psychoshenanigans | Nor // AUAU

Entry tags:

nel,
robin

Nor // AUAU

Robin wakes up long before Nel does. He leaves the bed to empty the bath and take a quick shower himself, returning dried and clothed before his companion has so much as budged. He crawls over to him again to revel in his find, delight in how he looks now that he's clean. It's silly to be so happy over such a little scrap of a person like this, but he can't help it. Now that he's his, he can't help but take pride in him.

Not that Nel knows he belongs to Robin now... He wonders if his previous owner is even concerned. A pity, to waste such a nice thing on people as low and tasteless as them.

He lays there, perfectly content, moving strands of hair away from his eyes, glad that he can touch him again. He's making a mental checklist--still much too thin, too sickly--of all the things they will need to improve. He has some contacts to make and some arrangements to see to. That paper bag won't last forever.

It's nice to have a project, even if he knows he'll regret it later.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I have a few."

He tucks him up close. He wants him to be comfortable (even if his other motives are to move quickly and avoiding his otherwise inevitable collapse). He also pays attention on the stairs, since it would be terribly uncharming if he knocked his head into a support beam on the way down.

"I think I mentioned the first time I found you again... I'd have to start another. This is it."

The stairs are wooden under the thin carpet, and they creak terribly. One flight down, they hit concrete stairs and a hallway full of boxes and half-assembled machinery. Lights, rigs, scripts and costumes...

"It's kind of a club, kind of a dance studio."

Once they make it safely down the stairs, Nel finally starts to wake up a little.

"Dance studio?"

Another parroted question, but he's suddenly too absorbed in his surroundings to come up with something more eloquent. It would take a lot to get him to willingly shift at all from his settled place against Robin, so it's telling when he's trying to crane his neck and lean a little to get a better look at it all.

He'll get a better chance when Robin turns against large double doors. He opens them by pushing with his back, giving Nel an ample opportunity to see everything in the hallway that they'd just passed. Someone is putting on a show here, and Nel is soon going to be an important part of it.

"I remembered you like dancing, so..."

When the hallway is left behind, they enter the large main chamber. Once upon a time it would have looked like an enormous, gaping room, grey walls and grey ceiling all rounding to dark corners that pull you in. It would have been like stepping into the jaws of a monster. Here, now, the illusion is shattered by lush curtains and large chairs and a nervous system of catwalks and rigging all spiderwebbed left and right over their heads.

There's a stage where people are setting up for something, running tests by flashing lights on and off. A couple people are arguing distractedly over a script, while another rigs up a moon and a sun over a painted backdrop. It's an ordeal. Only a few people look over at Robin and the person he's carrying around, but he ignores them on his way towards the back of the room.

"Wow..."

Despite his exhaustion and weakness, he suddenly seems like he could try to squirm out of Robin's arms and go exploring at any moment. Sleepy eyes wide, looking more alert with each interesting thing that hooks and tugs his gaze in one direction or another, the energy of the place is linking right up to his veins and filling them up with life again.

"...You run all this?"

"Yeah."

There's another set of double doors back in the corner. It's behind a bar, something big and well-stocked and very much in the style of other nightclubs that Robin has been to. The neon lights aren't on, but Nel should find it familiar anyway.

Behind those doors is a large room that's been forced into the image of a kitchen, things plugged in with thick cords that run out to generators in the back. It's mostly clean, even if it looks like this stuff could be and often is moved around to better suit whatever large body is cooking.

Robin finds a counter to set Nel down on. He'll have to keep himself propped up while Robin looks for a clean glass in the cupboards above his head.

"I used to do this back home, actually," he explains, accompanied by the clinking of glass, "Maybe not as big, but..."

"Wow."

Thinking up a better word is too difficult, with all the awe taking up space in his brain. He's got other things to focus on. He keeps himself sitting up just fine, even braving to lean on his arms to try and see peer out the doors back toward the bar again. Then his attention returns to the kitchen, swiveling around to figure out all the little details.

It makes him dizzy, but he doesn't mind.

"There's a lot here."

"There is. Drink this."

After a second to fill it, he pushes a glass of water into his hands. It seems like the best place to start. If he can't keep water down, food will be a pointless endeavor.

