"Robin," Cal said easily, "just shut up before I find a fork to stab you with. Right now, I doubt Ishiah would bother to stop me." He paused. "That, or else explain exactly how this is all your fault." Because that seemed rather important at the moment as well.

"Oh, it's not all my fault. I mean, people have been throwing themselves at me for centuries. Millenia. Longer than you can comprehend, really. It's not like monogamy is a natural state for pucks. I could, I can, I have before. And really, why did she think I wouldn't miss her? Just because we don't say things doesn't mean they're not there." Robin scowled absently at the bottles behind Jeane.

"Which means that it was still ultimately your fault," Cal observed, more to provoke more of a response than anything. Never let it be said he couldn't manipulate a drunk puck sometimes. "Where did she come into the picture?"

"Somewhere in the Middle East. You know, sweets," he said, abruptly switching his attention to Jeane. "If you're pining after this one, you're staring after a sailing ship. He's hopeless. A puppy. Especially since the last woman he was with was a Wolf and Kin, and tried to kill Niko. So he's pretty much hopeless. Now me, on the other hand... I am fantastic."

Jeane turned red and huffed.

Cal just rolled his eyes.

"Ignore him," he said to Jeane. "He's only going to get worse before he gets better and passes out." Absently, he glanced at her bag where the bottle was. "Though it was kind of an impressive argument..."

Jeane blinked when she had an idea, and she scooted her stool over in front of Robin. "That may be so, but I can try to use it to my advantage..."

Turning to Robin, she smiled a little. "Okay, tell you what. I'll go back to your apartment with you if you tell me more about you and Khalid."

Robin considered for a few moments. "You are very, very..."

"Sneaky?"

"Conniving!" Robin seemed briefly proud with himself for coming up with that word. "But okay." He poured them both more whiskey. "I didn't even know she was going to leave. We both had other lives, and it wasn't like either one of us said anything about commitment. I hadn't even been with anyone else when I was with her." He looked rather morose. "I didn't ask anything of her, I didn't see other women, and still she left. She was the first to do that, you know."

"I see." Jeane took a sip of her drink. "What about before that?"

"Before that? Oh. Well we'd seen each other once or twice before that occurence, and we'd parted on good terms. At least I thought so." He scowled down at his whiskey. "She never seemed ill content. Sure, she had some real bastards get hold of her bottle, but I tried to make sure that never happened for long when I was around to help that at all. I stole her bottle at least three times to hand off to better humans for her."

Cal tried valiantly to conceal his curiosity, he really did. He still failed, and ended up listening as Robin slurred a bit through his latest tale.

"What exactly happened?" he asked. As much as he hated to admit it, this didn't sound like a half-bad story.

Robin threw up his hands, very nearly upsetting the whiskey bottle. Jeane saved it, mostly to save someone the clean up.

"I don't even know! I know that she went to better owners every time I filched her bottle, but she doesn't tell me anything. Hell, I had no idea we were even in the same country until she came dragging along her newest owner." He glowered briefly at Jeane. "Things used to be good. We'd meet up, I'd tell her things, bring her whatever things I could occasionally find from her old life, things like that. We'd part ways after a while for various reasons. And then we'd do it all over again."

"Did you actually tell her those things were from you?" Jeane prodded.

"No. I figured she'd notice when one of her precious rings showed up the same time I did." Robin scowled again. "Or some of those bloody beads she always used to wear. I didn't think I'd have to spell everything out for her."

This was just getting more interesting by the minute. Cal knew that the puck got chatty when he was drunk, but this seemed to be something else entirely.

"Why start in the first place?" he asked. Legitimate question, really, especially since it seemed like the puck might have actually felt something for the djinn. Unheard-of.

"Which part? The screwing, the gifts, or the getting together every time we saw each other?" Robin's eyebrows shot up, although one went farther up than the other. He was slowly losing coordination.

