Who: Robin and Isabela What: Robin experiences her first major dream bleed and Isabela comes to help Where Robin's home then hospital When: Today Rating/Warning: Actually kind of lowish? Dream injury. Also, language Status: Complete!
Robin’s dreams often reminded her of adventure novels she’d read as a child: Treasure Island; The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe; Around the World in 80 Days. She’d adored those stories as a child and now she was living them.
Well, sort of living them, if one were to get technical. She wasn’t sailing around the world with swashbucklers or matching wits with ne’er do-wells to outsmart them of their treasures. Not in her waking hours at any rate. And really, not exactly in her sleeping ones either. There was little in the way of actual swashbuckling going on. Except for Zoro, he was their designated swordsman, but he reminded Robin more of a samurai than a swashbuckler. A samurai with a very loose moral code, maybe, but a samurai nonetheless. But he was the only one aboard The Going Merry who carried a sword, much less used one.
Still, there was plenty of adventure. In her latest round of Dreams, Robin and the Straw Hats were on a literal island in the sky, Skypea, in search of the storied treasure it supposedly held. The island was unique with its cloud sea and cloud rivers and cloud roads. It was also stuck in what appeared to be a cold civil war between the natives over the only actual hard ground of the island on which an ancient city called Shandora lay in ruins. And both sides of the conflict were at odds with the current ruler of Skypea, Enel.
Robin had met Enel as she had wandered through the ruins of Shandora and she did not trust him. He was far worse than Crocodile. Crocodile had been greedy, but he was sane. Robin could tell from the moment Enel opened his mouth that he was not firing on all pistons. Talking as if the war happening on his island was nothing but a game and a game he intended to use to figure out who among them was worthy enough to join him in ascending to a place called Endless Vearth while he would send Skypea crashing back to the Blue Sea. When she came face to face with Enel again, this time with the leaders of the other opposing factions as well as Zoro, ready to cut down anyone standing in their way, and Nami, hiding behind a crop of rocks with Luffy nowhere to be seen, Robin dreaded what would happen.
Gan Fal, the ruler of Skypea before Enel, suffered first. Enel took no hesitation in using his electric devil fruit power to electrocute him. Then he set his eyes on Robin herself. She had lied to him in their previous encounter in order to protect the ruins from his machinations. She had thought it to be a good lie, a believable one, but he told her had seen right through her. He told her he hated a cold calculating woman more than anything and pointed a finger at her head. Before Robin or any of the others could react, he shot her with a single bolt of electricity square in the middle of her forehead. Robin hadn’t even the time to scream in pain.
She did, however, scream when she awoke from the dream. At first she could see nothing but a large bluish-purple smudge right in the middle of her vision. Her head throbbed and her body tingled all over as though it were vibrating. She wasn’t sure what was wrong, she had never experienced a bleed over from the Dreams directly. But she knew something was wrong.
She got out of bed carefully to make her way to her purse where her phone was. She could hear herself speaking, saying she would call someone. She was trying very hard to be rational and calm. She did not get very far across her room. Her legs felt watery under her and she only got a few steps before collapsing.
It wasn’t like Robin to be late, Isabela thought. She’d waited until well past the scheduled meeting start, down at the beach, at the family-run business where she’d rented a sailboat for the day. Sort of short notice, but the boats were well-maintained and when she spoke with the helpful fellow on the phone he seemed charmed by her accent and general sparkling personality, telling her a half hour earlier than the suggested time. Which Isabela did, of course, and she was sure she texted Robin to tell her what time to be there. She’d even packed a picnic basket with all sorts of goodies - lunch and things - for them to enjoy while she gave the woman a bit of a sailing lesson. It was long overdue.
The Siren’s Call though, what a beauty she was - a shame about the wreck, but Isabela in her dreams was currently lacking a ship and bitter about it. Best to not go down that road here too, if she could help it.
But the whole point of going out was so that Isabela could discuss the finer points of the black market book business she was putting into Robin’s capable hands. There was the whole matter of expanding her antique shop to accommodate, and also going over Bela’s special clients that had been coming to her for awhile and had their own quirks. It was important all of that be mastered - yet when Robin hadn’t showed up, Isabela grew concerned. After she waited and waited and waited, texting and calling only to receive no answer, she finally just took matters into her own hands and drove in her speed demon way to Robin’s townhouse. Something was wrong.
