60. "Robin's Charm School, Pt. 1"
"Not to be racist, Mr. Hood, but do you drink tea?"
There were a lot of situations those damned personality-indoctrination sessions thinly disguised as etiquette lessons had taught Robin to prepare for. For some scenarios, like simply getting someone to like you, they were taught proven methods that worked nearly every single time. For something more complex like, say, trying to seem even more likeable and interesting than a used-car salesman who's on his peak bullshit game, the strategies they were handed weren't quite foolproof, but still worked more often than not and came with emergency backup routes to try if need be. There were even some things, such as wooing a member of the opposite sex, which they never explicitly taught them, but the idea was that all the other stuff they'd bestowed upon their pupils would make them irresistible anyway, and by all indications, that was probably the case for anybody who passed the classes to their completion.
But then there were some situations that they never did address, tough and awkward spots that they quietly ignored and hoped again that the lads could use the other skills they'd taught them to figure some solutions out by themselves, situations like what the heck you're supposed to do when you're sitting in a dentist's chair and someone who clearly doesn't seem like they actually want to converse with you is nevertheless budging you into conversation all while they have their finger in your mouth.
Said finger(s) muffled the polite chuckle he answered with.
"Is something funny?" the unamused beaver asked as she pulled her paws out to let him speak.
Robin forced exactly one more heh before elaborating: "'I hope it's not racist to ask the British bloke if he drinks tea…' A clever joke, I'll gladly admit-"
"Except I wasn't joking."
They stared at one another for two silent seconds, she looking very bored and he looking deeply confused and a tad embarrassed, before she tapped on his chin and he opened his jaw again for her to excavate.
Dr. Fort had dropped by the junkyard after his shift last night to let the boys know that he had indeed found a dentist who he was sure would be friendly to the cause - but so charitable she was that she was working herself to the bone making sure people in this city got affordable dental care and she was booked tight until early August. But then he came up with the next best thing, a pair of dentists who… well, they weren't unfriendly to the cause, but rather they had absolutely no personal politics one way or another about those teeth they serviced - as long as they got paid. That was the catch, these were absolutely medical professionals who had gone into their field for the money, something the Merry Men loathed and Geoff even moreso, but the dogtor had called them up, pitched the idea, and the dentists were each willing to show up to their practice at seven-thirty the very next morning, an hour and a half before their practice opened and long before the assistants and hygienists even showed up, willing to do all the cleaning and scraping themselves if and only if the outlaws paid on the spot in cash at a premium for extra-hours service.
It all seemed like extortion and the boys wouldn't have otherwise agreed to it, but with Marian already in town, they had to be ready to make a good new impression any day now, and they could each admit that they hadn't been taking the best care of their chompers, regardless of how much their lifestyle did or did not allow them to. And besides, it just seemed too fitting; the dentist's names were Drs. Robin van Dam and Jonathan Kobusingye.
And now here they were in their office, both being attended to in adjacent rooms with doctors who just happened to share their names. As Dr. Fort had filled them in, the beaver was a very reserved and no-nonsense woman who was the reason their practice advertised itself as "Adult Dentistry" so as to ensure no one would ever bother her with a request to inspect their snot-nosed children, while the kob (and if you, like the Merry Men, just so happen to have never met a kob before, their people are basically antelopes doing their own thing) was a Ugandan immigrant who functionally spoke and understood English just fine but nevertheless had a thick East African accent that might have made things difficult for his conversation partner, and who would have loved to have served his native land but loved the idea of making that first-world doctor money even more. Upon meeting them, the boys realized immediately that Geoff hadn't embellished a single detail. Both of them secretly wanted to go with the antelope, who seemed like the less antisocial and miserable of the two, but names aside, the beaver typically took the smaller patients at their practice while the kob took the bigger ones, and so it was that Robin got Robin while John got Jonathan.
"I ask because your teeth are clearly stained with something," Dr. van Dam began again as she kept poking around the fox's fangs. "You don't seem cynical enough to be a coffee addict and you don't seem… chubby enough to be a chronic soda drinker, like I imagine your friend is…"
"Hahhh he ihhh!" (Translation: That he is!)
"...so my best guess is tea." She pulled her hands out to look at him for an answer.
"Oh… yes, guilty as charged, I'm a mere mortal too and sometimes I need caffeine - you're right, coffee and fizzy drinks don't quite suit me, but we don't have a stove or a microwave and it's not impossible but certainly difficult to brew tea over a campfire-"
"I just needed a yes or no, Mr. Hood," interrupted the beaver, looking like she was talking to a child as she tapped his chin again.
But he wasn't done talking. "Oh, I'm… just explaining, I'd much prefer a proper brewed tea, but with how our lives are, I usually have to settle for that oversugared bottled garbage made by the soft drink companies, as much as I would never choose to-"
"But you're still drinking it," said Dr. van Dam (man, even I don't know when you're supposed to capitalize Dutch last names that natively start with lowercase letters).
"Yes, but I just want to convey that I'm aware how bad all that sugar is for my teeth-"
"Tea in general is bad for your teeth," she said matter-of-factly as she tapped his chin again and he acquiesced. "Even if you were drinking homemade tea, it would stain your teeth. Yeah, sugar's even worse because it actively causes decay, but completely unsweetened tea is still gonna make your teeth yellow and brown. If you came in here hoping to leave with pearly whites… there's only so much I can do…"
Robin just sat in the chair, telling himself not to bother engaging. Being here on little sleep (he could seriously go for a Lipton right about now), he let his eyes flutter shut as she kept inspecting. Maybe if he passed out, he could fast-forward to the end of this ordeal. Who needs laughing gas when you have visceral fatigue?
"Honestly, as mammals, we shouldn't be drinking coffee, soda, or tea," the dentist kept monologuing in a near-monotone. "I certainly don't. A healthy lifestyle would leave you with enough energy to not need caffeine. A regular sleep schedule should be all you need, assuming you don't have some other medical condition… You're friends with Dr. Fort, aren't you? Hasn't he told you that an apple provides more natural energy than coffee does? Foxes can eat apples, right?" She stopped for a second and sat up. "Sir, I need you to stay awake."
Robin's eyes popped open. He wanted to ask why he needed to be conscious so badly, but he didn't want to bother.
The beaver went in with her scaler and mirror. "...Or maybe these stains are from tobacco. Do you smoke, chew, dip? That would kind of make sense, you have a pretty raspy voice."
"Gwuh?"
