milliways_bar | (no subject)

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As soon as the shower had started running in the motel's bathroom, Sam had seized his chance. He yelled something indistinct about lunch, grabbed his laptop and messenger bag, and headed straight for Milliways without waiting for Dean to answer.

Now he's sitting at a booth, the laptop open in front of him, staring at something on the screen.

(From time to time he stares at a note, instead.)

Either way, it doesn't look like he's making much progress.

[ooc: open until it scrolls, with a break at 9 MT for tonight's episode of Supernatural.]

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Silence, for a few seconds.

"... for what it's worth," Sam says, finally, "I think you're right."

Beat.

He looks up. "About what?"

"About her not doing it again," he says.

"Especially if she doesn't feel she doesn't have a choice, maybe."

The ache is sudden and sharp and completely unexpected.

He swallows, trying not to show it. "Yeah."

"Anyway, that's... that's a big part of why I'm okay with word not getting around."

Sam hesitates, then adds, very quietly,

"And, uh... I remember that kind of did a number on you and Mac, when... you know."

"Yeah, but ..."

He trails off.

Whatever comes after the but, it's too complicated to articulate right now. Even to himself.

"But we're okay now," is how he finishes instead; that's part of it, at least.

Sam nods.

"Still."

(Go ahead, follow me around and tell all my friends --)

"Still," he repeats, low. "Yeah. It should be up to her."

"Yeah," he agrees.

Besides which, the more that word of what happened in Cold Oak gets around, the more likely it is that people will find out more about the Winchesters' situation than either of them want known, although Sam doesn't say that.

Instead, he hesitates, and then slips the piece of paper out from under the laptop and unfolds it. Sam glances down at it, then back at Andrew.

"So, uh..."

Beat.

"You, um, got Buffy involved?"

Pause. Blink.

"Yeah. I -- did she write to you?"

"Just a note," Sam says, setting the paper down on the table. He makes no move to put it deliberately either in Andrew's reach or beyond it.

"She wanted to let me know you two had talked, I guess."

Andrew's brow furrows slightly. He doesn't reach for the note.

"That's ... huh. I didn't even really mention you to her, I just asked her to stand backup when I talked to Ava."

Sam looks confused at this.

"Wait, what?" A second later, it hits him, and he shakes his head.

"... no. Not Buffy-- I mean, she didn't leave me a note."

A beat.

"Ava did."

"...Oh."

Andrew's teeth worry his lower lip for a moment.

"What'd she say?"

"Pretty much just that," Sam tells him. "That you'd talked, and that I might want to ask you about Buffy."

He breathes out. "Okay. Yeah. That ... I think I might have made a mistake there. I wanted to talk to Ava in private. I, I thought maybe she might, she might not ... she might feel less threatened if it were just me. With nobody else around."

Studying the tabletop again. "But I knew going off alone with her might not be so safe. If, you know."

"If you were right."

He shakes his head, just slightly, but doesn't say anything at first.

I was right. You just didn't believe me.

"Backup's generally always a good idea," he says, finally.

"If it'd been anybody but you," he starts, half overlapping, and stops.

Sam stares at him.

"... if it had been anybody but me, what?"

Never mind, forget I said anything --

He breathes out.

"I probably wouldn't have," he tells the table. "Taken backup."

He swallows, hard.

"Oh."

"Anyway." Low. "Turned out it wasn't necessary. Except ... she asked me not to tell anyone. About what happened in Cold Oak. And it was too late, I'd already told two people."

He looks up. "One of which was Buffy. And when I told her that --"

"I'm guessing that didn't go over too well," Sam says, quietly. "Based on what she said when I talked to her."

"Aw, now don't leave us in suspense, Sammy."

Dean, who is not a freaking idiot, thank you very much, was pretty damn sure that Sam'd take the opportunity to slip away to Milliways.

Tryin' to be helpful, trying to fix things.

Dean was expecting to catch him feverishly scribbling in a notebook, paging through esoteric texts, earnestly questioning the gods and monsters that frequent the end of the universe.

Somehow he wasn't expecting a conversation about some chick at Cold Oak.

More fool him, eh?

"Spit it out."

Andrew's head snaps up, staring past Sam at the figure he didn't see approaching. For a frantic second he's trying to remember what he just said, trying to figure out how much Dean overheard --

And it's not even, he realizes, like they were discussing anything either of them needs to keep secret. There's just something about Dean's tone, something about the look on his face, that makes Andrew feel like they've just been caught at something.

(The look on his own face, he realizes a moment later, probably isn't helping that impression.)