74. "The Memory Remains, Pt. 2"
The lightning bugs were parading through the forest that evening; Robin and Marian felt a little bad for interrupting them, but luckily, the insects scarcely seemed to mind.
To the best of their recollection, the lovers retraced their steps from that magical night four years ago, walking along the small pond and climbing up the rock formation to the small cave under the waterfall, whereupon they stopped to stand in the dark and just took in the sounds of rushing water and the feeling of each other's embrace. Then they sucked face for about five minutes. When satisfied, they exited the crevice through the back and came back around to the pond, finding a nice spot to sit down where the grass met the water. It was dark enough to feel intimate, but not so much that they couldn't make out the features on each other's beautiful faces glowing under the light of the moon. Besides, their people's good night-vision probably helped. They sat in silence for a time, just letting the sounds and scenery overwhelm their senses as they smiled unbearable smiles. But eventually, it did become time to rip off the proverbial Band-Aid.
"So what else was on your mind, my love?" Robin asked sweetly, not an ounce of worry over what these questions or observations might be.
"...A lot," Mari murmured, the romance in the air quickly wisping away. "And I, er… don't know where to begin…"
"Why, at the beginning!" he proposed with a cheeky grin, hoping - trusting - that his amusement with himself would lighten the mood and make her feel comfortable to speak at ease.
Surprisingly, it didn't work on her like it usually did. She tried to produce a closed-mouth ha! but it came out sounding more like an unamused hrmmm.
Only now did the tod start to show he was less than completely certain that the upcoming conversation wouldn't hurt him. "...Did you say all you wanted to say earlier before we were ever so… dramatically interrupted?"
The vixen found that question curious. "I… did, but… why do you ask?"
Robin shrugged. "I figured it'd be polite to at least ask since we were a bit cut-off earlier." A nasal chuckle. "But if you say so, I will trust you-!"
"Well, no, now what's on my mind is that there's perhaps something on your mind that was left unsaid."
He scoffed playfully. "Oh, no, you needn't worry about me, this isn't about my concerns, it's about yours-!"
"My concerns are your concerns."
That shut him up. At least for a moment. He was still smiling at her, but his lips were noticeably pursed shut.
"...I admit I have been thinking about it," he finally conceded. "Wondering whether I didn't make it clear enough that… argh, Marian my love, forgive me, I didn't make a point to say: I understand. I…"
The struggle for the right words was frustrating him, and he looked around the ground and the water hoping to find them there. After a moment, he had found his muse, and took his vixen's hand in his and made loving eye contact, leaning in for emphasis.
"...I understand. The reason you're fretting my plan to get out of this life is because you want me back. I understand that, dear, and I feel so…" He paused to violently shake a thought out of his head before returning his gaze. "...I feel so loved. I wish it didn't have to be because you're worrying, but that does tell me, you do want me back. After I've been so worried that I've blown my second chance after we fell out of contact again, you still want me to be yours. I…" He trailed off again to look at the edge of the water and plot his diction. "...It kills me to worry you, but selfishly, the fact that you're as worried as you are confirms to me that a great fear I've been harboring is nothing I need to worry about. It's so bitterly ironic, but you wanting me to get out of this now gave me a great sense of relief when I stopped to have a proper think about it…"
Robin paused once more to take Marian's other hand.
"...And it's a reminder to me to be doing all that I can to show you that the love is reciprocated."
Marian broke eye contact to look at the ground and give a few melancholy nods. She believed every single word of that; she had no doubt that she'd given him a lot to think about and that those thoughts were very conflicted. And she believed he loved her with all of his heart. They were both actors, so they knew how to sense genuinity and fraudulence in one another; Marian could see in Robin's eyes that it hurt him to feel good about this. The problem, however, was that none of that was relevant.
"You're doing a fine job of it, Robin," she assured him tenderly.
The tod let out the faintest sigh of relief. "Glad to hear, my love. I'll promise to never let it lapse."
Alas, it was time for her to take the reins again. "But that still doesn't… assuage my worry that you really have no clue how you'll ever escape this situation alive and free."
He might as well have sucked that sigh of relief back in, not for a lack of an answer, but for a lack of confidence that the answer would bring her the peace she deserved. "I've been… thinking about that as well today, and I agree, it's not a bad question to ask. But after some soul-searching, I… I think I've been able to put into words what I've known all these years."
She waited for him to continue before realizing he was awaiting her permission. "...Please."
He nodded, and split his attention between her and the pond as he answered: "I… I feel so terrible for throwing away what I had… what we had… what we could have had in the future… but the part of me that decided to do this… I wasn't thinking about those things, Marian, I was-" He puzzled over a word. "...I felt called upon to do something. To do the right thing. Called upon by who or what, I don't know, but a little voice inside my head was telling me that this was what I should do. This wasn't about me or what I wanted, this was about…"
And the fox found himself looking up at the moon, not for guidance nor for comfort, but because he simply couldn't look at her as he said this:
"'Robin, if you're a good person, this is what you'll do," he murmured skyward. "Those who love you will miss you, but so many more will feel happiness they never thought they'd feel. Don't even think about it, just do it."
He finally found the strength to face her again. And her expression wasn't blank, but it wasn't… sad, it wasn't mad, it wasn't glad, she wasn't crying nor scowling nor smiling. She just looked very, very patient, and understanding, not letting herself focus on her own emotions as she focused instead on his.
"Tuck would have called it God, Will would have called it neurons, and Johnny would probably have called that heroic instinct he's so convinced I just have, but… that's what I felt," he concluded. "That's what the voice told me."
And she nodded earnestly. Admittedly, she'd already heard something very similar to this - seven years ago, when he explained to her why he'd bought that one-way Greyhound ticket and why his destiny was elsewhere. But Marian saw that he desperately wanted to articulate that all again, and she was glad she'd let him; it confirmed that after these seven years, his perspective on what he was doing hadn't changed. She wasn't sure how to feel about that.
And because she'd heard this all before, she could play where the rest went: "So… you were so convinced that this was what you needed to do… you didn't stop to think about how you'd ever get out of it-"
"Exactly!" His face was so lit up that the moon simply couldn't compete. "Tend to my existential urgency first, sort out the mess later, that is exactly what I meant! Ah, my Marian, how on earth did I receive such fortune as to have someone who understands me as much as you in my life!?"
Privately, she wondered whether he was legitimately forgetting that he'd said all this at the very beginning, or perhaps whether he was operating under the assumption that she'd forgotten; after all, he kept alluding to being afraid she'd moved on in the intervening years, maybe thought she'd wiped that memory. But she bit her tongue; she was letting him monologue to her as therapy and then they could move on to discussing more important things.