Robin didn't really say any words, per se, but his signal to the dentist that he wished to speak was understood and she pulled her instruments out.
"You think my voice is raspy? Like a smoker's?"
Dr. van Dam shrugged. "Raspier and deeper than I'd expect from a fox…" she murmured nonchalantly as she went back into his mouth. "Not really raspy, I guess, but definitely raspier than I was expecting. Yeah, you're a really big fox, but it still doesn't really match your face. I wouldn't be surprised if it sounded that way as a consequence of smoking."
"Hhhohhhny's hhhe wuhhh who swhokes." (Johnny's the one who smokes.)
"Well I assure you, Doctor K is giving him the same grilling I'm giving you."
But that assurance didn't make him feel much better. Hey, this was Robin Hood, you know he wasn't gonna let cold-hearted people get him down, but he would absolutely let it get him privately frustrated that so many individuals on this planet chose to be so goddamn unfriendly to each other. He wouldn't lose sleep over it, but in moments like these, he always thought about how it was so easy for him to be amiable - so why was it so hard for other people? Okay, yeah, he'd know more than anybody that something like, say, growing up amid hopeless poverty and corruption can make one bitter and jaded, but this beaver had had enough means to get into dental school, what was her excuse? If people like Johnny argued that Robin had absolutely no social disorders because his upbringing was just too easy, surely someone like Dr. van Dam who had gone to college in a country that didn't care to subsidize university tuition should have hypothetically turned out even more socia-
"AAARRRGH!"
"That hurt?" asked the beaver as she retracted her scaler (in layman's terms known as the plaque scraper thingy).
"Muh-huh."
The dentist just shook her head a little before going back in. "I was just scraping the surface. I know your lifestyle doesn't make modern necessities easy to come by, but it wouldn't hurt so much if you brushed regularly."
"Ahhh OOOH wruhhh wrehhhuarhhhy!" (I DO brush regularly!)
She pulled out again. She'd been doing this job for long enough to understand what he'd said loud and clear. "You do?" She clearly didn't buy it.
"I do! There's a river running right through the woods, I have a water source."
"You don't need a water source to brush. You just need toothpaste and a toothbrush."
"Well, to rinse the suds out-"
"Which you are not supposed to do."
Robin winced. "...You're not?" Now he wasn't buying that.
"No sir. Rinsing effectively washes off the formula of the toothpaste. May I get back to cleaning you now?"
But Robin was thinking. "So you're saying that's why the tea is staining my teeth even with brushing?"
"Tea would stain your teeth whether you brushed or not, that's how strong it is. By not brushing properly, you're not doing yourself any favors." She came forward with her tools and he surrendered his mouth. "Are you brushing for one minute at a time when you do?"
"Hwhuh?"
"When you brush. Do you do it for sixty seconds?"
"...Hwhuh!?"
Seeing her patient protest, the dentist again pulled back.
"You mean thirty seconds, don't you?"
"No. Sixty."
Robin pondered that. "Well, perhaps over the years we know more now about dental health than we used to, but it was most certainly thirty that we were taught when I was a lad-"
"It's always been sixty," Dr. van Dam said as she raised her tools again. "I don't know what they teach children in the UK, but here it's always been sixty."
But Robin didn't surrender his mouth just yet. "No, it's not just a British thing, and I know that because Johnny and I were just discussing this before we came here, he knew it as thirty seconds, too. Thirty seconds in morning, at night, and after every meal-"
"It should be before every meal to eradicate toxic plaque you'd otherwise ingest, brushing afterwards is just damage control." She raised the scaler and mirror again. "And it's always been sixty. Now if you'll excuse me."
Robin put his head back and fixed his eyes on the plastic blotch in the middle of the overhead light, put there to keep from blinding him. In times past, he wouldn't have been so frustrated by this, a little annoyed with her decision to have such icy bedside manner but no more than that, but between all the hostility they'd already faced recently and this woman's biography as someone who was not in the medical field for the right reasons, he found his own fuse shorter than usual. He couldn't stop thinking about whether this dentist was like this to everyone or if she had some kind of problem with him personally.
As he sat reclined in the chair, twitching every so often when the scaler struck a nerve, his first thought was that maybe just like they'd feared with Eddy yesterday, perhaps Geoff didn't realize that these dentists really did hate the Merry Men and had only agreed to take them as a way of trapping them and now maybe the sheriff was speeding down the highway to their location at that very moment as the beaver and kob went through the motions of pretending to provide excellent service. But quite frankly, the boys trusted their old friend's judgment more than they trusted the judgment of some kid they barely knew, and there were so many things the dentists could have done to get back at them already: there was plenty of nitrous oxide to knock them out with and plenty of power drills to mutilate them with. Not to mention, they wouldn't have bothered demanding an inflated price, and if they were trying to keep cover until reinforcements arrived, it wouldn't have been a good move for Doctor K to joke that this favor forever exempted him and Dr. van Dam from getting looted. (And as much as Robin really wanted to rob these two unapologetic capitalist stereotypes silly, he had to agree that the antelope was right, victimizing them after establishing a connection like this would just be unwise.)
His second thought was maybe it was a gender thing. After all, here you had a woman in the medical field, not too unusual but she was on the older side of middle-aged, so it wasn't inconceivable that she'd have to had put up with more sexist bullshit coming up through the ranks than a female starting today would, and maybe she saw Robin as some random guy who appeared out of the ether to lecture her on her own profession. (This narrator has your back on the brushing interval thing, though, Robin, I was raised with sixty seconds and now my dentist thinks I'm stupid for not knowing it was "always" taught to brush for two minutes.) But here's the thing: this coldness had been apparent before he'd ever said a word to her, so unless she was a seething misandrist who just hated men in her resting state, she probably didn't have much to hate him for on that front. She was already an economic right-wing caricature, it'd be weird if she were also a social left-wing caricature. ("But then again…" muses a 2021 Robin now more into politics on both sides of the pond than ever, "I can think of a certain corrupt senator from Arizona who roughly fits that description…")
They'd been silent for a while as she kept scraping and he kept thinking. Eventually, he came up with a new idea… one that made a little too much sense… ah, but he didn't want to play that card…
"Ihhh hhhe hhhichhhty-?"
"What was that?" The beaver pulled out again.
"...Is the sixty seconds number a prey thing, perhaps?"
"It is not," said the dentist, no more nor less condescending than she'd been at any other point in this encounter.
