Robby "major sensei issues" Keene (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
strongroots) wrote2023-07-11 09:59 pm
strongroots) wrote2023-07-11 09:59 pm
[meme, psls, etc]
out of game psls, threads, etc.
out of game psls, threads, etc.
out of game psls, threads, etc.
out of game psls, threads, etc.
no subject
But there's no negative reaction from Robby. Not towards Daniel, anyway. But it's not the positive kindness from before either. Instead it's--
It's a third, unexpected thing, and Daniel finally does look over at Robby, even if it's just to do so in surprise, his eyes a little wider. There's something in his heart, a feeling Daniel can't quite place, doesn't have time to think about, at the idea of someone willing to defend him, to keep him from harm.
There's indeed no time though. Not when Robby is expressing this sort of sentiment so intensely. Daniel figures it's a mixture of everything. Of the things Robby has only just gotten over - the violent lashing out - and a natural anger Robby must be feeling right now at hearing about all this. The latter is part of the touching emotion in Daniel's heart, but it's no good when it comes with the former, and the man drops all shame to close the proximity between him and Robby a little again, his hand landing on top of one of the hands that's clutching the bowl, cold skin against warm skin.
"He's not here," Daniel says. The emotion hasn't fully left his voice yet, still a little vulnerable, but he tries to make it sound as reassuring as can be.
It's true, after all. If this awful bond has been good for one thing, it's the fact that it told him without a doubt that Terry Silver is gone.
"We are. That's the bond I want to focus on."
So he can finally have one he's proud of, rather than one that symbolizes nothing but shame.
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He wants to tear Silver apart, and he can't do anything about it. The emotion doesn't calm, even with Mister LaRusso's reassurance, the request to move forward. He can hardly focus on why they're in the dojo in the first place, what they were doing, but Robby mutters a forced "Okay" and sets the bowl between them, scrunching his hands into fists.
At least until he reconsiders that, and takes one of Mister LaRusso's hands into his instead, his hold ever so firm. Quiet, until:
"...we'll get rid of it. What he did. I promise."
Robby doesn't know what it takes or if it's possible (even in his worst days with Mob, he never truly wanted to get rid of theirs--he wanted to do anything else than lose it), but the reality doesn't matter. He promises it now because he has to, if just to pull himself out of his own anger, to continue with what they were doing. Even if it feels like there's a ghost ever present with them now, looming right above them. Right behind them.
(And if only there was, so Robby could be-- could be a monster he doesn't want to be. He didn't want to be this again, did he?)
His hands fidget, and he lets go of Mister LaRusso's, trying to focus on the bowl and not the upset he can feel wanting to reach his eyes. The contents inside the bowl have become a murky grey, a burning smell to the nose between the bloods, ashes and petals. Robby fiddles with the cuff of his right sleeve, pulling it back as he asks in a lowered voice, "Are you ready?"
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For how difficult Daniel can be about matters - especially these kinds of matters - the man seems to agree easily with Robby's words while he's still holding Daniel's hands. Sure, the man's answer is a little on the quiet side, but it doesn't sound like it's given away hesitantly.
"Let's look into that later, alright? Together."
If doing that makes Robby feel better, then it's easy for Daniel to go along with it, after all. He may not have tried to get rid of the mark earlier, but.. that's just because of an entire pile of complicated reasons, of not even daring to speak up about it or ask out of pure shame.
A shame that's hard to get over, but one he'll try to get over if it's for Robby. For this boy, the one that's about to officially become his son. After all, to the locals here, these markings are as good as any legal papers would be back home.
But with Robby withdrawing his hands, with the other rolling up that sleeve.. Daniel's tone raises a little bit again out of the quiet, especially as he moves his fingers into the bowl, right into the paste, getting a good amount of the mixture onto his hand. "I'll do it first."
If not just because the poor boy is looking so upset about all of this. A part of Daniel regrets having spoken up, if not just for that.
He wanted this to be something nice for Robby. Something that reminds him that he's got something good going for him - something he won't just lose. A father who's ready to stick around this time.
".. are you ready for it?" Because he doesn't want to touch Robby yet until the other answers that.
(And because, maybe, Daniel is so good at repressing emotions that it feels easy to shove aside all of the Terry thoughts while he's focusing his entire mind instead on Robby instead in this moment - but it's clearly not as easy for the boy himself.)
no subject
Familial bonds go on the limbs, and there's a mark that Mister LaRusso will be able to see on the very upper portion of an arm, what looks like a burn mark, or an odd birthmark for its colouring--the bond he got with Mob that he was always manage to keep hidden under halfway or full-length sleeves, but that he now has no reason to hide away.
He gives his arms a shake, just for what's about to happen, a small uncertainty of what to do with his limbs that's superficial. And then Mister LaRusso asks his question, and Robby takes in a breath. Nods when he exhales, and holds up both his arms so that Mister LaRusso can choose whichever he will.
And his mind comes to some conclusion--or, rather, it remembers why the two of them are here for. Why he wanted this in the first place.
"...whatever happens, I'll talk to you before things get bad, if you talk to me too. I don't want you to suffer this hell alone--and I don't want to be the reason you're suffering in it. We'll protect each other, and try to protect our friends, too. And when we can't--" because they can't always, and the recognition trembles in Robby's voice, "--then we'll be honest. About how it hurts."
He rolls his lips together, presses them between his teeth. "But we won't let the past keep holding us back. We'll be stronger than it."
He looks at his dad--his soon-to-be, his currently, whatever anyone would think father: "...I'll talk to everyone. That I hurt. I won't let myself spiral."
Not again.
no subject
After all, there's a reason why the man's eyes go so wide as he listens to Robby. Even as he stares at the boy the entire time while Robby speaks, the surprise in his eyes is obvious, and the emotion remains fairly obvious even as the surprise thaws into different emotions - fondness, for one.
