Witch Hunter Robin Fan Fiction ❯ Binah (Understanding) ❯ The Problem of Memory, Part 2 ( Chapter 12 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: M Mehiel 
“You’re just jealous, you don’t want to share,” Robin accused, smiling, crossing her arms.
Anime/Manga: Witch Hunter Robin Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Drama | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 04.19.2006 | Pages: 4 | Words: 5.5K | Visits: 737 | Status: Work In Progress
“You’re just jealous, you don’t want to share,” Robin accused, smiling, crossing her arms.
Anime/Manga: Witch Hunter Robin Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Drama | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 04.19.2006 | Pages: 4 | Words: 5.5K | Visits: 737 | Status: Work In Progress
“I don't know what to do,” Doujima wailed, laying her head on the bar. Blond locks pooled around her, spilling over her folded hands.
Kobari-tenchou's towel squeaked inside a small glass. He lifted it carefully, and peered through it, inspecting its cleanliness. Satisfied, he set it top-down on the counter, beside a group of its mates. “It is a very difficult situation,” he offered.
“I'm so awful at keeping secrets…”
Kobari-tenchou smiled indulgently. “You're a little drunk,” he observed.
“And it's five-thirty in the afternoon…I'm so sad…” Her voice was still muffled.
“There are still plenty of things to feel good about, Miss Doujima,” the barman reminded her. “Your friends are alive, for one.”
Tipsy, Doujima brought her head up and rested her chin on her folded hands. Her wandering eyes attempted to focus on him. “Sshh…you're not supposed to know…”
“I'm a bartender, Miss Doujima. I have more secrets than bottles of sake.”
“Everybody comes to Harry's,” Doujima murmured, letting her eyes fall. “Everybody's going to hate me, Tenchou-san.”
“Nagira loves you.”
Doujima blushed. “Yeah, he does…” Her eyes saddened. “But what if I screw it up? What if all I do is lead Solomon right to them, and get Amon and Robin killed, or worse?” She sniffed. “Nagira would really hate me, then…”
“I never would have pegged you for a sad drunk, Miss Doujima.”
Doujima stuck out her lower lip. “You're being mean.”
“You're being childish.”
She frowned, snorting. “Well, Jedi-tenchou, what do you think I should do?”
Kobari put his hands flat on the glossy, cherry bar. “I think you should figure out a plan, Miss Doujima,” he said. “I think you should start acting, and stop reacting.” He drummed his fingers on the bar. “I know what Touko can be like,” he added, failing to mention how he might know, but continuing, “and when it comes to Amon, very little will stop her. She may not know his hiding place yet, but she knows him very well.”
“That's a pretty vague plan, tenchou-san.”
“Let me see them. I can help.”
Doujima blinked. “We're across the street from Ravens' Flat. Are you insane?”
Kobari smiled blackly. “I don't forget my friends, Miss Doujima.”
***
Lessons began.
“I'm her warden,” Amon stressed for what felt like the hundredth time. “I cannot allow you to take her wherever you like, without me. She goes with me, or she doesn't go at all.”
“I think that should be her decision, don't you?” Neville murmured, off to Amon's right.
The Elders had patiently explained that Robin's emerging skills would need different kinds of lessons than his own. Teaching the use and practice of one Craft was one thing, they said—the ever-shifting terra incognita of Robin's Arcanum was something else altogether. Outside influences might distract her and leave her new recollections incomplete. Without whole, ordered memories, Robin's new Crafts and skills would come back in dangerous fits and starts, in shattered tablets whose jagged edges could cut the very fabric of Robin's mind.
“You are different students; we cannot possibly teach you in the same room,” one Elder had said. “What if either of you lose control of your Craft? What then?”
But it was the very delicacy of the operation that had Amon worried—asking Robin to delve into memories that were not truly her own, the Elders would hold the threads to Robin's mental tapestry. Done wrong, the reawakening of Robin's memories—and therefore the Arcanum—would be very dangerous. And Amon did not yet trust the Elders. He had seen Robin's terror. He wanted to be there, if it returned. While he had noticed that the Elders had a group of attendants to assist them, Amon was doubtful of their abilities in the area of heretofore-uncharted Witch psychology. They wore brown cassocks and unpainted Noh masks, giving them the eerie appearance of being faceless. In Amon's mind, that was their identity: the Faceless. He didn't trust them, either.
“Can't we be taught at different times?” he had asked.
“You know as well as we do that time is against you,” another Elder replied. “Even now, the noose tightens.”
“You must trust us,” one Elder said, bringing Amon back to real time.
“Amon,” Robin said, turning to him. She made a few steps to him, and reached inside her jacket's pocket. Out came her glasses, his gift. She unfolded them slowly, carefully, and slid the earpieces along her temple, affixing the hornrims to her face. Light caught the lenses. “I'll be fine.”
With startling clarity, Amon remembered his brother's words about the glasses: “It's just a psychosomatic thing, isn't it?” If his words were true, the glasses were nothing more than a symbol. He simply did not want to think about what they symbolized. Robin smiled. “If I'm in trouble, I'll whistle,” she said. “You know how to whistle, don't you?”
Amon merely puckered his lips together, silently.
Robin smiled, and turned to the Elders. “Lead the way,” she ordered. Soon she was marching behind them, perhaps to a building adjacent to the warehouse. Amon didn't know, and it niggled at him. Neville cleared his throat.
“She'll be very close by,” he said. “And you must remember, Mr. Nagira, that you will be a better warden, equipped with the Craft.”
Amon turned to the older man. “You had better pray that you're a good teacher, then.”
***
“How does your Craft feel?” Neville asked.
“Like wind,” Amon answered honestly. The two men were sat at a table inside a small office within the warehouse. It was in disuse, set above the main floor, with cracked windows looking out onto the main floor. There was a disused sink against one wall, and over it hung a mirror covered in grime. “It's like a wind storm.”
“And where in your body is it?”
Amon frowned, and pointed at his chest. “Here.”
“And on the day you first noticed it?”
He tried to remember, and his hand immediately fell to his gut. “Here.”
Neville smiled. “When I'm through with you, you will feel it in your mind, where it belongs. Although for our purposes, your heart is a good place for your power to be.”
Amon felt his face go blank. “Stop, you're making me blush,” he said flatly.
“No, it's true!” the old Englishman protested. He pointed at Amon's chest. “Your power has moved. It is no longer merely instinctual—you can hold it back, now. But what you must realize is that your Craft is a weapon like any other in your arsenal. You were trained as a tactician. The Craft does not change that.”