But then, of course, he said something she thought warranted a remark.
"To an outsider, I can understand if my plan to improvise seems like no plan at all. But I'm good at it! I'm thriving, having the time of my life, making more people than I ever thought I'd meet in one lifetime happier than they would have been otherwise…! My one regret being that you can't be a bigger part of it. So fine, let them think that I'm young and stupid! All that matters to me is that those I care about understand."
It was all she could do to not look too worried by that statement. "Robin, I… don't think anybody would accuse us of being young anymore."
The tod was so perplexed by that assertion that he didn't even pick up on the vixen's very deliberate choice to say us as opposed to just you. "...Marian, this isn't the Middle Ages, nobody in their right mind would consider early thirties old."
"Well, Robin, this also isn't ancient times where anybody below forty was regarded as a child. It's the Twenty-First Century, and fairly or not, two people our age are expected to have our lives entirely figured out. And that's why it alarms me that you seem to be in no hurry to get back to us."
He could probably have hidden his dissatisfaction with that sentiment, but he chose not to. "Well, firstly, I am yearning to get back to us, I always have been, but this battle is over when it's over, and we won't know it until it happens. Secondly… I simply disagree! What comes after young? Middle-aged? We're certainly not there yet, my love, nowhere near. We have time, Marian, I assure you."
Marian was not assured. "...I remind you that we're in a line of work where if you're not established when you're young young, it might as well be too late."
"Preposterous! Plenty of actors don't see great success until their forties or fifties! Good actors, at that!"
The vixen took a moment to be very precise with her words. "I'll grant you… that that may be the case for actors. But actresses…" She trailed off with a lopsided shrug and a rolling motion of her paw, inviting him to figure out the rest on his own.
And when the tod did figure it out, he was disappointed in himself for not getting that at the top. "Ah! Ah, yes, yes, I suppose you're right, my apologies. The perception of young and old is different for men and women, isn't it? Argh, I'm sorry, that aspect shouldn't have slipped my mind."
"It's alright, Robin, as long as you know now." Truly, she never did expect him to realize that offhand without her pointing that out; he was a kind and sensitive guy, but he was still a guy.
Then he got inappropriately optimistic again. "But Marian, I have absolutely no problem with you going out and trying to make a name for yourself in the world of theatre! I know you'd rather do it with me, but I'm secure enough in myself to-!"
"I did try," she said flatly. "I have been trying. For years. It's what I do to take my mind off how much I miss you. And it's not been working… in either sense."
His optimism disappeared. "...Oh."
"Perhaps having you back would clear my head and allow me to perform better," she continued. "But statements like 'this is over when it's over' make me worry that that's never going to happen."
The tod nodded solemnly. "That is… completely understandable. I merely… hrmmm…" He buried his mouth into the crook of his hand as he pondered. "...I'm so torn, because I want us back, Marian. I do. But that doesn't erase the fact that I still feel like this is my calling and it should be my priority for as long as this lasts, even if that's forever."
That was when the vixen decided to ask something she'd been thinking, but had refrained from saying because she assumed - correctly - that it would hurt him. "So… is this thirty-one-year-old Robin agreeing with twenty-four-year-old Robin, or has twenty-four-year-old Robin never left?"
Sure enough, he took exception to that question. "You know, at first I thought you were calling me stupid, now it seems clear that you're calling me immature-"
"No, I am not! I don't think you're stupid, I don't think you're immature, I… I…"
Marian meant it, she didn't think that this was an issue of idiocy or childishness. She was tempted to say that perhaps his lack of an exit strategy was by itself stupid or immature but that that didn't reflect on his entire person, but those still weren't the words she wanted to use. It took her a moment to find the right one.
"...I think you're overconfident, Robin," she said gently. "I think you're utterly convinced that no matter what happens to you, you'll be okay."
"Ah, but isn't that what confidence is!?" he posited confidently. "The core belief that win or lose, don't fear, and try your best, because you'll be okay!"
"But it won't always be okay, Robin. I need you to understand that. " Her tone of voice wasn't pleading, but she was absolutely pleading. "You're right: you have been very good at being a hero to these people all while largely making it up as you go along. I saw you at that archery contest when the fight broke out, I saw the way you saved me and handled those bullies; you'd have to look really closely to say you weren't flawless. It…" She paused to make a point to lock eyes with him; she knew how much this would mean to him. "...It was like something out of a movie. Like you'd successfully brought heroism that could only exist in fiction into the real world."
He was speechless. Hearing something that he'd always wanted to hear, and hearing it from his favorite person in the world - and knowing that she was using it to build up a case against him. He didn't know what to think. He didn't know what to feel. But then she said something that took his mind somewhere it really didn't want to go.
"I think… that you're so good at what you're doing… and so used to winning… that you've forgotten that you're capable of failing."
Perhaps Marian had a point when she said he was overconfident. But she most assuredly chose the most unfortunate way of arguing it. Robin turned to stare forlornly at the lake, and after a few blinks, one could see the scant moonlight glimmer in his eyes; that hadn't been happening prior to that.
The vixen sensed she'd said something wrong. "...Robin?" she asked as she put a hand on his shoulder.
The tod closed his eyes and hung his head before turning to face her; his anger at what he felt to be betrayal was stifled by the crestfallen heartbreak he felt for the very same reason.
"I know very well that I'm capable of failing, Marian."
Her eyes went wide. Nevermind his loud indignation at finding out that she'd tried to find another man while he was away, nor the quarrels about their futures back in the old apartment which Annie and Will could hear through the closed door. This quiet seething was the most enraged at her as she'd ever seen him, and he wasn't even that enraged. But the lacking quantity of anger was made up for by its quality. With the accusations that she'd been unfaithful, she could reasonably say he was being dramatic, but this… she just somehow knew that she'd done something to him that he didn't deserve.
"R-Robin, I… I didn't mean it literally-"
"Is this not enough of a reminder?" he asked as he raised his broken arm.
"I'm sorry, I wasn't even thinking of your injury-"
"Not just the injury, Marian, that's simply the most visible thing. The thing that has me wondering how you could even say that when there's evidence against it right in front of our noses."