Robin didn't know whether he bought that. Here was a beaver who had to stick her face in predators' fangs day in and day out, and while he wouldn't wager she'd entered this field with some sort of prejudice, he could absolutely see it that all those instances of looking at sharp teeth set off alarm bells in the primitive side of her brain and now her evolved brain was responding with anger at these carnivores for scaring her. I mean, doesn't that make sense? The fox surely thought so.
"I'm just thinking, our primitive ancestors, pred and prey alike, they all got on pretty well without ever brushing their teeth, now didn't they?" Half a genuine question, half a test to see whether she'd have any notable reaction to his mention of The Old Ways.
"Our ancestors invariably never survived to what we'd call old age due to a myriad of reasons up to and including starving to death when they lost the ability to eat due to worn-out teeth."
Interesting, no real emotional return on the topic one way or another… or at least not that she was showing. Hey, food for thought, if she really did hate predators or perhaps even foxes specifically, would she only be conducting herself this coldly, or would she be more actively aggressive? Come to think of it, much like with the idea of her hating them for being anti-rich outlaws, this idea seemed silly now that he thought she'd be acting more over-the-top if it were true.
Then she said something… shittier.
"And to be frank, Mr. Hood, I think we'll have to have a refresher course on how to brush properly, because if you have brushed today… I certainly can't tell from the smell of your breath."
…Lady, he had brushed this morning! True, it was without toothpaste and just water - which itself came from a creek - but he'd done his duty to scrape the gunk off his teeth like an adult! A wee bit personal there, eh Doc? Perhaps, but that wasn't all. For some reason, he still isn't sure why, that was the statement that seemed to make him connect the dots in his head. He realized now why she was in such a bad mood cleaning his teeth. It was all hiding in plain sight in that first question. It seemed so obvious - or should he say, so bloody obvious?
"Ehhh, hhhihhh you chhhum in here-"
"I'm sorry?" She retracted once more.
Robin licked around his mouth and lips to regain some moisture from where it had dried out. "...Pardon me, curiosity… did you come in here thinking you'd have to deal with some British guy with absolutely knackered teeth hardly worth fixing?" Translation: hey, beaver dentist lady, did you come in here with some preconceived notion based on ridiculous stereotypes thinking that you'd be dealing with an absolute headache of a patient and decided preemptively to be grouchy today? Or perhaps, was she annoyed because his teeth weren't that bad and now she was angry at herself for being stupid enough to ever believe such stereotypes? Ah, yes… it all seemed so clear now, how was this ever a mystery? Nevermind Terry yesterday having some ethnic apprehensions over history; this dentist clearly hated him because she had in her head that his countrymen made a mockery of her profession. Hmph, as if this buck-tooth bint had any room to talk.
But if he'd just cracked the code, she wasn't going to show any signs of cracking - and actually, confusingly enough, what she did instead was outright refute his hypothesis.
"Well as a D.D.S., I do investigate these things, and from all I can find, numerous studies suggest you guys actually have healthier teeth on average than we do," she said, presenting this fun fact as though it was the most boring thing in the world as she poked the tip of her scraper into the fox's teeth to see if they were going soft from deterioration.
And while Robin would have otherwise loved to hear that his team won this battle, it confused him to no end that she was so ready and willing to surrender this point. She… no, it had to be a nationality thing, didn't it?
"Weeah?" (Really?)
"Mmhmm." Her eyes were fixed on every nook and cranny of his mouth, looking for any renegade particulates of plaque, as she ran her scaler's point along her patient's gumline, causing him a sensation not unlike a never-ending papercut. "To my understanding - and you can correct me if I'm wrong, you're the expert on this matter - the stereotype comes from your government healthcare not covering braces because it's considered a frivolous elective procedure, so nobody gets it, you guys would rather have teeth that are crooked and clean than artificially white and impossibly straight while they're rotting on the inside, culturally you guys just aren't as vain as us about something like teeth… at least that's what I've heard. And maybe there's something about you guys not fluoridating your water, but I don't know if that's actually true or just a rumor building off the stereotype…" Only now did she back off to make eye contact, displaying the only look of genuine if faint interest she'd give all day. "...Am I right? Am I wrong? Do these explanations sound right to you?"
Robin was still hung up on how his anti-English theory could possibly be wrong. He didn't know what to say. "I… actually am not quite sure myself. Never really thought about it until I… moved here…"
He trailed off, she looked bored again, the mood was uncomfortable all over again.
"Don't worry, Mr. Hood, there are worse national stereotypes, and ones grounded in reality," she mused to her instruments tracing the bases of his fangs. "My husband and I did Europe, apparently the French don't care to bathe daily… and although I can't confirm it firsthand, I've heard the Dutch don't wash their hands after they use the bathroom…"
She took her instruments out and Robin breathed a sigh of relief as she put them down on a table somewhere out of his line of sight.
"...All of this is said with the unspoken acknowledgement that you guys probably all have a bunch of juicy rumors about us, some bogus, some probably not so much…" she mumbled to her tray of tools, and then returned to her patient's field of vision holding something stretched between her paws. "What about flossing? Do you floss?"
You'd swear Robin saw a phantom.
"...I'm referring to you as an individual, Mr. Hood, not your countrymen, in case I wasn't clear."
So… about this individual and history with… flossing. He was taught by dentists as a lad to floss. He hated it, because he was a kid so of course he did. Furthermore, his parents were from an older generation when flossing really wasn't something a lot of people did; Brianna was pretty adamant about getting him to brush his teeth but never pushed him to floss because she didn't floss herself, and as for Oliver, who was even older… well, let's just say that for all his great attributes, Oliver as an individual got a bit too close for comfort with regards to embodying that particular stereotype. So he never flossed as a kid, but hey, who did? And even fast-forwarding to today, how many of us floss as adults? Do you floss, Dear Reader? This narrator sure as shit doesn't floss more than a couple times a month tops (then again I'm from a place that isn't particularly known for its dental hygiene either, so the fact that I typically eschew flossing probably doesn't surprise anybody, while they are surprised that I still have all my natural teeth). Marian didn't floss either, and neither did Annie, Will, Johnny, Alan, or Tuck, thereby crossing off everybody he'd ever lived with. Maybe we're all the weird ones, but hey, even if that is the case, how often do people talk about flossing in day-to-day conversation? How often do you overhear witty banter about flossing at the water cooler? How often do your favorite books, movies, and TV shows have scenes of characters threading a string through their teeth? If you or someone in your immediate circle is not involved in the dental world, and if you have no resources to visit the dentist yourself, does it really seem so inconceivable that an individual could hypothetically go years without encountering the concept of flossing?