Sunglasses pushed up into her hair, to get it out of her face, she in her jeans and bright blue winter sailing jacket with a hood (somewhat light, it’d block the wind - but she’d slathered sunblock on her nose and cheeks because even as dark-skinned as she was, windburn was painful) went to the door and didn’t waste any time pounding on it frantically. “Robin! Where the hell are you? Better not be dead in there, or so help me - “
Alright, there had to be a key somewhere. Aha! Took the rogue pirate about two seconds to find it, under a potted plant. Now to let herself in.
No alarms rang when Bela let herself into the house. The little keypad by the door beeped, but other than that the interior of the house was silent.
The interior of Robin’s house was spacious and a mixture of post modern design with old world influence placed throughout in the way of decorations, furniture and artwork on display. Robin just didn’t deal in antiques, both she and her mother had a vast collection of their own.
Robin’s now signature white coat, the one she had received from her dreams, hung on a hook next to a large oval mirror near the door. Under the bronze framed mirror was a marble top table in which a little basket contained Robin’s car keys. Next to the basket was Robin’s sun hat and under the table was a little bag she had put together to bring with her on her outing with Bela on the water.
Robin herself, however, was still upstairs in the master bedroom. Still clad in her night clothes and still on the floor of the bedroom, where she had been coming in and out of consciousness. She had crawled a little bit closer to where her purse sat on a chair, but had failed to reach either it or her phone.
Somehow through the ringing in her ears, she heard someone downstairs, banging on the door. Then she heard someone enter the house. Robin couldn’t think who she had given a key to, but she didn’t care. She tried calling out to whoever was downstairs. Her voice sounded terrible to her own ears, horse, gravely and weak. She hoped whoever it was downstairs could hear her.
The bag just randomly left by the table, obviously packed and ready to go, was worrisome to Isabela. It said that Robin meant to leave, but couldn’t, or potentially said she got abducted from her own home or something - who the bloody hell knew, but the feeble sounds of someone trying to call out could be heard within the confines of the eerily silent house. That’s when Bela dashed up the stairs, flying into the bedroom to find the missing lady pirate all crumpled on the floor.
“Maker’s balls, Robin, what even happened? What is - “ She knelt to check the woman’s pulse, which was weak, and it almost smelled like singed, scorched hair in here or something. Obviously this was a dream thing. No one just woke up half-dead in Orange County, for no reason. “Alright, nevermind, don’t try to talk. Can you move?”
She grabbed a blanket from the bed and wrapped Robin up in it, to keep her from getting chilled - it was cold on the floor. “I’ll take you to the hospital.” Honestly, they’d get there faster with Bela driving like a maniac rather than waiting for an ambulance.
“...Bela…?” Robin squinted up at her friend as she was wrapped up in the fuzzy blanket from the foot of her bed. She couldn’t understand at first what Isabela was doing there. Had she somehow made it to her phone and called? Her hands were empty, so that couldn’t have been it. Then she remembered. They were supposed to meet that afternoon to go sailing. Robin had wanted to go sailing ever since her Dreams had started. She had longed to be on the open water as her dream counterpart lived. Sadly, that didn’t seem to be in the cards for her now.
“I’m sorry, Bela,” Robin said. Her voice was nothing more than an airy whisper. She couldn’t, for the life of her, get it any louder. She lacked the energy to even try. “I don’t...think I can go...sailing today. I had a dream...god struck me down...with lightening. He’s….going to destroy...Skypea...kill the...Skypeans...and...the Shan...dorans…” she took a shuttering breath and tried to reach a shaking hand out to Bela, as if the other pirate could go into her dreams and stop Enel’s mad plans. “He’ll...destroy...the history...Bela!”
The blanket enveloped her in much needed warmth that her thin night shirt and shorts couldn’t provide. instead of clutching Isabela, she could only clutch the blanket around her. Her dear friend’s voice, though brought her comfort. The hospital seemed like a good idea. How funny was this, to be on the receiving end for a change. She let Bela get her up off the floor onto wobbly unsure legs.
Oh, this silly woman! Worried about apologising for ‘canceling.’ “We’ll go sailing some other time, because I certainly don’t intend for you to croak here on the floor,” Isabela spoke resolutely, an arm wrapped around Robin’s waist to help her - then when they got to the stairs, she just said ‘fuck it’ and picked the woman up. Hoisted over her shoulder, fireman’s carry style, since it was more efficient than shuffling with old-lady gait down the stairs.
