talking through it

Who: Miles and Robyn
Where: Little Haven
When: late afternoon

Things had moved into the new place Robyn had found for Adelaide and the gang and Adelaide had agreed to share a room with Robyn even if there was room for them to have their own spaces. Sharing the space meant more time together and in all honesty, Robyn was basking in that glow. Even as she sat on her stoop, a slow day for customers, only two and both had had very little to give, there was a soft smile ghosting over her features. The dreamy look she always had was there, but it seemed happier now than before.

Miles told himself that he was going to swing by Robyn’s usual haunt because he wanted to check in on her. It wasn’t completely untrue - he was genuinely concerned about the girl and her well being. But Robyn also happened to live in a world were currently he wasn’t the scum of the earth and not being the scum of the earth sounded pretty damn good.

As he approached her, he noticed that she seemed to be more content. Or at least looked like she was. He wasn’t sure how to read it because it could have been nothing at all. Just Robyn being... Robyn. Still, it was nice to see someone who looked like everything wasn’t caving in on them. He didn’t sit with her immediately, hovering in front of her instead. “How’s the world treating you, Robyn?” he asked.

Robyn was slow to look up, but eventually did, glancing up a Miles with her head tilted to the side as she studied him. There was another long pause before she spoke then she was nodding. “Hmmm, well enough,” she said with a slight nod. “Did you come to ask me about your fortune?”

“Sure, read my fortune.” That way he could give her some money without it being a clear case of charity. He couldn’t manage to pay her as well as he wanted to but something was better than nothing. Miles thought it was lucky that he didn’t believe in the mystical because he doubted she was going to divine anything positive from her bag of tricks.

Robyn watched him for a moment, especially since he rarely asked her to do his fortune. Nodding she took her bag from where it sat in front of her, holding it out to him to put in his hands. “Here,” she said, closing her hands over his and watching him, studying him more than she ever did, for a long moment. “Dump it out.” She took her hands away and waited.

The way she watched him earned her a questioning look but he didn’t ask about it directly, just followed her directions. Miles turned the bag upside down and watched as the contents tumbled out and scattered. He shouldn’t really have been surprised by the weird collection of stuff, and tried not to look too put off by it. “How bad is it?” he asked, meaning it to sound more lighthearted than it came out.

That he asked if it was bad struck a tone. She looked at him, then looked down at the pieces, eyeing them carefully, even if they didn’t mean anything. They were scraps she’d collected, off put things, but people thought they meant something, and that was what mattered. Making a humming noise, she looked at them, then glanced up at him. “I’ve seen better. Troubled waters ahead. Tough decisions.” Her voice was airy, distant and lacking in real emotion.

Purely to be nice and not rain on her parade Miles nodded along. He hardly needed a higher power to tell him that, and it was so vague that it barely meant anything anyway. Though he was kind of impressed by Robyn’s whole routine. He could see why some people would eat it up. “Anything else?”

Robyn looked back down at the pearl button which had fallen farther away from the rest of the items. It was coincidence, but she took the opportunity. Pointing to it she gave him almost a sad look. “And somethings missing.” It was vague enough, but most often something was missing or people wanted something else. It was a safe guess.

It all might have been crap but that comment hit a little too close to home. There was a moment where Miles couldn’t keep the frown from forming on his face. When he caught himself, he shook it off. “Maybe,” he muttered, not wanting to either confirm or deny.

That stopped Robyn and since it was Miles and she was more invested in him than her other patrons she looked at him for a moment. “Maybe?”

“Maybe even a lot of things missing, depending on who you talk to,” he answered wryly. As Ally had told him in no uncertain terms, there were a lot of things he lacked. Drive, self esteem, the ability to move on. The only thing he apparently had was a shovel to keep on digging his hole that little bit deeper. Not that any of it really mattered when the most important thing was now missing too. Or pushed away, rather. Shaking his head, he sighed. It wasn’t fair to start burdening the poor kid with yet more of his woeful tales. “It’s like that for a lot of people, isn’t it?” he continued, trying to backtrack slightly.

Robyn watched him while he struggled then leaned forward to press a finger against the spot on his nose he tended to pinch. “It’s your fortune not theirs.” She gave him a wistful look, smoothing her finger there for a moment. “It doesn’t matter about them.”

There was a small but definite pause before he said anything more to her. “Now we know all about my fortune, what about yours? Smooth sailing rather than troubled waters?” He was keen to get off the subject of himself, having heard enough thoughts on the subject to last him a good long while.

That got him a sly smile, something that rarely appeared on her features rarely. “My fortune? No, no. I don’t tell mine.” Partially because it had already come true once. That was more than enough. “But...I am happier. I told Adelaide what I wanted. And she wanted the same.” There was the lightest of blushes on her cheeks that showed through the dirt as Robyn looked away from him. “Are you still upset?”

