milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Susannah is once again working in the bar, although she has less of a pile of documents with her tonight. All she has is a notebook, in which she is alternately taking notes, scratching out notes, and doodling.

She is not a bad teacher, but some things are hard to approach.

She also has a large bottle of water, because proper hydration is important.

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Dean does not actually want to think about salting and burning his baby, so he doesn't.

"Huh. Guess it kinda does. But, uh--I'm pretty sure it's got more to do with the asshole who died in the damn thing. You know how it goes."

"Actually," she says, "I don't have much experience when it comes to ghosts."

"Was it a ghost, though? Was he there, or did he bring the truck to life?"

Edited 2008-09-24 03:23 (UTC)

"It was a ghost, yeah -- or partially, at least," Sam puts in. "The guy's spirit sort of infected his truck while he was alive, and the ghost manifested as the truck afterwards."

"Interesting," she says. Her expression remains light, but it's not as authentic as it was; she's filing and cross-referencing and assessing.

Still, she's got a good poker face. She's good at thinking on multiple tracks at once.

"Ours was just a machine, left to rot too long. Completely insane."

Edited 2008-09-24 03:37 (UTC)

Dean looks kinda--not skeptical, but like he's not a big fan.

"How's that even work?"

She shrugs. "It was another world. One that was ending. Their science had hit a peak, and then there was a war, and a decline into savagery... but the machines had been made to last. And last, and last."

"Blaine had human emotions, and more than human intelligence, and an inhuman dependence on logic. It wasn't a good combination for the world he inherited."

"Sounds like that entire artificial intelligence thing ends up being a bad idea," he observes. "Or robots in general. Whatever."

"Maybe so," she says. "But it was only a symptom of six or seven other really bad ideas, in the end. All of it goes back to hubris."

"They thought science could make them gods, but it just made them humans with too much damn power."

Dean snorts, one hand absently rubbing at his sternum.

"Yeah, tell me about it."

"In any case," she says, "the world has moved on since then, and they've all been dead a very, very long time."

She signals a rat, and asks it to bring her a Dragonfly.

Dean gets a swift sideways look before Sam turns back to Susannah.

(The sudden tension in the line of his shoulders stays, though.)

"And now you're here," he says.

"That's right," she agrees. "Back to Earth. Or an Earth."

"Dimension-hopping, too? Jeeze, this place has it all."

Dean is not always a happy camper about that.

Go figure.

"Oh, that was nothing to do with Milliways, sugar."

Her drink's here; she has to dip almost below the level of the table to reach it, bending over the arm of her chair.

"This place is strange, but not as strange as some people think."

A beat.

"It sounds like you've got more than a little experience with strange things yourself."

"I've never denied it," she says.

The drink is good; they almost always are, at Milliways. Citrus is something she'll never get sick of, maybe.

"But I'm not the only one, am I?" She looks from one young man to the other, a small smile on her face.

"Yeah, well."

Dean cracks a grin.

"We all just keep on comin' back here, don't we? Guess it comes with the territory."

"What I mean is, some people here lead perfectly ordinary lives outside of Milliways. And some people have ghost trucks."

"Among other things, yeah."

Sam shrugs.

"Ghosts, spooks, vampires, cursed objects, all sorts of weird stuff."

"You go looking for them? Like Ray Stantz and his friends? Or just unlucky?"

Dean snorts.

"Little bit of both, some days."

She nods. "Once you brush up against that world enough, it starts... gravitating towards you."

She wrings the lime into the gin and tonic again.

"A friend of mine called it the highways in hiding; all the lost roads that lead to places other people never go. Is that about right?"

"Most people just don't know where to look."

Quietly.

"It can be a shock, when they find out otherwise. You know?"

"Sure." She herself once ruined a woman's sanity by appearing out of thin air and stealing her shoes. It's not a story she brings out at parties.

"So why do you do it? When it doesn't come to you?"

Dean's expression says, very clearly 'Jesus, woman, what the hell kinda question is that?'

Go figure.

"Who the fuck else is gonna?"