Fic: "Like the White-Winged Dove," BtVS/SPN, R
Like the White-Winged Dove
nwhepcat
Castiel, Faith Lehane, Dean Winchester (POVs), Sam Winchester
R (violence, language)
Supernatural, post 4.10 "Heaven and Hell"; Buffy the Vampire Slayer, post 7.22 "Chosen"
Summary: Castiel has an affinity for doubters who do the work of the Lord. Faith finds another second chance offered by someone who calls himself angel. Dean walks in and unexpected things happen.
Thanks to girlguidejones and nestdweller for reading, commenting, encouraging.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters. Wish I did.
Note: This 'verse continues in Waiting for the end of the World and the serialized novel-length story Living on a Prayer
Castiel:
The Second has fallen in battle.
Even torn as she is, her fingers scrabble at her weapon, clutching tightly as she can in hopes of one final burst of energy to take down her killers.
Her final words would seem random, incoherent to an outsider.
"Kakistos."
Not because she believes the ancient vampire is yet alive, but in memory of what she'd seen him do. Her watcher savaged, entrails uncoiled, strewn outside the husk of her body. The name signals the Second Slayer's recognition that this is the fate she has met as well.
"Hurry!" one of the demons calls out. "We need her heart while it's still beating."
Her next word is barely a flutter of her lips. "Angel."
Signifier of the redemption she longs for, that she believes she'll never attain.
Castiel knows he's not the one she's calling for, but he comes.
He shows his true form, because she has crossed over and it no longer matters. The demons scream, clutching at their eyes, smearing the Slayer's blood on their faces.
He smites them with her weapon, showing no mercy.
The seal remains intact.
***
Faith:
She's burning and her head hurts like it's full of broken glass. Something presses against her forehead, soft and even hotter than her own skin.
Better get used to the heat. Gonna be a lot of that from now on.
Smells better than she'd expected, but then, she has no idea what brimstone's supposed to smell like.
"Sleep," a voice says, and she thinks, Sleep? I'm dead. But there's no resisting the suggestion; she sinks into sleep like a stone in a clear pool.
***
Faith drifts upward into hazy consciousness again. She's still burning, but the headache is almost gone. Shifting her limbs, she hears the rustle of sheets -- there are sheets in hell?
It takes superhuman effort to open her eyes, and the light drives the headache right back home, but she discovers she's in a clean, unremarkable room. Too bad she can't go back to Monsignor Strynkowski and report that his lovingly detailed descriptions of hell were all wrong.
Maybe the torture chambers are full up, and she's in a waiting area. Still -- sheets?
"You're awake." A form emerges from a shadowed corner of the room and comes to loom over her. Now here it comes. "Is there anything you require?"
No way in hell -- ha, literally -- is she revealing any weakness to her own personal torturer. "No."
"You thirst."
Well, yeah. Monsignor Strynkowski was big on describing the raging thirst and the cracked lips and how you'd get to see into heaven and watch your good Catholic loved ones chugging all the ice water they wanted, and how you'd beg for just a droplet, but would be denied.
Her torturer -- who's decked out more like a rumpled accountant than a demon -- takes a glass of water from the nightstand. Which figures, because probably none of her loved ones made it into heaven, so she gets to watch him drink instead.
But he doesn't. He helps her raise her head enough to drink, holding the glass to her lips. Some goes in her mouth, some dribbles down her cheek and neck.
"No bendy-straws in hell," she mutters as he withdraws the glass and settles her back on the pillow. (Pillows in hell!) He wipes the spilled water from her face and neck and touches his palm to her burning forehead, and she slides back into sleep.
***
Faith screams and jackknifes up in bed.
Her jailer or whatever he is leans forward and takes her by the shoulders, his movement accompanied by the soft creak of an old chair. "You're safe now, Faith." It's hard to withstand his gaze, too unwavering and intense. People just don't look at you that way. His brow furrows. "You truly believe yourself in hell?"
She backpedals. "I dunno. I'm dead, I know that. I don't exactly think I have the EZ-Pass through the pearlies. And it's like a blast furnace here."
"You have a fever." He releases her shoulders and reaches for the water glass, which has been topped up. He offers it in such a way that she can take the glass or drink as he holds it. She lets him keep it, but touches the side of the glass as she drinks. The coolness of it against her fingertips is blissful. She'd hold it to her forehead, if she had any faith that she had strength enough to do so.
