Rating: M

Words: 3200

Spoilers: Non-specific. Set some time between Madhouse and Deathwish.

Warnings: Language of the Cal Leandros variety.

Summary: It was everything Robin Goodfellow always fantasized about. Except maybe the dying part.

Disclaimer: Everything is owned by someone else.

A/N: So I'm catching up on the Leandros brothers novels - I'm actually up to number 5! Yay! This is what happened when I wondered how much fun it would be to try and write Robin Goodfellow. Answer: Lots.

A KISS IS JUST A KISS

"Sewers," Goodfellow grumbled, grimacing down at his thousand dollar loafers which were currently sloshing around in God-knows-what as he grudgingly followed Niko and Promise further into New York's picturesque tunnel system. "Why does it always have to be the sewers with these people?"

Robin had a point. We did seem to have spent a hell of a lot of time down here in the last few months, chasing NYC's ugliest and darkest.

"At least it's not revenants this time," I pointed out, squelching along behind the puck who, I noticed, Promise had strategically positioned herself ahead of, no doubt to obscure his view of Niko's ass.

Goodfellow had long held a torch for my brother. Actually, he held a whole bonfire for him. But Promise, although a few thousand years younger than Robin, was a vampire who didn't take kindly to almost-immortal sex-obsessed semi-deities lusting after her property.

Not that she would ever actually refer to Niko as her property. It was just that some things went unsaid. Like if Robin had ever tried to put his hands on my brother, Promise would have probably bitten them off before Nik, ninja-warrior-zen-master-extraordinaire that he was, could have even unsheathed one of the many, many blades hidden about his person.

Goodfellow grunted. "Revenants, witches. Tomayyyto, tomahhhto."

"Evil stuff likes dark and disgusting," Nik commented from up ahead. "Or hadn't you noticed?"

"My wardrobe has certainly noticed," Robin grit out. "I'm going to have to seriously consider shopping somewhere a little more low-brow if I intend further hanging out with you two for any considerable amount of time."

"Low-brow?" I echoed. "What, like Wal-Mart or something?"

Robin snorted. "Don't be ridiculous," he snapped. "Like –" he shuddered. "Bloomingdale's. Or, Zeus forbid, Macy's."

"What, are you kidding?" I returned. "Who doesn't like Macy's?" Even I liked an occasional wander around the department store, and I was an anti-social paranoid semi-sociopath.

Robin sighed. "Those without style are doomed to forever wear denim," he commented. "And plaid."

"You're such a snob, Robin Goodfellow," Promise told him. "Not everyone has a Fifth Avenue budget."

Promise, like Robin, was also loaded, mostly thanks to several elderly deceased husbands and her astute business savvy. But, unlike Robin, I got a sense she'd known her fair share of Skid Row living. Not that she ever talked much about her vampiric past.

"As interesting as your sense of sartorial elegance might be, Robin," Niko put in, "maybe we should be concentrating more on the homicidal witch we're chasing and a little less on your Louis Vuitton?"

I was pretty impressed Nik knew who the hell Louis Vuitton might be, his not watching as many late night infomercials on the shopping channel as I did.

But then, Niko knew pretty much everything about everything, so I don't know why I was surprised.

"Ah yes," Robin returned, apparently forgetting about his wardrobe malfunction for the time being. "A witch who hoists her victims with their own petard."

I frowned at the puck's back. "I thought she offed them in interesting and ironic ways?" I commented. "Like the stockbroker who drowned in his own money. Or that stuck up size zero fashion model who choked on a lettuce leaf?"

Goodfellow sighed audibly. "Niko, for an intelligent young man you did a piss-poor job of homeschooling your brother."

"What?" I demanded, not getting it.

"He's a work in progress," Nik replied. "At least he's toilet trained these days."

I got the distinct impression someone was insulting me, but I wasn't sure who or why. It could have been Robin or Niko. They were both as good at it as each other.

Nik stopped suddenly up ahead, and I almost found myself slamming into Goodfellow's back. Which was something I really didn't want to be doing after Promise had denied him the opportunity to ogle Nik's ass for the last ten minutes.