What I hope I've accomplished here was to make it less embarrassing for Robin by explaining why it wasn't so ridiculous that he had completely, absolutely forgotten about the sheer existence of dental floss.
"I'll take that as a no."
"I apologize, I, er…"
Robin knew that this woman didn't care about him, she was never going to care about him, and he was never going to win her over no matter what he did. As mentioned earlier, some people were so miszooanthropic that they were immune to his magic without even trying to resist it. But as long as he paid her for her services, he could still, within reason, say whatever crossed his mind without getting driven out of her office. With this in mind, he decided to just satiate his curiosity and go for it.
"...Your question earlier had me thinking for a bit there that perhaps you really did have it out for us Brits and our teeth, but if not… tell me, Dr. Robin, is there something else that's putting you in a bad mood today? If I've done something to offend you, don't hesitate to inform me."
Her expression didn't change. "Well, I can't deny I wasn't the most excited to hear Geoff say I'd be working on a friend of his who'd let his teeth go for the better part of a decade…"
Robin's pupils shrank a little when she started wrapping the ends of the floss strand around her opposite index fingers.
"...but that comes with the territory sometimes."
I guess you could say that this was going to be… a bloody mess. (Rimshot!)
But no, seriously, our hero was squirming as she went in and started running her string of death like a fiddlestick between his teeth. He only got the slightest morsel of comfort back in knowing that her poor attitude was stemmed in an indiscriminate disdain for individuals, regardless of background, who let their pearly whites become pearly grays, yellows, and browns. She wasn't bigotted against foxes, Brits, or fiscal progressives; she was just racist against people with shitty teeth.
"And frankly, Mr. Hood, that's why it surprised me so much to see the sorry state of your mouth," the beaver mused as the fox's gums started bleeding almost immediately.
He'd experienced a lot of pain these last few days, much grosser and greater pain, but this pain was something disturbingly unique.
"You're from a country with statistically healthier teeth than ours…"
Perhaps painful wasn't even the right word for it, it was more akin to torturous.
"...and you certainly act and sound well-bred…"
Long before the word was a meme, Robin was physically cringing as he struggled to control his nervous system and its desire to twitch and tweak even more violently than he already was. He knew he should have fought harder to make Johnny dispense some more of Thor's painkillers that morning.
"...so while your fangs honestly aren't much worse than your average American's…"
Note to self, Robin: also trim your nails before you meet Marian again. This thought was inspired by the fox realizing his claws were piercing the cushioned armrest.
"...I honestly expected better."
She wasn't doing what some dentists and hygienists do and simply sticking the floss into the gap, pulling it all the way to the gum, and going right back out after the crevice was cleared; she was rubbing it back and forth along the bases of his teeth at every possible angle to get every last particule of plaque, his gums fraying with the friction all the while. As Dr. van Dam dug out spaces that had not been there for years, her patient was quite literally hurting in places that he didn't know existed.
Well… apparently the next time he was at Geoff's place, he'd have to swipe some floss from his medicine cabinet, because if he never felt this discomfort ever again in his life, it would be too soon. (Yeah, he could have hypothetically also just picked some up for a couple bucks at, like, CVS or something, but… nah, it was free at the dog's house.)
"Honestly, Mr. Hood, the state of your teeth makes it clear that you do at least brush somewhat regularly, but I hope I've made clear today that it's all for naught if you're not flossing. Your gums really shouldn't be bleeding this much. I recommend asking Dr. Fort to find you a periodontist."
Honestly, she kept using that word honestly, but that was her trouble, a clinical assessment was one thing, but her honest editorializing about what she expected of his teeth wasn't exactly helping and she didn't seem to realize that this commentary wasn't what he needed to hear right then and there and that she could have withheld these unprofessional opinions - or better yet, that she could have changed these honest thoughts into something less uncharitable. But he couldn't say this out loud, partially because it clearly would just make matters worse, partially because that kind of could come across as what some people these days would classify as "mansplaining" towards a woman unconcerned with a guy's opinions, but mostly because her paws were still in his mouth.
"Mr. Hood, you're hyperventilating and your halitosis is making me dizzy."
And there she went again! Where did it end with her blunt and heartless comments! I mean, looking back at this scene with sixteen years of history and culture come and gone, it probably would be a worse look for him as a male to protest her straightforwardness today than it would have been back then, but he still knew in 2005 that it couldn't have been the greatest move optically speaking based on what he could assume of her background as a - wait, he was hyperventilating?
"I can also tell you right now that you'd be bleeding less if you stopped spasming, then it'd be easier for me to floss you. Or are you going through some kind of actual medical emergency?"
...Well this was embarrassing. But Robin knew he could only get through this if he kept a level head, and as he forced himself to regain control, he secretly thanked the dentist for her bluntness this one particular time. Now that she'd pointed this out, he lulled himself into a meditation-like state and tried to take his mind off of his present situation and will the pain away. Yes, mind over matter; if you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
Instead, he focused on pondering what his friend was going through. For all Robin knew, maybe he had been the lucky one, because despite the kob seeming somewhat friendly at first, the fox could absolutely see Doctor K being the kind of guy who was chill up to the moment that you mildly annoyed him, at which point he'd suddenly be a lot less chill. And poor Johnny, the bruin from bumblefuck having pretty janky teeth of his own, most notably his lower predominant cuspids that were thoroughly yellowed and always seemed to catch the light whenever he opened his mouth - but only one or the other at a given time, giving the illusion of a snaggletooth that kept switching spots - could very easily have annoyed the other dentist the moment he surrendered his jaw to him.
And God knew Johnny was pretty irritable himself today, so even if Dr. K was relatively personable, the bear probably had a particularly low tolerance for any sideways remarks. Indeed, Little John was still pissed about yesterday's revelation with the second draft of the wanted posters. He'd been seething all night long, understandably so, muttering things to himself that Robin could barely hear but sounded like is it ever gonna be enough? and is this just how the story of my fucking life is gonna be? Johnny was so angry that he didn't even want to get drunk last night - which admittedly wasn't the most shocking thing in the world, the bear could enjoy making merry but Robin had always been the boozehound between the two of them, and he won't like me telling the world this but Little John was absolutely a lightweight for his size, which is why he and the fox were always able to match each other in imbibing despite their great discrepancies in build and bulk. But the point stands, he'd been actively hostile towards the idea of enjoying himself, and while he hadn't seemed quite as grouchy this morning, he'd been very quiet and distant, frequently glaring at whatever he saw off in the distance, clearly stuck in his own head thinking about whether his hard work to become Somebody was simply predestined to never pay off.
