He thought the second most intoxicating thing in his life was the lazy air of a summer's night, among the buzz of the bees and bugs, the ocean waves crashing around him and below him. It was a joy to feel nothing but the heavy weight of the air. Dusk was quickly going, but the heat remained, soft and heavy against his skin. He lay on his back on the roof of the tower, thinking of his life now. Robin had given up with the world of crime, and so it seems had most of the criminals. He still vigorously trained, just to be ready, but his once strict team rules had faded into minor guidelines of anything that didn't have to do with saving the world.
Without crime there was nothing to do, he had to admit, but he was enjoying this effortless life thoroughly.
The dusky twilight was beginning to fade into the ink and silver night. All the colors faded from the sky, as if they were tired from a day of the sun bleaching their vividness away. With a final sigh almost audible the colors vanished into cold blackness. The moon was up already, shining its silver upon the water. The heat had not even began to fade from Robin's skin.
"Robin?" came the voice, faded and unclear, from the back of the tower roof. Robin's heart began to race heatedly but lazily, as if it too was tired from the sun. "Oh, Robin."
There was a clattering as Starfire (it was always her) began to pick up the many bottles of alcohol scattered on the cement. She held them in her arms, ever so delicately, as if it was a mother holding her first born. Robin saw blurs of this image, felt a faint touch on his skin, be it breeze or woman, and he was gone.
Waking up was not as painful as it usually was. The effect of the alcohol had not entirely lifted; he was still blissfully buzzed. There was the slight indication of an oncoming headache, but other than that he felt fine. He was about to get up and walk down to his bed, as it was now past midnight on the roof, when he saw Starfire laying next to him. Her hands were curled between her breasts for warmth, her legs tucked up to her chin. She looked as innocent as when she first came to Earth when she was asleep. Usually she ignored him or yelled at him when he had been drinking, but tonight, for the first time since Robin could remember, she had slept beside him.
He shakily placed his hand upon her head, moving it down her long tresses, feeling the silk beneath his skin. It was longer than he remembered when he had touched her. The only time they had ever kissed was back in Tokyo, more than three years ago. He had always held something deep within his heart for her; it was a tender sort of hope, a love that could only be reignited if he was sure it would be kindled.
She stirred softly beneath his hand. Her emerald eyes glittered in the moonlight. "Get off, Robin," she said bluntly.
"I'm sorry," he said.
Her eyes began to shine.
"I'm sorry for everything, Star."
Silver tears streaked down her face, sideways, as she curled herself tighter. She looked so breakable. For the first time he noticed how thin she had become. Her body looked deflated, every supple curve he once admired turned to skin and bone. She looked paler, too, almost ghostly in the dark. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, and her very eyes, once so full of wonder, looked sad and hopeless.
He couldn't help himself. He leaned down to hold her, just hold her, and placed his lips softly on her hollowed cheek.
"No!" she yelled, scrambling backwards away from him, causing him to fall forward onto his hands. "Never again, Robin! Never!"
His heart ached with an uneasy pain. "Starfire, please."
She began to sob. "No, no! You've done this too many times! You don't even remember, do you? That's because you were drunk! You're always drunk!"
This did not sound like the Starfire he remembered. It seemed only yesterday she had been thoroughly alive, budding with spring, happiness and hope.
"The last time you were this sober was over a year ago! But even before that you were a drunk, Robin!"
He had no retaliation. He didn't remember anything from the past year. His drinking had been very gradual, at first. Once the crime stopped his life had stopped. He had begun to drink, telling himself that there was no reason now that he couldn't have a beer. But one beer had turned into five in the evening. And then came the hard liquor, more and more, until it leaked into not only the evenings in the tower but the late nights and early mornings in the clubs. He seemed to be the only one in the team who did it. The clubbing had stopped a year ago after a bar fight incident, and the alcohol came for all hours of the day. He figured the only way he hadn't died yet was because he kept healthy with regular jogs and spar sessions, however drunk.
"There was nothing to do, Starfire," he said desperately. "I—I had nothing to do. There was no more crime. I felt like I had to fill…fill the emptiness in my life."
Her saddening sobs turned into laughs; horrible, angry, heartrending laughs. "You had nothing to do? Why not fill the emptiness with me, Robin! Did you ever think of that?!"
His heart stopped. Just literally stopped for a moment as he considered her words. As he remembered it, his only choice had seemed to turn to alcohol. But Starfire was here. She had always been there. And now…. How could he have been so blind?
"Starfire, I'm so sorry," he said. "You don't know how sorry—"
"I don't believe you!" she screamed, her body a trembling shadow. "You've said sorry to me so many times! Your drunken words slurring together, 'I'm sorrrry, Starrr…' And how many times have you meant it?!"
It was a rhetorical question, but he chose to answer. "Starfire, I meant it every single time I've ever said it. Just because I was drunk didn't mean….doesn't mean I don't lo—"
"Did you mean it when you got really drunk for the very first time and slapped me? Did you mean it when you slept with three women in one night and came home with two of them? Did you mean it when you got in that bar fight and put the guy in a coma? Did you mean it those dozens of other times when I got yelled at for taking away your glass?"
Her voice halted, just for a moment, become an angry whisper. "Do you even say sorry when I come up here, as I have for the past year, just to pick up your scattered bottles and break down crying?"
His voice was small and quiet. There were no words for how sad he was to see her this way. "I meant it, every time, because I was saying sorry to you. And I never said it because I was blinded by those bottles, Starfire."
She laughed again. "Oh, once again! You are the master player, Richard Grayson! You have always been sorry for everything you've done! But never once were you sorry enough to remain sober, even for a night!"
He whispered, just loud enough for her to hear, "I'm sober now. I'm sorry now. Please, Star, come back to me."
With those words, those last words, her tears began to fall again. She gasped in pain, sobbed in sorrow, howled in horror. "Didn't you hear me? Never again, Robin. Never, ever, ever again."
And with her words, something within him changed irrevocably. His heart shifted. Where there was once the happy and thoughtlessness that was caused by booze, now there was the hope of love from the woman he loved more than anything in his lifetime. He would remain sober. He would love her until the end of time, and it wouldn't matter if she ever forgave him. He loved her, and that was all there was to it.
"I'm going to change, Starfire. I promise you that." He breathed deeply. "I've always loved you. My love has been blinded by a cheap replacement, and for that I'm sorry until the day you forgive and love me again."
She looked up to the moon, the light falling on her face brilliantly. Her eyes were swollen and red, her shell of a face streaked with tears, but he had never seen anything quite like what he saw in her eyes in that moment. It was beautiful. It was--
"I hate you, Robin," she said, her voice deadly and horrid. "I will never forgive you."
In that look, in that face, and even in those words, there was something that was both found in him and renewed in her: hope.
Someday, he would live like a lullaby, happy and thoughtless, but with no alcohol by his side. It would be her instead; it would always be her.