Amon shook his head. “It's still easier, when I'm angry,” he said. “I may lose control, and hurt Robin, or someone else.”
Neville smiled, and softly shook his head. “While Robin is your primary concern, your power will not be dependent on your baser instincts,” he said gently. He reached inside his lapel pocket, and drew out a small book. “I have a gift for you, Mr. Nagira.”
“Oh?”
“It's a volume of poetry.”
“Poetry puts me to sleep.”
“Then read it before bed.” Neville slid the book across the wasted table to Amon. It read: Songs of a Sourdough, by Robert Service across the cover. “Service was a Canadian who went to the American Yukon during the Gold Rush years,” Neville said. “He has very beautiful things to say about frozen, desolate wastelands.”
Amon paged through the book, printed in English on one side and Japanese on the other. He looked up at Neville, and frowned. The Englishman continued: “There is a cold place inside you, I think. It is a place that you are loath to go, but which is most likely also the source of your power.” He cleared his throat. “I want you to have a clear image of it, when the time comes.”
“How will this help me with my Craft?”
“Wind is an ephemeral element, as is Water. It is difficult to visualize either as directed motion. Therefore, it is also difficult to know the consequences of the elements at play. I want you to have a distinct image of the ice, the cold, and what you can do with it. An image that you control is one that you need not fear.” He pointed at the windows. “Do you know the stories about Jack Frost? I suppose you wouldn't. He's the imp who frosts the windows on winter mornings. Can you do the same?”
In answer, Amon abandoned the book and went to stand beside the windows. He stretched out his hand, watched as the glass began to frost over, weakly. “And what about when you think about the Elders?” Neville asked, watching.
The glass grew another inch of ice within a matter of seconds. “Steady, now,” the old man said. “Not too much at once, no need to waste your strength…how long can you maintain it?”
“I don't know,” Amon whispered.
“Try moving up the windows.” This Amon did, stretching his hand upward. The ice followed in sheer, glittering frost. Neville cleared his throat. “A sniper would have a more difficult time with frosted windows, wouldn't he?”
Amon nodded, as the ice thickened. “Yes, unless there was a thermograph, nearby.”
“Thermographs will mean nothing to you, eventually,” Neville said, watching Amon's hand begin to shake. “Maintain it…keep going…do you know that you can chill an entire room?”
“It's been a note on the part of my superiors, yes,” Amon muttered.
“I didn't mean your abominable personality, I meant with your Craft.”
Sighing, Amon brought his hand away, and made a fist with it. It felt stiff. His arm tingled. “An entire room?”
“It's hell on thermographs.” Neville eyed his hand. “Even Solomon's weapons are subject to the elements.” He looked intently at Amon. “Being a master of the Ice Craft means never being too hot or too cold again. From now on, you will always be in control of the temperature. Trapped in a snowstorm, you can make a shelter. Walking through the desert, you will have water.”
Amon blinked. He'd never considered those kinds of implications. Another one occurred to him. “Will Robin learn my Craft?”
Neville nodded. “Eventually.” He shrugged. “But how much and to what quality, it's impossible to tell. She also does not possess your training, Witch Hunter.”
“I take it that my former career is not a secret?”
Neville shook his head. “Methuselah knew. She told us to watch you, as well.”
Amon's eyes narrowed. “Did she know that I was a Seed?”
A rueful smile fluttered over Neville's aged features, darkening them. “She knew your mother, Mr. Nagira.” His blue eyes were intent. “That frozen place inside you…was no secret, to her.”
Amon felt as though the floor had dropped from beneath his feet. The storm inside him, now awake and alive, whirled at dizzying speeds. Frantically, he attempted to maintain his composure. “What did you say?” he asked.
“Your mother ran to us after your father's capture,” Neville said evenly.
“You're lying,” Amon snarled.
“Is it so implausible? The Walled City is the Witches' ghetto. Where else would she go to learn about her husband's fate, and her own? Not to mention, her child's…” Neville trailed off.
“Liar…”
“She loved you very much, Amon-”
“LIAR!” Amon swung across the table with his right fist, the power a hurricane inside him and singing with bloodthirsty joy to finally be free, ice coating his fist in a glittering, spiky gauntlet. Neville brought a single hand up, his features unperturbed. Ice screeched on ice and frost fell between them—Neville had brought up a simple shield. Trembling with rage and effort, Amon could feel the other man's power—quiet and lethal, where his was soaring inside, begging for release.
“I will tell you more when you learn to control your power,” Neville said simply. “For now, you have homework to read.” He blinked, and stared into Amon's eyes with his own blue ones. “If hating me makes you stronger, so be it. The Eve of Witches is the one who has the most need of you, and your Craft. Hate me all you like, if it will assist you in protecting her.”
Ice shavings fell as Amon brought his fist down, exhausted.
***
“I know, I thought we were goners, for sure,” Sakaki said, stretching. He heard the restaurant's door chime sound—someone had just walked in. He and Miho were finished for the day, having brought down particularly difficult prey. To his surprise, he watched Miss Bonn and another woman, who looked hauntingly familiar, entered the restaurant. The small hairs on his neck began to stand up. His blood chilled.
“Karusuma,” he whispered, watching Tenchou direct the new pair to a table. “Why I am I suddenly so afraid?”
“Because that's Touko, Zaizen's daughter,” Miho muttered grimly. “She was used as collateral, the night they shot at Robin.”
“What is she doing here, with Miss Bonn?”
“I don't know, and I can't readily shake hands and find out, with Miss Bonn watching.” Miho brought a compact from her purse and dabbed at her face with a powder puff while staring into the mirror. “It looks like they're chatting up Tenchou, though.” She snapped the compact shut, and slid it back into her purse. A moment later, the soft-spoken barman returned.
“Touko seems to have recovered well,” Miho said with false brightness.
Kobari's eyes shifted from Hunter to Hunter. “It seems that Miss Touko and Mr. Nagira, from your office, spent some time here, before,” the barman said carefully. His dark eyes glittered. “It seems that she was…reminiscing…with Miss Bonn. Tell me, Miss Karasuma, do you believe in ghosts?” He poured her another drink, his eyes not once settling on the bottle or the glass, only staring at her, and occasionally flicking his eyes to Sakaki. “Do you think that the restless spirits of those who we think of as dead and buried can return, to haunt us?”
“It's possible,” Miho breathed. Sakaki had gone completely silent, his eyes round.