With the easy part over with, Robin slides up onto the counter next to him, brushing up against his shoulder. The sounds from the stage are all muffled from here, kind of tinny, as if they were in a giant fishtank.

"I guess I should explain why you're here."

He manages the water just fine, and after a first careful sip, he manages it maybe a little too quickly. He's on his second big gulp when Robin pulls his attention from where he's watching the appliance cords and wondering where they go.

With a set-up like that, Robin has Nel's eyes flicking toward him from over the edge of the glass in an instant. All that awe makes a cautious and quiet retreat from his face, leaving polite blankness with just a hint of nerves around the line of his mouth.

"Okay."

"Mm." He wonders how long it would be otherwise, until Nel would have asked him why he's still there and not somewhere else. A few days, maybe a week if he's really avoiding the thought of going back. He wonders if that would have been any easier for him.

"The short story is that you work for me now," he says, almost immediately holding up a finger to stop whatever ideas would have started spinning by in Nel's head, "But not how you'd think. I want you to stay as one of my dancers."

After Robin cuts off his initial question or comment, he just kind of stalls there. He's running into a concept that his brain is having a hard time trying to absorb.

He blinks, and glances without actually moving his head anywhere while he tries to work it over. It feels like this should make sense, but nothing clicks. He just quietly balks.

Did they talk about something that he doesn't remember? Maybe it's a joke. He's missing something, and he doesn't want to say the wrong thing.

"You'll continue here as a collar as well, but that will come second."

He's saying this all as if it's indisputable fact. He doesn't know if he's necessarily allowed to do this sort of thing, but it's not as though anyone is going to stop him.

"I will see to it that you're given what you need, assuming you're willing."

He taps the back of his heel on the cabinet. "That's all. Do you understand?"

"...You bought me?"

He's finally found enough pieces in shapes that he recognizes, and he's assembled them into something. This is at least a concept that he comprehends, as jarring and unexpected as it is, and he's hesitant about voicing it.

"I did, yes."

He nods at Nel, even though he knows he technically hasn't paid anything for him yet. And he doesn't intend to do so until a couple days from now when he'll go and talk to Iska. She might have something to say about payment. He wouldn't trust her with most things, but money seems to be one of the few topics she'll give reliable advice on.

"I know it's sudden."

As if that makes it any less jarring to say out loud.

When he first nods, it's dumbly and distractedly. Just offering some answer while he takes the time to actually process the news. He takes a big breath as he glances away, swimming with the shock of a new reality.

It's not a particularly common event, but it's happened before. He knows the drill--get it into his head fast, roll with it, don't take time to think about all the changes at once. He loses a lot every time, but they aren't things that were truly his to begin with, so...

"--I'm not going back?"

The words leave his mouth before he has any time to think about them, and he almost looks surprised about it. Blinking as though someone else had voiced the question, he looks back to Robin with big, hesitant eyes.

He can't decide if Nel is scared, relieved, or something else entirely. His eyes could mean anything. He's guarded even in the way that he's fumbling for understanding.

So Robin has to think about his answer for a moment. Whatever his answer is, it will carry a particular weight that he doesn't want to misplace.

"You aren't going back," he finally decides, stating it matter-of-factly, "You're mine now."

It's only after that statement that his guard cracks enough to let some internal reaction show through. The way a breath falls out of him is definitely on the side of relieved, if edged with nerves. He's nervous. Reeling.

His fingers finally move, tightening and working around the glass in his hands.

"Really?"

"Really. Drink your water."

The way he breathes out feels like an exchange of energy. It goes into Robin and fills up his chest just the same. He smiles again, not thin-lipped or careful but genuine, just the way he was before.

And since he's his now, and he can do whatever he wants with him, he wraps an arm around his shoulders there on the counter and pulls his tiny little frame in closer.

The big reason he's suddenly nervous is because the game has changed underneath him. He doesn't know how the rules work now; he doesn't know what script to play. But, this is a good first clue.

He's tense when Robin's arm goes looping around him, but when he gets that he's being attacked with something resembling a hug, he forces himself to relax. It sloshes his glass a bit, but he leans into it, and he can't help the tentative little laugh that it knocks out of him.