Marian's tongue was paralyzed; she still thought she had a point by saying he was being overconfident, but good God, she could see she'd argued it terribly and now wanted to scramble off this hill before she died on it. "Robin, Robin, I'm sorry, that was a tremendously poor choice of words-"
"You saw how my life was going before I left, the only reason I answered the bloody call was because I felt like someone capable of nothing but failure!" In a huff, he turned his body back towards the pond, folding his arms on his knees and laying his chin upon them to sulk. "...I did this as a last-ditch effort to prove to myself that I was still capable of being the heroic man I'd thought I was meant to be - and with any luck, convince you of the same, because I know by that point you were starting to have your doubts. Don't pretend you didn't."
She didn't pretend she hadn't. "I-I didn't mean you've never known failure, just that this… outlawry thing you've been so successful at, it might have-"
"Oh, because this has been such a flawless endeavor? I've had to deal with Alan losing his mind and becoming convinced we're the bad guys for not being extreme enough, my best mate losing his bloody marbles and thinking I'm an arsehole for not spilling my guts at every opportunity so he can feel like less of a loser, young lads are in prison now as a direct result of me choosing to do this, the people we're trying desperately to help either losing faith that we'll ever change their lives in any meaningful way or admitting that they never actually thought we would in the first place, and… and…"
Dear Reader, this narrator trusts you've noticed that throughout all descriptions of that night, we've largely stuck to Marian's point of view; she's the one who wanted to have this conversation, so her reactions to its twists and turns would seem more immediately relevant. Or so one would imagine. But there's also the simple fact that there wasn't much going on on Robin's end - and that was entirely by design. True, much of his angst about his and Johnny's recent misfortune had been assuaged by having Marian back in his life, but not all of it, far from all of it. Therefore he'd intentionally not been letting himself think too much, forcing himself to think positive and encouraging thoughts, and not just to reassure her; if anything, he was the target audience for his own forced positivity. And there was one specific thing he was trying to keep out of his head until now.
"...What day is it?" he mumbled hastily.
The vixen did not understand the significance. "...It's… Sunday evening?"
"N-no! The…!" The tod groaned, realizing the miscommunication was his fault. "...The date, today's date."
"...The… twenty-sixth?"
Robin held his head down into his elbow, fractured forearm reaching all the way up to his scalp past his eyes pursed shut. He breathed heavily as a man trying desperately not to have a breakdown.
"...The day draws ever closer…"
Marian did not at first ask for clarification; she let her beau breathe through whatever was aching him as she tried to figure it out herself. Late June, late June, whatever could be a significant date to him in late June? She was stumped for a moment, but when she thought instead to ponder the calendar in early July, she remembered that an American holiday was coming up - one that a young English lad had a very good reason to be fond of.
"Ah… I see…" she cooed as she put a paw on his shoulder. "Your brother's birthday and he's spending it… there."
If Robin was on the verge of tears, that stopped them from coming out. There was no room for sorrow as urgency overwhelmed him. She didn't know.
"N-no… no, that's not… he's not…" Words were failing him and they did not recover.
"He's… not… who you're talking about?" Marian asked hesitantly, terrified of hurting him further with imprecise wording. "You… just mentioned a young man in jail…"
"N-no, no, he's…" Sniff. "...He's who I'm talking about, but that's not him. That's…" Oh, God, he'd been so hung up on Will that it hadn't even crossed his mind to fill her in on that. "That was referring to Skippy-"
"Skippy?"
"The… rabbit lad, whatever his real name was. Him and his friend Toby, the raccoon whose… parents always dressed him in a turtleneck sweater all months of the year for whatever reason…" The guilt was causing him to physically cringe. "...They went dressed as us on Halloween the autumn after you left, complete with a real bow and arrow, and that sick FUCK you call your uncle capitalized on the paranoia of the time to have them put away as juvenile terrorists."
"WHAT!?" Marian gasped, understandably floored by such news. "Is… is that why Annie tells me Johnny mentioned… something at the restaurant about Skippy and September 11th that he never got the chance to explain!?"
"And we weren't there to protect them," Robin murmured as he dug the balls of his palms into his eyes.
"Oh, my… Robin, I'm so sorry, I… I completely understand now, that must feel horrible-"
"And it's still not even the worst thing that's happened to us. I… ARRRGH!" Loudly he groaned as he fell back to lay upon the grass, paws still over his eyes to shield him from the fact that this was really happening. "...You were on to something… it's about Will."
"...What is it about Will?" she asked as gingerly as she could.
She didn't know why the Twenty-Eighth was significant; she didn't know that what happened that day had happened on any day at all. And that was all because he'd withheld information from her, even more information than he'd withheld from everybody else. He'd been a coward in the past, and that killed him. He knew if their love was true, he should trust her, whether she liked to hear it or not.
"...Let me take you to him," he asked as he sat back up.
She could nearly see her own reflection in his glassy eyes. "Er… take me to him, as in… to the prison, or…?"
He just shook his head slowly.
-IllI-
"...And that's why Keith Urban could kick Tim McGraw's ass in a fight!" Swig. "And that ain't nothin' against Tim! But y'ever seen a kangaroo brawl? I believe completely that Keith could take on a horse by virtue of that alone!" Swig. "An' hey, I'unno what an Australian guy wants to do with country music, but if he loves American culture that much, fuuuck, I'm happy t'have 'im!"
Johnny had nothing better to do while Robin was away but get drunk in the fox family's backyard and inculcate his yankee pupils on the mythos of the alien Dixie culture he grew up in. If that seems like something that two suburban teenagers couldn't possibly be interested in, you'd be correct. In Eddy's case, he was just boredly watching his parents' tenant get progressively more and more inebriated, the entertainment factor of which oscillated between mildly amusing and just plain dull. Meanwhile, Ed was just happy to be in the company of two guys who he really, really liked being around; he just wished another one could be there.
"And, man… why d'ya city kids all hate NASCAR so much!?" Swig. "Ain't little boys s'posed ta' think bein' a racecar driver's cool!? I mean, n-not to stereotype or nothin', Janet Guthrie was a cool chick, but…" Swig. "...D'you city kids just not dream a' bein' racecar drivers, or d'ya just grow outta it, or… or fuck, wait, maybe you kids're imaginin' racin' Indycars…"
"Uh, nah, ya had it right the first time, we just… grow outta it…" the fox kit mumbled, chin propped up on his palms and his arms resting on his knees as he leaned forward for lack of a backrest on his patio.
The older bear, lacking a seating arrangement suitable for a guy his size, was sitting up against the side of the house. Finding Eddy's lack of childlike wonder pathetic, Johnny just shrugged and tossed his stubby Coors Banquet bottle into the growing pile in the corner of the yard.
