milliways_bar | (no subject)

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The front door opens, and in steps Andrew Wells, hands in his pockets and shoulders slightly slumped.

He's got a note to leave -- but it turns out the intended recepient is already here.

After that conversation, Andrew finds himself in a somewhat better mood -- right up until he reads the note that's been left for him since he was last here.

He's sitting at the bar reading it. Feel free to interrupt him; it's not like the words have changed since the last three times he read it.

[ETA: Mun has gone to bed. Thread is open until it scrolls off the front page.]

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"Yeah."

He flicks a sideways glance at Andrew.

"She'll be fine, I think. No one knows about her."

"Except you guys."

He lets out a long breath. "This sucks," he says unhappily.

This gets another quick, sharp look, but --

"Yeah, well, we're not telling. So."

A beat; long enough for Sam to take the last swallow of Coke and push the glass back to the other side of the counter. When he turns back to face Andrew, his expression is pretty well neutral, save for the slightly wry smile that's playing at the corner of his mouth.

"Uh-huh. Tell me something I don't already know."

That's supposed to be my job.

A beat goes by, while Andrew fumbles for the thread of the conversation.

"...So you want to get Dean's okay before we start looking into whether it could work?"

"Yeah."

He's not moving forward on this alone again, not after how talking to Ash and Ellen about it turned out.

"Anyway, you said the spell's not even finished yet."

That wry smile doesn't look like it's going anywhere.

"It's not like there's any rush."

"Guess not," he says, glancing down again.

His eye falls on the folded note, lying on the bartop.

"Listen, though, in the meantime -- something I should probably tell you."

His focus sharpens along with his curiosity.

"What's up?"

Steadily: "You remember I told you about the First Evil?"

Sam tenses.

"Uh-huh. And?"

Andrew taps the folded paper with his fingertips. "Someone sent me a note saying that the First knows about Milliways and has expressed an interest in showing up."

His voice is flat. "And that it knows Buffy's here, and likes the idea."

"Wait a second."

He looks ready to face a sudden strike from any direction: every line of him drawn in stark relief, every muscle and nerve set to react in an instant, and every bit of him focused.

"It's here?"

"It could be. Note only said it sounded interested, and it wasn't signed so I've got no idea whether it's to be trusted, but that kind of message you pay attention to no matter what."

"Andrew."

A beat.

"Does it know you're here?"

His throat works.

He's clearly had this thought already, and just as clearly been trying not to entertain it.

"I don't know."

Sam nods.

"Okay."

Grimly determined.

"How did you guys stop it before?"

"We stopped it from opening the Hellmouth by ... kind of caving in the city over it."

He shakes his head. "It's not gonna be doing that here. Whatever it's planning, it'll be something else."

"Whatever it's planning," Sam throws back, "it's not gonna get away with it."

Andrew searches his face for a moment, as though for reassurance against a fear he doesn't want to admit, then nods.

"It can't touch anything," he says, and now his tone's level and matter-of-fact again; reporting on the situation. "Or anyone. It's incorporeal. But it can look like any, like anyone who's died. Even if they've been brought back."

(He's thinking of Jonathan. And Warren.)

He reaches for his pocket notepad. "In terms of physical threat, what you've got to watch out for is its minions, the Bringers. I can show you how to recognize them."

"Anyone who's died, huh? Around here, that's gonna be a problem."

Something dark and haunted flickers in his glance for an instant before he shakes it off and cranes his neck to see the notepad.

"Let's have it."

He's got the notepad turned to a blank page, and is starting to sketch.

"The Bringers look mostly human, but they've got these sigils sewn into their faces where their eyes should be. They usually wear reddish robes, but they might show up wearing anything."

"... given the eye thing, I'm thinking the clothes are gonna be less of an issue when it comes to recognizing them."

"Assuming you see their faces," Andrew points out.

He turns the pad around, and shows Sam the sigils he's drawn.

"Point."

Sam studies the sigils carefully, committing them to memory.

(He'll be drawing a copy of them later in the journal he keeps for Milliways-related supernatural phenomena -- separate and apart from their dad's journal.)

"Also, if they've been hanging around anywhere for any length of time, the local vegetation dies." Beat. "The Bringers, not the First."

"Huh."

Sam looks suddenly thoughtful.

"We've seen that before, but with zombies. These Bringers -- they're not exactly alive, are they?"