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It was amazing, when Jules sat down and thought about it, how much he didn't know about Robin. I mean, sure, the big stuff, and maybe some of the smaller stuff -- favorite color, favorite band, boxers or briefs. Some of it he could guess pretty accurately; Robin probably had designs on the silver screen when he was in diapers, so no 'what did you want to be when you grew up' questions necessary. But when you got down to the day to day nitty-gritty, weird habits and ticks and what kind of face wash Robin used, he'd been utterly clueless.

He looked on with some sort of detached amusement as Robin methodically shook a layer of Cheerios out from the box, and then carefully poured milk over them in the bowl. Crunch, his spoon packing it down to make room for the next layer. Rinse, repeat. It was almost as ridiculous as waking up to find Robin had been doing his best imitation of an octopus while they'd slept. Just... the stuff you found out from living with people, not just sexing them up in the back of limos, or frantic encounters in hotel rooms.

Day five of Robin's stay at Jules' place in DC after getting out of rehab, and it was the fifth time he'd stood around with his mug of coffee, jaw metaphorically dropped. Robin happily did his pour and crunch routine for a while, seemingly content with never getting around to the eating part. Jules didn't even have Cheerios in his pantry. Robin must have gone out for it. Jules wasn't a breakfast cereal kind of guy. A muffin, maybe. Toast. Fresh fruit. Coffee a definite must.

Life was weird. Great, but weird. Robin finally topped off his bowl of -- whatever, and dug in. After a few moments, he finally noticed Jules watching. Only took him five days.

"What?"

"Nothing."

Robin lowered the spoon that had been halfway to his mouth. He looked kind of alarmed. "You look all dazed, is everything all ri--"

"Jesus, yes, everything's all right." He cracked a smile and took a sip of his coffee. "Go back to demolishing your cereal."

He looked sort of baffled for a minute, but then synapsis fired and he looked down at his bowl. "Oh, uh, it's kind of a thing I've always done, sorry if it's distracting."

It was cute. He looked like a little kid, although the image wasn't helped along by his sex-hair (well, bed hair, at this point, static electricity had won last night's round for sure) and bare chest. Low slung pajama pants hung off of his hips. He wasn't quite as cut as he'd been before he went into rehab, but even six months on his ass wouldn't take him down many pegs. Jules very deliberately averted his eyes to a spot on the wall behind Robin's head. "It's not distracting, finish your breakfast."

Robin did as he was told. Jules picked up his newspaper, again, this time making more than a halfhearted attempt to read the headlines; he'd abandoned all knowledge of the written word when Robin started in on his cereal routine. Nothing terribly interesting, and nothing about the war he didn't already know. Reading newspaper reports of it usually pissed him off, so he flipped over to Business. Eugh, God, newspaper ink drove him fucking insane.

"So I was thinking," Robin said, his tone slow and careful and kind of out of place. Jules looked up. Robin set down his bowl and spoon on the kitchen table, folded his arms over his chest and leaned his chair on its back legs. Okay.

"Don't hurt yourself."

Robin bit his lip and scratched behind his ear in response to that, which meant he really wasn't feeling too great about whatever was on his mind. Still, Jules reasoned, it couldn't be that bad, he'd only been out for five days and Robin had about as much patience with keeping things to himself as he did with anything else. Which was absolutely none.

"What is it?" He set down his coffee and leaned over the table. Not too eager.

"When I was in rehab I had them draw up a whole bunch of tests on me. You know, when they did my psychical."

"Yeah," Jules said, slow, not really sure where this was headed but knowing it couldn't be all that great.

"I got tested." The emphasis he put on the word left no doubt in Jules' mind as to what he was referring to.

He let out a breath, really slow. He didn't know exactly what he'd expected, but this wasn't it. At the same time, it didn't surprise him. It was logical Robin should get tested, he'd been meaning to try and say something about it, but now that Robin was sitting here across from him with his stupid Cheerios and his stupid abs and it was all so perfect but now of course it couldn't be, not anymore.

"Oh Jesus, I don't have AIDs!" Robin exploded. "Stop that. I could feel you freaking out from here."

Jules barked a laugh, more of a startled reaction than anything else. "Fuck, you scared the shit out of me."