And maybe more than anything.. It's pride. It's what he's seen in Robby all along, his sweet and mature core, unchanging even with all the things he's been through.
It's so touching that Daniel's eyes start to water just a little bit without him fully realising it, still too caught up in the words and just how proud he is of his son in this moment, only realising a moment later when he ducks, blinking away the water before it can turn into tears.
There's so much he wants to say about Robby, to Robby, but he knows there's more important things to say right now.
Especially as he moves his hand onto the skin of Robby's wrist, gently wrapping his fingers around there, pressing the mixture of blood and other ingredients against the boy's skin.
"I'll talk too."
It's a difficult thing to promise, but.. for Robby? Maybe it's a little bit easier.
"I can't promise that I'll just talk to anyone and everyone, but.. I'll do my best to talk to you." He has been trying to do so already, after all. Like all the things he told Robby only just today, things he's never told any other living soul. "And I promise to protect you and to look after you, the way a father should. Even if things may get difficult again at some point, I won't turn away or give up on you."
That feels like the most important thing to promise Robby of all people, he thinks. A kid who has been abandoned so often that he wears the scars of it so openly on his soul.
"I'll help you, and I'll love you." He smiles. It's still touched by Robby's own words, but there's that warm fondness in it too, a warmth that only ever exists in Daniel's smile and never in his cold limbs anymore, ice cold fingers still touching Robby's wrist. "I will always be here for you."
no subject
There's a life where this isn't happening right now, and Robby doesn't want to imagine it. A man who wants to be his father--his eyes on him, the warmth of his smile. Robby listens as the hand slips around his wrist, and a warmth blossoms there, too; after the chill first makes itself known, but then it leaves, as if a father's touch can take away a temperature too much for his son.
The weight of his dad's words makes Robby dip his head, needing a moment for the emotion that rises in his throat. But he looks back at him with a smile expressive, just soaking in the sight of him before--right. Turning to the bowl, and the mixture that he still needs to mark his own palm in.
He dips it in, rubbing the mixture on with his fingers, and then takes a hold of Mister LaRusso's own wrist, threading their limbs.
"I'll be there for you, too, dad. I promise."
It's a promise he intends to do his utmost to keep.
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Daniel recognizes that they must be Robby's feelings. And that Robby, in turn, must be feeling what he's feeling right now, even if the emotions aren't very different. Both warm, grateful, and just.. loving.
Especially since the bond probably kicks in right in time for Robby to experience the little jump Daniel's own heart makes when Robby calls him dad. He doesn't think he'll ever get used to it, let alone take it for granted.
He slowly releases his hold on Robby's wrist, feeling some of the paste still sticky on his hand, but also now able to see the mark below on his son's skin.
".. I guess it worked," he says, like it's even necessary. Like they can't both feel as much in this moment, sitting there and smiling.
no subject
It's not the physical, after all, but the emotional. And feeling that inside him; it makes Robby's smile tight, giddy and shy all at once, as well as his heart. The joyous, excited feeling coming through from Mister LaRusso, and that he doesn't feel like anything other than how he presents himself.
This is Mister LaRusso. This is him.
Robby's looking at his wrist, the marking left by his dad, the way the paste there all fades to leave only the bond. But then he looks up at the older man, still with that happy little smile on his face, a million other emotions stirring in his heart (this is a new chapter for them, isn't it? a new beginning, a new everything), and it breaks with his smile turning into a grin showing teeth, all before Robby lifts on his news and hugs his father around the shoulders, going for something better than all the one-shouldered, one-armed hugs.
"Thank you," he says warmly, with nothing better to say, either. But this appreciation, this feeling--it's all and everything he has right now.
And it's better than he dared to imagine it being, thinking about it in his room. Thinking about it at all.
no subject
Maybe he underestimated all of this a little bit. The bond meant a lot to him just in theory, which is why he even brought up the idea a little bit before, back when Robby hadn't been ready for it for reasons Daniel himself never could've imagined until Robby himself confessed to it. But even Daniel himself never knew it'd be this much. This many emotions pouring straight into his heart, even as he moves to wrap his arms around the boy in turn - one hand balled up so he isn't getting blood paste all over Robby's shirt -, holding him close, even if that's entirely unnecessary with the way his son already seems to have plastered himself to Daniel's body.
He needs a moment to take it all in - the hug, the feelings - but then he smiles and manages to speak up again.
"Yeah?" It's a soft sound, but audible with how close they are in this moment. "You like it?"
Daniel knows Robby does.
He can feel it, after all.
But maybe it's good for Robby to acknowledge this out loud, he thinks. Not even for Daniel's sake - though it's flattering, it's fulfilling, the idea that he can make a kid so important to him that it's his kid now so happy - but for Robby's own too. So Robby can now truly see that everything is only going to get better from here.
The only way after corruption is up, especially with family right by your side.
no subject
It's no rushed response. A response -- verbally -- would take away from Robby's attention on the hug and his focus on the emotions present. It's giddying, in a way that makes his heart beat faster with some alarm as to how to react, but it's a positive too: because what Robby feels is positive as well, a warmth that makes his body melt so easily against Mister LaRusso's.
Mister LaRusso's. His father's.
It wouldn't be difficult to tell, a father can surely know that a kid is just appreciating their dad's company when they don't immediately speak up, but Mister LaRusso gets to enjoy the benefits of the bond seeping in through just how his arms around Robby make him feel. The comfort present, both received and experienced.
"I'll never hurt you again, dad."
A promise he's said surely plenty of times before, but maybe he wants to say it again. Maybe in this moment, all his wants to do is enjoy the possibility of this good feeling persisting, that things can get better.
And that he'll be a stronger person for it--one who can come to his senses before everything gets so dire.