Miles managed a small smile, glad to see that there was a real reason for her to be happy. “What did you say to her?” he asked, gently curious, as she’d seemed to have trouble understanding what it was she wanted and what was between her and this Adelaide. Not that Robyn was alone in that. The smile quickly fading at her question, he ran a hand through his hair. “Something like that,” he told her. Upset was one word for it. Angry was another. And a whole host of other things.

“Oh...that I like being close to her and holding her hand. And...she calls me Birdy sometimes. I told her I like that too. She said that there could be more and that she wanted it too.” It was a simple statement, and came with a small nod at the end of it. Though things weren’t really explained to Robyn or she had any idea of what it meant, she felt better about things. They wanted the same things, that was what mattered. Tilting her head she ran her hair through Mile’s hair as well, mostly because it calmed Adelaide down. “What’s wrong?”

“That’s good. It’s good things are working out the way you wanted them to.” Things should for someone. He thought for a second that being younger made things simpler by default, but then again things had never been particularly simple with Ally. Hopefully everything would just stay nice and sweet for Robyn and all the complications would be neatly avoided. Chance would be a fine thing. Giving her a shrug, Miles looked down towards the ground. “Unfriendly reunion with someone. That’s all.”

Robyn waited, eyes on Miles, expecting more. He could brush her off, but she guessed he was here because he wanted to talk. It was how most people handled her and as far as she was concerned it worked out for her. She listened and sometimes only barely understood what they spoke of, but people usually walked away feeling better for it.

Miles just looked back at her for a while then eventually sighed. He wasn’t sure where he’d even begin. It was all long and miserable and raw. “Some bad opinions of me are starting to form,” was what he went with when he did speak. “Not completely unjustified but not entirely right, either.” There. He was taking some responsibility. Wasn’t that progress, he thought wryly. “Mostly... Mostly I’m just tired.” It might have been avoiding the exact issue at hand a little but tired was a good way of summing it up.

Robyn tilted her head slightly, watching him for a moment. “Then you should rest,”she said with a sage little nod. “What kind of bad opinions? Did you forget something else?” As much as he tried to cover it, she was forever concerned about his condition and forgetting things.

“I’m cruel. I’m deplorable. I’m spineless. I wallow.” Miles ticked each one off on his fingers in turn. “I break hearts and don’t even care because I’m basically a terrible guy.” So no, he hadn’t forgotten anything. Apart from how to act like a human being, by all accounts. He clicked his tongue then shook his head, looking away from Robyn. There was part of him that worried she’d wind up agreeing with that list of charming traits. Give it enough time and she probably would.

Robyn listened silently, watching him list off the different things that were wrong with him. When he was finished she waited a little longer, to see if there was more. “You aren’t cruel. You bring pie,” she told him as if that justified everything. “Though you might wallow....How do you break hearts?”

He almost laughed. Mostly because she bordered on absurd and a little bit of him found some weird humor in how she thought the fact he’d brought pie made him an okay guy. Silly but admittedly not bad to hear. “By not...” Miles trailed off, trying to find a way to put it into terms that would make sense to her. “By not being honest. There’s a girl and she... You know how we talked about courting? She’d like to do that. Courting. I don’t think it’s a good idea, for me to be courting her. I told her... I said I didn’t want to court her.” The way he looked at Robyn was willing her to understand, for him to not have to relay all the tiny details.

“Why would you lie?” Robyn asked, not entirely understanding the finer points of courting, of the reasons why people would lie about how they felt. “But you do want to court her. To be close to her right?” She frowned, not understanding that though she did want to. She wanted to understand.

“It wouldn’t be good for her.” Miles wanted to sound objective about it, like it was a matter of fact rather than a matter of the heart. It might have worked if it wasn’t for that note of sadness that managed to creep in. “I want her to be happy. I don’t think being close to me is going to make that happen.”

Robyn pulled her knees up closer to her chest, watching him. “But...you like her don’t you? And she wants it to. Why would she not be happy getting what she wants?”

“She thinks she wants it now. Trust me, it won’t take long for the novelty to wear off.” If Ally thought he was bad now, God only knew what she’d think when she found out all the rest that was going on beneath the surface. And the last thing Miles wanted, for both their sakes, was for her to try and fix him. “It’s complicated, Robyn. Hard to explain.”

She shook her head slowly, leaning towards Miles and pressing her finger against the space on his nose again. “No. You’ve made it hard. You’re being mean to Miles again and not letting him have what he wants. Who are you to tell her what she wants?” She’d seen that before, other customers who wanted to tell others how to feel, how to act. It was never the right path to move down.

Hadn’t he heard that line before. Eily had given him pretty much the same lecture. Only longer and punctuated with far more colourful language. “Or things are hard,” Miles began to argue before shaking his head. He felt like banging his head against the stoop. Instead of protesting any further, he turned towards Robyn. “Alright. What do you suggest I do?” Since she was the one with such wise advice.