“Shakespeare wrote about spirits, in some of his plays,” Kobari said, apparently changing the subject but in reality doing anything but. He poured Sakaki another. “In `A Midsummer Night's Dream,' especially, a play about magical creatures. `Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound, sometime a fire'…I can't remember the rest.”
“`Lord, what fools these mortals be,'” Miho whispered. A single tear slipped down her face.
“To fools,” Kobari said, lifting a glass from behind the bar. The others did the same, and drank.
***
“You came back!” Aiko chirped, smiling broadly.
“I needed some shampoo,” Michael said sheepishly. “I thought you might know better…about what to get.”
“It's my job to know better,” Aiko answered. She came around the counter, and began gesturing at bottles. “Actually, we're about to close, but-”
“Oh, I'm sorry-”
“No, it's all right! It's just me, tonight, so I can close whenever I like.” She pointed at one orange bottle. “I think you'd like this one, it smells like-”
“Aiko, I thought you were closing.”
A sullen-looking young man had stepped out of the washrooms and was leaning against the door frame. He looked a little down on his luck. He was shorter than Michael, but perhaps stronger, with chunky red streaks in his hair. His eyes slid to Michael, appraising him up and down. “I'll be finished in a minute, baby,” Aiko murmured, her voice audibly diminished, weaker. She turned deliberately to the bottles again.
“Boyfriend?” Michael whispered, for once grateful for his uniquely American talent for getting into other people's business.
“Yes.” She traced the outline of one potion. “Really, he's right, I should hurry…”
Michael picked up the orange bottle and pretended to inspect it. Aiko leaned in to him a little, closing the gap between them. “Will you be all right?” he asked, examining the promises for “ultra-moisturizing repair,” and other things, his body gone tense.
“Yes, I'll be fine,” she answered quietly. Her smile had gone brittle. “Do you think you'll like that one?” she asked, her voice increasing in strength, once more a salesperson.
“If it's what you think is best, I'll choose it.” Michael grabbed a similar orange bottle of the same brand with a conditioner label. “You said I needed this, too, right?”
“Right, how silly of me to forget-”
“Aiko.” Her boyfriend continued watching them, his eyes slow and his voice full of a kind of menace Michael hadn't dealt with since high school. “Hurry up.”
Aiko made no response, merely ducked her head, and began ringing up the merchandise. Michael and the boyfriend watched each other, across the room.
***
Robin returned from her lessons tired, and quiet. Amon didn't want to pry, and knew better than to do so in the first place. He wasn't exactly in the mood for conversation, either. The drive home was nearly silent, and Robin merely headed straight for the shower upon their arrival, and bivouacked herself there for the better part of an hour, while he began reading his poetry assignments.
Of course, he was completely unable to concentrate on the poetry. He found it predictable and in some way lilting, but not beautiful. Part of his mind still raced with the thought that old Methuselah had known his mother. Could he really believe such a preposterous thing? What was said between them, if it was true? Had Methuselah followed his growth just as closely as she had Robin's? Neville had refused to tell him anything more. The old bastard was just holding out on him for information, in hopes that Amon would continue to return. It made Amon ill just to think of facing that prick again-
“You haven't sat there in a long time,” Robin observed, startling him.
“I'm doing homework,” Amon answered. “It's poetry about snow.” He shook the little volume, attempting to ignore Robin's fresh, clean smell, now associated for him with an incredibly warm body eagerly pressed up against his own. “It's a pretty tasteless gift, considering there's a poem about cremation in it.”
Robin pulled away momentarily, glaring at the book with her own brand of venom. “Is there anything nicer in it?” she asked doubtfully. “Poetry is supposed to be uplifting.”
“You're the one who has whole portions of The Inferno memorized,” Amon chided. “That's not all puppies and ice cream, either.” A curious, happy look brightened Robin's features, at that. “What?” Amon asked suspiciously. Green eyes landed on him.
“Can we get a dog?”
“You need food.”
“No, really, a dog would be faithful and sweet and-”
“No dogs.” Amon headed to the kitchen.
“But I really-”
“I know you want one. That's only because you've never had one, before.” He searched through the fridge, pulling out various items.
“How do you know I've never had one?”
“I can tell from how much you want it.” He turned to her, from his position crouched on the floor, near the crisper drawer. His eyes needed to gaze up, to look at her standing. “We always want things differently, before we have them,” he said, hearing the irony in his words and deliberately refusing to examine it. “We idealize things before we have them, without thinking of the consequences.”
“You're just jealous, you don't want to share,” Robin accused, smiling, crossing her arms. Amon's blood pressure spiked about ten points.
“I'm jealous of the hypothetical dog?”
“It is a very small apartment and space is an issue, and…” Amon breathed an interior sigh of relief, momentarily tuning her out, and began the blessedly mundane and un-dramatic activity of making dinner.
***
“This is it,” Touko said numbly.
They were standing before a storage space, whose steel door the proprietor had so graciously rolled up upon seeing Margarethe's STN-J identification. In the space were Amon Nagira's worldly possessions, moved in no particular order by Solomon labor, each piece tagged as inspected by Solomon. Margarethe held the complete roster on a clipboard in one hand. It wasn't very thick.
“Rather frugal, wasn't he?” Margarethe asked, surveying the sparse furnishings and complete lack of clutter. More and more of her was beginning to like Amon Nagira. Finding him now was as much about meeting him as it was about discovering the truth. She had a certain respect for the man who had managed to evade her for so long.
“His money didn't go to furniture,” Touko said. “It went to weapons.” She moved about inside the space, picking her way past regimented stacks of cardboard boxes labeled “books” and “dishes.” She found a mattress wedged against one wall, and idly ran her finger over a seam. Magarethe watched her, fully aware that this other, younger woman had most likely slept on that same bed.
“There are only a few weapons on the roster,” Margarethe remarked. “And none but standard-issue STN-J arms.”
“That proves it, then,” Touko whispered into the humid dimness, her voice far away. Both hands now lightly traced the bed's bare edges. “He's still alive.” One hand gripped the edge of the bed. “He owned more guns than that. I saw them. If they're not here, they're somewhere else.” Her knuckles were white.
“We should search the remaining items for clues, then,” Margarethe said. She brought out a small utility knife, and began slicing through boxes.
***
The dreams continued.
