knightsoflegend | chicago ♔ subscribe me not to darkness

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chicago ♔ subscribe me not to darkness

♬ To Darkness - Mumford and Sons

WHO || Buffy Summers, Sam Winchester, Robin Wood [closed]
WHAT || Buffy accompanies Sam to Chicago, seeking answers about Dean's past... and the fate of the version of Sam from this world
WHERE || Chicago, USA
WHEN || Late-October [back-dated]
HOW || Actionspam

Sam Winchester has not a very easy time of this world.

Most of the reasons for which, it seems, can be traced back to the fact that there was another Sam Winchester native to this dimension. One who somehow managed to alienate his brother Dean to the point where he almost murdered Sam on sight, and it's been a very slow, uphill battle ever since to get Dean to say more than two non-hostile words in a row to him.

An uphill battle that's going too slowly for Sam's taste.

Upon googling his own name and doing some research in hunter circles, he learned more and more disturbing facts - including the fact that he and Dean from this world were held responsible for the deaths of Jo & Ellen Harvelle, and Bobby Singer. Distraught by what he'd learned, he shared the facts with his new friend, Buffy, who agreed to travel with him to Chicago tracing down one of the only leads they have on finding out more about what happened, since Dean doesn't seem inclined to share.

And so off they go to Chicago - home to some of Buffy's own demons - to check out the Hunter's bar run by Robin Wood.

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[ Impatient groan. She holds up a hand like bitch nevermind please hold. Des gets her full attention. ]

We've got enemies in every corner, Des, excuse me for narrowing it down to who hates Rafael the most. Get Jack on the phone with Hellsing: see if they can track Iscariot's movements.

[ Turning to Robin, she makes a quick gesture with her hand for him to follow her back out into the bar, and starts through the door out of the back room. ]

You're joking, right? This has Keijen Blade written all over it. I'll call the goddamned Queen if it'll ease your little blonde head, but there ain't no frickin' way that Iscariot would bother with Isa and Burt and not even stop to grab one of us. Let's not forget who mowed through the fucking Vatican this summer.

[he sighs.] Both options suck, but we did invite a retaliation from Crombe's pop star brigade after the smoke cleared on Andres.

You're really going to ignore the possibility that Alexander Anderson did this because your ego wants to believe he'd hijack you too?

[ deS. Coming back out into the bar, she huffs a sigh, resting one hand on the countertop, stopping there to continue quickly, ] If we wanna get ahead of this, we should look into both. [ #compromise. Also, Des makes good points. ] We need last known locations for all of them from NOVA reps. I don't care if we have to burn the Vatican down: we're finding them.

Sam and I got what we came for here. We'll pack up, and call you from the airport so you can tell us where we're headed. [ New York, or Rome. ]

It's not my ego, Buffy. It's- [His voice sounds momentarily strained, but after a second or two of terse silence where he's unable to find a good way to end that sentence, he speaks again, in a resigned voice:] I'll make the calls. Just stay on guard. I'll talk to you once I hear something.

Got it.

[ She hesitates a moment, waffling. ]

... And Des? Be careful.

[ A beat later, she just hangs up the phone before he can tell her the same. Robin forgotten, she glances down at the bar top, silently cursing herself: ] I should have called him. I should have called him right away, I was stupid, and — [ Fresh tears start, and that reaction only makes her angrier. She shouldn't be crying. She should be doing something. No time for tears. She swipes to reread Sam's message, check the timestamp and compare it to now. ]

[Don't even bother checking the time, Buffy, it doesn't matter anymore.

He also got a nat 20 listen check to catch the end of that as he walks back into the bar, hopefully into less hostile circumstances. Because best time for a nat 20, I guess.]

Should have called who?

[He has literally no context so he's suddenly REALLY WORRIED SHES TALKING ABOUT HIM FOR SOME REASON?]

What's wrong, Buffy?

[ Her gaze flickers up immediately to fall on Sam. As numb as ever, she moves out from behind the bar automatically, going to him. When she approaches, she opens her mouth to explain, but the words fail her. How can she tell him what's happening when she doesn't know herself?