"I think we're here," Niko informed us, as the tunnel suddenly opened up into what was probably once some kind of maintenance room, but now looked like the lair of something into the occult and the downright nasty.

Although lit only by a couple of ancient emergency lights that were covered in so much ick they barely gave off any light at all, we could see that we were standing in the middle of someone's living space. The ground was at least fairly gloop-free here, and there was a filthy old bed roll tossed against one rusty metal wall and what looked like your good old-fashioned serial killer trophy shrine arranged along a shelf a few feet above it.

Robin wandered over to examine the witch's pickings. "Hmm, pretty," he murmured, fingering a rose gold bracelet gingerly. "You know I invented rose gold?" he informed no one in particular. "It was many years ago when I was living in St. Petersburg with a young artist who had the most amazing…"

I tuned Robin's reminiscing out as I examined more of the living space, crouching to pick up a yellowing jar full of something that rattled ominously. Holding the jar up to the scant light, I almost dropped it again when I realized what was inside.

Teeth.

Human teeth.

"Now that's just…" I searched for the right word. "Nasty."

"Witches are, of course, disgusting creatures," Robin was babbling on. "When I was living as a god in Patagonia, there were three of them who lived just outside of the village, like the Weird Sisters from the play, I suppose. You know Shakespeare got all his best ideas from me? Him and that friend of his, Kit Marlowe. Such a shame the way that boy ended. He was awfully pretty. Amazing hair. Especially when it was falling all around my…"

I tuned Goodfellow out again. He was being a little wordy today. Even for Robin.

"I don't think she will have gone very far from here," Promise hazarded. "All her ingredients are here. Her books." She waved in the general direction of a pile of mouldy paper stacked up against one wall.

"...And of course that would make total sense," Robin continued, without apparently having stopped to draw breath. "As I don't think she'd be able to curse me from too far away. It's really getting a little uncomfortable as I don't appear to be able to stop talking and I think I'm going to find it hard to keep breathing soon, not that any of you would notice as none of you are listening to me, but I do believe I'm starting to turn quite an interesting shade of blue, which doesn't go at all with this beautiful jacket I'm wearing, but would definitely compliment my eyes, although once the blood vessels start to burst through lack of oxygen, they may lose their pretty green tinge, that's if any of you actually care at all for my wellbeing and imminent death, so I'll just keep trying to breathe while you completely ignore me and…"

"Robin, will you shut the fuck up for a second?" I snapped, not really listening to what he was saying. "I just found a jar full of fucking teeth and -"

Niko was suddenly standing in front of Robin, a concerned look on his face as he gripped the puck's shoulders. "Robin?" he said urgently. "What's wrong? Snap out of it!"

I got up from my crouch, finally tuning back in to what Robin was saying. And half wishing I hadn't.

"You look even prettier through a haze of oxygen deprivation," he was saying, gazing at Niko with a look halfway between adoration and asphyxia. "I really think if I'm going to die from talking too much, the least you could do is grant my final wish and -"

"I can hear something further down the tunnel," Promise put in suddenly.

"...and you never know, you might enjoy it. I'm sure you would. Everyone has always enjoyed me. I am the master of hundreds of different positions. I'm sure we could find one that would suit…"

"You think it's her?" Nik asked, apparently somehow managing to block out what Goodfellow was saying to him. He turned to glance over his shoulder at Promise, who was already heading into another tunnel branching off the room we were standing in.

"Take care of Goodfellow!" she ordered as she turned to run. "I'll get the witch!"

"...witches and their stupid hexes. Never found one that worked properly for me. You never even noticed that time I left a hex bag under your mattress. Love potion my perfectly-formed ass!"

"What?" Niko and myself turned simultaneously back to Goodfellow, before Nik's attention was torn back to the empty space where Promise had just been standing. "Promise!" he called after her. "At least take Cal with you!"

"...you should have been head over heels in love with me within an hour, she promised me and it never happened. I think the best I got was a smile. Not that that wasn't nice. I mean, you don't smile very often, Niko, and when you do it's usually as you're about to kill something, so it was nice, but, by Hecate's buxom bouncing breasts, I really am struggling to breathe now, and I think I'm seeing double, not that seeing two of you isn't one of my absolute favorite nocturnal fantasies, but I really think I might pass out soon, and what a mess that will make of my suit…"

"Nik, what do we do?" I asked my brother. Because Niko knew everything about everything.