"...You got any plans to slow down with those?" asked the fox; this was the first time in a long time that he'd truly hung out with a drunk person, and now that he was older, he was starting to see why being sober in the presence of someone making merry wasn't quite as fun as it seemed when he was a little kid watching his brother get blitzed and start acting silly.
His makeshift mentor gave him a dirty look. "Wha', d'Rob tell ya I'm a lightweight er sumpin'!? Simmer down, kiddo, I'm only on my fourth."
"I can count at least twen'ny and I'm not even good at math," Eddy noted as he pointed at the pile.
Incensed, Johnny held up the half-empty cardboard six-pack carrier. "Yeah, pack number four! So three're complete, three times six is… what, eighteen 'r sumpthin'?" Swig.
"You can drink more than my dad can, Mister Johnny!" the younger bear cheered. "He can only have twelve before he starts crying and talking about how everybody disappoints him! And then he falls asleep!"
The elder ursid simply scoffed. "Yer dad sounds like a little fuckin' bitch t'me." Swig.
Ed had been hoping the older bear would find that anecdote amusing and encouraging. He didn't say anything as he hung his head, not wanting to displease his new friend any further.
"Kid, why ain't her parents usin' yer backyard any?" Johnny continued, arm out to gesture towards the darkened sky above; their close proximity to downtown meant it wasn't exactly a starry scene, but the gradient of color looking down upon them, light waves fading as they meandered away from the city and out into space, was still a sight to see.
The fox kit had never really thought about why his parents rarely just hung out in their yard, but thinking about it now, it did seem like everyone else had lawn furniture except for them. "Uhhh… wul, my dad'd probably tell ya he just spent the whole day in the sun at work, my mom's just not much of a summer person, and, um…I dunno."
The incognito outlaw just shook his head in disgust. "Beautiful fuckin' night 'nd they're sittin' inside watchin' TV…" Swig. "Or at least go out and have a fuckin' social life, fer Christ's sakes, I ain't got one a' those b'cause I'm a loser, but what's their excuse?" Swig. "But hey, least they ain't out here ta' judge me for my life." Swig. Toss. Crash. Grab. Twist. Swig.
Eddy shrugged without a word. It wasn't like he was in any place to judge; wasn't like he had anywhere better to be or any other friends to hang out with. This wasn't how he was hoping to spend his last summer vacation before high school, but he was forcing himself to stay optimistic that these new faces would mean cool new things were coming; he thought that's what stupid amazing Robin would do.
"...But that was a good topic we were on there," Johnny mused as he turned towards the boys again. "What'd you kids wanna be when ya grew up? Or… fuck, you're still kids, ain'tcha? Whaddya still wanna be when you're grown up?" Swig. "Or maybe ya used ta' wanna be one thing 'n' now y'wanna be su'thin' else… man, I'on'now, if not racecar drivers, what'dja wanna be? Football player, doctor, president, astronaut?"
"Ed wanted to be an astronaut!" the cub answered in his famous third-person manner, as if narrating his own biography. "But now I wanna be a SPACE RANGER… specifically! Battling intergalactic foes from the farthest reaches of the cosmos, keeping evil at bay, and protecting the only planet we will ever call home!"
The older bear was getting a kick out of the boy's passion. "Sounds like you wanna be an action-flick star just like Robin!"
Ed felt disheartened to be misunderstood. "No, not playing pretend in movies, I wanna be an alien-fighting space ranger for real!"
Johnny just kept chuckling. "Just like I said, you 'n' Rob're two sides a' the saaaaame fuckin' coin, ha ha! B'hey, shit, maybe one day there'll be a brand new branch a' the military just for defending outer space, signed into law by some nutty president - I'on'now why, but I'm imaginin' some shitbag Republican fucked up on cold medicine, heh heh." His giggles trailed off and he turned to the fox kit. "How's abou' you, tiger!? What'd you wanna be when you were knee-high to an inchworm!?"
Eddy begrudgingly accepted that that wasn't meant to be a short joke, but he still looked pretty visibly annoyed at being put on the spot like that. "Uh… I dunno, nothing?"
Johnny gave one sharp clap of his paws and pointed giddily at the fox. "THAT! Now that is kinda-sorta the right answer, kid! Yeah, work sucks, FUCK havin' a job! But as a kid, ya don't know that yet, ya still think some jobs sound fun. So what was it that tickled yer fancy when you were still shittin' in Pampers?"
Well, this guy seemed really, really interested in knowing, and Eddy knew that if he wanted to stay on the vigilantes' good sides, he'd best comply. (And also pissing off a bruin in an advanced state of drunkenness just sort of seemed like something the kit should avoid if at all possible.) But knowing that didn't make an answer materialize any easier. Barring a hot minute there where he'd wanted to be a figure skater before his father scolded that effeminate shit out of him, Eddy had never at any point dreamed of having any specific job. All he'd ever wanted was to be was like his brother, scraping together whatever he could, getting creative with it, and turning a pretty penny off of it. And even then, Eddy didn't envy the idea of hustling every day of his life, what appealed to him was what that hustling made of his brother. Therefore Eddy had always just envisioned himself as an adult doing whatever jobs he had to do to become what he wanted to be, he didn't care what. The honest answer to the question was that the fox had wanted to be… successful. Secure. Well-off. Affluent. Monied. Wealthy. "Rich."
Eddy was so surprised that he'd said that out loud that he physically flinched at the word. Needless to say, that caught Johnny's attention.
"Shit, that's twice in one day ya said that!" But he wasn't offended; he was damned curious to unravel this some more. "That brother a' yers really did a number on ya, ain't he!?"
The kit chuckled bashfully. "Heh heh, um… yeah, guess he did! Really, uh… gave me an unhealthy obsession with money, didn't he!? Heh, heh, um, heh…"
"I thought you thought your brother was cool, Eddy," asked the confused cub.
"Huh? Oh, oh, uh, fuck no! He was a dick!"
"I'm gonna start callin' this character Dick!" the older bear laughed. "Don't give a fuck what his real name is, don' even tell me! His name is Dick to me now! Dick the Fox!" Swig. "But hey, kid… don't worry about bein' honest with me. Like, fuck, lemme be clear, me 'n' Rob understand, there's nothin' wrong in and of its-fuckin'-self with wan'nin' ta' be rich. There ain't! Nothin' wrong with wan'nin' a better life fer yerself and yer family, nothin' wrong with wan'nin' the people ya care about t'never hafta struggle fer nothin' ever again. Just, pro'lem is… fuck, Iike I said earlier, we're dumb fuckin' animals! Money's power, 'n' nine times outta ten, people're gonna abuse that shit!"