There's so much to say. Any part of her that would have been wary, would have held back or worried about what Robin had told her, it gets buried quickly by the gentleness she sees in his expression. The concern. He's never been anything but a friend to her, a confidante.

So when she reaches for words, and they do finally come to her, they still never make it out of her mouth—but her lips tremble, and she raises her hands to cover them, tears welling up and finally falling as distress contorts her features. It hits her like a ton of bricks. Action mode fails because there's too much downtime between her and anything she can do. Packing, driving, flying. A series of too much time to think and too long to wait, to be left wondering.

With the adrenaline dump fading, it all sinks in. He could already be dead. The thought shakes her breath, draws it in like a hiccup, and her shoulders begin to tremble as well. ]

I can't — [ But the tears quickly grow too intense to speak through, her throat closing up. She can't do that again: all she can think is that he could already be gone, she could already be too late because she didn't reach out, didn't notice, didn't know how to after what she'd done, and now it might have cost her the opportunity to save him. Just like she'd missed her window to save Thomas. She can't do it again. Can't be too late, can't find the corpse of a loved one and watch the body get cleaned out. ]

[He moves over to her, hands reaching out to grasp her shoulders. She looks like she's about to fall apart, crumble into a million pieces, and he has no way of knowing why.

Did she hear something about him? Was this about something else entirely?

He guesses if she punches him or gives him some horrified look, he'll know.

In the meantime, though, he looks over her shoulder at the man standing nearby, and assumes that he followed her in here, that he might know...something?]

What the hell happened?

[ robin fixes sam with a steely look of his own b/c what if he turns evil any second jk ] She got a call. Someone... Something happened to them.

[ Robin's attempt at explaining doesn't do much to draw Buffy out of her crying fit. She comes apart at the seams, overburdened by everything she's been trying to hold back. Thomas, Fred, the war, her own actions in it, Sam, and now this? It all crashes into her at once, the final straw, her back breaking under the weight of trying to be so strong and so sure.

She accepts the comfort from Sam, sinking into him, shaking apart further. It takes her a long few moments to compose herself enough to get words out, though there are a few aborted attempts. Turning her face away, she wipes at her tears with her open palms, and more fall to replace them readily. She glances out towards the door, a scattered understanding that they need to hurry. ]

It's Rafael.

[ She gets that much out finally. There's literally no way he came up in a conversation with Sam, so pop culture check to guess it's Rafael Giovanni, I guess. ]

They can't find him.

[ Not the whole of it. It's Rafael, and it's Thomas, and it's being forced to face the monster that she's harboring inside of her. ]

Hey, hey.

[He looks between Robin and Buffy, wondering how just one phone call had turned into this. With a pop culture check of 18, and then a roll for a gossip check that also nat 20'd (good fucking lord), Sam is apparently on top of this shit? For some reason?

Maybe he really likes his music and thought it was super cool that he'd been involved in knight's business. <.<]

It could be nothing, okay? Let's not jump to the worst conclusions right off the bat. We'll find him.

[And then with a nat 20 listen check, he apparently can hear Rafael's magical voice breaking through the noise in the bar as a guy is changing channels on the bar tv.]

Hey, leave it there a second.

[Turns out it's totally Rafael. And the feed is totally labelled LIVE.]

Isn't that him?

[He asks as he turns to look back towards Buffy, to make sure she's seen it.]

Edited 2015-01-10 15:52 (UTC)

[ With a listen of 20 total and a spot of 25, she figures out what Sam means quickly, distracting from her tears. She whips her head around, searching out the screen. Breaking away from Sam, she moves towards the bar. ]

Turn that up. [ It's hard to tell she means Robin, since she's not looking at him. ]

[ he figures it out like a smart cookie, and grabs the remote from the hunter, cranking the volume. The bottom text reads fully: Live from Kyoto, Japan and Rafael Giovanni World Tour. The camera pans across acres of screaming fans inside a stadium, shifting to closeups of girls holding signs in Japanese, English, and Italian proclaiming their love, some with tears on their cheeks.

