Whiskey Lullaby: Red Robin
By: Little Creature
Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans or the song, blah, blah, blah…
Notes: I had to remake this so it's not considered a songfic. But just as in Heart… well… read my profile.
The only light that shown in the room is the small lamp that sits on the desk. The light was dim. And there he sat over a small stack of open files. He ran his hand through his stark black hair that fell just past his ears. He was still in uniform.
He let a small sigh escape his throat as he hit the desk hard. Concentrating had been getting harder as the years passed by. His mind kept returning to the one girl he let slip away.
He rested his forehead on both palms with his elbows resting on the desk. The lined paper in front of him said the same six words over and over again.
He opened the bottom drawer on his left side and pulled out a silver flask. Under it lies a picture. Slowly he pulled it out as well. The picture had been taken over twenty years ago. The young girl stood in front of a wall of windows. Her fiery red hair fell just past the middle of her back. She wore her short purple skirt, purple tank that shown her mid drift and her thigh high purple boots. One leg was bent slightly and her hands were clasped together in front of her left thigh. She was looking down a bit as her bright emerald eyes looked to the camera and glistened with the flash. Her smile was shy.
Their first date.
They were so perfect together. What went so wrong?
Flashback
He walked into his cold living room to see his beautiful girlfriend sitting on the couch. Her normally cheery mood had been overtaken with somberness. He knew this before he looked at her face. Something was wrong.
"Star…"
Her green eyes fell upon him through the soft glow of the coffee table lamp.
"Robin, I have to tell you something. So please listen."
He looked to her unsure. Something was absolutely wrong.
"I am leaving, Robin."
Suddenly he noticed her bags packed at the end of the couch. Her jacket was ready on the recliner. Her keys to their apartment were sitting on the table by the door.
He didn't know what to say. He just looked at her. He swallowed shakily. Searching his mind, he tried to find anything he could say to make her want to stay.
She seemed to be waiting for him to say something. Silently pleading with him to say anything. He didn't.
Starfire got to her feet and wrapped her coat around herself. Taking her bags in her hands she walked to the door and stood in the doorway. She turned to him one last time. Again she waited for him to say something. And again he didn't.
The door closed behind her as she left.
End Flashback
That was over twelve years ago. He hadn't seen her since. She had broken his heart; he spent his whole life trying to forget her. She just didn't seem to care. Just seemed to… put him out and walk away.
He had many relationships since then. All of them failed. There was no one that made him feel like she did. She was everything to him. He felt his life end the minute she walked out the door.
He tried everything to get her off his mind. For a long time he did the whole 'player' thing. A different girl every chance he got. And he got a lot of them. A one-night fling. That only lasted a little over a year.
Then he buried himself in his work. After the Titans had recruited new young heroes, he had moved on to being Nightwing. He still protected the city, but on another level; as a solo act. The bad guys got the worse end of the deal. Robin –or Nightwing, depending on which part of his life you knew him in- took out quite a bit of his frustration on the criminal element.
He tried a number of different ways to keep Starfire from his thoughts. Hobbies, new friends, old friends, new work out routines, anything he could think of.
Then he took up drinking.
Standing up from his desk, he brought the paper he had written, picture and flask to his bed on the far end of the room.
He took his first long swallow of whiskey from the flask that night.
Robin threw himself on his bed holding on to the paper. The picture had fallen unnoticed to the floor.
As wrong as he knew it was, he tried to drink away his misery. And as hard as he tried to stop, he couldn't.
"That will kill you one of these days, Rob." Cyborg tells him on a regular basis.
"What's the point in living?" He'd answer back sourly.
He was already dead. He had been bleeding inside for years. Nothing made it stop.
"There are other ways to get over your pain." Raven would try to reason.
"None work. At least this drowns out some of it."
They watched him drink his pain away. A little at a time, he seemed to slip further and further. But no matter what, he couldn't get drunk enough to get her off his mind.
And it was somewhat true. The whiskey made his mind get foggy, causing the image of her walking out the door to get blurry. When he was drunk enough, he was unable to make out her figure in his mind. It was just a purple, red, peach and metallic blur. Without a clear vision of her, he didn't hurt so badly. Subconsciously he always knew she left, but his mind would play tricks on him when he put enough whiskey into it.
As hard as he tried to completely drink her away, it didn't work. He was always drawn back to her. Like a magnetic connection.
He was in love with her. Everything about her. He needed her to be there to stand beside him, like she always did. Hold him through his misery. Tell him everything will work out. But how could she? It was because of her leaving heartlessly, without an explanation that he was in this pain.
He lashed out and a hand hit the night stand next to his bed. The sound of metal on wood caught his dazed attention from the empty flask that made him lash out to begin with, to shift. He threw it on the floor and opened the drawer.
Burning tears ran down his cheeks. Why didn't I think of this before? No one loves me. No one will miss me. She won't.
His vision was still hazed as he climbed back onto the bed.
His eyes darted around the room fast, trying to make out the furniture. Nothing had any form. Everything melted into something else.
No shape. No form. That was his life. His insides. His heart was shattered. His life in ruins.
He climbed to his wobbly knees facing the headboard.
Convinced his life was already over, he searched the room one last time. Maybe this is a bad dream. Can I wake up? He thought to himself. His empty hand reached for the paper with his own words scribbled on it. The words took no form. But he knew what they said.
So what if I wake up? Nothing will change. SHE will still be gone.
He felt nothing but bitterness.
But the bitterness he felt was for himself. He let her go. She didn't love him. He loved her. He would always love her. Always. Till his last breath left his lungs.
