milliways_bar | (no subject)

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(A few hours after this.)

The front door to Milliways opens on an early morning somewhere in the woods. Andrew Wells stumbles in, pale and shivering, a second jacket draped around his shoulders over the one he's already wearing; Sam Winchester is a few steps behind him, still outside. Andrew stops just inside the door to lean against the doorjamb, half-closing his eyes.

"Hey. Andrew."

It's quiet, but enough to get him to lift his head and look back over his shoulder. "Yeah?"

Sam's face is unreadable. "Thanks for trying. Tell Mac I said I'm sorry, and goodbye."

Andrew's eyes fly wide, and he turns -- but Sam's already swinging the door to, and it shuts in his face before he can reach to stop it.

"Sam!" He pounds a fist against the door, stupidly, uselessly, as though Sam could hear him from the other side -- "Sam!"

[OOC: Sam is not taggable in this thread, but Andrew is. *cheerful* He's also being pretty noisy, so feel free to notice.]

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"Keep it." An unconcerned wave of the hand. "Just 'cause you don't wanna play with it doesn't mean it isn't out there."

"You're the Trickster."

He says it aloud without meaning to, the second the realization comes into his head.

Hah. Finally.

(Other acceptable answers: you're a trickster, you're Loki, OH DEAR GOD IT'S YOU.)

"Bingo." He flashes a winning smile -- all teeth -- and leans back in his chair, snapping the fan of his cards closed. "So he did mention me."

"Yeah."

Andrew closes his hand over the two jacks.

"It wasn't real flattering."

"Figures." He shakes his head, heaving a put-upon sigh. "You put a guy in one little time loop and he holds it against you for the rest of your life. Okay, his life," he amends, much more brightly. "He's gonna keel over way before I do."

"Okay, yeah. I'm out."

He drops the cards in a messy heap, shoves himself back from the table with unsteady arms.

"Yeah? 'Cause...from what I've seen of those chuckleheads -- "

He circles one finger in the direction of the pair of jacks that fell from Andrew's hand.

" -- once you're in with them, you're in it for keeps. Kinda late to be backing out now. Did he even tell you why I shoved him on board the Bill Murray train for a couple months?"

"I don't care."

He tries to push up from the chair, doesn't quite make it.

He scoffs, rolling his eyes. "He didn't, didn't he. Biiiig surprise."

With a swift sweep of his hand, he pulls Andrew's cards toward him, drops them on top of the deck, and shuffles.

"Look. No matter what that moron says? I'm as close to being on his side as anybody like me's gonna get. I was trying to help him. And me too while I was at it," he adds with a flippant shrug, "but guess what, the thing that's coming down the road up ahead? He's gonna want to put it off for as long as he can, too. Believe me."

Beat.

"What's coming."

It's so cold in here.

If you leaned over and squinted just right in just the right lighting, you might be able to catch a flash of pity in his eyes. Maybe even apology.

The cards rrrrrip together in a flash; he squares the deck, quirks a pretty humorless-looking smile at Andrew, and draws one from the top.

The queen of spades -- a dark-haired woman with bright white eyes, smiling wickedly from her perch atop a throne as hundreds more beetle-black eyes dot the background -- slides across the table. Next to it, when he draws the second card, comes the ace of hearts: a bright red spiral like a black hole, and something like fire flickering deep at its center.

"Telling fortunes really ain't my gig," he says, "buuuuut..."

"Why should I believe you anyway."

He wants to try to get up, but his legs feel too far away for that, heavy and distant; they're in the next room, maybe a few counties over, clearly impossible to move.

(Somewhere in his head he's aware that that's maybe a bad sign.)

"Never said you had to."

Calmly. He neatens up the deck of cards again, sets it above the two cards to form a sort of pyramid shape.

"But if I were you? I'd wise up and do what Sam Winchester didn't: listen and learn, kiddo."

"Learn what?"

He has to say it fast; his teeth are trying to chatter. It isn't from fear.

"That I don't always do this just to screw around."

He leans across the table, fixing Andrew with a hard look.

"And that when it comes to paying attention to those two? I'm staying all in."

"Okay." Half-whispered. "Then why?"

"Why what?"

It's...actually not all that disingenuous this time. He's just asking for clarification.

"Why did you do it to him. If not just to screw around."

...He didn't tell him that, either?

Ohhhh, Winchester, you are so damn lucky you shut that door before he could take another crack at you.

"Because," he says, tone squarely falling into the speak slowly and use little words camp, "in case you haven't noticed? Him and Dean are more codependent than a couple of freakin' gut parasites. He couldn't handle the idea of watching his brother die, so, I toughened him up a little. I was trying to get him to let go before the bad guys swooped in to take advantage like a quarterback with a roll of roofies."

He rolls his eyes.

"See how well that worked out."

Andrew's staring at him, as though waiting for him to start making sense.

He stares right back for a beat before sighing, explosively, and flopping his head back.

"Do I have to break out the flashcards here? There is way more going on than those two will ever get. They've got entire armies clamoring for their souls, just waiting for a chance to pick up the fumble. Not being able to cope when one of them bites it? That's a hell of a fumble. Pun completely intended."

Barely audible: "So you thought hitting him with the thing he was most afraid of would ... what, make him not care so much when it happened for real?"

This time, as he lifts his head, the smile is considerably thinner.

"I was gonna call it a dry run or hundred before the curtain came up, but...yep."

His throat works.

(Andrew, I can't go through that again. I -- I can't lose Dean. I can't watch him die. I can't.)

"You're a complete idiot."

Aaaaaand boom go the eyebrows again.

"Ya think?"