friends, i have to tell you: they sent me on a mission down to earth

[priorcommitment]

There are many things in life that Ishiah frequently regards as superfluous. Gestures that have little meaning outside of what people choose to attribute to them. Money that gets spent on presents that have little practical worth. But in the time that Ishiah has spent on earth, he's come to acknowledge the value of symbols. The white hyacinth has no inherent properties that will bring Dean Winchester back to full health, no powers of healing, but the symbolism it carries is not without worth.

Either to himself or to the healing.

Years ago, a young man strode into Robin Goodfellow's life without any prior warning. It was a young man that Robin had known before, time and time again, in other lives, under other names, but this encounter was perhaps the one which elevated their relationship to a point which it had never met before. Friendship was the reason, lives interwoven and love exchanged. And Ishiah was there to witness it, to see all the ways it changed Robin; although for a long time, Ishiah wasn't sure whether or not to say that it was a change for the better, these days there's a soft fondness in that area of his chest that he can't rid himself of. An inherent love for man and all its flaws, no matter how tangled lives became.

Caliban Leandros was swept away, used by a host, and with no promise of being able to return to who he'd once been, his family had put everything on the line to save him. Robin included.

Somehow it's worse this time, because Robin didn't even get the chance to try.

Ishiah stands at Dean's door, knocks sharply on the wood, carries a potted plant in his arms and a hope for forgiveness, because for the first time since he arrived in Darrow, he truly feels that he's failed someone.

More than one, even.

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[always_enduphere]

Maybe it's the supernatural creature that was rooting around in him for months, or maybe it's a new and even darker strain of paranoia, but Dean's skin prickles well before the knock, heart beating hard in his thin chest. There's a gun at his side, once an old standard and freshly out of retirement, and it's weight is a comfort. Dean squeezes hard around the metal when a shadow settles in front of his door, but doesn't jump for the knock.

"Who is it?" he calls, hesitating on his way to the door even as his thumb clicks a round into the chamber.