And although such a statement would have probably been true, at no point since yesterday afternoon had Johnny had to say the words I don't wanna talk about it. He hadn't had to say that because Robin had never offered. His friend had feared - perhaps correctly - that any offer to provide counsel would just come across as him flexing his natural and unending leadership over his inferior, help-needing follower.
The only thing Robin did say was that he also did think the poster was bogus. And he'd meant it. Privately, yes, if hooked up to a lie-detector machine, you'd likely find that the fox did consider himself a more skilled leader compared to his friend, but… he didn't think Johnny wasn't one. Or at least he didn't think he was incapable of being one and deserving of a life forever spent out-of-focus. God knows he'd shown glimpses of it, and he'd definitely been helping Robin through this recent turmoil (albeit with mixed results, but that wasn't all his fault) in ways a truly submissive person simply wouldn't. The mayor's office had done this once before, putting the fox alone on the paper when he was the first among five equals, but that time it made sense; he'd been the founder and social face of the group and you can't fit five faces on a page and expect to catch the eye of a passerby. But picking an A and a B from a group of two who by this point were equally committed… Robin had to admit, Prince John and company had come up with a brilliant idea to disrupt the Merry Men's swagger, at least for a little while. Robin had said little to Little John about it, but he had made a point to convey that he agreed that that poster was immensely disrespectful to the poor bear and Johnny did not deserve to be erased from his own life like that, and Robin apologized that it had taken him so long to say this but he did explicitly say that his friend deserved equal billing by this point - at which point his friend grumbled that Robin had already expressed that a couple times in the last few days, leading Robin to say that he wanted to convey it again to make up for lost time, and Johnny muttered that what's done was done and that perception is reality and the conversation petered out from there.
This narrator knows I'm telling and not showing here, but aside from that two- or three-minute conversation, little to write home about had occurred that night. It had just been a glum, dour, angry mood with little new information established, and we can all stand to take a break from that, can't we? And I didn't even get to squeeze in the part where Robin woke up to what he was, like, seventy-five percent sure was the sounds of his friend angry-crying again next to him, Robin biting his tongue and staring at the roof of the van and not daring to roll over and look, telling himself it was probably for the best that he give his friend a chance to get through this alone and prove his own strength to himself before intervening.
(Oh, and Robin was also annoyed that there was now a bigger target on his back than on his equal partner's. Ah, comes with the territory of being the face of the franchise. Of course, he had no plans to say that out loud to Little John, especially not last night.)
So even as Robin squirmed in that dentist's chair, he was cognizant of the fact that he still might have been having a better time overall than his friend was, alone in another room with a selfish stranger as he battled demons in his head, demons Robin couldn't even see and never would be able to. Robin could swear, these last few weeks had just been the two of them playing hot potato with mental trauma, and neither could seem to stay well enough to help the other out - all the more reason that they both needed new friends fors support, preferably adults so they wouldn't have to dump their baggage on the boys. But for now, Robin had to remember that although people like this dentist proved that he didn't have a perfect success rate and never would, he still had a ridiculously high success rate of getting people to like him and think highly of him, and for this he knew he ought to be grateful, because some people - like his best friend and ceremonial blood-brother - would kill to have such a talent but simply were not as blessed.
Dr. van Dam finally stopped fiddling between his fangs, squirted some water in his mouth, told him to swish and gave him a suction tube with a funnel at the end to spit into. To nobody's surprise, the refuse water was more red than clear, as if someone had just put a few drops of food dye directly onto his tongue.
"Alright, time to clean your teeth," the beaver said as she readied her power-brush, which Google tells me is called a curette; this will be important information later.
"Wait… but what was all that if not cleaning my teeth?"
"Preparing them to be cleaned." She gave her curette a spin just to test it; if Robin hadn't been looking directly at it, he'd think the sound was coming from a drill. "So we have a few different flavors for the cleaning solution, we got spearmint, peppermint, cinnamon, bubblegum, strawberry, grape… wait, can you guys even eat grapes?"
Robin was trying his best to project a confidence he didn't entirely have. "Er… you're thinking of dogs, some evolutionary quirk from them branching off I believe. The rest of us canines… it'll make our stomachs ache a little, but we can push through it, it won't kill us, same with chocolate."
"Hm," Dr. van Dam muttered, "the more you know… Well it's an artificial grape flavoring anyway, so-"
"GAH!"
They both stopped as they heard a shout come from the other room, and for a brief moment the dentist looked fazed.
"I'm sure that's just something weird happening as a consequence of your friend not having been to a dentist in forever either," the beaver said, answering the unspoken question while returning to her standard unenthused demeanor. "So… what, spearmint?"
"Robin."
Both the dentist and her patient looked toward the doorway to see the source of the voice, finding Dr. Kobusingye standing there, looking alarmed.
"What is it, Jonathan?" asked the female Robin.
"The bear… he just broke my curette!" (I toldja that word would be useful to know soon, I toldja.)
Both Robins looked confused, fox Robin looking faintly worried and beaver Robin scrunching her face in disbelief. "How'd he break your curette or all things!?"
"That monster just chomped his teeth down on it!" the kob explained, starting to seem both worried and disbelieving of it himself. His accent seemed to be thickening with his anxiousness. "It just shattered!"
But the beaver seemed to buy this as a plausible explanation. "Ah… I see…"
Our Robin, however, felt the need to press the question. "Er… did you… was there anything said or done to trigger him doing that?"
"Nothing I could see!" said the antelope. "I was just cleaning his teeth and making small talk!"
"Did he try to answer and maybe bit his jaw shut on it while speaking?" proposed the dentist, her air of rigid nonchalance now mostly gone.
"He didn't sound like he was talking!"
"Did you… say anything that might have upset him?" Call it a funny feeling our fox had…
Doctor K just looked confused by the question. "No… I was just asking him, 'You're the sidekick, right?'"
Robin stared at him blankly like one might stare at a condemned building. This man knew not what he had done.
"...He is, isn't he?"