Eddy nodded along, relieved that there were no hard feelings and admiring the fact that the Merry Men's socioeconomic worldview had more nuance than he was expecting, but still having trouble swallowing the fact that he was nevertheless going to have to change a big part of himself if he wanted to stay in their good graces.
"Like… a lot a' these broke-ass people in the city…" the bear continued, pointing vaguely eastward, "...the kids'll tell us to our faces that they wanna be rich when they grow up. And it's like, we get it! Ya got nothin', you're gonna want ev'rythin'! Perfectly understandable, makes perfect sense! But money changes people, man…" Swig. "There's two ways people get rich… they get dumb-fuckin'-lucky and don't realize it, which is most a' them, and they think they ain't gotta help those below them because they think they're fuckin' Superman…" Swig. "...er they really did work ta' earn it, which is almost fuckin' worse because ta' get ahead in this life, ya gotta be a fuckin' sociopath who doesn't give a FUCK about nobody, people who were always gonna make the world a worse place just by existing…" Swig. "Hell, I wan'ned ta' be rich when I was a kid, b'cause I always thought I was gonna be a midget little shit 'nd that money was the only way anyone was ever gonna gimme even the tiniest scrap a' respect! I was absolutely gonna use that money ta' exert control over people I didn't like ta' feel like I had some power over someone else fer once in my godforsaken life, y'know? I think a lotta people want that…"
The kit was thankful that neither of the bears saw him gulp at that line. One was busy staring off at the horizon as he mused, the other staring enraptured at the other's musing.
"Grow up poor and get money, yer gonna think abusin' that shit's just the name a' the game since you were always on the receivin' end and now you wanna be the one deliverin' it. Which's almost as bad as bein' born rich and not even realizin' the damage fuckin' around with yer money can do. And then ya got the people born middle-class who get rich, 'n'... man, they're so paranoid about comfort, they'll be too chickenshit ta' use their power ta' help people like any decent person in their position should…" Swig. "That's why Doctor Geoff is such a fuckin' gem, he's got money but it didn't make 'im an asscrack! He uses his powers to actually… do good shit! But I can name him because he is the exception!" Swig. "That's what we hope ta' teach ya kids, it ain't black 'n' white, power ain't guaranteed ta' corrupt ya, it's just really fuckin' likely! There's a fuckin' correllation there! If some broke sum-bitch is robbin' a liquor store, hey, that's shitty, but if he only ever considered doin' that b'cause some shitfucker slumlord evicted his family, man… there're grown-ass adults who'd still think the slumlord's without sin! Nyeh, he shoulda paid his rent! Blah blah blah, suck my dick, ya conservative cowards…"
He killed the rest of his beer and sat up off the side of the house, leaning forward to see the boys more directly.
"Ah, I'm ramblin'. I'm borin' ya guys, ain't I?" he sighed, smiling merrily nevertheless. "You're kids, ya don't give a fuck about politics."
"I'm not bored!" Ed beamed. "I wanna listen so I can be as smart as you!"
The idea of being called intelligent was so alien to him that Johnny had to laugh. "Ah, note to self, if I wanna be called smart, just distance myself from Rob so he can't keep overshadowin' me…!" He shook his head, chuckling bitterly as he opened another beer.
"How do you not have to pee?" asked Eddy with cynical skepticism. "...Again?"
"Aw, I gotta pee real bad, but at this point I'on think I can get myself through the door, aaand I'm not whippin' my slippy out and pissin' in the yard while you kids're right here." Swig. "So. Eddy my boy. Rich, is that all ya wan'ned ta' be?"
Ah, back to this again. "Uh… y-yeah, sorry, I… couldn't think of a… more specific job?" he stammered with rediscovered nervousness.
"Aw, no worries! Hell, your answer was the real one! Most people don't give a fuck about any job. Just wanna be rich, now that's some real talk!" Swig. "...This's good. I like this. Honestly, same here, kiddo. When I was a little shit… a little shit… I just wan'ned to be big! Fuck what job I wan'ned ta' have, only thing I gave a fuck about was bein' big!"
Eddy nodded knowingly.
And as he did, Johnny stared wistfully off into space. "...That and… happy. When I grew up, I wan'ned to be happy. And… course, bear logic, ya think those two things go hand in hand. Ya get the first, ya got the other."
Eddy nodded more rigorously.
"And… lotta people would say… hey, you can control whether ya get one a' them things b'not th'other… which, alright, that makes sense… but through dumbass-fuckin'-luck… I get the one I couldn't control… and not the one they say I coulda controlled." He shrugged and took another sip. "...Go figure."
Eddy stopped nodding along and thought about that.
"And if it's such a choice, why the hell ain't I got it-?"
"Which one is which?" Ed piped up.
That seemed to break the elder ursid out of his melancholic trance. He shook his head to shake the thoughts out and faced the younger bear. "Aw, I'm depressin' the shit outta ya, ain't I? Ah, I'll shut up-"
Knock knock knock went a set up knuckles on the wooden fence.
"Ah, shit!" Johnny yelped as he tried to leap to his feet, failed, and dove to cover his pile of stubbies. "Is that your parents!? I'on wan' 'em seein' me like this-!"
"Hello?" Now there's a voice we haven't heard in a while. "I believe I was summoned?"
The befuddled bruin struggled to recall the voice for a second there, but eventually it clicked. "Wait, is that Wolfie?"
"Yeah, I told him to come over for a sec," the fox kit said nonchalantly as he stood to go open the fence. He didn't get very far before he was superseded.
"DOUBLE-D IS HERE!?" Ed jumped to his feet, scooped Eddy up, and ran around the side of the house to greet their third friend at the gate.
"ED!" the fox protested, unheeded as always.
This was all happening entirely too fast for Johnny, who could barely get to his feet. Before he knew it, the younger bear had returned with his canid companions snugly hugged under his arms, dropping them in the center of the yard.
"Ed and Edd and Eddy are reunited at long last!" the former proclaimed, arms out to announce it to the world at large.
"We were all together the other day, Ed," Eddy grumbled. "I know it seems like a year ago, but it was-"
"Yesterday," Edd muttered unenthusiastically as he stood up and brushed himself off.
"Hey, kid!" Johnny greeted, trying to wave but needing both hands to help himself get to his feet. "Uhhh… t'what d'we owe th'pleasure, bud!?"
The wolf did not see too much pleasure in it. "Is he drunk?" he asked almost as a statement quietly to the fox.