Nik took a breath, a line forming between his brows.

"...and this was my favorite suit, too. Gray like your eyes. You have such lovely eyes. I really think if I'm going to die, the least you could do is…"

"Goddammit," Nik growled, and I knew he was contemplating doing something he really didn't want to do, as he hardly ever cursed. Unlike me.

"Nik?" I prompted. "If you're going to do something, you need to do it soon because –"

It was at that point Goodfellow abruptly stopped talking.

Nik had grabbed his face with both hands and pressed his mouth against the puck's so hard I was pretty sure they were both going to be bruised to hell later.

If Robin survived.

If Niko survived Robin.

Whether it was reflex, considering he was skirting the edge of oxygen deprived unconsciousness, or whether Robin thought a millennia of birthdays and Christmasses ("Saturnalia," I heard Niko correcting me in my head,) had all come at once, I didn't know, but he suddenly had an arm like an iron bar wrapped around my brother's waist while his other hand gripped his much sought-after ass, yanking him in so close it was a wonder his widely celebrated, oversized dick wasn't drilling a hole in my brother's hipbone.

That was the one and only time I ever heard Niko Leandros squeak.

I was pretty sure I stood there for a good five seconds with my mouth just hanging open, unable to move, or comment, or give Niko a hard time about it.

He seemed to be having a pretty hard time of it without my help.

Or at least, Robin was having one hell of a hard time, judging by the bulge in the front of his pants and the way he suddenly lifted Nik a couple of inches off the ground and slammed his back into the nearest wall while he rammed his tongue as far down his throat as he could get it.

Considering Nik had been trying to help Robin breathe again, I wasn't entirely sure how either of them was drawing breath with the lip lock the puck currently had on my brother.

It had to be said, though, Robin's color had definitely improved, having gone from a bluish-purple to a purplish-red with the sudden unexpected exertion.

Nik's usual olive complexion, on the other hand, was now almost as pale as mine.

"She's dust, I got her!" Promise appeared back at the tunnel mouth from where she'd disappeared moments earlier, but she stopped dead in her tracks when she saw what Goodfellow was currently doing to Nik. "What…?"

"I think it's called mouth-to-mouth resuscitation," I commented drily, as a knife suddenly appeared at Robin's throat and Nik finally succeeded in getting his feet back on the ground and a hand between himself and Goodfellow, pushing hard at the puck's chest.

"Okay, enough," he managed to gasp out, ducking his head down and to one side to try and get Robin's mouth off him. The maneuver only resulted in Goodfellow's lips and tongue finding their way to Nik's neck, however, and my brother grimaced, halfway between revulsion and puck-destroying outrage. "Robin," he warned, sternly. "I'm not kidding."

"But we were having such a nice time," Goodfellow murmured against my brother's skin.

"You might have been," Nik observed. "I was trying to stop you from suffocating."

"By letting him stick his tongue down your throat and suffocate you?" I hazarded, grinning despite myself.

"It's called buddy breathing," Niko informed me, as serious as he could get with a puck's hand up his shirt and another pulling at his hair. He made another ineffectual attempt at pushing Goodfellow off of him, but Robin could be surprisingly strong when he wanted to be. "Robin, I really don't want to have to hurt you, but if you don't get off me right now –"

"I might." Promise had gotten Robin by the scruff of the neck and yanked him backwards so hard, he landed on his ass with a wet thud. "And I do want to hurt you, puck."

Robin sat there for a second, breathing hard and, thankfully, completely speechless.

Nik took the opportunity to put his clothes back where they were supposed to be and wipe his mouth roughly on the back of his hand.

"I'll get you some mouthwash when we get home," Promise told him, a tiny smile ticking up one corner of her mouth.

"I'm glad you find this amusing," Niko observed, grimacing like he'd just sucked on a lemon for the last five minutes.

To be fair to Robin, I was pretty sure he tasted better than a lemon.

Not that I wanted to find out.

Ever.

"That was...that was…" And for the first time since I'd known him, Goodfellow was completely at a loss for words.