-IllI-
After all that (justifiable) reluctance to give their hard-fought money to individuals who unapologetically didn't care about the poor, the fox and bear know found themselves in the hole a great sum to the two dentists, who demanded immediate payment and would not let them out of their sight until they received it under threat of calling the authorities. Therefore Dr. Fort was called up to present a check to pay for the damages (having to leave work for what he called a "personal emergency," which honestly was not that much of a fib), the price the beaver and the kob were demanding likely being greatly overstated, but Geoff wasn't a dentist so he had no idea what this equipment ran them - and when he straight up asked if they didn't have business insurance for this kind of thing, van Dam and Kobusingye both went off on him for daring to question the victims' terms of reparations - the dogtor then immediately driving the bandits back to Sherwood where they paid him back in cash. So in a roundabout way, today the Merry Men had taken money stolen from the rich and given a good amount of it to the also-rich. Jeez, talk about robbing Peter to pay Paul.
The idea had been that between going to the dentist and arriving at Eddy's family's house to help remodel, the duo would go around and deliver some windfall around town, to lift the people's spirits as well as their own. But now that they were out a whole slew of money they'd been saving for this occasion, and with much of the rest set aside for the first payment to the fox family, they didn't actually have that much to give away, and they simply were in no mood to go out and liberate some funds. Therefore they just sat around like bums until it was time for Toni and Terry to get home from work.
On the bright side, ruminating about his unbridled rage about the world confirming his feelings of inadequacy did wonders to take Johnny's mind off the half-dozen toothaches he was presently experiencing.
-IllI-
"Alright, so, um…" the salesman pondered as the looked around the room at the workers - a wolf, a donkey, and a margay - moved past carrying supplies in and supplies out right past him and his new tenants, who were standing off to the side to stay out of the way, Jack Wigglesworth towering over him and Bobby Van Bommel dwarfing the both of them as he stood in the corner, his head tucked nicely into the spot where the x-, y-, and z-axes all met. Terry had their deposit to pay for the new tub and toilet being installed and the new pair of beds and bedframes being brought in, so he was satisfied on that front, but now he had to wonder what he could do to put his guests to work. These guys seemed like hard workers, surely they didn't want to just stand around and watch others do the grunt work, and they surely could have been doing other things with their busy lives, so Terry didn't want to waste their time dragging them out here from wherever they were staying between places.
But what the hell can you do with a guy who can't fit through doors and another guy with a broken arm?
"I… I'll be right back, guys," Terry mumbled awkwardly as he excused himself out the door to the outside which would by morning hypothetically be its own separate entrance to its own separate studio-like apartment. The movers and workers were all outside for a moment, Terry off to go find them, leaving the dynamic duo alone in a room.
"...How're you holding up, Johnny?"
"Hmph," the bear grunted, "I know Terry was an asshole to you - both of us - but damn if he didn't make me feel like the main character between us for once."
"That's what I was afraid of. But this isn't a work of fiction, Johnny, we're not 'main characters' to anybody but ourselves."
"Bullshit."
"I know others might not think that way, but what do they know-?"
"I just wish there didn't have to be this competition between us."
"There doesn't have to be. Because there isn't."
"And I called bullshit. Didn'tcha hear me the first time?"
They stood there in silence for a few seconds before Eddy suddenly walked through the door (begging the question of whether he'd been standing in the hallway listening to them, but neither one of them cared that much, he'd probably find out about this drama eventually anyway).
"How you two doing?" the kit asked, seeming like he was trying to play it cool by not caring much about the answer to the question he'd cared to ask.
"All in all, on the up and up!" Robin replied, trying to add some sunniness to offset these two cynics flanking him. "We've finally found a true roof over our heads - and with indoor plumbing!"
"Yeah, a lot of things are still pretty rough right now, but at least we'll have some fucking air conditioning," grumbled Johnny, seeming a little more optimistic but still roughly matching Eddy's energy.
"Hm… how do you like my room?"
"Ah, it's a room, isn't it?" asked Robin. "But in all seriousness, it was very nice of your parents to let you have a room with its own exit, that's an immense showing of trust! And it was very generous of you to offer to let us have it for ourselves!"
"Any cumstains on the carpet from you shootin' yer load without a plan for where to catch it?" Johnny asked, seeming to at least be a little amused by his own gross question.
Eddy, however, responded by looking around the room - and at very specific points on the floor. "Uh… I was under the impression that my old man was gonna rip the carpet outta here and replace that, too."
Robin looked embarrassed while Johnny just turned his head and stared down to the opposite corner, with a look that seemed to say ask a stupid question…
And Eddy was no less embarrassed, not necessarily because of the question and its open-ended answer, but just because he wanted to get on these guys' good side and thought that every awkward fragment of dialogue he had with them would take a little bit away from that. "So… I'm guessing that was a ret-o-rickle question?"
The guys looked confused. Because they were really fucking confused.
"I beg your pardon?" asked Robin.
"A what now?" asked Johnny.
"A ret-o-rickle question," Eddy repeated, hoping he could salvage this exchange. "Y'know, like… a question you don't actually want an answer to, just to make small talk?"
The Merry Men got it after a moment, but still didn't say anything so as to avoid mortifying the poor kit. They could both tell that this kid had some street smarts, but that must have come at the cost of some book smarts; they were both getting a lot of "low-INT, high-WIS" vibes off this little dude.
"You know what, Eddy?" Robin asked, having absolutely no idea where he was going with this. "...I… er… hrmmm… we, I should say… Johnny and I both think having you in close quarters might help us rub off on you faster! Perhaps you'll progress as our protégé quite quickly!"
That was exactly what Eddy wanted to hear. Now he was flustered because he was excited.
"Oh! Uh… yeah, y'know, I was wondering about that," he stammered. "Yeah, that… that might help! Yeah!"
"You alright, bud?" Johnny asked. "You seem… nervous."
And as per the above reasons, Eddy was now nervous about them perceiving him as nervous. They were already putting a whole lotta trust into him by letting this teenager roll with them, he couldn't jeopardize that by having them think he was some kind of pussy-ass bitch.
"No, naw, man, I, I just… I can't believe this is happening, y'know? Like, for real."
The duo nodded.
"We can hardly believe it either," said the bear.
"Never thought we'd see the day we'd have an indoor place to live, indefinitely," mused Robin. "In the beginning, people might have taken us in, but there were five of us, which is a lot of people to suddenly have holing up in your basement, especially when one of the five of us is as big as four of us-"
"And you know you wouldn't have it any other way!"