He'll wait until he's settled again to follow Robin's order and hurry to finish his water.

Laughing is good. He doesn't expect this to be easy or seamless, but this is as nice a start as any. They'll go one day at a time, he reminds himself, trying to smother some of those reeling plans before they spiral off without him.

"I'll show you around tonight. You have most of tomorrow to rest up, and then tomorrow night, you'll start working."

Installing a structure, he puts his attention on all of the things he's going to have to explain to him before he sets him loose on the public.

"Okay," answered with the hurry that comes with eagerness.

Whatever his overarching thoughts or reactions to the changing reality will be, he wants to dive right in. It's best to learn fast, catch up quick. There's less room to get confused, that way. He needs to keep the momentum up. There's no time to stop and think.

He tilts the rest of his drink back, but then sits awkwardly with the glass. He doesn't even know whether or not he should set the glass down somewhere or hand it off. So many new little rules to learn.

Good. He can give orders, he can explain things. Blind attentiveness is better than conflict and concern, and he can see that Nel's in need of as much direction as Robin will give him.

"Put your glass in the sink and follow me."

He slides off the counter, grabs some soon-to-be-stale hunk of bread from the leftovers stashed in one of the refrigerators, and hands it off to Nel.

"Eat that too, if you can keep it in your stomach."

But he'll have to eat and walk at the same time, because Robin is taking him back out into the wonder and the excitement of the main room.

He works right through the hangover--slithering carefully off the counter, stashing the glass in the sink, and stuffing a bite of bread into his mouth as he scurries after Robin.

The rest of the bread will be soon forgotten, however. Once they're out where there are a million things to notice and even more things to learn, the remainder of it becomes a meaningless object held close to Nel's chest while the rest of his brain is elsewhere.

To be fair, there's a lot to pay attention to.

Robin drops the role of a protector and picks up the role of a guide, leading him all around the large and all-important room. He paints the picture with as much reference to Nel's instructions as he can manage. They spend a lot of time at the bar, the stage, and back behind the looming curtains. He briefly points out what few people Nel will need to talk to, but doesn't worry about any proper introductions.

The nights are generally the same. It's a show first and a club second. Nel will be spending a lot of time learning choreography and helping put on a good spectacle for the audience. After that, the tables are shoved aside and the stage retracts back into the wall and Nel will be free to join the party and make sure that their customers have a good time.

Robin also rattles off a short list--places they'll have to go, things they'll have to pick up for him, clothes, medical treatment, maybe some hair dye like he was pondering earlier. By the time they're in the back rooms, heading back towards Robin's set of stairs, explaining where they keep things stored, it will have been a good hour of moving and talking and explanation.

Eventually, even Robin has to yawn. He feels like he's been talking for longer, halfway up the steps.

"I don't have a room set up for you yet... A lot of people stay in the building right next to this one, but it's been harder to grapple for space lately." It's turned into that, him going on about little things on his mind, tiny thoughts that Nel doesn't necessarily need to know... "You'll stay with me for now, right up where we were before."

By the time Robin is yawning, Nel is buzzing--as much as he can without the help of chemicals in his system. He's siphoned off the energy, maybe. Learning and memorizing has become a jumbled buzz of meaningless excitement in his head, so he's still paying rabid attention to every little thing, even if he's not absorbing it.

It's getting closer to the time of day when he normally wakes up and gets to work, so he looks like he's more ready to set off on an adventure than settle down and rest.

And he's still holding onto a big piece of bread.

"...How long am I going to be here?" Phrased quickly, offhandedly... though he'd been working up to the question for a while now. He wants to know Robin's extended plans for him before he gets too excited.

Forever is his gut answer, even before he fully realizes what Nel has asked. He chides himself for the silly thought, pausing again for a better answer.

"For as long as you're useful to me." That's said with just as much offhanded casualty, though his words are accompanied by fingers under Nel's chin, around his jaw, tilting his face upwards. "Which I hope will be a very long time."

Somewhere in the building, bells ring. He looks up, distracted. They're open, people will start filing in, and everyone should be getting their last parts into place.

He smiles to himself. He'd meant to go upstairs, but...

"Would you like to see a show?"

Nor // AUAU

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