They were under better control, now. The lessons appeared to be keeping the worst ones at bay, providing a safe channel for Robin's new memories. Occasionally Amon's eyes opened in darkness only to hear Robin's soft murmuring in her sleep across the hall. His ears were now preternaturally well-adjusted to the frequency and pitch of her voice. There were no more screams. She had ceased to look refreshed, however, upon waking. The lines around her eyes deepened. With the exception of her coltish knees-and-elbows slimness, Robin no longer appeared to be her fifteen years of age. The combined dreams and memories were aging her. Gone was the halting uncertainty of her movement; she moved smoothly, gracefully, but with a new weight. She was growing up, changing. It troubled him. It was in fact more troubling than her new skills, which were manifesting daily.
Amon watched the new growth from afar, enduring his own trials at Neville's hands. The older man had surprised him by asking questions from the poems—specifically on issues of imagery. He was constantly testing Amon's memory for weaknesses, demanding explanations of the “quality” of the snow and other such nonsense. And when he wasn't interrogating Amon like an overzealous English professor, Neville was putting him through his paces with the Craft. Now Amon was freezing entire bowls and cups of water. The trouble was more that once he began, he could barely stop—the bowls exploded. And every single day without fail, Neville made Amon create the ice arrows. They were by far the most difficult, although Amon's mind was by now used to the concept of projectile weapons and trajectory. But they required immense amounts of concentration, and left Amon sweating and tired.
“If your Craft continues to weaken you this way, I shall have to employ more drastic methods,” Neville grumbled. “You still have very little control.” He pointed at Amon's head with his cane. “Your power isn't in your brain, yet!”
“Some of us don't have memories which can gift us with new powers,” Amon snapped.
“Oh, you think so?” Neville asked, his voice dripping sarcasm. He stared across the table at Amon, his features pulled back in a sneer of contempt. “You don't think any of your memories could help you? Not one, in particular, of when that place you call a heart went suddenly and forever to permafrost?”
Amon merely stared back, his face completely blank. The world narrowed to a single point the size of a bullet. Of course, he knew exactly which memory his instructor was referring to. It howled inside, but silently—a place beyond all sound. It was a silent, incomplete scream, his mouth open, spread dark and wide as the pool of his mother's blood slowly soaking the carpet.
Amon's tendons creaked as he stood, and drew away from the table. He paced to the side of the office that looked down on the warehouse floor. There, Robin stood surrounded by rusted oil barrels, wooden crates, and cinderblocks. Five Elders stood at five points around her. His right hand found the glass, and he drew breath, only to let it and his tension out in a sigh. Spreading from his fingers, frost made the window glitter and sparkle, as the icy steam of his rage found an outlet on the glass. One by one, the other Witches leveled attacks at Robin. He saw them bounce, sparking, off her shield. Whirling in an intricate dance, Robin began lifting the barrels and bricks, and projecting them at her enemies. The attacks increased in intensity. She engaged in a push-pull fight with some of the Elders, but managed to keep her weapons in the air. Then, as one, the dry wooden crates levitated and poised themselves above the heads of the Elders. They burst into flame.
“Time out,” one Witch called. Robin brought her other weapons down.
“I made a promise,” Amon said dully. “I am already remembering one Witch; I do not wish to remember the other.”
“She loved you, Amon.”
“Then, why-” Amon's breath caught in his throat. He looked at the ice spreading from under his fingers. It had overtaken half the bank of windows. Robin was receiving notes from the Elders, on her performance. He whirled to face Neville. “I refuse to discuss this with you.”
“The truth will out,” Neville warned darkly. “Remember that. The truth will out.”
***
Robin's voice spiked up into a gasp. Amon's eyes opened in the darkness. He listened for further sounds. There was no post-alarm grogginess; he was simply and instantly awake as usual, as always when she made an unusual noise in her sleep that carried across the hall and through his open door. Ears open, Amon heard a frustrated, pleading moan from Robin's room, and he slid out of bed to pad across the hall.
As usual, Robin's door was closed. Amon reached for the knob, his hand closing on it just as Robin's voice took on a deeper, longer note. His hand stilled, instantly. He knew that sound. It was neither fear nor pain. Robin's voice opened again, and any doubts he still possessed about the nature of her dream were dispelled as her pleasure echoed against the door he now stood behind. There was a hint of laughter, soft, affectionate, pleased. Certainly, she was dreaming—a wakeful Robin would only stifle these kinds of sounds. And if she was dreaming, she was remembering a fragment of another Witch's life, and in the memory, experiencing…
There was a surprised little moan—he could picture her mouth making that perfect “o” as the dream lover from an unknown time and place, invisible and inexistent, a mere memory, made love to another Witch only for Robin to feel the touch, years later. This invisible character moved in her new memory, and Robin moaned again, throatier this time, the sound as involuntary as it was joyful. She wasn't afraid. The sounds continued, full of tremulous discovery and arousal. Whatever piece of her that remained Robin in the dreams had given itself over wholeheartedly and without regret to this memory, seeking what Amon guessed was a much-needed respite from the toil both physical and psychological of her training. She was willing, and ready—and no longer a child.
And Amon was no longer able to deny the attraction. For even while whatever decency he had left after a life of killing demanded that he leave Robin's threshold, he brought both hands up to the door, and stayed, as Robin's cries grew more breathless and rhythmic. He remained there rigid in more ways than one, helplessly rooted to the spot as Robin gasped and her voice arced as he'd seen her body do, naked and hot, just as it was when she clung to him. And now his own memories wouldn't leave him alone, supplementing the sounds of her making love to her invisible, memory-lover with the feel of her arms around him, only a sheet between them, how her body had seemed to crave him, and he couldn't help but wonder what making love to Robin was like, and something primal and territorial inside him stayed there, wanting to be present for her first… Palms flat to the door he started to sweat, eyes closed, as her voice began to shriek with delight and he heard her body thrash with helpless abandon. Her voice hit an impossible pinnacle; for a dizzying, feverish moment he wondered if she'd woken up. But no, it continued. One climax followed the other, over and over, while his own memories tumbled over him: Robin fresh, wet, and beautiful from the rain, smiling at him; Robin's half-murderous, half-flirtatious stare that did things to him she couldn't possibly comprehend, Robin's hands impossibly gentle on his face that first night, impossibly needful weeks later as they found his bare skin after a nightmare; her mouth that night, crying into him, speaking out her fear and unwittingly placing kisses all over him, so close he could feel her eyelashes… Robin screamed and his mouth opened silently, his fingers pressed so hard into her door they gained slivers. He heard her fall back to the bed, exhausted, and he lay his forehead against the door between his hands, softly, silently. He was panting. So was she.
