Archive of Our Own ^beta

Robert tugged his collars higher up while he hastily pushed through the door with his shoulder. The frigid evening air cuts through his clothing almost immediately and he briefly considers returning inside to get his coat before Yasmin’s eyes caught his. The last time she needed him like this, he got incarcerated and sold himself to slip free. He would’ve done it again. Ending the night with a cold seemed like light work when compared to that. Henry’s words echoed in his head; so, you do love her. Robert shoved his hands within his pockets, hunching up his shoulders as he walked towards her.

If this is love, why couldn’t it be simpler?

But then again, he had never known love to be easy.

Yasmin inhales audibly as he falls in step beside her. He keeps his silence as she turns, opening up her mouth only to close it. Her hands move about like it’s gathering invisible words from the air. He waits.

“Did you know about this Lumi girl?” She finally asked.

He shook his head. “No.”

“Like, what am I doing involving myself with someone like him?” Frustration bleeds into her words, twisting her tone. “Like, what is actually wrong with me?”

He’s seen Yasmin at rock bottom several times lately, what with her father’s embezzlement case. He’s never gotten used to it, though. Defeat doesn’t suit her. That's more of his thing.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” he tells her, slowly. Pronouncing the words so she’d hear it, so they’d stay with her.

Her self-flagellation deafens her. “So many fucked up fucking issues,” she continues on, “I surround myself with these men. Like—and I want them to want me. Why? I don’t…” her voice strayed, eyes darting across his eyes as she stumbles on her words. “I even wanted my dad to like me.”

Robert almost laughs. “Yeah, but you know, there’s nothing wrong with wanting your dad to like you.”

He thinks of Oxford. The pub. Passing out drunk on his father’s porch. Pictures of his father’s new family. Even his father managed to live with his mother’s shadows, and here he still is, her ghost the guillotine above him waiting to cull.

”God. I spent years trying to get my mom’s approval.”

A beat passes. He swallows his regret and a pinch of shame for how he conceded a card so close to his heart. Yasmin visibly tries to reel herself back from the sudden intimacy of the things they’re divulging. The corner of her lips quirks up almost imperceptibly. Something like pity, he registers distantly, though he didn’t know if it was for him or for herself.

“I mean, you know," she gestured, "presentationally.”

The words float between them. His gaze remains on her and he wondered if he ever really knew her. Wondered if she ever really knew him. He doesn’t know whether it’s admiration or envy, or something even worse, churning within him whenever he sees her amongst her people—presentationally—knowing that he’d never be a part of that. He’s not good at pretending, he realizes. That’s where Yas thrives. Robert always wears his heart on his sleeve. Which is why they will never work; and why Henry had to be wrong. This wasn’t love. It couldn’t be.

“Can’t you just fall in love with me?” She then asks. The question takes the breath out of his lungs. He inhales sharply. She did the same. “It would make everything so much easier.”

The question stuns him. Easier, she said. His chest constricts. How? He wanted to ask. How does it make it easier? How, when I’ve never known love to be easy? The last of them came unbidden: how do you know that I’m not already?

He breaks under her scrutiny, and was about to ask what she meant when her phone buzzes. The moment is gone for good. He watches as she steps away, picking up the call. Rob lingers where he stood, shoving a hand into his pockets as he weights on her question. The phone call lasts a moment before Yas walks back. He teetered forward before she brushes a hand. “Sorry,” she says, a warble in her voice. “Sorry. I can’t.”

There it is again, that indistinguishable air of estrangement that always made her somewhat unreachable for him. He thinks that he’s content with this, anyway. Yasmin doesn’t want him to be in love with her—not in the way that matters. She wants him subservient, servile. Admittedly, Robert still can’t make up his mind on how he feels about that. He’s struggling to remember the man who used to enjoy being that for her, and for other women too. Maybe he had known an easy love—before, with Venetia—he just didn’t want it.

The more he tries to sit himself with it, the more he fears that comprehending how he felt about it meant opening doors of the past he had barely managed to lock behind before. She walks past him and he doesn’t acknowledge the twinge stinging his chest. Nothing new. Nothing less hurtful.

The morning he returns to their house, he was a changed man. Robert tries to be present, to finally acknowledge the environment he’d been living in for the past year. He staggered towards the fireplace, seeing the paint samples he had gathered when he first bought the property and saw its potential. Saw his life’s potential. He leans his head against the mirror. Don’t look into the mirror. When he lifts his head, he thinks that he’s beginning to like what he’s seeing.

The ceiling breaks down and he had to swallow a laugh out of sheer, unutterable relief. For the first time in his miserable life, he could get a glimpse of the life he could've had beyond his trauma, grief and stifling pain. And only now he realized that he could have it, but only if he would start wanting better for himself. Not for his mother’s validation. Not for his father’s recognition. Not for any romantic partner’s meager affection. Just for himself. And there it was, finally, the ceiling caving in: a reason to start over.

