was happy, and that made his heart buzz. He loved Finney so, so much. “-aha, yeah. I didn’t sleep all that good either. Gwen kept having bad dreams again. They were weird this time.” The boy said, sounding a little confused just thinking about it. Must’ve been bad, then. By ‘bad’, he probably meant Gwen’s weird future dreams. Robin didn’t really understand how that was even a thing, but he would never doubt Finney.
Robin could see Griffin freeze at the mention of Gwen’s dreams, though. The dude’s eyes had immediately frozen onto Finney, like a deer in headlights. It was weird as fuck. Both the sudden attention, and the staring. Griffin was always staring. Robin’s probably only seen him blink, like, twice. It was like he was straight out of a horror movie.
He knew it made Finney feel a little uneasy too, but they both collectively decided not to say anything.
“That sucks.” Robin finally responded, too unresponsive to really put any effort in his response. Speaking of.. “Hey, Finn, do you mind maybe.. uh.. letting me copy your notes later?”
Finney didn’t hesitate, smiling again. “Yeah, of course! Just meet me in the hall sometime- I’ll pass ‘em to ya.”
Finney was so kind..
“Thanks, man…” Robin said, already half asleep as he rested his head against the table. He really did try to stay awake, but sleep was just..
so….
..
—
“No- Griffin- the answer’s twenty four. It’s fucking easy math. I know this. It’s just adding- how do you not know this?” Robin snapped, snatching the boy’s paper to look at his answer. He didn’t mean to be so.. angry today, but he just.. he couldn’t focus. His brain kept going back to last night. The.. just.. whatever happened. He still hadn’t quite accepted it.
“Leave him alone, Robin.” Vance huffed, which was fucking stupid. Robin hated how Vance always took Griffin’s side. Like he saw something they didn’t, and it pissed him off. Robin had an actual reason this time to be pissy!
…
Not like he could explain that, though. Fucking- dammit.
“It is pretty fuckin’ stupid though, kid.” Vance said, giving Griffin a look. “You should’a learned this years ago. Weirdo.”
Griffin shuffled a little, looking down at his paper with a blank look. It was so hard to understand him. It was like he was dead and unresponsive.
“I don’t… remember…” Griffin talked slowly, not finishing his sentence. At least this time, you could hear his confusion. He looked zoned out- but he looked like that all the time.
Vance sighed, thinking for a few seconds. Robin glared a little when Vance took the paper from him with a snapping noise, and Vance glared back, but they both quieted after Griffin flinched at the noise. For very different reasons, assuming Vance didn’t automatically question if the reason Griffin was always so jumpy was because he was worried it was a grown ass man.
Robin was good friends with Vance, he’d say. They just kinda had a fighting spirit going on.
Vance reached into his bag, rummaging for a few seconds before he pulled out a mint tin. Robin watched as Vance pulled out thirty mints and set them on the paper, explaining kindergarten math to a twelve year old.
“Can you count?” Vance asked the stupidest question Robin’s ever heard, but it seemed valid with how little Griffin seemed to know. That weirdo.
“....” Griffin took a moment, staring at the mints. Like he had to actually see if he could count, like it wasn’t a fucking automatic yes. It was insane. “..Mhm.”
“Okay, good. If you couldn’t, I’d call CPS.” Vance said, joking. More of a tease, really. But Robin could tell he was only half joking. Nobody ever really called CPS, nobody Robin knew anyway. That’s what Vance had said to him a while back. They didn’t really do anything, apparently. Still- it would’ve been concerning as fuck if Griffin couldn’t count by now.
“Okay. So.” Vance slid the mints away behind his hand till there were only six visible on the table. He was mimicking the math problem. “How many mints do you have currently?”
“...” Griffin stared like he had to really think about it. “...You’re covering some of them.” He said, like it was confusing.
..
“Oh my god.” Robin pulled on his hair, looking at the scene. He felt anger pulling at him again. How did anybody let it get this bad? Sure, some people didn’t know fractions or long division, but adding? How did you get away with not knowing how to add?
He could tell Vance was asking himself the same question, he just hadn’t said anything about it yet. Robin was a little impressed with how controlled Vance kept himself when Griffin was around. Usually, he would have punched someone for being this stupid by now.
“I know that.” Vance deadpanned, inhaling and exhaling deeply before he continued. “What about the ones you can see? Those are the ones you have.”
“Oh.” Griffin paused, looking back down. He hesitated, like he could tell he was being judged, before he reached out.
Robin and Vance watched in painful silence as Griffin touched and moved all six mints till he had counted them all. Sure, it wasn’t completely silent in the math room, but it sure did feel like it.
“Six.” Griffin finally said, not very confident. Finally.