"Whichever you slur the least when you try to explain," Cal responded even as he took the whiskey bottle back. Robin was going to pass out fairly soon, he was sure. He'd seen the signs before.

Robin snorted. "You don't understand," he said with something almost like scathing in his voice. "You haven't even started in on your lifespan yet. I've been around longer than I can remember. Most people can't stand me. It was nice to have someone who, at the time, seemed to accept me and would live for a while, if not as long as me."

"You mentioned something like that before," Cal commented as he cleaned up the counter some. At least that let him pretend that he was only vaguely interested in the conversation.

"You'll understand in another couple hundred years when you're still around," Robin shot back, managing to wobble his way to his feet. He looked dangerously close to toppling over.

"Okay, time to go home, I think," Jeane said, grabbing her purse and jacket before moving out from behind the counter. "Cal? A little help?"

Sighing, Cal nodded before he even realized it and went to help Jeane. At least Robin hadn't passed out yet, that was a plus. Now hopefully he would stay conscious enough for them to get him home without him hurling on either of them. And that really did seem like a distinct possibility at the moment.

Jeane took Robin's keys and helped get him back to his apartment, promptly shoving him onto his bed and taking his shoes off for him. She set out an empty trash can next to his bed, and put painkillers and a glass of water on the nightstand within reach.

"Wait," Robin said, seeing her getting ready to leave. "You said you'd come back with me."

"I did. I just never specified for how long I'd stay or what we'd be doing." Jeane smiled sweetly. "Good night, Robin." She shut the door to his bedroom after turning off the lights, and crept back out into the hallway to rejoin Cal.

Cal voluntarily stayed outside of the apartment. There was no way he was going any further than the front door: he'd done his job in getting the puck back, the rest was up to Robin now. So he waited in the hall for Jeane, even though he had to wonder why he was waiting for her at all. It wasn't like she was completely defenseless, since she had the bottle in her bag with the djinn in it. But still he waited.

Jeane smiled at him once she'd closed and locked Robin's door, managing to get the keys shoved through a mail slot in the door.

"So, do you want to go back home or go back to the bar?" She was fine with either one, but she was feeling just the teensiest bit tipsy.

Cal could tell she was wavering on her feet ever so slightly even as she asked the question.

"They can handle the bar without me now that Robin's not there anymore," he said. "And I'm guessing your shadow would want to get away from the bar, since Ishiah still seems pissed off." He was giving her a few reasons to decide to go home, rather than back to the bar. She looked like she could do with some sleep herself, but he couldn't exactly just tell her to go.

"Home it is." Jeane started walking back in the direction of Cal's apartment. It was closer than hers, and she wasn't thinking straight anyway. So it really wasn't her fault when she went up to the door, clearly waiting for him to let her in again.

Cal raised an eyebrow when he saw her waiting in front of the door of his apartment.

"I thought you said you were going home," he said as he caught up to her. "This isn't your apartment."

Jeane blinked. "Oh. Yeah. Right. I can make my way back to my apartment." Probably. Even if she was starting to get tired. She'd be happy to just crash on the couch, even.

"Uh huh," Cal said disbelievingly. Reaching past her, he unlocked the door and opened it. "The couch is free, and it's not like Khalid won't know where you are." Because Jeane didn't look like she could find her way down the hall, much less all the way back home, and he had no intention of trying to get Khalid to take her home. He wouldn't put it past the djinn to do something bad to him just for touching the bottle.

Jeane nodded and zombied her way into the apartment. She managed to get her shoes off before she half-fell on the couch. It took her a minute of rearranging to get comfortable, and then she relaxed, her bag settled against her stomach. It only took her a minute to pass out after that.

Once Cal was sure that Jeane would sleep, he took care of a few things around the apartment and then settled in to keep watch for a bit. It was habitual, and most likely unimportant, since Niko would likely not be back anyways until the next day, but it was still something familiar and really, Cal wouldn't be able to fall asleep for a while, anyways. Too many weird things had happened over the course of the day.