"That I wouldn't. But by the time there was a… reasonable number of us left… the people of this city were simply used to us surviving the elements and there were no more offers to be had. And we couldn't simply invite ourselves into people's homes, that would plainly be rude!"
Robin finished off with a light chuckle and figured he could wrap his thought up there. Having a heightened awareness for this sort of thing, he could see in Eddy's eyes that the kit wasn't listening.
"...You guys really think I was nervous just now, didn'tcha?" asked Eddy, looking just a smidge ashamed of disappointing them.
"And you're really hung up on that, aren'tcha?" Johnny replied, not at all disappointed but certainly curious. "I just wanna know why this is bugging you so much. It's an awkward situation, and in awkward situations, people act awkward. It happens to all of us."
"Oh, I know it happens to everybody, but…" Eddy turned his paw over in the air a couple times to signal that he was nearing his point. "...I ain't pretending that I know your lives inside and out, I still ain't known you guys for that long, but… you two don't seem to get nervous very easily. Maybe not never, but less often than most people. And… heh…" Eddy put on a self-righteous smirk for just a few moments. "...among me and the boys, I'm definitely the coolest, calmest, and collected-ed-est of the three of us; Sock-Head's just a ball of anxiety who pisses his pants if an adult gives him a disapproving look and Ed's constantly running, like, monster-alien-zombie conspiracy theories through his head all the time. So outta us three… I ain't doing too bad…" And the smirk disappeared. "But I'm man enough to admit that I see people doing better than me. And I see you two doing better, and honestly? I wanna learn from the best. And you especially…" Eddy wagged a finger at his fellow vulpine. "...you remind me of my brother. That guy never had an awkward moment. That guy always knew what to say and do. No disrespect to you, big guy, but Red here… before I realized he was an asshole, my brother was my hero, and I see a lot of what I liked in him in you, and I see you taking the things I didn't like in him and turning them into good things. And I'm not gonna stand around and watch other people be better than me, so I say: show me your ways. Make me great. Don't be great without me."
Robin seemed mostly cheerful and happy to accept the compliments and the challenge of teaching this young fox his ways, but there was the slight hang-up of Eddy proving that he did indeed need to get better at his speaking skills, as proven by Johnny sarcastically elbowing his friend.
"Heh, sounds like ya got another fan, eh, Rob?"
"Oh, Johnny, the lad just said you weren't too shabby yourself!" And indeed, Robin thought Eddy had done mostly right by clarifying that this compliment for the fox wasn't at the expense of the bear, the only thing he really could have done better was read the room and realize he could have tossed in a more direct compliment for Johnny as well, but otherwise not that bad -
"Yeah, but you do it better, though," Eddy cut in to clarify his meaning to Robin.
...Okay, nevermind, then.
"Like… you're cool sometimes, you are, totally," the kit continued, turning to Johnny, "but you're kinda grumpy and standoffish sometimes, too. And I get it, that's your guys' nature, I've met Ed's family, you're a lot cooler than most of your people…" And he gestured to the classy Englishman. "...but this guy's just got it figured out."
But rather than display insecurity about this, Little John actually built upon it. "C'mon, Robin," he said with a paw on his buddy's shoulder, "the kid literally just said that you strike him as a better version of his old hero. By the… what is that, the transitive property? He basically just told you you're his new one!"
At this, Eddy seemed embarrassed all over again. "What!? Uh - nonononono. And, and that's no disrespect to you, Rob - I-I can call you Rob, right? - but, y'know, heroes are for kids, I'm older than that now, I learned my lesson the first time from my brother, you put anybody on a pedestal, they'll always let you down… I'm just saying… I could be angry that you're better than me at something, or I could learn from you. Hell, maybe we both can," he concluded, motioning to himself and the bruin.
This gave Robin an idea. If these two both wanted to be like him so badly in this regard… well, his entire M.O. was to stick it to those who refused to share their monetary wealth, so what kind of man would he be if he refused to share his wealth of talent?
"And you know what, Eddy? That really is a mature mindset to try to improve yourself instead of simply feeling resigned to being who you already are." (And just to make sure that a certain somebody didn't think that was a backhanded insult…) "When I met Little John here and he set out to better who he was, I knew he was a good man. And you're right: don't hero-worship me, especially if we're going to be seeing a lot more of one another, you'll likely discover something unflattering about me sooner or later - assuming you haven't already-"
"I have. Like your gay choice of underwear."
Robin kept smiling as he rolled his eyes, while Johnny openly facepalmed.
"Oh, for Christ's sakes, kid…" the bear grumbled. "We're gonna have to work on that-"
"Hey! I get the appeal! It shows your package off for chicks! But I've given them a fair shake and it did not work out! A couple years back, me and the boys went to a pool party, and I was wearing this speedo I inherited from my brother-"
"We can… have this discussion later," Robin cut in, proving once again that he was not immune to feeling awkward. "But that said, don't stop believing in heroes, Eddy! The fact that so many people think that heroes are for children is why there's such a shortage of hope to go around in this world. And perhaps if I can teach you my ways as you want me to do so badly, that may just make you more of a hero - as it would surely be a confidence boost, and what's a hero with no confidence?"
Eddy's eyes lit up.
"So perhaps when we find some time," Robin continued, "you and your mates can meet Johnny and I somewhere and I can enlighten you on how to get people to think of you the way they seem to think of me! Bring the wolf boy, even; he can surely use this information as well!"
Now, Eddy wasn't the most thrilled about sharing this invaluable information with the boys, but he reminded himself not to worry; Ed was too stupid and weird to retain and use any of the information Robin could give and Double-D, especially in his weird stupor recently, seemed to actively reject the idea of mammalian contact and would probably want nothing to do with this lecture.
"That… that sounds pretty sweet, actually," the kit stammered, still trying to play it cool and hardly-caring. "Uh… thanks!"
Robin just smiled and nodded. "The pleasure is mine, Eddy. But don't thank me quite yet, we still do need to find the time."
Johnny blew some self-amused air out his nose. "We might have time now," he said, looking around the empty room. "Eddy, your pops ever comin' back?"
And then Terry came back.
"Well, good news and bad news, boys," he said with an unfitting air of triumph as he walked into the room. "Good news is that I don't need to put you guys to work; the crew is actively refusing to let you guys help, too many cooks in the kitchen and all that, so you guys are off the hook for manual labor. The bad news is that it seems I've wasted your time." He seemed disappointed at this last part, but after yesterday, all of his displayed emotions were understood to be half genuine and half fake at all times.