A smiling Rafael waves at them from the stage, as the program announcer continues narrating: "- in the wake of the tragic incident on his first televised concert and subsequent controversial trial that divided a nation, NOVA Records kingpin Burt Becksworth and Giovanni's acting manager, Isabella Alessandro have reportedly beefed up his personal security to levels rivaling the Secret Service." A chuckle. "Given his track record, some comedians are already cracking wise about whether that's to protect Giovanni... or his fans. Am I right, Joan? Hey-o!"

Robin looks between Buffy and the tv a few times, before finally saying: ] That's your 'it's complicated'?

[ That comment, and the faint assurance that Rafael's at least presently alive (though concerts don't historically bode well for him) affords Robin some of Buffy's attention. Her eyes dart over to him from the screen, and a hapless look crosses her features—the kind that anticipates familiarity. You know me. She pops a self-deprecating sort of shrug, tilting her head to the side to confirm. ]

Well, at least we avoided that emergency.

[No really, what the hell just happened. This is a trip for the ages.

Oh and he got a wisdom check of 5 to figure out wtf you two are talking about, so that went right over his head. :)]

I wouldn't be so sure.

[ Her gaze flicks back up to the screen, confusion sinking in. ]

Des said his phone was disconnected.

[ Which maybe just makes her sound like a groupie stalker that he has to avoid. But. Shh. ]

Something's hinky here.

He's in Japan, Buffy. They have different cellular services there. His phone probably wouldn't work even if they took it there.

[It's...not that weird?]

It'll probably be re-connected once they get back or something.

[A beat.]

He looks like he's perfectly fine to me. Are you like...a really big fan or something? Or were you with that group that was working on his trial?

Edited 2015-01-10 20:34 (UTC)

I feel like I'm missing something here.

Maybe several somethings.

Not without telling someone about it or getting us some way to reach him.

[ She looks away from Sam, back up at the TV. While they both start getting (unsure) about her being Stan about all of these, she just looks distantly up at the screen, wearing the expression of someone whose yearning has been faintly rebuffed. ]

We were close. [ A beat. Her eyes drop to the bar top. ] I thought we were close.

[ On second thought, there are like 900 reasons their last conversation might have scared him off, and now she's definitely wondering, with only Sam and Robin here to side-eye her, if maybe that's exactly what happened. He's not brainwashed or missing or hurt. He's just … cleanly breaking. The Knighthood didn't want him, and Buffy overstepped. Getting away from a life of missions and death might be exactly what he needed.

Whatever it is, he's in one piece. She shakes it off, glancing back between Robin and Sam. ] Sorry. [ She tilts her head towards Sam. ] You said you had a lead?

[He could say that there was some kind of misunderstanding, but he's so far and away removed from that situation and has no real context whatsoever, so he has the sense at least to just...let it go. Nothing he can say or do is going to make however Buffy feels about it better.

Not right now, anyway.]

Uh, yeah.

[He looks...mildly uncomfortable? Also, kind of disturbed, but kind of happy?

Sam Winchester is in a weird place in this moment.]

I kind of got...assaulted by two of the hunters here. [Hi Robin.] Someone helped me out and it turned out she...knew me. The other me, I mean.

They started something in my bar? Who was it?

[Oh, so he is the owner of the bar.]

You must be Robin, then? [He gestures with his hands to where they were standing.] Uh, pool table. Young blonde woman and an older gentleman with a beard. [He fishes in his pocket for a knife and flips it around, handing it to Robin hilt first.] This was hers. Feel free to give it back to her next time you see her.

She knew you?

[ Buffy exchanges a look of weLL SO MUCH FOR HIDING THINGS with Robin, then looks intently back at Sam. ]

What did she say?

Yeah. [A beat.] Um, intimately was the...word she used.

[Hahahahaha /coughs]

Apparently Dean got mixed up in some big mess between Heaven and Hell. He thought he was doing the right thing, but he was...only going to make things worse, and destroy himself in the process. [A beat.] And that I made sure he didn't go through with it.

[He's not sure...how much to say in front of Mr. Wood here, so that's the short version.]

[ from behind sam

GIVES BUFFY POINTED GURL YOU IN DANJUH STARE ]

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