Almost an hour passes before he hears Yasmin’s familiar footsteps outside his room. He listened as she walks past his bedroom, and couldn’t help but see if she’d knock. She didn’t. Rob shakes his head, trying to sober up again. He lifts his shirt off and slipped into his bed, eager for proper rest. Just as he was about to close his eyes, there it is. A series of knocking before his door knob turns.

“Do you mind if I get in with you?”

He doesn’t quite answer. “What time is it?”

“I don’t know,” she says offhandedly, closing the door, taking it as a yes.

Rob registers her appearance. “Where have you been?”

“I ended up in some gentleman’s club” she murmured, slipping underneath his blanket. “Convinced some men to pay for my drinks before they realized I’m not a member.” He breathed a chuckle, though still welcoming the faint sting of jealousy in the back of his mind. She shifts closer and he lets her.

“So they asked me to leave,” she continues on, settling in her position. “And I came home.”

The most beautiful smile stretches across her lips. If he had any regrets about his decision, it would be that he’d miss this: Yas referring to their place as home.

“I’m selling the house,” he tells her.

He sees the shadow passing across her gaze before a chuckle bubbled out of her. “I’ve always wondered how you managed to afford this place.”

“Clement,” he says nonchalantly. A strange sensation at the back of his throat, the same feeling he gets the very few times he talks about his family. “He left me half a million quid to my name when he died.”

She closes her eyes. “I guess it doesn’t really matter where the money comes from.”

He takes the opportunity to put this picture of her into memory. “I think it does,” he says quietly, sounding wistful and naive. "I think I’m finally beginning to see that."

Maybe she’d laugh at him. But then she brightens up, relief written all over her face despite the sad smile across her lips. Something like admiration and envy shining in her gaze. He knows because that’s how he looks at her.

Yasmin hummed. “What would I do if I lose my job?”

Rob shifts, resting his head against his arm. He considers it for a moment before settling. “Henry will take care of you.”

She laughed. “But he’s a cunt.”

He couldn’t help his own laughter. “Exactly your type, then,” he says. His gaze lingers on her for awhile, waiting for her to deny it. She doesn’t. He gets her.

“Guilty,” she simply says. “My fate is predetermined.”

Rob’s smile remains. He’s beginning to understand it, his place in all of this. They never had a chance to begin with. It doesn’t matter if he had been hopeless from the start. It’s just how things are.

“Yeah,” he murmured, “you’re destined to marry your dad.”

He watched her laugh again before turning to his side. It’s nice like this, he thinks. Drifting to sleep with her laughter. She wheezes before suddenly saying, “that would be impossible ‘cause I killed him.”

Robert twists back almost immediately. “What?” He asked. She only laughed some more. He blinks before bubbling into a laughter too, unable to help himself from seeing her joy from delivering a joke, though he doesn't quite know if it was a joke. He thinks that he doesn't even want to ask.

She’s so close to him now that he could feel her laughter rumbling across his body. Rob shakes his head before returning to his side, closing his eyes, properly intending to sleep. He could feel Yas shifting closer behind him before her hand slid around his stomach. He allowed her to come closer, nose and lips brushing against the back of his bare neck. He thinks he must’ve imagined her kissing his shoulder.

“Will this change?” She asked softly. “When the house is gone?”

The question throws him off. He should've been the one asking her that. But then again, the question would be pointless coming from him because he already knows the answer.

“It won’t,” he says after a moment, which is a lie. But still, he adds, thinking she needed to hear it: “I won’t.”

She holds him closer. He covers the hand splayed across his stomach with his own. “Okay,” she whispers. “I can’t…”

“I know."

“You don’t, Rob,” she says. “Not really.”

“I don’t need to really know,” he replies, correcting what he said earlier. He doesn’t want to anyway. “This works. This is enough.”

He had to say that, knowing she couldn't finish the sentence she'd begun—I can't lose another. Hell, he doesn't think he could bear to hear such pitiful words coming out of her. He doesn't even know what she's trying to gain from saying it, anyway. She must've known already, that he's at her beck and call, always, so long there’s something of him that can be of use for her. Feeding a fire that will never warm him. A beaten dead horse pretending that it still can move. There was never any need for her to ask him for reassurance. Can't you just fall in love with me? She had asked last night. Robert thinks that she must've known that he is, already. It had never been something he hid away; he'd given every women and men he'd been involved with a reason to believe that he's in love with them. Enough reasons for he, himself, to start believing in it too. Her, more than anyone else, perhaps.

She leans towards the crook of his neck, breathing him in. “Okay.”

He squeezes her hand. “Okay.”

Rob closes his eyes and hoped that soon, when the time comes, he won’t find himself on his knees once more, begging for scraps of her. But for now, he’ll take this moment.