Robin was light enough, anyway. And Isabela had some impressive guns, she could handle it.
“You’re not going to throw up, are you?” she asked, though she didn’t think so. Vomiting probably wasn’t a thing with being struck by lightning, or was it? Well, to the car with them. She got Robin settled into the backseat, somewhat comfortably. “And don’t worry about your dreams so much. They have a way of working out, somehow. We’ll just worry about getting you to an actual doctor here.”
Robin stumbled along with Bela from her bedroom and down the hall. Stupidly trying to put one foot in front of the other on legs that felt as though they were made of flimsy toothpicks. She leaned heavily on Bela’s side, grasping hold of her as best she could lest she take another tumble on to the floor, and Robin had just about enough of that for a while, thank you.
She couldn’t see very well. The big purple splotch in the middle of her vision had passed in the passing hours spent between consciousness and not, but she couldn’t focus on anything. The upstairs hall was just a massive blur of off-white walls and pine-wood floor swimming about her disorientingly.
The next thing she knew her feet were no longer on the ground and she may as well have been floating down the stairs, with Isabela’s comforting voice continuing to speak to her. Robin shook her head just slightly in the negative when asked if she were going to vomit. She did not feel sick to her stomach despite the blurry appearance of her home.
The next thing she was aware of, she was in the backseat of a car. She peered up at Isabela again, squinting her eyes in an effort to pull her friend’s blurry face into focus. “I...hope so…” she breathed. “Skypea is ,...a lovely place. I wish...that you could see it...and the treasure,,,we,,,were looking for treasure.”
Robin tried to stay sitting upright, but soon found the effort to remain that way a bit too taxing. She laid down in the backseat and closed her eyes. The sun was just so bright out here. How could it be so bright? “Luffy will stop him,” she told Isabela, not at all hiding her adoration for the man who only existed in her Dreams.
“That was the boy, your Captain? The one with the straw hat?” Isabela chuckled a bit, making sure Robin was nice and secure in the back even though she had basically faceplanted onto the seat. Because, you see, the driver intended to break many laws on the way to the hospital - and she didn’t want her friend to go flying through the windshield. “Of course he’ll stop him. You’ll find your treasure too - what sort of pirates would we be if we had no treasure?”
Well, at the moment, Bela didn’t really have much treasure either - the profits from the Deep Roads, but she hadn’t bought a manor like Hawke did or anything. She still coveted a ship, going to the docks every day to look at the boats coming in - one of the nicer places in Kirkwall, which was generally classified as a complete shithole.
Anyway, then she hopped into the driver’s seat and took off. It was like a game of Grand Theft Auto from here to the hospital’s emergency room entrance - get the fuck out of her way, everyone!
“Yes,” Robin breathed. “That’s him. Monkey D. Luffy.” There was a pause as she struggled to keep her eyes open, but Bela’s backseat was oh so comfortable. Much more comfortable than her bedroom floor. She smiled weakly. “I know. It’s a strange name. They all have such strange names.”
She let her gaze settle on Isabela in the driver’s seat. Or, rather, the blur that was vaguely Bela shaped. She heard blaring horns outside indicating Isabela was sparing no traffic laws in her dash to the hospital. She would have chuckled had she the energy. She’d done the same thing over a month ago and she had learned from the best. Nothing would stop Isabela now. Robin countered herself extremely lucky to have her as a friend.
“Thank you, Bela,” she murmured against the seat cushion. “I owe you all the booze.”
Isabela was no doctor, but she was sure that being zapped with lightning meant a few things - possibility of fried internal organs? Cardiac arrest, seizure, unconsciousness. Robin was teetering on the edge of that last one, but Bela was prepared to do CPR if necessary. She kept checking in the rearview mirror, all on her mad dash to the hospital, but encouraged her friend to keep talking so she knew Robin was alive.
“Any booze will do,” she said cheerfully - more than she felt; she was actually quite anxious and frazzled. “Beer, wine, rum, maybe a bottle of fine tequila? Perhaps I’ll make margaritas when we go sailing - they always taste a bit better out in the sun, don’t you think?”
Just nod and smile, Robin. That was a good thing.
Finally, the hospital. The tires squeeeeeeeealed as Bela peeled into the lot, slamming on the brakes, throwing the car into park, and then hurrying around to drag the electrified half-corpse from the back. “Alright, here we go! We’re here, come inside - hey, hey!” That was directed to anyone in the emergency room who looked like a medical professional. Time to play the part of frantic, flailing damsel to get service faster. “She accidentally stuck a fork in her toaster, help, please!”
