Disclaimer: I don't own WHR, etc.
*~ Asphyxia ~*
Robin stared angrily at the bathroom door. She was already clothed in the oversized faded black t-shirt she wore while she went through her nightly routine, her golden hair hanging loose about her shoulders. She dreaded the prospect of entering the small bathroom in her bedroom as she went through the motions leading to her nightly bath.
For there would be no bath tonight. Again.
They had stayed at a few hotels and apartments that had only been equipped with only a shower fixture during the six months they'd spent traveling across Europe after the Factory's collapse. It hadn't bothered her in the past: they usually stayed only a couple of days at each hotel. But this time Amon had decided to rent the small, lake-adjacent summer cottage where they currently found themselves for an entire month. One month without the comforting, cathartic ritual that had marked the end of each day for Robin for as along as she could remember.
It was more than just a habit, unlike most of her other compulsive daily actions. Out of habit, she would diligently clean already pristine hotel rooms, ignoring Amon's annoyed looks. Out of habit, she would style her hair in two bizarre pigtails every morning – it had been the hairstyle mandated for novices in the convent, worn underneath the white veil. Out of habit, she would drink a cup of espresso first thing in the morning and after every meal, even during the heat of summertime. But her nightly baths, those were not simply a habit. They were as necessary as sleep and food.
For Robin, her nightly bath was the cleansing of her body, mind and spirit from the hardships and frustrations that had built up throughout the day.
It was a celebration for having enjoyed another day, for having lived to seek out the beautiful things ignored by most people but which reassured her of God's existance: a kind gesture from a complete stranger, the wind blowing gently against her face, the beauty of the sunset…
It was a comforting embrace of her body by the warm water, the only kind of embrace she had ever counted on in the absence of parents, of friends and family within the coldness of the detached, rigid environment where she had lived her childhood.
It was a solace from the ever present reality of her grim situation as a fugitive witch.
It was a form of re-energizing her mind and body so she could deal with another day of uncertainty, of running and hiding.
It was the only time she had alone with her feelings and thoughts, away from Amon's constant stare, away from the weariness she knew she caused him.
On top of all that, lying in a bathtub, soaking until her body pruned all over and the water turned icy cold, was the one and only pleasure Robin allowed herself. She had never permitted the selfish, petulant, temper of a teenager to gain control over her mind. That is, until she had been forced to give up the closest thing to pampering that she'd ever had.
She glared even more intently at the closed bathroom door, clutching a white towel to her chest.
They had been at the cabin for 3 weeks already, and in the absence of her purifying ritual, she could feel herself grow more and more anxious as the days went by. She felt exhausted, heavy, irritable and sullen.
And sad. She felt so sad, and she knew her ever watchful warden would certainly notice the change.
If she hung around him too much he would either, 1) be annoyed by her new irritable disposition, or 2) would suspect that it had something to do with her increasing powers, and then he would drill Robin for hours with questions about her craft. And if he were to extract the real cause of her bad temper during his interrogation session…. Robin could picture his reaction in her mind; Amon scoffing at her, calling her childish and immature and dismissing her sacred bathing ritual as ridiculous. And Robin absolutely refused to give him the pleasure of making her feel like a silly little girl. The last thing Robin needed was to give Amon another reason to call her childish, not when she had to constantly remind him that she wasn't a child, that she was mature enough to have some say in the decisions that determined the course of her life, decisions that he usually made on his own.
So she tried to avoid Amon as much as possible in the small house. She spent most of her day in her room, reading old books she'd collected during their travels for hours on end. Occasionally, she would venture downstairs to stare out the living room window at the beautiful view of the surrounding woods and the sliver of the lake that peeked out from beyond the forest line. She had a good view of the scenery from where their cabin sat at the top of a small hill, and though she found the quiet and peace comforting, she felt too weary in her current state to go out for a walk in the beautiful place. Something that, under normal circumstances, she would do every day without fault.
Amon would doubtlessly be puzzled by her self-imposed isolation, and honestly it was starting to make her feel trapped. But it was either that or having to face Amon and his questioning glare. So she opted for voluntary imprisonment rather than facing interrogation by her warden.
Robin closed her eyes and let out a long sigh.
She wished she could tell him. She wished she could reach out to Amon, remove at least one small part of the wall he'd erected around himself to peek at her former partner's impenetrable mind. She wished she could just…talk to him, talk about anything else besides their future travel plans…not that she ever really had a part in those 'discussions', anyway. Robin had tried to spark conversation with Amon in the beginning, but he had been annoyed with her attempts. So she eventually gave up, and sometimes they would go an entire day without exchanging more than 2 sentences. The constant silence only reminded her that Amon was not there with her because he wanted to, but because he had to. The knowledge that he was there to protect others from made the quiet longing she felt for him all the more painful. She could never tell him how deeply she cared about him, not when his only concern over her was the possibility of her losing control. So instead, Robin tried to fill the silence with optimism, even when she knew it was just for show. She needed to regain that state of mind, she needed to try to be positive again, or she would surely be driven crazy by the silence and the seclusion.
Shaking her head lightly, Robin snapped herself out her inner musings. Instead, she returned her attention to the silent battle of wills between herself and the bathroom door.
