#robaran

“I don’t— I hope you’re not here for small talk, thought we were pretty clear about that,” Robby huffs, tilting his head, eyes sparkling. “I’m a better lay than a conversationalist, anyways.”

Baran snorts, tilting her head to mirror him. “Wow. Blunt. How many times has that worked for you, Michael?”

“Oh, I’ve never had to try that hard,” Robby murmurs, and Baran hates him for a moment, white-hot and all-consuming. Cocky son of a bitch. It’s a quiet humiliation, knowing that— no, he didn’t have to try all that hard. There’s a pull to him, an allure, stupidly, unfortunately. Maybe it’s just those soulful eyes, staring into hers.

“You don’t want to… discuss? Anything?” Baran shrugs, runs her fingertips over the wood of her coffee table. “Boundaries?”

It’s Robby’s turn to laugh, crinkle-eyed, condescending. “You’re expecting shit that needs boundaries? It’s a— we’re, hooking up, I think, Doctor Al-Hashimi, not having a BDSM adventure. Just say— no, y’know. If you don’t— if you don’t want to. Jesus fucking Christ,” he mumbles the last bit, cheeks flushed bright red, leg bouncing restlessly. He adjusts on her couch. “I’ll be out of your hair before you even wake up.”

He’s awful childish, she thinks, not for the first time. Stuttery and curled in on himself, as if he didn’t ask for this, as if he doesn’t fucking need it, like she knows he does. Words tumble out of his mouth in such disarray, only half-committed to.

“Before I wake up? Leaving so soon?” she hums.

“Always,” he scoffs, and if she were someone else, she’d take offense.

“Why, so you can leave before I do? If you beat me to the punch, you’re not the one being left? Is that why you wanted to meet at my place?”

He’s silent, jaw clenching and unclenching, fingers twitching. She’s hit him where it hurts, and she thinks she must be awful, because it feels good. She wants to peel off that armor piece by piece until she gets a full picture of the man underneath. She wants to know. He stays quiet.

“Baran,” she tells him, calm, after a beat more of silence.

He raises an eyebrow, looks back up at her.

“You called me Dr Al-Hashimi, I want you to call me Baran. I told you when we first met to call me Baran, I’m telling you again, and I’m expecting you to listen.”

He responds beautifully to the firm edge to her voice, looking almost bashful, childlike. Sometimes his childish irks her and sometimes, like this, it endears her. His head dips again, eyes flitting again, mumbling out a soft “Baran.”