“Yeah.” Vance nodded, looking back over at the paper to see the actual problem. “Okay. Now,” Vance let ten mints out from behind his hand, “How many do you have after I give you those?”
“....” Griffin blinked for once, staring. It took him so long to even process what he was being asked, it was kind of sad. He still had to use his finger to keep up with which mints he had counted and which he hadn’t. “...Ten?”
….
“No.” Vance was trying really hard not to lash out. It was kind of funny. “I gave you ten. How many do you have, including the mints you already had?”
“Uhm..” Griffin had to take the time to count all sixteen of the mints, even starting to mumble to himself. “Nine.. Ten… Twelve..Fourteen..”
Robin was starting to understand why he had never seen Griffin pick up a book or just.. any work before.
“Sevente-… wait, no.. Sixteen?” Griffin asked, sounding shaking. Like he was confused himself, which was insane.
“Fuck yeah. Thank god...” Vance took a breath, obviously glad he didn’t have to continue explaining. “Now you have sixteen. Then,” He slid the amount of mints over to Robin. Huh?
“Robin hands you eight. How many do you have now?”
Oh. Robin got it quick, taking a quick count before he slid eight over to Griffin’s area of mints.
It took a long moment for Griffin to count his new mint growth, but at least he was starting to get it.
“....Twenty four..?”
“Exactly, dumbass. Not Eight.” Vance started to collect all his mints back as he spoke. “You understand now, kid?”
“No..”
…
They spent the rest of that seventy five minute class teaching Griffin how simple math worked. By the end of it, he still didn’t understand, but he could do it. Just.. not in his head.
Vance had crashed out multiple times, and almost got their group lunch detention twice.
—
Robin was sitting at their lunch spot, still pissy. He had been reminded again that he had to keep Griffin with him at his house till he found some shit that worked again, once Finney asked him why the boy was wearing his clothes. And Finney had been a little mad that Robin had lied about why Griffin had come over, but Robin couldn’t tell him. Or else shit would go down, according to Griffin. He still didn’t know how.
Still. Now his Finn had been mad at him all day. All because of Griffin. Even if Griffin didn’t know it.
Billy hadn’t quite gotten it yet, and he could tell the boy was trying to figure out what the fuck went wrong without words. Vance was closer, silently watching. That was terrifying.
Hopefully they didn’t make another ‘intervention’ again, like they did that one time when Robin wouldn’t tell them why he had broken his arm in 5th grade. (He had fallen while skateboarding and got embarrassed). He couldn’t tell them this time. And it was terrifying because he knew his closest friends wouldn’t take ‘I can’t tell you’ for an answer if it got bad enough.
“So, uh, Griffin, Robin.. You guys had a sleepover?” Billy asked, because of course he did. Despite how he acted, Billy wasn’t an idiot. He could use context clues, like how Griffin was dressed in Robin’s designated ‘oh, you slept over w/o your own clothes, here’ clothes, or how the two hadn’t left each other’s side all school day.
Robin wanted to snap. No, they didn’t have a sleepover, Griffin had a fucking man in his house and ran away. It wasn’t a fucking sleepover. But, he couldn’t say that. No matter how much he wanted to. The lack of options made Robin’s face scrunched up, before he took a breath.
“Yup.”
Griffin seemed to not want to talk about it either, not really reacting much. He just made a quiet “Mhm.” Noise before he went back to staring at the carpet like it had the answers to the world.
“Cool, cool…” Billy nodded, slowly. Despite the casualness, Robin could tell the boy wasn’t accepting that. Dammit. Billy was digging for information, and when he couldn’t find it, he would end up searching Robin for it eventually. Fucking dammit.. “Was it, uh, fun?”
Okay. Calm down. Think. What’s a ‘it didn’t go well’ but ‘we definitely had a sleepover’ answer that way Billy didn’t keep searching for shit Robin couldn’t say?
“Suree.” Robin said sarcastically, leaning back with an eye roll. Billy seemed a little more convinced, but Vance just stared at him. He could tell Robin was covering something up. Fucckk… fucking Griffin.
“Mhm..” Griffin repeated himself, still zoned out. According to Vance and Billy, he got like that a lot. Like the world wasn’t his, and he wasn’t there mentally.
At least it worked in Robin’s favor.
Fuck. Okay. Back to tonight.. how could he convince his mother that Griffin staying another night after he ‘had a bad scare on a nightly walk’ the last one was just a coincidence? Uh.. hm..
“Speaking of sleepovers,” Robin started, trying to sound casual. “How do you guys feel about a sleepover? Tonight.”
He tried to make it sound casual, but he was terrified. He almost felt like he was praying to nobody that this would work.
Please, please say yes.
Robin could just hope that the universe was in his favor.