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 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.

[goodfellow]

Robin seemed to shake off something, and then he managed a small smile at the angel. "Fetch us another bottle, dove, and I will forgive the interrogation."

[whispersoflove]

Anael lay a hand on Robin's forearm as he stood, a gesture of clear love, although he figured that the puck would simply call it 'affection', if that. He gave him a grateful smile, for having told him what he had (nowhere near as much as Anael wanted to know), and went to find the waiter, and ask him for another bottle of the same, yes, it was delightful, absolutely, thank you.

[goodfellow]

Robin was annoyed. Though more with himself than with the angel.

More wine, however, was bound to help.

"So what do you do," he said when Anael returned, a brisk change of subject. "I mean here in the earthly realm and all. Clearly you're not an impotent peri."

[whispersoflove]

"Apart from proving to pucks that I can drink them under the table without even trying, you mean," Anael checked, topping up their glasses. He rarely drank very much, but it wasn't out of fear of inebriation. He often forgot about the glasses he was supposed to drink from, when caught in a conversation. "I like it here, so I visit, now and then. I hadn't visited the museum in... decades," he settled on.

[goodfellow]

"I don't think this should count at all if you're can't get drunk," Robin complained. "By the way, I hope you realize that you are missing one of the great joys of life."

[whispersoflove]

Anael's lips twitched up at the corner. "Hangovers?"

[goodfellow]

"Nah, the part before that," Robin said cheerfully, and refilled his glass.

[whispersoflove]

"The blackouts," Anael tried again, smile widening.