Robin drifted in her post-coital haze, her sounds satisfied, tender. Finally she slept as Amon returned slowly to the world, and pried his hands away from the door, covered in the sweat of his own shameful arousal, his own inability to let her have a moment of privacy. He walked painfully to his room, and for the first time in weeks, shut the door.
Kobari-tenchou's towel squeaked inside a small glass. He lifted it carefully, and peered through it, inspecting its cleanliness. Satisfied, he set it top-down on the counter, beside a group of its mates. “It is a very difficult situation,” he offered.
“I'm so awful at keeping secrets…”
Kobari-tenchou smiled indulgently. “You're a little drunk,” he observed.
“And it's five-thirty in the afternoon…I'm so sad…” Her voice was still muffled.
“There are still plenty of things to feel good about, Miss Doujima,” the barman reminded her. “Your friends are alive, for one.”
Tipsy, Doujima brought her head up and rested her chin on her folded hands. Her wandering eyes attempted to focus on him. “Sshh…you're not supposed to know…”
“I'm a bartender, Miss Doujima. I have more secrets than bottles of sake.”
“Everybody comes to Harry's,” Doujima murmured, letting her eyes fall. “Everybody's going to hate me, Tenchou-san.”
“Nagira loves you.”
Doujima blushed. “Yeah, he does…” Her eyes saddened. “But what if I screw it up? What if all I do is lead Solomon right to them, and get Amon and Robin killed, or worse?” She sniffed. “Nagira would really hate me, then…”
“I never would have pegged you for a sad drunk, Miss Doujima.”
Doujima stuck out her lower lip. “You're being mean.”
“You're being childish.”
She frowned, snorting. “Well, Jedi-tenchou, what do you think I should do?”
Kobari put his hands flat on the glossy, cherry bar. “I think you should figure out a plan, Miss Doujima,” he said. “I think you should start acting, and stop reacting.” He drummed his fingers on the bar. “I know what Touko can be like,” he added, failing to mention how he might know, but continuing, “and when it comes to Amon, very little will stop her. She may not know his hiding place yet, but she knows him very well.”
“That's a pretty vague plan, tenchou-san.”
“Let me see them. I can help.”
Doujima blinked. “We're across the street from Ravens' Flat. Are you insane?”
Kobari smiled blackly. “I don't forget my friends, Miss Doujima.”
***
Lessons began.
“I'm her warden,” Amon stressed for what felt like the hundredth time. “I cannot allow you to take her wherever you like, without me. She goes with me, or she doesn't go at all.”
“I think that should be her decision, don't you?” Neville murmured, off to Amon's right.
The Elders had patiently explained that Robin's emerging skills would need different kinds of lessons than his own. Teaching the use and practice of one Craft was one thing, they said—the ever-shifting terra incognita of Robin's Arcanum was something else altogether. Outside influences might distract her and leave her new recollections incomplete. Without whole, ordered memories, Robin's new Crafts and skills would come back in dangerous fits and starts, in shattered tablets whose jagged edges could cut the very fabric of Robin's mind.
“You are different students; we cannot possibly teach you in the same room,” one Elder had said. “What if either of you lose control of your Craft? What then?”
But it was the very delicacy of the operation that had Amon worried—asking Robin to delve into memories that were not truly her own, the Elders would hold the threads to Robin's mental tapestry. Done wrong, the reawakening of Robin's memories—and therefore the Arcanum—would be very dangerous. And Amon did not yet trust the Elders. He had seen Robin's terror. He wanted to be there, if it returned. While he had noticed that the Elders had a group of attendants to assist them, Amon was doubtful of their abilities in the area of heretofore-uncharted Witch psychology. They wore brown cassocks and unpainted Noh masks, giving them the eerie appearance of being faceless. In Amon's mind, that was their identity: the Faceless. He didn't trust them, either.
“Can't we be taught at different times?” he had asked.
“You know as well as we do that time is against you,” another Elder replied. “Even now, the noose tightens.”
“You must trust us,” one Elder said, bringing Amon back to real time.
“Amon,” Robin said, turning to him. She made a few steps to him, and reached inside her jacket's pocket. Out came her glasses, his gift. She unfolded them slowly, carefully, and slid the earpieces along her temple, affixing the hornrims to her face. Light caught the lenses. “I'll be fine.”
With startling clarity, Amon remembered his brother's words about the glasses: “It's just a psychosomatic thing, isn't it?” If his words were true, the glasses were nothing more than a symbol. He simply did not want to think about what they symbolized. Robin smiled. “If I'm in trouble, I'll whistle,” she said. “You know how to whistle, don't you?”
Amon merely puckered his lips together, silently.
Robin smiled, and turned to the Elders. “Lead the way,” she ordered. Soon she was marching behind them, perhaps to a building adjacent to the warehouse. Amon didn't know, and it niggled at him. Neville cleared his throat.
“She'll be very close by,” he said. “And you must remember, Mr. Nagira, that you will be a better warden, equipped with the Craft.”
Amon turned to the older man. “You had better pray that you're a good teacher, then.”
***
“How does your Craft feel?” Neville asked.
“Like wind,” Amon answered honestly. The two men were sat at a table inside a small office within the warehouse. It was in disuse, set above the main floor, with cracked windows looking out onto the main floor. There was a disused sink against one wall, and over it hung a mirror covered in grime. “It's like a wind storm.”
“And where in your body is it?”
Amon frowned, and pointed at his chest. “Here.”
“And on the day you first noticed it?”
He tried to remember, and his hand immediately fell to his gut. “Here.”
Neville smiled. “When I'm through with you, you will feel it in your mind, where it belongs. Although for our purposes, your heart is a good place for your power to be.”
Amon felt his face go blank. “Stop, you're making me blush,” he said flatly.
“No, it's true!” the old Englishman protested. He pointed at Amon's chest. “Your power has moved. It is no longer merely instinctual—you can hold it back, now. But what you must realize is that your Craft is a weapon like any other in your arsenal. You were trained as a tactician. The Craft does not change that.”
Amon shook his head. “It's still easier, when I'm angry,” he said. “I may lose control, and hurt Robin, or someone else.”
Neville smiled, and softly shook his head. “While Robin is your primary concern, your power will not be dependent on your baser instincts,” he said gently. He reached inside his lapel pocket, and drew out a small book. “I have a gift for you, Mr. Nagira.”