Robyn shifted closer, playing with his hair again, more because she wanted to than because she thought it would help him. She always had an urge to mess with his hair the way he did when he wasn’t thinking about it. “Say you’re sorry. And that you want what she wants.”

He tilted his head away from her touches then fiddled with it himself, trying to smooth it, do something with it. Somehow he doubted that Ally was going to listen to any apology he was going to give. Or anything else he had to say. “It doesn’t matter now anyway. She’s already lining up dates with someone else.” Which he said in the hope it might get Robyn off his back about it more than he believed that Ally going out with some guy meant anything. Maybe that was wishful thinking.

Robyn pulled her hand away but bit her lip against a smile as he tried to fix his hair. It really was just fun to mess it up and to watch him fiddle with it. Tilting her head a little she shook it gently. “It always matters. You can always say you’re sorry. And if you tell the truth you will feel better. And she’ll know.”

Now he was pinching that spot on his nose. It would be nice if things were that simple. Worked out like they did in the movies and everyone got their happy ending. “I’ll try,” he told Robyn for the sake of appeasing her.

She watched him, mimicking the movement on her own face to see if it would help. Then she leaned in towards him. “Don’t lie to me too. That’s dangerous. You’ll start lying all the time.”

He shot her an exasperated look. “I’m not lying, Robyn.” Not exactly. Her advice didn’t quite ring true enough for him. Miles didn’t expect to feel any better for confessing anything to Ally. Maybe they’d gone past the point of him being able to.

“Just making sure,” Robyn said softly, seeing that he was annoyed. She tilted her head a little, reaching out to touch his hair again. “Don’t be so mean to Miles.” It was common place advice from her, but when she said it this time it actually sounded sad. She didn’t want him to still be upset about something she was sure he could fix.

He wasn’t going to win here. He didn’t think he was going to win in general. Miles kept hearing how he shouldn’t be so hard on himself but no one really seemed to get it. Maybe he was just more screwed up than he thought. “Alright. How should I be so I’m not being mean?” His voice was gentle, wanting to get rid of the sadness in her tone as well as being curious about her insights.

Robyn pulled her knees to her chest again, shifting closer to him again. “You aren’t as bad as you think. You shouldn’t give up faith in yourself. You’re there, in there. You’ve always been.”

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes and sigh, Miles ended up looking at her questioningly instead. “What do you mean?” he asked. He had his own ideas about what she was getting at but with Robyn he could never be completely sure. He was interested in how she viewed him, what she made of him.

“You think you’ve lost Miles. The Miles you want to be. You think he’s gone.” Robyn rested her chin on her knees, watching his eyes. “I don’t think he is. I don’t see how he could be. People don’t change that much.”

Looking down towards the ground, Miles gave her a shrug. She could think whatever she wanted but the truth was that he had changed that much. Things were very different now. He was different now. It wasn’t something unique to him - everyone changed, evolved - he’d just perhaps changed more than some. “You didn’t know me before,” he pointed out quietly. “Needless to say, I wasn’t always like this. Not completely, anyway. I’ve just got to get used to it.”

She considered it, head tilted while she listened. “What were you like before?” Robyn finally asked. “Were you that much better?” She guessed he wasn’t. He’d just lost track of who he was.

“Yeah, I was better.” That was the short version of it. What he expected was for Robyn to carry on and tell him he was fine as he was now, that he was still the same person somewhere inside and a host of other crap. “Let’s put it this way, people rarely called me mean before,” he said, looking pointedly at her.

“You probably rarely were mean. You probably weren’t as angry either.” Robyn’s voice was still distant, still airy.

“So you’ve never been angry about something that’s happened to you?” True, he was deflecting but the comments and tone in which they were said rubbed him up the wrong way. Miles shook his head. It was okay to be pissed off about a broken heart or a misplaced comment or a hundred other things but when it came to him, it was an issue. Like it wasn’t a normal feeling to have. Moving away from her, he got to his feet. “Probably about time I got going. I’m sure you’ve got... things to do.” It sounded like the excuse to get away that it was.

Robyn thought about that and shook her head. “No.” Anger wasn’t like her, not in any sense. Even when her mother had died and her sister went missing, anger was never her. She watched him go, move away and nodded. There was no point in trying to keep him there longer if he wanted to leave. “I don’t, but you do.” She smiled, head tilted again. “You aren’t bad Miles.”

He didn’t give Robyn much of a response because he didn’t know what to give her. He could have smiled back, nodded and agreed with her. Faked like he was turning over a new leaf just like that. “We’ll see,” he muttered eventually and gave her a kind of affectionate pat on the head. “But I appreciate you listening. Take care, Robyn.”