A/N: Please remember this fic is now rated M for a reason!

~xXx~

Chapter 10

Robin wasn't the kind to give up on anything, with the possible exception of his burgeoning career in lion taming. For as long as Keats was out of the room he worked on the ties that bound his hands together, little by little, trying to loosen whatever he could. Progress was slow but suddenly he felt them start to shift a little. The knots began to feel a little different and the ropes a little loose around his wrists.

"Come on," he mumbled as he worked on them. Something shifted and all of a sudden a knot almost fell apart. "Oh yes!" but there were more to work on and his fingers moved as fast as possible. *Not planning to spend the rest of my life as your chew toy, Keats," he mumbled, but before he had the chance to set himself free the door flew open and Keats burst in with the fury of a tsunami.

"The fucking –" he began, finishing his sentence not with a word but a slam of the door. He reached out and grasped the pot of pens from his desk, throwing it with such force that it shattered against the wall scattering stationery like shrapnel

"What the hell?" Robin couldn't stop himself from blurting.

Keats's furious glare fixed on Robin for a second and sent his blood cold but he was in too much of a rage to focus his energy on Robin-hatred right then. He took a swipe at everything else on his desk and knocked it all flying. Papers and files flutted to the floor like a blanket of snow as Keats kicked furiously at a chair sending, it back across the room, tumbling over on its way.

"She's going to fucking pay for that!" he cried as he picked up a random tape that was lying on a cabinet and threw it across the room with such force that the case shattered sending fragments and tape across the office. Robin tried to duck as some of the bits flew in his direction. Some poor sod's final moments were on that tape, he thought to himself. Now their sticky end had met with a sticky end. Keats's temper was terrifying and Robin desperately wished that he could hide away from it. He tried to move back but there really wasn't anywhere to go so all he could do was to watch Keats exploding and try to work out what had sent him into meltdown.

"This is something to do with your guest in the basement, right?" he braved a guess but regretted it as soon as eyes of fury turned to him. He swallowed involuntarily.

"She's no fucking use to me yet!" he spat as though Robin was already in on the conversation, "a whole year, Robin. A whole fucking year with nothing. This is what I fucking deserve!"

"Easy on the F word, you've turned onto Gordon Ramsay," Robin said but his jibe was more from nerves than bravery. He gave a short gasp of horror as he noticed Keats had a particular issue in the trouser region and the truth began to dawn on him with the most intense of horror. "Oh shit, no… what did you do to Alex?"

Keats grasped the waste paper bin and threw it at Robin which he narrow turned his head to avoid the brunt of. When he looked back, Keats's furious sneer was an inch from his face.

"Well nothing yet," he spat. Yet. That was possibly the most horrifying word that he had ever heard. Keats hadn't finished either. "Why do you have to be fucking family?"

With an intense feeling of terror Robin realised what Keats meant. If they hadn't been related he was going to have been second choice. He started to shake as he remembered that fateful day on the barge when he stopped Keats from raping Kim and became the second choice then, too, stopped only by the photograph that unveiled a secret both men would rather have remained hidden.

"That's the only reason you didn't do it," he breathed with full realisation, "isn't it?" Keats's angry eyes were fixed upon him, "You really would have –" he couldn't finish that sentence.

"Fucked you?" Keats completed it for him.

Robin swallowed.

"Not the word I was going to use," he whispered.

"Yeah, I would have," Keats spat at him, "you screwed up my chance with Kimberley. And," he sneered, "there wasn't a petting zoo nearby."

"You do know I was only ever joking about the goats, right?" Robin was gibbering now with nerves.

"But yeah," Keats ignored him, "if our little family tie hadn't come out if the woodwork, you'd have been a perfect substitute." He looked Robin up and down. "Not bad looking. Of course, that makes sense when you look at who you're related to."

Robin felt a little vomit rising in his throat which he had to work hard to swallow back.

"I'm getting plastic surgery," he hissed.

Keats stepped forward and pulled Robin's gaping shirt a little wider. It was still hanging open from Keats's attempt at checking his previous handiwork.