“Oh?”
“It's a volume of poetry.”
“Poetry puts me to sleep.”
“Then read it before bed.” Neville slid the book across the wasted table to Amon. It read: Songs of a Sourdough, by Robert Service across the cover. “Service was a Canadian who went to the American Yukon during the Gold Rush years,” Neville said. “He has very beautiful things to say about frozen, desolate wastelands.”
Amon paged through the book, printed in English on one side and Japanese on the other. He looked up at Neville, and frowned. The Englishman continued: “There is a cold place inside you, I think. It is a place that you are loath to go, but which is most likely also the source of your power.” He cleared his throat. “I want you to have a clear image of it, when the time comes.”
“How will this help me with my Craft?”
“Wind is an ephemeral element, as is Water. It is difficult to visualize either as directed motion. Therefore, it is also difficult to know the consequences of the elements at play. I want you to have a distinct image of the ice, the cold, and what you can do with it. An image that you control is one that you need not fear.” He pointed at the windows. “Do you know the stories about Jack Frost? I suppose you wouldn't. He's the imp who frosts the windows on winter mornings. Can you do the same?”
In answer, Amon abandoned the book and went to stand beside the windows. He stretched out his hand, watched as the glass began to frost over, weakly. “And what about when you think about the Elders?” Neville asked, watching.
The glass grew another inch of ice within a matter of seconds. “Steady, now,” the old man said. “Not too much at once, no need to waste your strength…how long can you maintain it?”
“I don't know,” Amon whispered.
“Try moving up the windows.” This Amon did, stretching his hand upward. The ice followed in sheer, glittering frost. Neville cleared his throat. “A sniper would have a more difficult time with frosted windows, wouldn't he?”
Amon nodded, as the ice thickened. “Yes, unless there was a thermograph, nearby.”
“Thermographs will mean nothing to you, eventually,” Neville said, watching Amon's hand begin to shake. “Maintain it…keep going…do you know that you can chill an entire room?”
“It's been a note on the part of my superiors, yes,” Amon muttered.
“I didn't mean your abominable personality, I meant with your Craft.”
Sighing, Amon brought his hand away, and made a fist with it. It felt stiff. His arm tingled. “An entire room?”
“It's hell on thermographs.” Neville eyed his hand. “Even Solomon's weapons are subject to the elements.” He looked intently at Amon. “Being a master of the Ice Craft means never being too hot or too cold again. From now on, you will always be in control of the temperature. Trapped in a snowstorm, you can make a shelter. Walking through the desert, you will have water.”
Amon blinked. He'd never considered those kinds of implications. Another one occurred to him. “Will Robin learn my Craft?”
Neville nodded. “Eventually.” He shrugged. “But how much and to what quality, it's impossible to tell. She also does not possess your training, Witch Hunter.”
“I take it that my former career is not a secret?”
Neville shook his head. “Methuselah knew. She told us to watch you, as well.”
Amon's eyes narrowed. “Did she know that I was a Seed?”
A rueful smile fluttered over Neville's aged features, darkening them. “She knew your mother, Mr. Nagira.” His blue eyes were intent. “That frozen place inside you…was no secret, to her.”
Amon felt as though the floor had dropped from beneath his feet. The storm inside him, now awake and alive, whirled at dizzying speeds. Frantically, he attempted to maintain his composure. “What did you say?” he asked.
“Your mother ran to us after your father's capture,” Neville said evenly.
“You're lying,” Amon snarled.
“Is it so implausible? The Walled City is the Witches' ghetto. Where else would she go to learn about her husband's fate, and her own? Not to mention, her child's…” Neville trailed off.
“Liar…”
“She loved you very much, Amon-”
“LIAR!” Amon swung across the table with his right fist, the power a hurricane inside him and singing with bloodthirsty joy to finally be free, ice coating his fist in a glittering, spiky gauntlet. Neville brought a single hand up, his features unperturbed. Ice screeched on ice and frost fell between them—Neville had brought up a simple shield. Trembling with rage and effort, Amon could feel the other man's power—quiet and lethal, where his was soaring inside, begging for release.
“I will tell you more when you learn to control your power,” Neville said simply. “For now, you have homework to read.” He blinked, and stared into Amon's eyes with his own blue ones. “If hating me makes you stronger, so be it. The Eve of Witches is the one who has the most need of you, and your Craft. Hate me all you like, if it will assist you in protecting her.”
Ice shavings fell as Amon brought his fist down, exhausted.
***
“I know, I thought we were goners, for sure,” Sakaki said, stretching. He heard the restaurant's door chime sound—someone had just walked in. He and Miho were finished for the day, having brought down particularly difficult prey. To his surprise, he watched Miss Bonn and another woman, who looked hauntingly familiar, entered the restaurant. The small hairs on his neck began to stand up. His blood chilled.
“Karusuma,” he whispered, watching Tenchou direct the new pair to a table. “Why I am I suddenly so afraid?”
“Because that's Touko, Zaizen's daughter,” Miho muttered grimly. “She was used as collateral, the night they shot at Robin.”
“What is she doing here, with Miss Bonn?”
“I don't know, and I can't readily shake hands and find out, with Miss Bonn watching.” Miho brought a compact from her purse and dabbed at her face with a powder puff while staring into the mirror. “It looks like they're chatting up Tenchou, though.” She snapped the compact shut, and slid it back into her purse. A moment later, the soft-spoken barman returned.
“Touko seems to have recovered well,” Miho said with false brightness.
Kobari's eyes shifted from Hunter to Hunter. “It seems that Miss Touko and Mr. Nagira, from your office, spent some time here, before,” the barman said carefully. His dark eyes glittered. “It seems that she was…reminiscing…with Miss Bonn. Tell me, Miss Karasuma, do you believe in ghosts?” He poured her another drink, his eyes not once settling on the bottle or the glass, only staring at her, and occasionally flicking his eyes to Sakaki. “Do you think that the restless spirits of those who we think of as dead and buried can return, to haunt us?”
“It's possible,” Miho breathed. Sakaki had gone completely silent, his eyes round.
“Shakespeare wrote about spirits, in some of his plays,” Kobari said, apparently changing the subject but in reality doing anything but. He poured Sakaki another. “In `A Midsummer Night's Dream,' especially, a play about magical creatures. `Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound, sometime a fire'…I can't remember the rest.”
“`Lord, what fools these mortals be,'” Miho whispered. A single tear slipped down her face.