When they had first arrived at the beautiful little cabin by the lake, Robin had found the place refreshing. During the first few days at their new hiding spot (and before her gradual descent into bath-withdrawal), Robin would take walks in the surrounding forest paths during the day (with Amon in tow a few paces behind her) and stare at the aquamarine color of the mountain lake. Back then, she had even toyed with the idea of going for a swim, but it had been too cold in the early days of spring to allow Robin a dip in the inviting waters.
However, it was now mid May and the temperatures had begun to rise as summer approached.
'In fact...today was particularly hot during the day; the temperature felt more like mid June than spring,' Robin mused with an idea popping up in her head.
She bit down on her lower lip and felt hope rising in her chest as she turned away from her nemesis, the bathroom door, and walked to the window next to her bed, dropping the towel she'd been holding carelessly on the floor.
She drew the curtains and pushed the window open. Sticking out her arm and head, she tried to feel the nighttime temperature. A light, pine-scented breeze tickled her face as she breathed in deeply.
With a smile on her lips she pulled back inside the room.
The night air still felt warm, maybe even warm enough to allow for a quick dip in the lake.
A pensive frown replaced her smile, her teeth biting onto her lower lip once more. Did she dare?
She thought of the first and most important unbreakable rule in Amon's long list of unbreakable rules:
Rule 1: Never go out alone.
This was followed immediately by an equally annoying command.
Rule 2: Never do, think, or think of doing anything without consulting Amon.
The rest of the list was not any more encouraging, though the other rules did not directly apply to the situation as much as the first two.
Amon would be furious when he found out that she had disobeyed him. But…Why did he have to know?
Feeling something akin to teenage rebellion and anger, Robin let her most reckless side take over. I'm just going to check that the water isn't too cold; I'll be back in 10 minutes. He probably already went to bed anyway, she rationalized.
Feeling her spirits rise for the first time in weeks, she pushed the windows open all the way. Her room was on the second floor across from Amon's and she couldn't risk getting caught if she was heard in the hallway. She peered out the window and smiled even more intently. It would be easy enough to get out the window and walk on the roof of the first floor before climbing down the rain gutter pipe.
Feeling giddy with childish excitement at the prospect of her little adventure, Robin made her way cautiously over the roof and down the drain pipe.
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Amon lay awake and clothed on his bed, arms behind his head, staring at the ceiling. Something had been bothering him for days. He was concerned about Robin's recent change in behavior. Her usually optimistic self had slowly been replaced by a forlorn, miserable semblance of the Robin he knew.
During the months they'd been on the run, Robin had always managed to remain hopeful, drawing on that quiet strength she had about her, that resilient strength that Amon admired so much about her, that which kept her going even when faced with so many formidable obstacles in her life. And as hard as it was for Amon to admit, he knew that his behavior towards Robin took a toll on her strength's reserves that rivaled those caused by Solomon.
He knew he was a difficult person to coexist with. He had lived alone since a very young age, and now he found himself having to constantly look after someone else. It didn't help that said someone else was a teenage girl.
A teenage girl who was a former nun.
A teenage girl who was a former nun and a witch.
A teenage girl who was a former nun and a witch,maybe the most powerful witch in existence.
Amon sighed and ran a hand slowly through his hair.
This teenaged, former nun, possible most-powerful-witch-in-existence was also the person Amon found himself in love with, against his better judgment.
He could never allow himself to close the distance that he imposed between them. As if the above list weren't enough to warn him against getting too close, Amon had learned from an early age that love could bring unbearable pain, when the person you love is lost, when they lose control, when their powers corrupted their very soul…
For all of these reasons Amon kept a detached and distant exterior. As far as Robin knew, he was there as her guardian, out of some sense of guilt or obligation or whatever she thought compelled him to keep watch over her. She could never have imagined that the reason Amon would follow her to the ends of the world was because he did not want to be away from her, couldn't stand the idea of her being in danger, running from Solomon by herself.
He knew her powers had not corrupted her. The girl did not seem to have an ounce of malice in her. Instead, she opted to seek out the good things in life, she chose to smile through her pain, she chose faith and resignation...
Until recently, that is. Amon had seen her break down before, but she would usually pick herself up almost instantly. She did not allow herself weakness or self-pity.
But now... Maybe she'd just hidden the extent of her despair from him all this time, and her mask was finally beginning to crack…
Whatever the reason was, the sadness in her eyes always broke his heart, and Robin's eyes had shown him nothing but sadness for days now. When she wasn't locked up in her room, she would just sit there with a miserable expression, looking lost and tired.
She must feel lonely, he thought with remorse. She must feel depressed and hopeless. She was a young, beautiful, vibrant girl trapped in a tiny cage with a stone guardian.
Late at night he would stand outside her room, checking on her without her knowing. Occasionally he would venture a peek inside her room and every time he would find her sound asleep in her bed, a pale shoulder peeking out from under the covers a telltale sign of her nakedness, and a serene expression on her face suggesting that at least in sleep, her troubles did not haunt her. Just one furtive look at her like this could reassure Amon enough to continue with his charade another day.
He glanced at the clock on his night stand. It was almost midnight. She would be asleep by now. It was time to go check on his precious burden.