And then they told me to write a 'what if Ishiah died' fic and I am best with angstfic so I complied.
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They found him crying.
No, that wasn't quite apt.
Danyeal found him on the floor of the master bedroom in the aftermath of tears. He'd followed the trail of out-of-place objects; disturbed plants and books left lying far from where Ishiah had initially put them led the Peri to Robin. It was a disturbing sight.
He was curled in a ball, knees holding his head up, arms wrapped around his legs. At his feet, a battered picture that the Puck shied away from, as if it would burn him at the touch.
To be fair, their situations reversed, Danyeal would've done the same thing.
To be fair, Danyeal would've never let himself get in such a situation.
He knew the picture. He'd seen it, once, when he'd been first employed here. Danyeal hadn't known, then, what it was or who, only that it was painfully important, from Ishiah's glare when he'd inquired who the man was, and why he was smiling.
Ishiah's wings had unfurled, and he'd asked Danyeal to put the picture back where he'd found it with what little calm that could be summoned.
And, now, Danyeal was seeing the picture again, and again, seeing it when he was newly employed. Surely, somewhere, someone was laughing.
Robin's shoulders were still shaking, but all sound had stopped coming from him. Respect for his former employer mingled with anger for the fact that he was a former employer, and the result of this ambivalence surfaced in the Peri's voice.
Even he was surprised by what he said.
Robin, it seemed, was just surprised by the noise at all. It was as if he'd never expected to have any sound reach him, ever again. As if he expected to go on living in eternal silence, alone.
"Do you need anything?"
Robin looked up from the picture, and the look, so openly needing, went towards assuaging what issue Danyeal still had with the Puck. The look spoke of wanting, too, and needing much more than Danyeal could ever be able to get him, or want to provide him.
"A glass of water, please."
His voice was hoarse. Danyeal was all too happy to disappear into the kitchen and fill a glass,
hoping the Puck wouldn't mind the tap. When he gave it to Robin, it wasn't even blinked at, just accepted and gingerly sampled. Somehow, this didn't make either of them feel better.
"Thank you."
"It's... no problem." Boss. He felt silly for thinking it; he'd never called Ishiah that. And yet, it seemed like the kind of thing Robin Goodfellow would appreciate, wouldn't it?
And did he really want to make this monster happy?
Even though Ishiah had?
"If you need me, I'll..." His voice cracked. But he kept going; neither of them had the heart to point out each other's shortcomings at this juncture. Maybe later. "be downstairs. Cambriel, too."
But if Robin heard him at all, he ignored it, instead supplying his own line of questioning. Once a Puck...
"Why did he do it?" Robin wasn't even looking at Danyeal. He was looking at the wall, studiously avoiding his own gaze, staring up from the faded sepia tones on the floor. His countenance spoke nothing of mourning. It spoke of nothing at all.
"For you, I imagine." Danyeal's words were halted, and choked, but admitting it helped.
"No, I-..." Robin dipped his head, and then lifted it, his eyes back to needing and wanting so much that even Danyeal— who had never been fond of the Goodfellow creature— was slightly affected. "Why... why this?"
The bar.
"I don't know." Danyeal closed his eyes. The urge to rest his head against the doorway was overwhelming, but he pushed it away. It was a bad idea to look too weak in front of a creature that fed off of others' weaknesses, wasn't it? "He wanted you to have it, though."
"But why?" And if he started crying again, Danyeal wasn't going to be able to take it.
But Danyeal remembered. He spoke the reason he had deduced upon hearing the contents of Ishiah's will, hating the sound of his own voice. "The gift of responsibility, I suspect."
The sound, then, that Robin made in the back of his throat was what finally prompted Danyeal to turn and leave, using respect for his current employer as his excuse as to why he didn't want to see the other man cry.
•
It was if a light had been clicked on, and the light was Ishiah.
Ishiah attempted to put the feeling to words, and was discouraged to find that whatever language he put it in, it sounded biblical. Which wasn't how it felt to him, to him it'd just seemed pure and real, and so Ishiah gave up on language all together. Feeling was much better, and it seemed like that was all he was. No more longing (how strange) or loneliness (stranger) or language or pain or fear.
Fear?
