if more of us valued food and cheer and song

Robin prefers his regular staff. They're regular for a reason, after all. They're regular because they work the most like him, do the best, learn the fastest, and he likes them. He trusts them more. The fact remains that they all get two days off a week, and sometimes they get sick. Sometimes they need a personal day. If the reason is good enough, or the lie is fanciful enough, he lets it slide.

Not getting paid is punishment enough, mostly, to Robin.

"Take it back to the kitchen," he tells his server. "And when you get there, ask him if that looks med-rare to him. If he says yes, tell his ass he's fired, immediately, and he can leave his apron here. I need people in the kitchen who know what to do with a piece of beef. Especially a piece of beef."

Considering the sort of clientele that Semele's served -- varied -- it was seldom a good idea to serve an overcooked piece of meat. They might start looking elsewhere, for something a bit fresher. Violence is verboten on the premises, of course, but it doesn't hurt to make sure it never enters the equation, either. No matter Robin's opinion on werewolves and their many related ilk.

ancient and green and gently-rounded landscapes

He'd gotten the call the other night, not from Anzhelika herself, but from an acquaintance. Not quite a friend -- a recent roommate. She'd gone missing, for weeks now, and nobody that she knew, human or otherwise, the real her or otherwise, had been able to produce any ideas as to her whereabouts.

There was no money involved. Normally, Robin might be hard-pressed to be interested, as busy as his schedule has been. But he'd slept with her a few times, before Ishiah's arrival. Anzhelika was a meadow nymph, human-looking enough, with only a tint of green in her hair and pupil-less green eyes. Goodfellow recalls that she'd smelled of clover, and it had lingered on his sheets for almost a day afterward.

It's a good memory, and he gets so few of those from others that he holds some respect for those that allow for them.

Robin isn't going to let anything happen to her.

But he's going to need help, and it isn't his usuals that he approaches for it this time. He won't ask Ishiah, and he turns down the idea of someone like Dean, or like Mike, immediately. No -- it's Sam Winchester that he approaches.

After Ishiah has left for the evening, once the kitchen has closed and Semele's has slowed to a crawl and cleanup has begun, Robin slinks out of the office to find Sam. He sidles himself in front of the much taller man, considering how to approach the subject. As with most things, it is not in Robin's nature to do so entirely directly, not when it could be made more twisting and turning.

He holds out a cold beer from the chest under the bar in offering.

"The Valentine's specials are doing well," he starts with. "I used to love this time of year before I was, you know, in an actual relationship. Lots of angry, desperate singles of all kinds. Now it just looks like a business opportunity. Rather than ... an opportunity for some nasty, oily business."