"No, duh," Eddy scoffed. "Oh, wait, you wouldn't know because you've never been around drunk people, ya fuckin' hermit-"
"An absolute joy to see you again, too, Eddy," Double-D hissed at full volume before turning his attention back to the vigilante. "I was informed, Mister Little, that you and Mister Hood requested use of my abilities to assist Mister Hood's fiancée. Was Eddy mistaken?"
I know it's been a while since we've seen him, Dear Reader, but I need to stress that to those who were there, watching Eddward degenerate in real time, they could swear by this point that the teenage wolf pup's trademark geeky chipperness had been surgically removed from his soul. You'd think his eyelids were partially paralyzed from how they were never more than halfway open from either lack of ability or lack of will to open them all the way. His fur wasn't completely disheveled, but it looked like he'd tried to maintain his neat appearance and just lost control of the situation and given up. Even his beanie was somewhat crooked on his head, which for a guy like Double-D would have looked as jarring as a tumor the size of a grapefruit growing between his eyes. You'd say he didn't look like he'd been sleeping, but God help you if you could theorize how else he'd been spending his time. In all, he looked like he was on a mission to write himself out of the story of his own life, and was succeeding with flying colors.
"Oh! Uh… yeah!" Johnny finally recalled what the request was. "Rob and Marian got mugged the other day - th-they're fine, don't worry, but her license went vamoose, so she needs a new one, b'they're tryna keep it under wraps so it doesn't raise suspicion and, y'know, questions and shit, and, uh… sor-, uh, sorry, they're not here, they're off on a… conjugal visit, so it's just me, heh heh-"
"I can do that," the wolf said flatly. "Not that I have anything better to do now that I understand the world perceives my academic and intellectual endeavors as a cowardly waste of time."
Normally, Johnny would have disputed that and argued that he and Robin had said nothing of the sort (well, okay, Robin and his strict belief in classical flawless heroism versus well-intentioned-but-insufficiently-awesome antiheroism said something kind of of-the-sort), but his addled mind was simply in no state to process what that string of words meant. "...Well, hey, man, we appreciate it!"
Edd looked around the yard, daring someone or something to make his day. "...So am I expected to wait here for them to return whenever they may, or…?"
"Huh? Oh, nonononono! No, you're… you're good, this might-could prolly wait until morning, I'on even know when they're gonna be back, uh…"
With nothing else to say, the bear just stopped talking, and the wolf nodded calmly along, not showing any hints that this disruption of his brooding was indeed an annoyance. Seeing no further business here, Edd turned back to the entrance to return home and resume hating himself for putting all his chips on the meek inheriting the earth just to find out that fortune really did favor the bold.
"Very well then," he narrated with the tone of a theater kid reciting Shakespeare, "till the morrow, gentlemen, I shall bid you adieu and see myself out-"
"But wait, Double-D!" Ed gushed as he went to block the exit. "Mister Johnny is teaching us all about STUFF! He's gonna make us smart like he is and tell us why wanting a job is dumb!"
"Naw, kid, you're plen'ny smart enough as it is already!" the older bear proclaimed as he came over to put one arm around his protégé's shoulders and pat him on the chest with his other. "You just got a different way a' showin' it! And hell, if you can find the joy in havin' a job so badly, fuck, ya might be the smartest one here already!"
But the cub was hesitant to accept the compliment. "...Are you sure?"
Johnny winced. "...Course I'm sure, why woulden' I be sure?"
Ah, Dear Reader, you know by now that poor Ed had little in the way of a filter. "My mom and dad say that if I was ever gonna be smart all by myself, I woulda stopped being so stupid by now, and now I gotta stay dumb so the president will give me money because I'm too dumb to have a job."
The older bear didn't entirely understand what that meant, but he already knew he didn't like it. "I beg your pardon?" he asked with his eyes narrowing.
Eddy offered clarification: "I overheard my parents saying his parents tried to get him diagnosed retarded - like, officially so they could get disability money for him."
"Wait, WHAT!?" asked Double-D; he was so out of the loop that this was news to him, too.
But the only reason the wolf even has an opening to say that was because their new friend was left utterly speechless. Blank-faced, Johnny looked around and made eye contact with each of the boys; first the kit, then the pup, then the cub. And when he got to Ed, Johnny abruptly came to look very, very determined.
"Which one's yours?" he asked, pointing towards the street.
"Huh?"
"Which house is yours," Johnny repeated as he wasted no time making his way towards the gate. "I'm kickin' their asses right now."
"WHAT!?" all the kids yelped, loudest of all Ed.
"I'm kickin' their asses RIGHT fuckin' now!"
Each of the trio had their reasons to form a chorus of dissent; you had Eddy, who didn't want a cool opportunity to learn badassery from some badasses jeopardized by one of said badasses making a rash decision -
"WAIT! NO! Hold on! I-I was exaggerating! We can talk this through!" he pleaded as he tried to grab onto the bear's dangling paw to slow him down, just to get taken along for the ride.
- you had Double-D, who already felt like his life was over and didn't need to have the deal sealed by having his fraternization with notorious criminals exposed -
"Sir! SIR! PLEASE, I agree that what Ed's parents said and did is appalling, disgraceful, and even reprehensible, but violence is never the answer!" he stammered as he tried to block the bear's path, arms out desperately to signal a halt, only to backpedal when it became clear the lumbering giant would sooner trample him than slow down.
- and then you had Ed, who simply didn't want anybody getting hurt.
"NOOOOO!"
It was his arresting hug of his fellow ursid that finally got Johnny to stop.
"Don't beat up my mommy and daddy!"
"Gimme one good reason why I should," the older bear growled, not even trying to wiggle out from the cub's arms.
Ed looked up at him with eyes that looked like they were about to burst. "Because I love them!"
And to this, Johnny said something - just one word, one syllable, three letters - that none of the three of them would ever have expected.
"...WHY!?"
It was enough to get Eddy and Double-D to physically flinch, and Ed to surrender his hug.
"B- be-because they're my mommy and daddy…"
"SO!?" the drunken bear roared. "Ya don' hafta love her shitty parents if they treat ya the way they treat ya! The way ya talk about them, anybody with a brain would call 'em abusive! Y'ain't obligated ta' love abusive family members! Jesus fuck, 'm I the first person in her life ta' tell ya this!?"
The fox and wolf looked away awkwardly while one bear glowered down at the other.
"But… my mom and dad love me, too-"
"Really?" Johnny challenged. "Th' might say that, but they cou' just 's well be lyin'! 'Er fuck, maybe they do mean it but they jus' got a shitty idea a' what it means ta' show love, lots a' parents're like that! They might be tryin' but you ain't obligated t'fergive 'em if their best ain't good enough! You're th' vulnerable one, not them!" He paused to let his intoxicated mind catch up to his mouth. "...Hell, do they even say they love you? Clearly they ain't demonstratin' it wi' their actions like they should, but d' they even pay lip service t' the idea a' bein' loving parents!?"
