Anael

[goodfellow]

Robin loved museums. All the history, all the memories. Paintings especially. All the painters he'd known over the years, all the subjects, all the models. Sometimes it was a strange sense of melancholy, sitting in a room full of images from the past, from his past, ad feeling consumed by it for just a few moments.

A little masochistic even, sometimes.

He sat on a bench in the National Gallery, looking at a painting of Achilles and Patroclus. It had been so long since he'd seen them. Those souls, the pair of them, sometimes brothers sometimes not, who had appeared over and over again throughout the ages. Achilles and Patroclus were just one of the incarnations. And it had been decades since Robin had watched a version of them die again.

Still, these were some of his favorites. Even if the Trojan War had been a hell of a time.

His gaze lingered on Achilles. The beautiful body, the blonde hair. Something tugged inside him.

Comments

[whispersoflove]

Anael chuckled. "I'm not sure how much of a compliment that is, Robin," he admitted. Most of his brethren would, when around a puck, be a lot less than charming.

[goodfellow]

"It's a compliment," Robin assured him. "Most Angels are dicks, and I'm an expert on dicks."

[whispersoflove]

"Then I hope that you are not an expert on me," Anael pointed out, before taking another sip.

[goodfellow]

"What I'm saying," said Robin, "is that you are not a dick." He picked up the wine bottle and refilled their glasses.

[whispersoflove]

"What you're saying," Anael shot back, and lifted his topped up glass in an amused toast, "is that you've no idea what to make of me."

[goodfellow]

"You are a bit of an enigma I'll admit," Robin said. "Why is it, also, that angels tend to be sexy? Is that on purpose?"

[whispersoflove]

"Isn't that in the eye of the beholder?" Anael asked curiously, then shrugged. "I've always looked this way. It's not on purpose, really, it's just what comes to me naturally."

[goodfellow]

To this day, Robin kind of blamed Ishiah for his thing for blondes. Not that he'd ever tell anyone that.

"Okay," said Robin, and put his elbows on the table, leaning towards him. "On a scale of one to ten, how much work is it going to be to get you into a hotel room upstairs with me by the time this bottle is empty."

He decided he was tired of playing coy.

[whispersoflove]

Anael laughed at the offer, eyes alive with the truth of his amusement. "On a scale of one to ten," he replied, mirroring the puck's position, "how much work is it going to be to make you admit that you love?"

[goodfellow]

"Clever little dove," Robin murmured, and then looked at him for a long moment before saying, "I will tell you something I rarely admit to, if you understand that I won't talk about it."

[whispersoflove]

"Is it something that I already know?" Anael thought it better to ask, with a puck.

[goodfellow]

"Probably not," said Robin, and then drained the rest of his wine glass.

"I was engaged to be married once," he said. "In Pompeii."

And then he poured the rest of the wine into his now empty glass. "Does that answer your question, dove?"

[whispersoflove]

"Probably twenty-six, then," Anael provided the answer to his own question, now supplied by Robin's admission.

Much as it pained Anael, marriage did not have to equal love, and the puck had still not admitted to anything. Nor, likely, would he.

[goodfellow]

It was, actually, quite an admission for Robin, who did not talk about Pompeii, generally. He was, in fact, already annoyed at himself for having said it.

"Twenty-six," he repeated, and drank. "On a scale of one to ten?"

[whispersoflove]

Anael nodded, then added offhandedly, "But you might get to second base."

[goodfellow]

Robin stared at him for a second. "Now you're just fucking with me," he said.

[whispersoflove]

Anael smiled innocently. Very convincingly so, at that. "I don't think that angels fuck with people, Robin."

[goodfellow]

Robin wrinkled his nose. "See if I bare my soul to you anymore."

[whispersoflove]

Anael grinned again. "You've hardly bared your soul to me at all, puck. Who were they to you? Achilles and Patroclus."

[goodfellow]

Robin sighed. "My friends," he said. "And I really don't want to talk about them anymore than I want to talk about Pompeii."

[whispersoflove]

"And so, our lust is doomed," Anael remarked, but quickly sobered up, watching the puck curiously. "Why balk from it so much?"

[goodfellow]

Robin looked at him for a long moment and then said, "Because I am older than dirt. Literally. Most dirt. And most everyone I've ever loved is nothing but dust and ash. Sometimes, thanks to reincarnation, over and over and over again. So I'm not really a fan. Okay?"

[whispersoflove]

The angel was quiet for a moment, before he asked, simply, "Do you think me a stranger to loss?" It was a rhetorical question, as Anael immediately went on, "Any love that is worth feeling is worth losing. Pain is the ultimate proof."

[goodfellow]

This was just not was Robin did. First, he didn't tell people about Pompeii. Second, he didn't admit more generally to being in love. And third, he didn't talk about his feelings. Ever.

"You know what is really not worth it is this conversation," he muttered.

[whispersoflove]

Anael looked sad, for a second, but then thought better of it. This was the warmest puck he had yet met, but miracles rarely happened overnight, unless God had a hand in it. "Then let us focus on the wine," he offered, a truce, and raised his glass before taking a sip.

The wine, no matter what anyone might say, was worth it.