“To fools,” Kobari said, lifting a glass from behind the bar. The others did the same, and drank.
***
“You came back!” Aiko chirped, smiling broadly.
“I needed some shampoo,” Michael said sheepishly. “I thought you might know better…about what to get.”
“It's my job to know better,” Aiko answered. She came around the counter, and began gesturing at bottles. “Actually, we're about to close, but-”
“Oh, I'm sorry-”
“No, it's all right! It's just me, tonight, so I can close whenever I like.” She pointed at one orange bottle. “I think you'd like this one, it smells like-”
“Aiko, I thought you were closing.”
A sullen-looking young man had stepped out of the washrooms and was leaning against the door frame. He looked a little down on his luck. He was shorter than Michael, but perhaps stronger, with chunky red streaks in his hair. His eyes slid to Michael, appraising him up and down. “I'll be finished in a minute, baby,” Aiko murmured, her voice audibly diminished, weaker. She turned deliberately to the bottles again.
“Boyfriend?” Michael whispered, for once grateful for his uniquely American talent for getting into other people's business.
“Yes.” She traced the outline of one potion. “Really, he's right, I should hurry…”
Michael picked up the orange bottle and pretended to inspect it. Aiko leaned in to him a little, closing the gap between them. “Will you be all right?” he asked, examining the promises for “ultra-moisturizing repair,” and other things, his body gone tense.
“Yes, I'll be fine,” she answered quietly. Her smile had gone brittle. “Do you think you'll like that one?” she asked, her voice increasing in strength, once more a salesperson.
“If it's what you think is best, I'll choose it.” Michael grabbed a similar orange bottle of the same brand with a conditioner label. “You said I needed this, too, right?”
“Right, how silly of me to forget-”
“Aiko.” Her boyfriend continued watching them, his eyes slow and his voice full of a kind of menace Michael hadn't dealt with since high school. “Hurry up.”
Aiko made no response, merely ducked her head, and began ringing up the merchandise. Michael and the boyfriend watched each other, across the room.
***
Robin returned from her lessons tired, and quiet. Amon didn't want to pry, and knew better than to do so in the first place. He wasn't exactly in the mood for conversation, either. The drive home was nearly silent, and Robin merely headed straight for the shower upon their arrival, and bivouacked herself there for the better part of an hour, while he began reading his poetry assignments.
Of course, he was completely unable to concentrate on the poetry. He found it predictable and in some way lilting, but not beautiful. Part of his mind still raced with the thought that old Methuselah had known his mother. Could he really believe such a preposterous thing? What was said between them, if it was true? Had Methuselah followed his growth just as closely as she had Robin's? Neville had refused to tell him anything more. The old bastard was just holding out on him for information, in hopes that Amon would continue to return. It made Amon ill just to think of facing that prick again-
“You haven't sat there in a long time,” Robin observed, startling him.
“I'm doing homework,” Amon answered. “It's poetry about snow.” He shook the little volume, attempting to ignore Robin's fresh, clean smell, now associated for him with an incredibly warm body eagerly pressed up against his own. “It's a pretty tasteless gift, considering there's a poem about cremation in it.”
Robin pulled away momentarily, glaring at the book with her own brand of venom. “Is there anything nicer in it?” she asked doubtfully. “Poetry is supposed to be uplifting.”
“You're the one who has whole portions of The Inferno memorized,” Amon chided. “That's not all puppies and ice cream, either.” A curious, happy look brightened Robin's features, at that. “What?” Amon asked suspiciously. Green eyes landed on him.
“Can we get a dog?”
“You need food.”
“No, really, a dog would be faithful and sweet and-”
“No dogs.” Amon headed to the kitchen.
“But I really-”
“I know you want one. That's only because you've never had one, before.” He searched through the fridge, pulling out various items.
“How do you know I've never had one?”
“I can tell from how much you want it.” He turned to her, from his position crouched on the floor, near the crisper drawer. His eyes needed to gaze up, to look at her standing. “We always want things differently, before we have them,” he said, hearing the irony in his words and deliberately refusing to examine it. “We idealize things before we have them, without thinking of the consequences.”
“You're just jealous, you don't want to share,” Robin accused, smiling, crossing her arms. Amon's blood pressure spiked about ten points.
“I'm jealous of the hypothetical dog?”
“It is a very small apartment and space is an issue, and…” Amon breathed an interior sigh of relief, momentarily tuning her out, and began the blessedly mundane and un-dramatic activity of making dinner.
***
“This is it,” Touko said numbly.
They were standing before a storage space, whose steel door the proprietor had so graciously rolled up upon seeing Margarethe's STN-J identification. In the space were Amon Nagira's worldly possessions, moved in no particular order by Solomon labor, each piece tagged as inspected by Solomon. Margarethe held the complete roster on a clipboard in one hand. It wasn't very thick.
“Rather frugal, wasn't he?” Margarethe asked, surveying the sparse furnishings and complete lack of clutter. More and more of her was beginning to like Amon Nagira. Finding him now was as much about meeting him as it was about discovering the truth. She had a certain respect for the man who had managed to evade her for so long.
“His money didn't go to furniture,” Touko said. “It went to weapons.” She moved about inside the space, picking her way past regimented stacks of cardboard boxes labeled “books” and “dishes.” She found a mattress wedged against one wall, and idly ran her finger over a seam. Magarethe watched her, fully aware that this other, younger woman had most likely slept on that same bed.
“There are only a few weapons on the roster,” Margarethe remarked. “And none but standard-issue STN-J arms.”
“That proves it, then,” Touko whispered into the humid dimness, her voice far away. Both hands now lightly traced the bed's bare edges. “He's still alive.” One hand gripped the edge of the bed. “He owned more guns than that. I saw them. If they're not here, they're somewhere else.” Her knuckles were white.
“We should search the remaining items for clues, then,” Margarethe said. She brought out a small utility knife, and began slicing through boxes.
***
The dreams continued.
They were under better control, now. The lessons appeared to be keeping the worst ones at bay, providing a safe channel for Robin's new memories. Occasionally Amon's eyes opened in darkness only to hear Robin's soft murmuring in her sleep across the hall. His ears were now preternaturally well-adjusted to the frequency and pitch of her voice. There were no more screams. She had ceased to look refreshed, however, upon waking. The lines around her eyes deepened. With the exception of her coltish knees-and-elbows slimness, Robin no longer appeared to be her fifteen years of age. The combined dreams and memories were aging her. Gone was the halting uncertainty of her movement; she moved smoothly, gracefully, but with a new weight. She was growing up, changing. It troubled him. It was in fact more troubling than her new skills, which were manifesting daily.