"Of course," he began, "you didn't have all of this back then."

"The fucking scars?" Robin tried to scramble back as his fingers continued to work on the knots, "no, I didn't!"

"The muscleman look," Keats corrected. He prodded Robin in the pecs and stared him in the face. "so what's all this about anyway? You can't tell me it's for Kimberley's benefit. Not exactly what she goes for, is it?" he trailed his fingers across Robin's face and Robin thought for a horrible moment that Keats was about to gouge his eye out but all he did was to trace his fingertip around Robin's eyelid which made him want to throw up and then take a very long shower. "Now this is more like you, isn't it, Robin?" he said, studying the trace of eyeliner that was still present despite being egged and fighting with Simon. He'd clearly been asking Alex for advice on the best kind to survive a day in the Geneverse.

"Fuck off, Keats." It wasn't the wittiest comeback of his life but it was all Robin could think of right then.

"This is more you," Keats said as he finished investigating the eyeliner, "isn't it, Rob?" he used the name venomously. knowing how few ever had the honour of being close enough to Robin to use it, "because you have to remember… your arrival gave me interesting insight, Robin… I've seen inside your head," he tried to stare him out but Robin didn't flinch, "I know all your dirty little secrets", he fixed a stare in Robin that could have downed planes, "even the ones that Kimberley doesn't know."

"There's nothing about me Kim doesn't know," Robin hissed.

"The ones even you don't know." Keats sneered.

Robin swallowed but held his nerve.

"You've resorted to gibberish," he hissed.

"I'm still making more sense than your muscles," Keats told him as an instance of relief flashed unexpectedly over Robin's face that Keats didn't notice, "so what's it all about? Not because you want to be more rugged, is it?"

"No," Robin fixed a glare on Keats, "it's so that when I'm a bit tied up I can do this –"

With the knots finally loosened, Robin yanked his hands apart wide enough to slacken the ropes enough to shrug them away then with his freed hands he took a swing at from face with his right fist and followed up immediately with a blow to the guts with his left. In a fit of slight bravado and relief Robin screamed out "motherfucking YES!" at the top of his lungs as he heard Keats give a pained 'Oof' noise but he was still left with the problem of what to do with his bound ankles. Should he try to untie them at top speed or bounce away with them still tied together? He tried to push himself to his feet but was never going to get very far and despite his attempts at launching himself at Keats the rage inside the evil man exploded so hard that he pushed Robin to the ground and pinned him there with one hand against his throat while with the other he punched his stomach so hard that Robin gave the most horrific cry that Keats had ever heard and choked so hard it looked like he was going to vomit again.

"Congratulations, Robin," he screamed, "you just achieved the impossible and made me even fucking angrier!"

Robin's eyes bolted as he saw Keats lift his fist in the air and turned his face away as far as he could but he couldn't avoid the blow to his cheek. He tried desperately to keep the pain inside, not to scream, not to cry.

"Why do you hate me so much?" he found himself yelling. It seemed like a stupid question but Robin couldn't stop himself from asking.

"Why do I hate you?" Keats mocked, "it would be faster to list the things I don't hate about you. Oh brother of mine."

"I can't help sharing a father!" Robin cried, "and I'm not him!"

"And don't I fucking know it?" cried Keats. He leaned in closer and sneered, "You were the first and the only one. You know that, Rob?" he spat out the name he had no right to use.

"first and only what?" Robin cried.

"The first and only one to refuse me!" cried Keats, "Everyone else has been more than happy to co-operate with me… Simon… Alex…Kimberley… Eddie… and then there's you," Robin flinched at the look of fury on his face, "I show you I know where you're from…. Offer to show you the doorway back… give you that little glimmer of hope -" he showed Robin his finger and thumb with a small gap between them, "but you don't bat a fucking eyelid, do you?"

"To your false promises?" Robin gasped as the pressure on his throat started to become unbearable, "no, why should I? I already knew you were full of lies."

"Should have known then there was a reason why you were buckling the trend."

