[Detroit!AU: when the man comes around]

[stilljustandrew]

Ever since they started what he's been mentally referring to as the Interdimensional Witness Relocation Program, Andrew's been getting most of his sleep at Milliways. Between helping Sam Winchester settle in at the Academy as a putative Watcher-in-training and trying to juggle his own schedule around that, there hasn't been time to sleep at home.

Especially since about half the time he finds himself lying awake anyway, jittering from a combination of nerves and caffeine.

Andrew rolls over, bunches up the pillow under his head, and lets out a sigh of tired frustration as he tries to relax again.

Comments

[gavemea_45]

Sam scrubs the back of his hand over his eyes, and disguises the movement by slinging his arm around Andrew's shoulders.

"Yeah, well." He manages a wry half-grin. "You know me."

Beat.

"C'mon, let's get out of here for a bit, grab some coffee or something before getting back to work. You game?"

[stilljustandrew]

He lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding, and relaxes.

"Sure. Want to head into town? There's a place that stays open late."

[gavemea_45]

"Sounds good to me," Sam agrees. "What time is it, anyway?"

[stilljustandrew]

"... Late," he admits, sheepishly, after a look at his watch. "About three?"

It was about two-thirty, after all, when he went to Milliways to try to get some sleep.

(It hasn't really occurred to him to wonder what Sam was doing awake.)

[gavemea_45]

"Late enough to be early, then."

He grins, and takes his arm from Andrew's shoulders in order to walk over and open the door for him.

"You could say we're just getting a jump start on the day."

[stilljustandrew]

"I say consider this day seized!" he declaims, grinning more from relief than anything else, and heads out through the door with him.

[gavemea_45]

It's a little over an hour later when they return, having called it a night. Sam gives Andrew a wave and a grin as he peels off down the Academy corridor towards his room.


It's maybe fifteen minutes after that when he slings his messenger bag over his shoulder, hoists his duffel, and opens the door -- not into the hall, this time, but into Milliways. Sam steps through into the bar, leaving the room behind him as empty as when he'd moved in, save for a sealed note on the tiny desk, addressed simply to Andrew Wells.

He crosses to the bar and leaves a second copy of the note there, then heads back to the front door. This time when he opens it, it shows the cheap motel room that he'd left behind in order to take Andrew up on his offer of sanctuary before.

Sam steps through, back into his own world. He doesn't look back.

The door shuts silently behind him.

[stilljustandrew]

Andrew doesn't find the note until the following afternoon, finally venturing into Sam's room after being unable to find him anywhere else.

By the time he picks it up and unfolds it, a cold dread is already stealing softly through him: the empty room, the neatly made bed, seem to whisper that he already knows what it'll say.

Andrew --

You know how you said you weren't gonna let him take me? I can't let him take you, either.

-- Sam.

He sinks down onto the bed, reading those few lines again and again.

"No," he breathes aloud. "Oh, Sam, no."

[gavemea_45]

Everything's safely stowed in the car now, and he's almost ready to go. He's pacing the floor, trying to figure out how best to take the next step when he feels the prickling at the back of his neck, warning of the presence behind him. Sam stills, then slowly turns around.

Lucifer smiles at him, and he feels a cold chill of fear.

"Welcome home, Sam." The fallen archangel looks satisfied. "I knew he'd convince you to come back, one way or another."

Fear gives way to fury, and he clenches his hands into fists at his sides.

"Go back to hell," Sam spits at him, and slams out the door without waiting for an answer. He's already dialing the phone when the car peels out of the lot and onto the road.


"Dean, it's me.

I want back in."