and a sleepy conscience

[goodfella]

Robin had never been the heart-to-heart sort, at the very least, until Caliban Leandros. Somehow, along the way, he'd gone from barely-tolerable informant, useful only for the fact that Robin knew nearly everything there was to know about the Auphe, and what he didn't, he could find out. By the time he'd known Caliban and his brother for six years, their relationship had morphed. Fire-forged friends, they'd become. Robin, a trusted confidante, someone to confide in. Someone willing to clean up the nastiest of messes when nobody else could.

The closest that Robin comes to this comradeship in Darrow is, for better or worse, Dean Winchester. And without the man's face regularly at work for some time now, Robin grows lonely.

It is time for a talk.

Time for Robin to let Dean see that he honestly, truly gives a shit, whether he ought to or not. He probably ought not to ... but alas, for that is not the way it seems to work for puck Robin. None of his relationships are allowed to be entirely healthy.

He knocks loudly, musically, on Dean's door. It will take him a moment to answer, and Robin knows it, but he calls out obnoxiously anyway. Juggling a brown bag full of hefty amounts of Chinese food and a pair of bottles of rice wine, he leans a shoulder against the doorframe.

"Dean? Castiel? It's Goodfellow. One of you had better open this door and let me come in, after I dragged my ass out of a perfectly warm bed on a day off, and put pants on, which should be considered a sin against nature and to be done only grudgingly. I bought food. If nobody opens up in exactly fifteen seconds, I am just picking every one of your locks. And breaking your deadbolts. I am serious, and I will neither feel guilty nor break a sweat doing it. I got eggrolls!"

Comments

[always_enduphere]

Dean's dozing on the couch when Annie launches from his side, barks at the sudden commotion pulling Dean out of slumber. It's ridiculous that a man whose liver is as used to processing opiates as Dean's is can still be knocked out by codeine, but after straining something while carrying up the groceries, in a stupor is exactly where Dean had found himself.

He pulls himself up slowly, recognizing the voice well enough to know it will continue whether he opens the door or not. "Coming," he grunts, and feels his stomach gurgle despite himself at the mention of eggrolls. Dean tugs the door open.

"You got any sesame chicken in there?"

[goodfella]

"I got sesame chicken," Robin says brightly when Dean opens the door, and he invites himself quickly in, feet in their expensive shoes dancing around Annie as he brings his bags over to Dean's coffee table. "Shrimp lo mein, beef and broccoli, eggrolls, crab rangoon." It may seem like a large amount for two people, but one of them is Goodfellow. Every appetite that he possesses is lrge, and he possesses every appetite there is to have.

"Let's keep this between the two of us. I don't want to hear anyone bitching that I am pumping you full of MSG while you are healing, or somesuch." He tugs a handful of chopsticks out of the bag first, followed by a hefty bottle of sake. It isn't shochu, but it'll serve. "I just thought ... you could use a bit of company."

[always_enduphere]

"Going stircrazy out of my mind," Dean admits, eying Ernest with suspicion until he realizes the cat's tail is puffed up due to Robin, and not because Dean dared walk within three feet of it.

Grabbing up a container, Dean pops it open and eats one of the rangoons whole. "Oh god," he says, eyes closing. Food's never as good when Castiel is largely in charge of its selection and prep. "I missed cheese. Thanks, man." Cracking an eye, he takes in the huge bottle. "What is that?"

[goodfella]

"That," Robin says, eyeing the cat with distaste before turning his attentions to the paper box of shrimp lo mein, breaking his chopsticks and gathering up a heavy bite of steaming noodles and cabbage. "Is my insurance policy. To make sure I don't leave here without working up the courage to do what I know that I need to. It is also sake, and forty dollars a bottle."

He points rudely to the pale pink bottle with the tip of his chopsticks after herding his food into his mouth. "It goes down smoother than mother's milk. You should try some. Unless you are afraid you may get in trouble for it with someone." Green eyes squint, predatory and challenging.

[always_enduphere]

Dean narrows his own eyes in return. The bottle is pink and covered in delicate flower blossoms, and whatever's inside of it, it's surely not enough to mute the sudden nervous swoop in Dean's gut.

"Since when do you have trouble saying anything?" he asks, levering himself into a kitchen chair with minimal bending.

[goodfella]

"There are two things that I don't talk about," Robin says, putting down his food only long enough to rummage Dean's kitchen looking for something that will let him drink without looking like a complete alcoholic. He is one, but that's hardly the issue.

"I don't talk about my parents, and I don't talk about my feelings." He pauses, sighs, and scrubs at the curls at his temple with his palm.

"You scared the shit out of me," he says simply. "I haven't been frightened this way in a few years, and the last one to manage it was Niko Leandros. I am not blaming you, mind. It isn't as if you are rubbing your humanity in my face. But that's what you are. You and Niko both. No matter how skilled you are, at the end of the ay ... you are like bubbles. You don't last long, and you are easy to pop. I forget that."

[always_enduphere]

It's a sign, perhaps, of how far Dean's come since his possession that the admission doesn't render him utterly baffled. People care - it hasn't been an easy thing to live with, not when Dean had had the freedom of one wretched, singular focus to the expense of all. People care, and some of them are less given to it than others.