When had he ever been afraid? Ishiah felt his mind-set stretch out across himself as if all he was involved the length and breath of his own thoughts, and stopped pondering when he realized that was indeed the case. All he was involved... thoughts.
Oh, well, alright.
But something nagged, still, and it was uncomfortable. He was fleetingly aware of a vague feeling of... solidity, and even more fleeting, the knowledge that he rested on a precipice. To continue this line of thinking involved more solidity, more pain. Or he could let himself be washed away, and rest, no more pain or fear.
Fear.
He chose to keep thinking.
Fear?
When had he ever been afraid?
No, no, that wasn't right. He'd been afraid for someone, hadn't he?
Who had he been afraid for?
And the core of Ishiah's being was rocked with fear and panic. He couldn't remember the name and the name was very important and he'd loved the sound of it and he couldn't remember, oh-
Robin.
Alright. All right, it's okay; it was Robin.
Where was Robin, anyway?
•
There were videos. All kinds of videos, and later, DVDs, and at least one Blu Ray disk. And, Robin was sure, if he looked far back enough, there were records and monographs for him. Ishiah kept everything, didn't he?
Hadn't he?
Robin put one of the older videos in. He was relieved, deeply, to see the content didn't involve him.
It was a record of the Ninth Circle's opening, complete with smiling Peri— several of whom Robin had never even seen before— first patrons, drinks being mixed, and Mario getting chatted up by a werewolf. It wasn't filmed like a documentary or a home movie, and it definitely hadn't been filmed by Ishiah, who was often frowning in several of the shots and cautioning whoever had been filming (Robin suspected Cambriel) to turn the thing off before he broke it. It was just a montage of several incidents, some of no interest at all, slapped together and saved.
Robin found himself enthralled. It took a great deal of his own personal restraint to keep from pausing whenever Ishiah came on screen, and sitting— wrapped in a blanket that smelled of feathers and wind— and staring wide-eyed at the screen.
Robin put the next video in.
Another montage, this one at least a year after the Ninth Circle's opening. It was just a normal day, nothing particularly special. Several shots had been erased or edited out, and it took a while for Robin to realize that those shots had been of him. He wasn't hurt or offended, though; it was the least of what he deserved.
One of the last shots was of Ishiah, and if Robin hugged his knees closer to his chest because of that, he wasn't aware of it. A shaky sigh escaped him.
On screen, Ishiah said, "No, no, put that down. And get another martini for Mr Grxxl." He was frowning.
In the next shot, someone was working. They bent out of the way, and a calendar was plainly visible.
The realization hit Robin like a slap.
It was his birthday.
Ishiah turned down promises of cake and festivities, but it was possible—if you looked hard enough— to see the slight, slight glint of amusement and gratitude in his eyes.
The next shot, the last shot, was of a staircase. It was as if someone had turned the camera on and forgotten about it. Only later, after some consideration, did Robin acknowledge that that was probably exactly what had happened. Whoever had edited the videos together had left this shot in purposefully for the music that had started playing after a few seconds, though the walls of the apartment above the Ninth Circle.
That song.
He'd loved it, once, when they'd been younger, and he'd been friendlier, and he'd said to Ishiah...
When the shaking sobs had left him, Robin put the next video in.
•
After a bit of searching (Thermopolis? No. Islington? No. Palatine? No. Belfast? No. Chelsea? No.) Ishiah found Robin. He was near St Mark's Place, and a nagging bit of his memory told him that they'd done as specified in his will. He felt... pleased, somewhat.
Robin was in the bed they'd never shared, essentially tied in a knot.
The sheets were faintly soaked with sweat and tears, and wrapped around him like he'd been trying to escape the bed against its express wishes. In his sleep, he was moaning softly.
What was he saying?
Ishiah tried to recognize the language before realizing it wasn't any language he'd ever known, or any language at all. It was a mixed mess of gibberish, and whenever a language did enter into it, the translation boiled down to 'no', 'please', or 'godsend'.
Which sounded oddly familiar, considering.
Ishiah wanted to comfort him. When he reached out to touch Robin's shoulder, his fingers didn't pass through twitching muscle so much as they became Robin. And Robin stilled to accommodate him. Ishiah retracted immediately, fearful he'd harmed the tangled Puck, and in turn, Robin awoke.