"Yeah, I suck at this." Robin smiled at him, and it might have been a little pained, but at least the portent of doom was gone. Mostly. "I'm clean. Well." Jules let his incredulous ... well?! go unspoken. "Except for gonorrhea. Which I've totally taken care of," he hurried to add.

"Uh," was all Jules managed to come up with.

"You should, you know, get tested," Robin went on, wincing, not quite managing to hold Jules' stunned gaze. "Fuck, I totally screwed this up, I suck, I'm sorry--"

"Wait, you said -- was there something else you wanted to tell me?" He gripped the side of the table, white-knuckled, just in case he needed to hold on to something.

"Yeah," Robin said gloomily, "but I don't think right now is the best time."

"I don't really think I can sit around in suspense, Robin," Jules said, his voice doing a crazy up and down panic thing despite his best efforts to keep it level.

"See, now you're freaking out, and that's just not how I saw this whole thing going." Robin cursed and kneaded his temples.

"Robin."

"Okay, fine. I was just thinking, since we know I'm clean, except for having had gonorrhea--" he made a face "--I was thinking we could, uh, y'know."

Educate themselves on STD treatments? Have a heart to heart? Send out fucking flyers? But then Robin spoke and, "stop using condoms maybe from time to time" wasn't even remotely on the list he'd been making.

"I'm sorry, what?"

Robin's whole body sort of slumped. He looked defeated and miserable. "Jules, goddamnit, I told you I didn't want to talk about this right now."

"I just, give me a moment."

"No, you know what, forget about it, it was a stupid idea. A stupid, reckless idea." Robin stood up and grabbed up his bowl, took it to the sink. He turned on the faucet and came back for Jules' coffee, even though he hadn't taken more than a few sips of it and it was still steaming.

"Robin." He caught Robin's wrist in his hand when he started to move back to the sink and tugged, gentle but insistent.

"Can we just forget this ever happened?" Robin forced a laugh. "Except for the you getting tested part, that's pretty important."

"Robin," he said again, readjusting his fingers around Robin's wrist. His pulse was going crazy. Either that or Jules was feeling his own in his fingertips.

"Jules, I'm sorry," and holy fuck but Robin's eyes were going dark and his voice was getting soft like he was going to cry. "I'm sorry that I was so, I just--" he made a frustrated noise and fell silent.

"You want me to fuck you without any protection?"

Robin's arm kind of twitched in Jules' grasp. He was still almost-crying, but he shook his head and looked over Jules' shoulder.

"Robin. You've got to talk about this eventually, come on."

"It was a stupid idea," Robin repeated in a mutter. "I just -- it was a thing, I couldn't stop thinking about it." Jules started rubbing his fingers along the bones of Robin's wrist, steady and slow, but with intent. Robin caught on and glanced down, wary. "Jules?"

"You couldn't stop thinking about it."

"Uh," Robin said, his turn to be speechless, and nowhere near crying now, blue eyes wide.

"Thinking about me fucking you raw?"

"It was -- stupid, Jules, you know it is."

"Doesn't seem stupid from where I'm sitting," Jules said wryly, low. "What did you think about?"

Robin shot him a dirty, are-you-kidding look, but at least he didn't start repeating himself again. "I just thought that, not all the time, we might consider skipping the condoms. I mean, just at home, or when we have the time, because cleanup would be a bitch. But I'm not going to make you do something so fucking reckless, I can't--"

"You want me to come inside you?"

"Jesus," Robin said in one quick-draw breath. "Fuck, Jules."

"You thought I'd have a problem with this how?" Jules said, changing course now. "Seriously."

"Uh, are we forgetting the gonorrhea?" Robin said, incredulous.

"Are you going to be asking anyone else to fuck you up the ass without a condom in the near future?" Jules asked.

"Fuck off." He shoved his thigh into Jules' side admonishingly. "Try, oh, never. To the fucking part. In general."

"No shit. And again, I ask you, you thought I'd have a problem with this?"

Robin snorted. "Well, when you put it like that."

"Although admittedly the gonorrhea may have killed the mood a little. You total slut."

Robin didn't even blink, just smashed his thigh against his side again. "You picked me," he said, smiling and back to normal. "Sucker."

gin@metallicar.org