The tears fell like rain.
There's no reason to be where no one wants me.
He let the misery encompass him time and time again. Somehow he seemed to pull through. Until the night… the stars were against him. the empty bottle triggered a rage so deep and mixed with so much pain, he just put it to his head. And pulled the trigger.
Holding the paper tightly in one hand, the other lifted to his temple. The tears fell soundlessly.
His hand grasped the paper with every bit of strength his body could muster before everything… his sorrow, love, pain, tears, hate, life… was gone.
He finally drank away her memory. He knew life was short. And so miniscule. But tonight, it was bigger than the strength he needed to get up off his knees. Too drunk. To hurt. Too hungry. He just let the whole world pass him by.
….
"Why did we let this happen?" Raven choked out between sobs. "We knew he was drinking all the time. What kind of friends are we?"
A strong pair of steel arms wrapped around her in a strong embrace. She was glad they did. Her knees almost gave way.
"It's not your fault. Its no ones fault. We couldn't have known."
"But we did know." She whispered. Her hysterical crying had caused her breath to become unsteady. Her voice would only come out in a whisper. "We knew he was drinking himself to death. We knew how much he hurt. And yet we did nothing."
Cyborg said nothing. He felt the same way.
Since the Titans went their separate ways, only Raven, Cyborg and Robin stayed in touch. Close actually. Raven and Robin lived next door to each other in a big apartment building. Cyborg lived two blocks down. Beastboy moved to Gotham to rejoin the Doom Patrol. And they kept in touch, too, talking at least once a week to one of them. And after Starfire left Robin, she moved to Dakota City. None of them talked to her on a regular basis anymore, though. They all let their friendship with her slip. Not really intentionally, but they did.
Every weekend was the same. The three of them would get together at someone's house and mess around. Doing nothing really. And every night Robin would retreat to his own apartment and get drunk. They were always concerned, but like everything else, they assumed this was a funk he just needed to get out of. A short lived phase like so many others he had been through.
"And I wasn't home to hear." Her tears fell harder. "I live the next door over… I wasn't there."
Cyborg's grasp tightened. "Don't do this Rae. Stop blaming yourself."
"But I-"
"No." He pulled her away to face him. Her purple eyes were bloodshot; her face was wet and tearstained, in tortured pain. "You could not have prevented this. Do you understand?" His voice was stern but caring.
"But if I had only been home, then I could have-"
"You could have what? You would have heard the shot. That means you would have been the one to find him. You couldn't have stopped this. Do you understand me? There's nothing you, or any of us, could have done."
More tears fell as another person came into the shade of the willow tree. Her tears were hot. Her body felt like acid.
"Beastboy." Raven whispered. She moved out of Cyborg's grasp and stumbled over to him. She felt weak all over. But she wanted the conversation with Cyborg to end.
Beastboy forced a tormented smile. His green eyes were surrounded in red. His green face was pale. His hands were in his pockets. "Hey, Rae." Even his voice was shallow unlike she had ever heard it before.
Cyborg walked to the grave. The chrome casket had already been lowered. Newly formed tears fell into the six foot deathbed. "Robin."
At long last, Raven's knees gave out completely. Her grief overtook her.
Beastboy caught her and let her lean against his chest as she bawled.
"I can't believe he's really gone." Raven coughed through more forced breaths.
"You? I hadn't seen him in two years." He attempted a chuckle. He knew it wasn't funny, but everybody deals with things differently. And he did it with light humor. Raven knew he was hurting too. They all knew. They all shared the pain.
"I have not seen him in twelve." A soft voice came from behind the three Titans.
Cyborg turned around. Beastboy turned his head. Raven didn't look.
"How dare you come here!" Although still in a whisper, her voice was unforgiving. "They found him with his face in his pillow. With a single piece of paper. And you know what it said?" her voice was so calm it sent shivers down each of their spins. Low and behold, tears still streamed down her cheeks.
Starfire went frigid. "He was just as much my friend as he was yours." She heard her voice but didn't believe the words she spoke.
Raven ignored it. "It said: "I'll love her till I die.'" There was a short pause as they all heard her stumble over the words. And again her voice was in a whisper, dripping with venom. "What kind of friend would do this to someone else they call friend? You caused this. Because of you, Robin is-" Beastboy put a hand over her mouth to stop her words.
"We're all upset. But this isn't Star's fault." Beastboy said softly into her hair. He let a single tear fall on her.
"She's just upset. Robin was her best friend." Cyborg spoke to Starfire, as he placed a hand on Raven's shoulder.
Deep down, the three of them couldn't help but hold Starfire responsible. They knew it was ridiculous and not true. But their pain caused them the need to blame someone. Robin had beaten himself up for years over her. So naturally, they blamed her.
"I'm not good enough for her love." He would tell them constantly. "That's why she left me."
"No." Raven would counter. "She's not good enough for yours."
But he would never believe her.
The words stung. WAS. It was like a confirmation of his death. Raven screamed through tears into Beastboy's chest in utter agony and clung to him with all her strength. Beastboy wrapped his arms around her tightly. His hands had been resting on her arms below her shoulders. He could feel her pain and couldn't help but let more tears fall regardless of how strong he was trying to be.
Starfire said nothing. She walked to the grave and knelt there for a brief moment running her hand across the tombstone. Silent tears watered the grass. What have I done?
They buried him beneath the willow. And as time went on among the clouds you could hear the angels singing, a whiskey lullaby.
-LC