Amon watched the new growth from afar, enduring his own trials at Neville's hands. The older man had surprised him by asking questions from the poems—specifically on issues of imagery. He was constantly testing Amon's memory for weaknesses, demanding explanations of the “quality” of the snow and other such nonsense. And when he wasn't interrogating Amon like an overzealous English professor, Neville was putting him through his paces with the Craft. Now Amon was freezing entire bowls and cups of water. The trouble was more that once he began, he could barely stop—the bowls exploded. And every single day without fail, Neville made Amon create the ice arrows. They were by far the most difficult, although Amon's mind was by now used to the concept of projectile weapons and trajectory. But they required immense amounts of concentration, and left Amon sweating and tired.
“If your Craft continues to weaken you this way, I shall have to employ more drastic methods,” Neville grumbled. “You still have very little control.” He pointed at Amon's head with his cane. “Your power isn't in your brain, yet!”
“Some of us don't have memories which can gift us with new powers,” Amon snapped.
“Oh, you think so?” Neville asked, his voice dripping sarcasm. He stared across the table at Amon, his features pulled back in a sneer of contempt. “You don't think any of your memories could help you? Not one, in particular, of when that place you call a heart went suddenly and forever to permafrost?”
Amon merely stared back, his face completely blank. The world narrowed to a single point the size of a bullet. Of course, he knew exactly which memory his instructor was referring to. It howled inside, but silently—a place beyond all sound. It was a silent, incomplete scream, his mouth open, spread dark and wide as the pool of his mother's blood slowly soaking the carpet.
Amon's tendons creaked as he stood, and drew away from the table. He paced to the side of the office that looked down on the warehouse floor. There, Robin stood surrounded by rusted oil barrels, wooden crates, and cinderblocks. Five Elders stood at five points around her. His right hand found the glass, and he drew breath, only to let it and his tension out in a sigh. Spreading from his fingers, frost made the window glitter and sparkle, as the icy steam of his rage found an outlet on the glass. One by one, the other Witches leveled attacks at Robin. He saw them bounce, sparking, off her shield. Whirling in an intricate dance, Robin began lifting the barrels and bricks, and projecting them at her enemies. The attacks increased in intensity. She engaged in a push-pull fight with some of the Elders, but managed to keep her weapons in the air. Then, as one, the dry wooden crates levitated and poised themselves above the heads of the Elders. They burst into flame.
“Time out,” one Witch called. Robin brought her other weapons down.
“I made a promise,” Amon said dully. “I am already remembering one Witch; I do not wish to remember the other.”
“She loved you, Amon.”
“Then, why-” Amon's breath caught in his throat. He looked at the ice spreading from under his fingers. It had overtaken half the bank of windows. Robin was receiving notes from the Elders, on her performance. He whirled to face Neville. “I refuse to discuss this with you.”
“The truth will out,” Neville warned darkly. “Remember that. The truth will out.”
***
Robin's voice spiked up into a gasp. Amon's eyes opened in the darkness. He listened for further sounds. There was no post-alarm grogginess; he was simply and instantly awake as usual, as always when she made an unusual noise in her sleep that carried across the hall and through his open door. Ears open, Amon heard a frustrated, pleading moan from Robin's room, and he slid out of bed to pad across the hall.
As usual, Robin's door was closed. Amon reached for the knob, his hand closing on it just as Robin's voice took on a deeper, longer note. His hand stilled, instantly. He knew that sound. It was neither fear nor pain. Robin's voice opened again, and any doubts he still possessed about the nature of her dream were dispelled as her pleasure echoed against the door he now stood behind. There was a hint of laughter, soft, affectionate, pleased. Certainly, she was dreaming—a wakeful Robin would only stifle these kinds of sounds. And if she was dreaming, she was remembering a fragment of another Witch's life, and in the memory, experiencing…
There was a surprised little moan—he could picture her mouth making that perfect “o” as the dream lover from an unknown time and place, invisible and inexistent, a mere memory, made love to another Witch only for Robin to feel the touch, years later. This invisible character moved in her new memory, and Robin moaned again, throatier this time, the sound as involuntary as it was joyful. She wasn't afraid. The sounds continued, full of tremulous discovery and arousal. Whatever piece of her that remained Robin in the dreams had given itself over wholeheartedly and without regret to this memory, seeking what Amon guessed was a much-needed respite from the toil both physical and psychological of her training. She was willing, and ready—and no longer a child.
And Amon was no longer able to deny the attraction. For even while whatever decency he had left after a life of killing demanded that he leave Robin's threshold, he brought both hands up to the door, and stayed, as Robin's cries grew more breathless and rhythmic. He remained there rigid in more ways than one, helplessly rooted to the spot as Robin gasped and her voice arced as he'd seen her body do, naked and hot, just as it was when she clung to him. And now his own memories wouldn't leave him alone, supplementing the sounds of her making love to her invisible, memory-lover with the feel of her arms around him, only a sheet between them, how her body had seemed to crave him, and he couldn't help but wonder what making love to Robin was like, and something primal and territorial inside him stayed there, wanting to be present for her first… Palms flat to the door he started to sweat, eyes closed, as her voice began to shriek with delight and he heard her body thrash with helpless abandon. Her voice hit an impossible pinnacle; for a dizzying, feverish moment he wondered if she'd woken up. But no, it continued. One climax followed the other, over and over, while his own memories tumbled over him: Robin fresh, wet, and beautiful from the rain, smiling at him; Robin's half-murderous, half-flirtatious stare that did things to him she couldn't possibly comprehend, Robin's hands impossibly gentle on his face that first night, impossibly needful weeks later as they found his bare skin after a nightmare; her mouth that night, crying into him, speaking out her fear and unwittingly placing kisses all over him, so close he could feel her eyelashes… Robin screamed and his mouth opened silently, his fingers pressed so hard into her door they gained slivers. He heard her fall back to the bed, exhausted, and he lay his forehead against the door between his hands, softly, silently. He was panting. So was she.
Robin drifted in her post-coital haze, her sounds satisfied, tender. Finally she slept as Amon returned slowly to the world, and pried his hands away from the door, covered in the sweat of his own shameful arousal, his own inability to let her have a moment of privacy. He walked painfully to his room, and for the first time in weeks, shut the door.