"How are you feeling?" Nik asked him, typical that he, of all people, should be most concerned for the puck's wellbeing.

"Unfinished," Robin replied succinctly, looking for all the world like he didn't have the strength to stand.

Niko went to help him, but on balance, I figured it would probably be better if I was the one to lend a helping hand. I figured if Goodfellow got anywhere near Nik again within the next few minutes, Promise might end up beheading him. Or possibly depriving him of an alternate part of his anatomy.

"Come on, Casanova," I said, looping an arm around his waist and hauling him to his feet. "Let's not get any more ick on your nice pants, huh? Although, looks like it might be a little too late for that."

"You got the witch?" Nik was clarifying with Promise.

The vampire nodded. "Robin was right. She hadn't gone far. Figured she'd hex Goodfellow as a distraction while she slipped away."

"I am nobody's distraction!" Robin snapped, although he was barely able to stand up without help.

"Why'd she pick on Don Juan here, anyway?" I asked.

Promise actually sniggered at that. "Who else do you think, out of the four of us, would be most likely to attract the attention of a witch who took delight in killing people in a way most fitting to their character flaws?"

"Point taken," I agreed. "Robin is the obvious choice I guess."

"Excuse me!" Robin protested. "I'm standing right here!"

"I think we've talked enough for one day," Nik chose that moment to interrupt. "We should go."

Robin turned a wistful gaze on him.

"He said 'go,' not 'come,' big boy," I clarified, giving him a helpful push towards the exit.

"You're no fun, Caliban," Goodfellow muttered. "No fun at all." At least he appeared to have sufficiently recovered to be able to move under his own power again. "I'm going to need at least six orgies to get the stink of this place off me."

Nik suddenly appeared at my shoulder. He looked...pale. And shaken. And a little bit more than embarrassed.

"Hey, big brother," I began to tease. "You okay?"

Niko squinted sideways at me. "Yes," he said shortly. "All things considered."

I nodded, mock serious. "All things like having Robin's tongue, hands and - uh - not-so-secret weapon all over you for the last five minutes?"

My big brother. Fiercest warrior of his generation. So zen he was practically horizontal. Scared of nothing and no one.

My big brother shuddered.

"Let's never speak of it again," he suggested, and I snorted.

"You really think that's going to happen?" I snickered. "Like every time you try and make me go for a twenty thousand mile run with a sack of rocks on my back, or clean my room, or clean out the shower? You really think this isn't going to come up somehow? Every. Single. Time?"

Nik glanced sideways at me. "You wouldn't."

"Ya think?"

"I was trying to save his life –" he began to argue.

"You were trying to fulfill every cable porn channel fantasy he's ever had."

Niko coughed. "Not on purpose."

I laughed. "Live with it, bro. He's got your scent now."

"I've had his scent for months," Robin tossed back. I'd forgotten how good his hearing was. "But now I know what he tastes like."

Niko turned a distinct shade of green.

"If it makes you feel better," Promise was suddenly at his side as the tunnel widened to sidewalk, one hand on his arm. "If he touches you again I'll eat him alive."

"Promises, promises, Promise." Goodfellow stopped and turned to look at her. "I suppose a threesome is out of the question?"

"Quit while you're ahead, puck," Niko told him.

"Ahead? How am I ahead?" Goodfellow demanded. "It's not like I got the chance to –"

"You're alive aren't you?" Nik reminded him.

"And you did get to grope his ass," I added.

My brother scowled at me.

Robin sighed wistfully, and turned back to where Promise's town car was idling by the curb. "I suppose that's one off the bucket list," he said, opening the rear door and lowering himself inside. Promise followed pointedly, wordlessly insistent Niko didn't sit anywhere near the puck.

Nik caught the door as I moved to follow, one hand on my chest blocking my path.

He caught my eyes and held my gaze solemnly, before insisting, "Never. Speak. Of. This. Again. Got it?"

I nodded, grinning brightly at my brother. "Of course, Nik," I assured him, pushing his hand aside and following Goodfellow into the car. "Now Robin. Tell me about those other nocturnal fantasies…?"

I heard my brother growl behind me and smiled.

My work here was just beginning.

The End