milliways_bar | (no subject)

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There's a Watcher in the bar.

Specifically, there's an Andrew Wells in the bar, seated in a booth not far from the fireplace. He's ostensibly making a list in his notepad, but right now he's staring into the fire without really seeing the flames or the serenely circling fish, pen resting forgotten on the page.

He's got stuff on his mind.

Any moment now he's going to notice that the tip of the pen's making a large blot and the list will have to be redone.

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"... How long's it been for you?"

"A few days," Sam informs him.

"Maybe a week."

"... frelling Milliways," he says. "So you're still ... hunting Lilith, was it?"

It's amazing how fast his expression can set in hard lines, closed off.

"Yes."

"Sorry," he says, lower. "... any luck?"

"Some."

Not that he wants to talk about, though, not yet, and so Sam nods to the notepad in front of Andrew.

"How about you? Looks like you've been busy."

That's a pretty clear deflection. Andrew sighs inwardly.

"Yeah, uh ... busy getting inkstains on my list apparently." This time the sigh is outward, as he carefully peels the page upward to make sure the stain hasn't gone all the way through.

"What's it a list for?"

He drags out a chair and sits down, finally, all thoughts of coffee abandoned for the moment.

"It's, uh ..."

... well, that wasn't a question he was expecting.

"Stuff. Um. Open business, I guess you could say?"

That sounds innocuous enough, right?

Sam gives him a skeptical look.

"... should I not ask?"

A pause.

Andrew glances up with a more sober look on his face. "Actually, you know what, you're one of the people I should tell."

That... sounds ominous.

"Yeah?" Sam studies him for a second and then nods. "Hit me."

"There's ... a mission I'm going on, soon."

He hasn't decided yet whether to tell Sam what it is. At least at this point.

"It's the kind of dangerous where I'm looking to, you know. Put things in order. In case I don't come back."

Sam stares at him in shock.

"Just how bad have things gotten in your world?"

"It's not --" He shakes his head swiftly. "It's not a doomsday scenario. It's just a thing. That might be hazardous."

"Uh-huh."

Skeptical doesn't even begin to cut it. He pins Andrew with a look.

"What kind of thing?"

A long beat.

Quieter: "Do you wanna know so you can offer to help, or just so you'll know?"

His eyes narrow.

"What difference does it make?"

"Cause this isn't something I can get help with."

A faint crooked smile. "I have to face the Gazebo alone."

His lips move silently: Gazebo?

Sam shakes his head, and doesn't even ask.

"Tell me."

Quieter: "You'll keep it on the down low? I don't want it getting everywhere."

Sam nods.

A breath.

"Jonathan found someone who thinks he can get him his afterlife back."

Instant tension spikes through him.

"How."

"I haven't got the details yet. I'm getting them before they do anything."

A pause.

"But he says he needs the murder weapon. The -- the knife. Which right now is somewhere in the crater that's all that's left of Sunnydale."