Dean's not so far up his own ass that he can't recognize that it's a bit rare and precious to be cared about by a puck.

"Sometimes I do feel like number one on Darrow's most endangered species list," he admits, tucking an absent hand over his side where the ache is worst while he shuffles into the kitchen, pointing to the cupboard with the cups. He has four now.

"Get two, huh?" he asks, smiling a little. "In case we need to talk about any more feelings."

[goodfella]

"I only blame myself," Robin admits, scowling into the mostly empty cupboard where Dean keeps his glasses. Not a bit of crystal in sight, stemware or otherwise. He heaves a long sigh of defeat and grabs two of the less abused-looking ones. He should have figured.

"If I was less self-involved I would be able to better help you avoid this shit. But I know that isn't true. Both that I could do anything to change it, and that I could ever put aside my own concerns that way."

Opening the effeminate pink bottle with a complete lack of irony, he pours a more than handy amount of the liquor into both glasses before setting the bottle back down and going for his chopsticks again. Giving a shit just makes him hungrier.

"All of this convalescing must have give you plenty of time to think about your situation," he says, with false nonchalance. "Ishiah and I have been doing our best to pick up your slack on the killing things that need killed front, so you can at least relax there. It is actually kind of nice to be doing it again."

[always_enduphere]

"Yeah?" asks Dean, interested until he's taken a sip of the white liquor, his face blank with astonished surprise at the concentrated sweetness. This stuff was from rice?

He chokes his way through the rest of his swallow, eyes watering when he reaches for the dumplings. "Probably too much time thinking," he admits. "For me and for Cas. He's been sour ever since Ishiah read him the riot act."

[goodfella]

Robin gives a snort of laughter to Dean's reaction to the liquor, not finding it at all sickly or distasteful himself -- though his tastes run toward the sweet end of the spectrum. "You've a face like I just tricked you into drinking diabetic piss," he muses, sipping down most of his own glass.

"Ah," he offers, slightly sobered. "Ishiah. I hope that you do not hold it against him. It is his nature, it has always been his nature. Even amongst his brothers, he is ... something else. Cambriel was quite personable, even friendly, and Samyel was as well, if in a bit of a macho, greased guido kind of way. The one with all the Z's in his name was a bit of a worry." Robin waves a hand vaguely in the air, as if he could pluck the name out, but it must have been beyond importance at the time.

"He is not the first person I would go to for advice, to be frank. Now, if I were looking for an outside contractor, certainly. But not advice." He smiles wryly. "Though it won't keep him from offering me his. At least these days, his advice doesn't end with my sword pointed at his nose."

[always_enduphere]

Dean smiles to himself for the mention of the 'Z' angel. He never did meet a bigger prick than Zachariah, in his own or any reality. He takes another sip of the sake, appreciating the bloom of warmth in his stomach, if nothing else.

"That 'cause his advice got better, or because you got used to the stick up his butt?" he asks, unable to help being a little wary of Ishiah ever since Castiel slunk home. Dean's lived with angels flying all over his business before - he's not anxious to do it again.

[goodfella]

"A little of column a, a lot of column b," Robin admits with a smile that is only a very little tight. He shrugs before draining his glass, reaching to the bottle for more.

"He is a little different than the others, at home. A leader. Bigger, meaner, better. For whatever reason. I would like to take your side over his, honestly and truthfully. I would very much like to give him a piece of my mind about the words he gave to Castiel. But it isn't my position, Dean, and I am sorry. I owe him the respect. One of his brothers, Cambriel, died for my whims. Because I told Ishiah that he was to give Caliban Leandros a job, despite my fully knowing that nightmares themselves would come after Cal. And that I was putting angel lives at risk."

Robin pulls a grim face for a second, before smiling again, turning his attentions to the food spread in front of him.

"Even if I don't agree with him, I've no right to tell him I know what's best for him, or for Castiel. Besides which, I think that you know what is best for Castiel. If not what is best for you."

[always_enduphere]

"M'not asking you to take sides, man," Dean sighs, his appetite gone save for the too sweet alcohol in front of him. He pours some more, leaning forward with a wince to fill Robin's glass as well. Any one of them drawing lines in the sand is the very last thing Dean needs right now, and fittingly for the usual course of his life, it's a possibility that feels dangerously close.

"Only thing I want is four whole weeks of peace strung together. That's what's gonna be best for Castiel. He might be programmed for it, but heaven telling him what to do and when is what screwed him in the first place. He's not going back to that."

[goodfella]

When Dean says that he is not asking Robin to take sides, he pauses in drinking to stare across the table at him with eyes slitted in thought and assessment. It's clear that he decided finally to be impressed, to have a new appreciation for Dean. He can't remember the last time someone encouraged him to not take sides. Usually, it was quite the opposite. Robin being made to make choices he won't, or practically can't.

"I wish that I could give you peace. For as long as you ask for it. But it really is not my job. Quite the opposite, in fact. I'll try to keep one eye on Castiel however. I can't imagine how difficult the choice he has got to make is. I know my answer. I would take the power, every time. Luckily, I'm nevver given such an opportunity."