[reverse darkest timeline AU: rendezvous in cold blood]

[stilljustandrew]

[The morning after this.]

There is a note with Bar, for anybody who might inquire after Andrew Wells, saying that he is currently staying in the cells for his own safety.

No one has told Bar anything about people who maybe shouldn't get that note, even if they ask.

Comments

[stilljustandrew]

There don't seem to be many Security officers on duty at the moment; just one, finishing up some paperwork.

[mynamesnotmeg]

She's pretty sure that this isn't the kind of conversation that needs an audience. Besides, aren't surprises just that much more fun?

Meg waits until the officer in question brushes out the door and off down the hall, then nips in before the door latches.

She looks around and grabs a doorstop from nearby, then jams it home, hard, preventing the door from opening again. Once all's secure, she walks down the hallway, cell by cell.

"One, two, three..."

She slows to a stop in front of one particular cell and beams a sharp grin at its occupant.

"... four's the score. Hello, Andy. Been a while."

[stilljustandrew]

Inside the cell, Andrew's been ... sort of dozing; not sleeping exactly, but sitting with his back against the wall, not doing anything, not thinking much of anything.

At the sound of that voice, he jerks upright into a half-kneeling position, staring at her.



"Meg," he says, voice and face both blank with shock.

[mynamesnotmeg]

"Aw, you remembered me! Isn't that sweet."

A beat.

"Seeing as how you've evidently forgotten your duty to Him, I mean."

[stilljustandrew]

"I haven't forgotten anything." He's struggling to his feet now. "I got caught, okay? I failed, and I'll answer to Him for that --"

(He doesn't quite have the courage to say not to you out loud.)

"But they've been keeping me in here ever since."

[mynamesnotmeg]

She openly scoffs at him.

"And you haven't been able to use that silver tongue of yours to talk your way out?"

Meg takes a step closer to the cell wall.

"Or maybe you just haven't wanted to."

[stilljustandrew]

"They won't listen to me -- I almost talked them into letting me sleep somewhere else so I could at least talk to our lord in a dream, I tried. It didn't work. They, they think I'm brainwashed or something."

[mynamesnotmeg]

"For your own safety. That's what the note I got said."

She sneers at him.

"Running away, Andy? And here I thought you'd given up on that."

[stilljustandrew]

"I am not running away -- They all say they're keeping me here for my safety, but I didn't ask for it, I've been telling them I just want to go home to my lord --"

He chokes a little, on both anger and fear.

(Because that isn't quite all he wants anymore, is it? And it isn't quite all he's been telling them.)

[mynamesnotmeg]

"And yet here you sit. Pathetic."

[stilljustandrew]

"You try breaking out of one of these cells," he snaps back at her. "Or breaking in, if you want to do something useful."

And would he be able to say that so easily if he didn't know perfectly well that it's impossible?

[mynamesnotmeg]

She gapes at him, then breaks into a cruelly delighted smile.

"Begging for my help, Andy?"

[stilljustandrew]

He opens his mouth -- and shuts it, and presses his lips tightly together for a few beats.

"Yes. Okay? Yes. I know you hate me, but if you can get me out of this so I can come home -- I'll owe you. I'll pay you back. However you want, if our lord allows it."

[mynamesnotmeg]

Meg stares at him.

"Are you serious?"

[stilljustandrew]

"Yes," and there's a touch of desperation in his voice now, "whatever you want, just -- tell them anything, tell them you're from my old world, a, a cousin or something, or one of the Slayers, maybe they'll let me go if they think I'm going back there -- "

Whatever he sees in her face, it's enough to kick desperate up a notch into frantic.

"-- do you want me to beg? I'll beg."

[mynamesnotmeg]

"Well, well. How the mighty have fallen."

She sounds as though she's considering something, and her eyes have narrowed.

"Who're they, exactly?"

[stilljustandrew]

"Security," he says. "Any of them, there's, there should be somebody here at the front desk. Or coming in soon."

[mynamesnotmeg]

"Hmm."

Idly, she reaches out to brush her fingers over the clear surface between the two of them.

[stilljustandrew]

He can't help it; he flinches back, just a little, as she raises her hand in his direction.

The barrier is smooth and unyielding under her fingertips, neither warm nor cool.

[mynamesnotmeg]

Her sudden smile at his reaction is as sharp and bright as a blade.

"No need to cringe, Andy -- we haven't even started having fun yet!"

She sets the flat of her hand against the barrier and pushes, testing its strength.

[stilljustandrew]

The barrier sinks very slightly under the pressure of her palm, then rebounds back with enough force to shove her hand away.

On the other side of it, Andrew swallows, pale and silent.

[mynamesnotmeg]

She gives the cell a flat stare and a thorough look-over, then shrugs and turns away.

"I'll think about it," Meg tosses over her shoulder as she starts back down the hall. "Depends on if it's more trouble than you're worth. You know how it goes."

[stilljustandrew]

"But --"

He lurches forward again, flattening his hands against the barrier.

"You'll tell Him? That I'm here, that I -- Meg, please --"

[mynamesnotmeg]

She spins around on her heel and stares at him.

"You think He doesn't have more important things to do? You got yourself in a mess of trouble and now you're expecting Him to rush to your aid, leaving His work undone?"

If looks alone could kill, the searing heat in Meg's glare would melt him where he stands.

"How dare you?"

[stilljustandrew]

This time he flinches harder, almost recoiling, stumbling back from the cell wall.

"No," he says, his voice shaking, "I don't, I just -- I just want Him to know. That I didn't, I'm not ..."