"What?"

"My fucking long lost brother," Keats spat. He finally drew backwards, removing his hand from Robin's throat, leaving him gasping a little for air, "Fantastic. There I was thinking I had no family. But I did. And it was you. It had to fucking be you!"

"I'd rather be related to Simon's crocodile than to you!"

"And then you had to turn up here, rubbing my nose in it!"

Robin hesitated.

"In what?" he demanded.

"Reminding me of everything I never had!" Keats screamed, his face turning the colour of a post-box as his anger grew to uncontrollable proportions.

"What? You're crazy," Robin stared at him, confused and aghast, "you're fucking crazy, Keats. I remind you of what you never had? Like what?"

"Like a father!" Keats screamed.

"What?"

"I was one fucking year old when he walked out on me!" Keats screamed, "you had him for fifteen fucking years!"

Robin's eyes widened. Could Keats really be holding him to task over their father?

"You stupid…." Robin hesitated as he tried to work out what part to correct first, "for one thing, he never walked out on you, your mother took you away from him! I've seen the documentary, Keats!"

"You believe everything you see on TV, do you?"

"Your mother took you away from him so that you could lead better lives!" screamed Robin, "and if mine had done the same then maybe..." his voice hitched as a tidal wave of sorrow came upon him, "maybe she would still be here now." He swallowed, the memory of his mother's lifeless body flashing before him. He had to put it out of his mind. He couldn't let his ghosts come back to haunt him. Not when the devil was doing a very good job of torturing him in the meanwhile. "How can you be envious of that?" he gasped, "you were saved from years of hell!"

"At least you had a fucking father figure!"

"One who left me and my mum feeling like we were the scum that crawled out of the ocean!" cried Robin.

"Oh boo hoo, poor little Robin," Keats cried, "let's all weep for the poor soul. You and your fucking perfect little life."

"What?"

"The brother with all the breaks."

"Breaks?" Robin cried, aghast, "What do you mean 'the breaks'? Have you no idea about my life?"

"I know everything about your life!"

"Then you must have been watching the cut-for-TV version!" screamed Robin, "because I certainly don't remember a version that was oh so perfect!"

"Oh no?" spat Keats, "what about you and your perfect little love-life?"

"So perfect that we had less than a year together before I was murdered?" Robin cried.

"Not just Kimberley!"

"What?"

"Why did you have to have him first?!"

Robin froze, his mouth open in shock as it dawned on him that Keats was referring to Simon rather than Kim.

"What?"

"You had to fucking have him first, didn't you?" he grasped Robin by the hair and pulled his head up just to slam it back against the ground. "What chance have I got after you? Huh?"

"You want Simon?" Robin choked, the force of the blow to his head almost knocking the sense from him.

"The perfect fucking brother!" Keats screamed.

"You're deluded!" cried Robin.

"The work, the glory, the body, the prettyboy face –"

"You've not got a fucking clue… not a clue," cried Robin, "whatever you think you know about me you have just about everything wrong!"

"No, Robin," Keats spat, "wrong' is what my life is. Such as it is. You have everything I want, Robin! Everything!"

Robin couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Oh yeah?" he cried, "our father made my life a misery… he killed my mother! I spent thirty one years of my life hiding in the shadows, lost my boyfriend, died and lost the love of my fucking life, even lost my dog!" his face was frantic now as he saw the anger on Keats's face growing, "You want my life?" he screamed, "here, take it!"

Keats glowered as he lifted a chair

"I've already got it," he hissed as he brought it down hard over Robin's head.

As Robin dropped to the floor, unconscious and still, Keats stood up and drew in his breath. Soon enough he would be back to further abuse the man. But there was another, pressing matter that he needed to deal with. Alex should be ready by now. He didn't want her too far gone to remember the moment.

"I've got your fucking life, Robin," he hissed, "it belongs to me now. To do with as I please. Enjoy your rest."

Turning on his heels, he left the office and shut the door behind him. It was time to turn his attention to guest number 2.