Ed had to think about it. "My mom does sometimes," he murmured bashfully to the grass. "My dad says boys don't say that to other boys."
"Oh, does he think this is the fuckin' Fifties!?" Johnny scoffed. "A real man'd say that t' his son, the fuckin' coward!"
The cub's eyes were aimed firmly at the ground.
"You still sure y'don't wan' me t' kick their asses!?" Between indignation and inebriation, Johnny could sense his own speech deteriorating, but that couldn't extinguish his burning fit of passion. "Gimme one good reason why I shouldn't!"
And Ed mustered the courage to look his angry elder in the eye. "Because I don't want you to get in trouble… because I love you, too."
"Oh, wul THAT doesn't fuckin' mean anything!" Johnny roared with his arms to the sky. "I'on wantcha ta' tell me ya love me the same way ya love two people who hurt you, that means yer love is worthless! Yer love is a dime a dozen if ya give it ta' anybody who crosses yer path! I don' wanna be in the same league as those mean-spirited pieces a'-!"
"Uh… hey, big guy?"
Johnny had completely forgotten he and Ed weren't alone. He looked down at Eddy, agitated to have been interrupted, but even with his mental fog, the bear could tell that the fox took no pleasure in cutting him off.
"I… think you're scaring him," the kit explained carefully, his voice clearly indicating that he didn't think that just applied to Ed.
It felt like a gear slipped in his brain when Johnny heard that. But upon looking at the cub to confirm - really seeing him, not just looking at him - truly, Ed didn't look scared. No part of him looked to be shying away from his fellow ursid; if anything, he looked all too accepting of the way he'd been spoken to. Ed looked dejected; he looked heartbroken.
Johnny was nevertheless almost afraid - embarrassed - to pop the question. "...Am I scarin' you?"
Bravely, Ed looked up at him, but took no joy in his bravery. "No… Ed is used to it… that's how my dad talks to me… and my mom sometimes too… and my baby sister…"
We may never know how those words would have hit the older bear under normal conditions. But with all the alcohol he had in his system, the moment the full gravity of that sentence finished percolating through, Johnny began bawling on the spot and yanked the boy in for a hug.
"OH, God, kid, FUCK, I… I'm sorry. I'm drunk. I'm drunk. I…" Sniff. "...I'm sorry. I don't wanna be like them… I don't wanna be like them."
Ed was confused. "It's okay, Mister Johnny," he said, that being how he was always told to answer when someone apologizes for anything. "You didn't do anything wrong."
"Yes I did," Johnny squeaked between sobs of self-pity. "I don't wanna be like them."
The cub did not contest this; he just hugged the older bear right back. He thought that Johnny needed it.
And as he did, Double-D felt a nudge in his hip. It was Eddy, the fox gesturing with his head towards the gate to suggest he and the wolf give the bears a moment alone. They did.
Said bears just stood there hugging for the better part of a minute, Ed not knowing how to feel while Johnny ran his paws up and down the cub's back just to make sure his young friend was still there.
"I don't wanna be like him… I don't wanna be like him," Johnny blubbered under his breath. He was no longer talking about Mr. Browne.
This continued for a few long moments longer; when the older bear was ready, he backed off and held the cub at arm's length to get a good look at him.
"Hey, kid…" he began when he had the ability to speak clearly again, "...you might actually be the smartest person I've ever met… in here."
Johnny pointed at Ed's chest. Ed did not understand.
"Ya figured out how ta' love people who don't deserve it… that's some saintly shit. Definitely better than I can do."
The young bear had trouble believing that this man had any sort of trouble caring so deeply about anybody. "...Do you love me, Mister Johnny?"
"...You know what?" Sniff. "...I think I do." And in for another hug, this one with a much more mutual feeling. "But, uh… don't tell anybody I said that, alright? It'll just be our little secret. People might think it's weird, heh heh."
"...Well, ya got that right," Patrick hissed as he peered down at them from his upstairs window, which he'd been for five minutes at this point on the precipice of opening to tell the boisterous bruin to shut the hell up, only abstaining out of a deep-seated desire not to interact with anybody who was a friend of the fox household. "...Who the hell is that guy, anyway? Is he just a friend of the family?"
"I was gonna say, is that the kid's uncle?" Karin proposed wearily. "Matilda have a brother or something?"
"He doesn't look much like Mat."
"Well he definitely doesn't look like Hill."
"Well, even if that was the kid's uncle, what's he doing at the foxes' house?"
She shrugged. "Their species hit it off pretty easily to my understanding. Hell, I think I've seen another fox hanging around with the bear. Doesn't look like Toni or Terry, but this guy's even taller than them, so I'd buy that they're related somehow."
Pat winced. "'Hanging around the bear' like how?"
"I dunno, are they staying there together?"
He chuckled. "What are they, queer? Good to know Terry would let those types near his family. Somebody oughta warn the bears that some fag is getting close to their kid. I'll be keeping my eye on them."
Karin just groaned in exhaustion. "I don't know if they're actually gay, it's just… a thing I've noticed." She made her way towards their bed. "I don't know, I'm tired."
Alas, the kick Patrick got out of speculating that neighbors he hated were unmasculinely tolerating suspected homosexuals was not enough to overcome the misery of seeing the life drained out of his poor wife. "...I can imagine."
Both of the hyenas were tired. Karin's plans to bury herself in her work had been derailed by all shows at The Chuckle Bunker getting canceled for the rest of the weekend, so the Laffertys had nothing better to do but spend another day in the hospital, hoping against hope that every passing moment would be the moment Kevin finally awoke.
-IllI-
Thank God there was nobody around for a mile.
"NOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Her sobbing was so uncontrollably severe that she struggled to catch her breath as she buried her head into his chest. It was quite the reaction he was expecting, and his desire to never cause her to weep like that was a large part of why he didn't tell her at his previous opportunity four years ago. He too was overcome by heartache, but not nearly as violently; he'd already had five years to cry most of the tears he had to shed. So there he stood, arms around her as he tried in vain to console her, his own blurred vision fixed upon the spot where grass and wildflowers would scarcely grow out of the earth. In one corner of the rectangle of half-barren soil was an arrangement of twigs strung together in the shape of a W; the one it memorialized would have objected to a cross.