"Oh, it's not a problem, Terry!" Robin insisted. "If nothing else, it was nice to stop by, say hello, and see how the progress is going!"
"Well, glad to hear you're not pissed at me for burning time off your clocks - or at the very least, you're smart enough not to tell me so!" Terry seemed to be smiling warmly after that quip, but in light of the previous day's events, it did seem like a thinly-veiled admission that he was still dwelling on Robin outfoxing him. Then he pulled out his wallet. "Hey, at least let me get you guys some cab fare," and he presented two or three twenties to (of course) Johnny.
"Thank ya kindly," the bear replied. He and Robin were not at all above pocketing this man's money, and Eddy certainly wasn't going to stop them.
"I'd invite you guys to hang around and have some drinks or something, but…" Terry glanced out the door to make sure the workers weren't within earshot. "...I think I might have to foreman these guys to make sure they do a good job. You know how it is, I'll be babysitting tonight."
The duo nodded through what could possibly be construed as mild classism, but if there was one thing they'd concede to Terry, they had absolutely bought it yesterday when he'd said he still remembered what it was like to be poor.
"Well, we greatly appreciate the desire to have us stay for a while, but if the workmen want us out of their hair, we can oblige," Robin said, then turned to the man's son: "And you, Eddy! Perhaps you'd best give them their space as well! Go on, be young while you still have the chance! Go and - oh, I don't know - play in the junkyard with the lads before you're too old for it!" He didn't wink, but you could sense a wink in his tone.
Eddy nodded after thinking about it for a moment; it took him a second, but he got the hint.
"...Ooor, maybe don't go hang out in the junkyard," said Terry. "We just invited new people into our home, kid, how's about ya don't go and give them the impression that we're literally a trashy family whose kids hang out in literal garbage dumps."
"Aw, we don't judge!" chuckled Johnny. "Better he's out there exploring the world he lives in than cooped up in his room choking his chicken all day, am I right?"
And as Terry searched for a logical retort to that statement, Eddy saw himself out.
"I'm… gonna go now."
"Uh… you do that," Terry bid his son before turning back to the bear. "I mean, I'd rather he be a chronic masturbator than, like, join a gang or something, committing crimes and handling weapons and stuff or going around and robbing people… but I see what you're saying…"
At about that time, the three movers brought in a large bathtub through the newly-widened and not-yet-refinished doorway, and Terry thought it best to close the book on this scene.
"Alright, you boys get outta my house," he said to Jack and Bobby with a coy smile and a playful dismissal gesture. "But this should be ready for you two to move in by this time tomorrow. Might not be a hundred percent done, but the doors will be sealed into place and the beds will be ready and the sink and toilet should be good to go. You guys gonna have any trouble getting a U-Haul for all your stuff?"
"Aw, naw, we should be able to find some friends who can move our stuff, we ain't got much," Little John said with a smile and a mellow shrug.
"Ah, nothing pizza and beer can't buy, eh?" Terry joked as he navigated himself between his new tenants so he could pat them both on the back - firmly, as if trying to send a message.
"We'll be here this time tomorrow, Terry!" Robin said cheerfully as he and Johnny exited out the back door.
"So you're gonna give this kid a sermon on how to be a charmer just like you?" Johnny mused as the two walked out the open fence gate. "Considering he clearly got some weird ideas on that from his old man, I can understand you thinking he needs some reeducation."
"Ah, but it's not just for the lads, now is it, old boy?" the fox asked slyly.
"I mean, I yeah, all those kids could probably stand to get learned some social skills-"
"Johnny, my man!" Robin said as he became the second fox in less than a minute to give the bear a vigorous pat on the back. "I'm talking about you, too."
"Me!?"
"Johnny, you've already done a bang-up job of looking for what you wish you had in me and this brother of yours who I still wish to meet one day, and you've done well to watch, learn, and implement strategies for reinventing yourself. Let me be clear, Little John, you've done an excellent job so far of coming out of your shell and tearing down the barriers you used to put up, and you should be proud of yourself. That said, as your friend, as your brother, as the individual everybody and their bloody nan seems to think is your gay lover, I can clearly tell that you're not satisfied with the level you're at yet, and if you think you're stuck on a plateau, perhaps some good old-fashioned inculcation can build you up a little more."
Johnny pondered that, telling himself to accept the help of someone who was superior on this subject and not just stew in bitterness that he wasn't already at his level. Maybe that Eddy kid was actually wise about something. "Alright, I'll make a point to pay extra attention when you're talking."
"The pleasure is mine, Johnny, I'll feel better about myself if I can get you feeling better about yourself! But that said…" He suddenly seemed a bit morose. "...please do remember that I don't have all the answers either. Perhaps you see me as this perfectly lovely gentleman who everyone gets on with because you're focusing on my successes and disregarding my failures as flukes. Like earlier with that beaver dentist, try as I might, I could not get her to warm up to me, and I don't doubt that there are people out there who could have and that I could have done better there - hell, maybe even you could have figured something out with a strategy that simply wouldn't have worked for me, not unlike what you did with old Terry yesterday, and that's why I'll always encourage you to be the best you you can be and not a cheap imitation of me - or your brother. If you want me to help you to get people thinking you're the bee's knees, then I'll do my best, but despite completely butchering the word rhetorical back there, Eddy actually did say something pretty profound: if you put anybody on a pedestal… they'll always disappoint you eventually."
The boys exchanged melancholy looks.
"You know better than anybody that I'm not perfect," the fox continued. "Please don't lift me up that high, Johnny. I could never bear to let you down."
Little John came to a complete stop, looking irritated. "Was that a fucking pun?"
Robin presented a shit-eating grin. "Care to do something about it?"
"Yeah, I'm gonna lift you up high!" With that he grabbed his little friend and hoisted him up above his head, taking off running.
"Oh, nooo, I didn't want you to lift me up hiiigh!" Robin cried in jest as he squirmed. "Where are you taking meee!?"
"To hell! Where you belong!" Johnny said between panting. "You make a shitty pun, you go to HELL, son!"
Robin just chuckled. His friend was feeling better now.
As they ran down the street, motorists in passing cars and locals looking from their lawns and windows could see two grown men goofing around like children as they made their way to the junkyard, giving the duo sideways looks, uncomfortable with their silliness.
Robin and Johnny knew. Robin and Johnny didn't care.