"I-" the sound was a little less than a scream, and Robin caught himself to halt it. In more a calling voice than an alerting one, he tried again, "Ishiah?"
"Ah..." Ishiah sighed, smiling in spite of the dire look on Robin's face, "Robin."
"Ishiah?" But Robin didn't look comforted. He looked upset. Ishiah's heart—metaphysically speaking, as he didn't really have a heart anymore—wrenched. Robin started sobbing, breath erratic and eyes fighting to stay open. "Oh, y- Damn you." He collapsed back onto the bed, and hugged a pillow to his chest, speaking into it, "You bastard. Damn you."
Several scenes from movies Ishiah had only fleetingly tolerated flashed through the Peri's central consciousness (his mind, in the least literal, more abstract, sense), the main one involving a very frightened boy wrapped in a blanket. Ishiah conceded that Hollywood had been right, and that Robin couldn't see him.
"...Robin." it was more of a whisper to himself than anything, but Robin, still on the bed, shook
in response.
Robin couldn't see him. But it seemed as if he could feel him.
"Alright." Ishiah nodded, whispered, "Well. I'm going to be selfish, now."
And Robin seemed to be all right with that.
"You probably aren't happy," He said, "That I gave you the bar."
If Robin agreed, the slight hitch of his breath and twitch of his shoulder was the only indication he gave Ishiah. The Peri—the ghost continued.
"But I think you need it. You certainly need it more than I do."
Had Robin's breath seemed like a nervous laugh, there? Ishiah remained hopeful.
"And I think you'll need something big to hold on to, if my death bothered you. I... wasn't sure if it would."
Robin shivered.
"But it seems to have."
And shook.
"And I'm sorry."
And sobbed.
"I'm sorry I couldn't help you. I-..."
And then Robin's eyes opened. He rolled over in bed, and seemed to be looking straight at Ishiah, though Ishiah himself was somewhat confident that Robin couldn't see him at all.
Ishiah took that to mean disagreement. He continued on, or tried, until he realized he didn't have the words. Ishiah opted to skip the important part. Some small part of his mind (again, metaphysically) told him that his second largest regret was being unable to say this while alive.
"I love you."
And Robin did cry, completely, his whole body shaking with each sobbing breath. Ishiah, too, wanted to cry, but found that he couldn't. He'd forgotten how.
"I l-" and the rest sounded like a bit of a gurgle, but Ishiah knew what Robin meant. "T-too." And when he'd regained himself enough for the sobbing to stop (Ishiah was faintly aware that
Robin feared the Peri downstairs would come to check on him if he made too much noise) Robin didn't make another attempt at saying it again. But that was fine; Ishiah knew what Robin had meant.
He did try to say something else, though. On his third try, he even succeeded.
"You're here, aren't you?" A sob, quiet and shaky, "I always feel like this when you're saying something, and I should be listening."
Ishiah couldn't cry, so he tried to laugh, only to find he wasn't capable of that, either.
But he couldn't stop himself from trying to touch Robin, again.
Robin, faintly, felt like he should have been crying, too, but found he couldn't quite summon it. He felt better. Ishiah felt better. He poured more of himself into Robin, and felt himself slipping away, again. This time, though, he wasn't on any precipice so much as he was sliding out in all directions. He could find no reason why he should stay, so much as that he felt he needed a few more moments to say something else, important, and couldn't remember what it was.
He was disappearing, but he would remember before he was completely gone.
Searching for the right words, he let several spill out, "And if I see you soon, I'll be very disappointed—not that, if I was ever disappointed in you, it was ever enough to make me dislike you. And my spare keys are hidden under the irises in the kitchen. And I'm not in pain, and I don't blame you for anything except, possibly, your own pain. And I wanted to help you with that, but I'm sure someone else can, if you can find him ...or her. And please feed my dog—or get Danyeal to do it; he'll complain, but he will do it, he always does."
And it seemed as if through all of this, all Robin could say was, "Ishiah..."
The right words found him before he was completely gone, swallowed by a familiar light that, surprisingly, seemed to come from Robin's own heart. In one sighing (metaphysical) breath, Ishiah whispered into Robin's skin.
"And you aren't allowed to miss me, because I'll always be right here."
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