Well, it was as good of a lie as any.
Falling asleep again seemed like a terrible idea, so Robin did her best to answer Bela as she talked, even if those answers were just the smile and nod or a sigh that could pass for a yes.
They were at the hospital in what seemed to Robin no time at all, like she had blinked and they had arrived. She stumbled inside, leaning heavily on Bela’s side as her legs still refused to work in quite the way she wanted them too. She heard Bela call out for help, say that she stuck a fork in the toaster and wanted to frown. Who did that? People don’t actually get taken to the hospital for that kind of thing these days, do they?
Apparently they do, because no sooner had Bela made the announcement about a fork in a toaster than Robin was taken from her, placed on a gurney and whisked away. All she was really aware of was lights over head and unfamiliar voices speaking to her and to each other. Someone said something to the effect of “That must have been one hell of a toaster.” While another answered: “It’s a miracle she’s even still breathing!” And another questioned: “Her hands and arms are burned, but why is her forehead burned?”
Time, as it had most of that morning, seemed ambiguous at best and Robin had no idea how much of it had past before she found herself in a hospital room. Again, it was as if she had closed her eyes for only a moment. When she opened them again, she was in a bed, clad only in a hospital gown open in the front just enough so that a heart monitor could be attached to her chest. Both of her arms were wrapped, a needle leading to an I.V. tube and bag had been inserted between the bandages of her left arm.
During all that mess, Isabela paced in the waiting room. She sent a few text messages to people, to keep her occupied so she wouldn’t leap over the desk and demand answers like some loon, but otherwise remained mostly calm and in check. Then when she did ask for an update, she was told Robin had been moved to an actual bed and visitors were fine.
First she stopped in the gift shoppe - you know, to have a little something to brighten the room up with. Hospital rooms were so dull. It was a pretty vase of overpriced flowers, and she balanced it in the crook of her arm, gently rapping knuckles upon the door. “Knock, knock! How’s the toaster survivor?”
Once she was inside, she set the flowers - daisies and carnations, roses, Robin seemed like a daisy person, a bit like how Merrill was - on the windowsill, then dragged a chair over beside the bed. “Andraste’s tits, don’t do that to me again.” Not like the woman could help it, but still.
Robin smiled faintly as Isabela entered her room. “You brought me flowers,” she said. Her voice was low and a little horse, but much better than the earlier airy whisper. “Thank you, Bela, they’re lovely.”
She watched Bela place the flowers on the sill and then come sit by her. “I do not know who Andraste is,” she said, “but I am very sorry. If I had known that crazy son-of-a-bitch was capable of actually hurting any of us, I would have said so earlier.” Swearing wasn’t really Robin’s style, but the situation seemed to call for it. Enel really was mad as a March hare and had the power literally at his fingertips to back up his claim to be a god. She had a few other choice words unfit for mixed company to describe the man.
“I didn’t mean to make you worry,” Robin continued tiredly. “In my Dreams, when Crocodile stabbed me with his poisonous hook all that happened was that I woke up with a dull pain in my side. Nothing serious. I should have expected it to be only a matter of time before something crossed over.” She frowned at her bandaged hands. She had seen enough by this time to have been better prepared for the inevitable.
She sighed and lowered her hands, “I suppose it’s all part of a pirate life,” she looked back at Bela and smiled ruefully. “I won’t let it stop me, though, not at all.” Good with the bad, after all. And there was still a lot of Good in her dreams. “Thank you very much for coming to my rescue.”
“Well, I suppose it is. Maker knows I’ve had my fair share of injuries too, out at sea and otherwise,” Bela grinned a bit, reaching over to brush at Robin’s hair with her fingertips, getting it out of her eyes the way a mother would or something. Ugh. Her sweet and tender moments were limited to only a couple times a year - that was all Isabela could handle. “You can’t really tell what will carry over and what won’t - I’m just glad I got to you in time.”
She’d stay a bit longer, probably until Robin fell back asleep again. Her body had been riddled with all that trauma, and she needed rest - but then later, Bela would be back again. Probably to sneak food in because hell. Nothing perked the spirit up quite like a good meal, right? It was healing all on its own.
And then, she’d get some rest of her own too. What a long day it had been.