It was three or four minutes before she could bring herself to raise her face to his and ask:
"WHAT HAPPENED!?" And then, pursing her eyes and digging her cheek into his collarbone, she requested in a shaky near-whisper: "Tell me what happened…"
As much as he wished he wasn't, Robin was as prepared for this moment as he'd ever be.
"So…" began his laborious explanation, "…a big part of why it's driving me crazy that Johnny believes I'm being bossy and taking more than my fair share of the glory… is because long before he came around to that way of thinking, my brother was just the same way."
As much as Marian craved an answer, she could hardly process his words as her mind struggled to first come to terms with the fact that the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed young tod, that exuberant rebel brimming with as much piss and vinegar as he did conviction and resolve, wasn't there anymore, and hadn't been for long time. "Tell me what happened…" she repeated achingly.
He dug deep inside himself to try to fulfill her request. "He, er… we were all doing well for ourselves, but he wasn't satisfied… we were arguing…" Robin turned his gaze up to the tree branches swaying in the gentle wind. "...If I'd known then how it would end, I'd… have simply refused to waste such precious time with him bickering."
As he paused, she looked up at him and awaited whatever came next.
"One day…" He gulped before continuing. "...we were at our camp… and no one had ever found that place yet without us showing them the way. And out of the blue… along comes a…" He grimaced as he tried to recall. "...I want to say a beaver?"
Marian's eyes shrank as she assumed where this was going. She was wrong.
"Turns out… he was a great fan of ours. Had spent a few hours a day scanning the forest for a week before he found us, all based upon clues we'd let slip here and there."
"...He was?"
"He truly was. Friendly chap, perhaps something was a bit off about him - nothing malicious or anything, I'd suspect a social disorder or the like. Seemed like he had little going on in his life and saw an opportunity with us. But…" The tod took a deep breath, followed by an unexpected bitter chuckle. "...the rest of us were such egomaniacs that we ate the adoration right up and didn't even question it. On paper, Will was right to be skeptical… but jumped to too firm a conclusion."
The vixen's eyes sank again as she braced her emotions.
"We think… we think Will thought the lad's awkwardness was a sign that he was faking it. Will grabs his sword, tells the beaver to get lost, the beaver is too busy wondering what he did wrong to run off… and Will slashes him."
Marian covered her mouth when she caught herself gasping. She was starting to get some picture of what happened. "Was… was this lad okay?"
"He ran off and we never saw him again," Robin said morosely. "...And we were pissed at Will - above all, I was. And we got into another squabble, which was nothing new, but after he'd just harmed an innocent person because of his own paranoia, I…" He pursed his lips and shook his head as he looked back down at the grave. "...I said some things I should have never said."
She stayed silent, knowing she didn't have to ask.
"...I… may have said that… I may have said he'd never be fit to be a true leader because of how much growing up with our father broke him."
Marian squeaked in suppressed anguish. It was for Robin this time; she couldn't fathom such a level of regret.
"...And he ran off in a huff… with his sword… and because we were still fuming, we didn't look for him at first. But then he doesn't come back. And we realize…" Another gulp. "...we realize that the reason he was getting so defensive was because he already regretted his actions and we were just making it harder on him. And I took it upon myself to go look for him… and I found him."
Breath bated, she didn't even try to predict where this was going.
"...He was waiting for me to find him… and I'll never forget those eyes…"
Her tears were preemptively flowing already.
He was wincing just watching the replay on the projector screen of his mind. "...He made good and sure that I was looking at him before he…" Robin trailed off and started the sentence again. "...I must have really made him feel terrible about what he'd done… and who he was… and what he came from… because… argh, clever lad… he took 'falling on one's sword' to its logical conclusion."
Marian cried out into the night as her legs gave out and she slid down the tod she held onto so desperately, arriving on her knees, and turning to keel and weep over where her would-have-been, could-have-been, should-have-been brother-in-law lay. Blinking furiously to expel his own tears, Robin knelt beside his vixen and put an arm around her as she buried her face in her hands.
That was his story and he was sticking to it. Now Marian was on the same page as everybody else, except for one person who Robin was deeply regretting telling otherwise. Nothing had been gained by giving Tuck a revised account of that night, not even the spiritual solace Robin had come to the holy man desperately seeking; it had only made things messier. And likewise now, nothing, absolutely nothing, would be mended or bettered by him telling her something other than what he'd been recounting since the day it happened. It tore his heart to give her incomplete and invalid information, but his brain was adamant that this was the pragmatic decision. Doing anything else most certainly wouldn't bring his brother back.
"...I'll never be able to forgive myself for what I did to him," he murmured. This much was indisputable; nobody could accuse him of falsifying that statement.
As much as her heart wasn't done breaking for the deceased, her love needed her now. "Oh, Robin…" she whimpered, "...no, you… you can't blame yourself for what happened. You… you said some hurtful things you didn't mean in a fit of anger, but… we all do sometimes! I… I could never blame you, Robin… you had no way of knowing how that would end."
No way of knowing how that would end. She had no idea how perfectly that sentence fit. It pained him to accept her love in that moment, but he knew it would only hurt her more to deny her gift. "Thank you, Marian… but I don't want my own forgiveness. I want his." Another statement that nobody could claim was a lie.
…Was he evil? He wasn't sure. But considering his bloodline, he figured it was about time a Scarlett man reflected on such a question.
"I know I should have told you four years ago, but I… it was such a wonderful night, my love, and I was a coward too afraid of ruining the moment for you, Marian… and too selfish to ruin it for myself." Once more, not a syllable of fraudulence among that set. "I thought I'd have another chance to tell you soon after, my dear, truly I did, and if I had known I wouldn't get another moment alone with you, I'd have-"
"No, it's… it's okay…" she sniffled. "It's okay, I… I understand. I understand, I… it was just the same for me."
Robin's self-pity yielded to outstanding confusion. "Wha- what was the same for you?"
Marian dug deep and found the strength to look up at him. "I… had something I should have told you that night as well… oh, but it was such a wonderful night and I also didn't want to ruin the moment and I also was sure I'd get another chance but we didn't and I still regret-"
"Marian, Marian!" he begged to calm her. "It's alright… it's alright. I can't hold it against you when I've done the same. I…" Robin felt tremendously callous turning the attention away from his brother so abruptly, but the curiosity was consuming him. "...Whatever it is, I can handle it. Please, what is it?"
And she wanted to tell him, but she was still struggling to swallow the previous pill. "I… I'll tell you, I… I just need another moment…"
"...I understand," said the tod with a tight nod, and he stayed right there next to his vixen until she was ready.