"I can't have a fever. I'm dead."
"You were, but I have raised you. The fever is necessary for regeneration, but it will pass soon enough."
"Regen-- who are you?"
"My name is Castiel."
"My guts were on the floor, and my heart was ripped out. You don't come back from that. I'm stuck in some weird corner of the afterlife, and you're screwing with my head." At least she isn't stuck with her body as it was at the moment of her death. Dragging her guts around in her hands isn't her idea of a great way to spend eternity.
"You believe in the afterlife?"
"Well, I don't exactly believe in life -- in my currently being alive, I mean -- so I'm kinda backed into a corner here." Besides, Buffy has told her about heaven, and Angel has talked about hell. She believes. Suddenly Faith's head swims, and she feels like she might pass out (but who passes out when they're dead?).
Castiel rises and helps her sink back against her pillow. "Your strength will return to you, but you haven't finished healing."
He's clearly not gonna drop this alive thing.
He studies her, seemingly puzzling over something that he understands as little as Faith does him.
"What?" she demands, though her voice is weakening.
"You stopped your heart," he says, something like wonder in his voice.
"They cut it outta me." And saying that makes her feel so very not-good.
Castiel reaches to the nightstand and comes up with a damp washcloth, which he dabs on her forehead. "You willed it to stop, before they could make use of it."
"Well, fuck 'em. They didn't ask nice." This is so fuckin' weird, talking tough while half-fainting in bed with some weird guy in a trench coat hovering over her.
A twitch of his lips, like there's a smile trying to batter its way out of its bonds. "You sound like Dean."
"Who?"
"Another who doubts the reality of the light, yet fights against the dark."
"Yeah, well, I've seen plenty of dark, but don't know anyone who's seen the light. Hank Williams, maybe, but he's dead."
Castiel touches the cool cloth to her cheeks, her lips and back to her forehead. "I have seen it." Maybe that's what gives him the intense, other-worldly look he has.
"Yeah?"
"What you did -- it was not in vain. You kept the darkness at bay."
She starts to drift. "How come saving the world is never a done deal?"
"It has always been a work in progress."
***
When Faith wakes up to the sound of voices, the room is dark except for a flickering blue glow. At first she thinks Castiel is on the phone or there's someone there, but when the canned laughter kicks in, she realizes he's watching television, legs stretched out on the room's other double bed.
She lifts herself to one unsteady elbow to look at him. If anything, his expression is even less relaxed than it was when he was talking to her. He looks like he's one of those scientists who go off to the jungles to study lost tribes, watching some bizarre ritual.
"Maybe you should take notes," Faith says.
"I have a photographic memory," he replies, without any trace of humor, just a slight pause before the word photographic, as if he's making sure he's got the phrase right. He turns to her. "How are you feeling?"
"Wobbly." Her arm is shaking like a Hitachi Magic Wand. "But I've gotta pee."
"I'll help you."
"You can walk me to the bathroom door."
Castiel swings his feet to the floor, and she notices he's still wearing his shoes. She matches his movement, and she notices she's pretty much naked from the waist down, though the t-shirt she's wearing looks to cover more than some skirts she's worn in her day.
Faith plants a hand on the nightstand and tries to hoist herself up, but neither her arm or legs are up to the job.
Castiel raises her to her feet and pulls her close to steady her. "I can carry you, if you prefer."
"No, thanks. This is fine." It's slow going, though. She feels like she's learning to walk all over again. He supports her almost completely, and when she gets to the bathroom, she grabs the doorway with both hands, then the sink. "Pull the door shut, will ya?"
Castiel does so without comment, Faith she leans on the sink, legs vibrating as she gazes at herself. She looks better than she expected, but anything short of dead counts as better than expected. Planting her feet, she lifts the hem of the faded Stanford t-shirt she's wearing and takes a look at her belly and chest.
Not a scratch on her.
Suddenly her right knee buckles and then the other, and she falls with a crash against the toilet, whacking her elbow as she goes down.
Castiel opens the door in response to her yelp, and as much as she wants to tell him to leave her alone, she snaps, "Hurry up before I piss all over the floor."
He hoists her up and onto the toilet, lingering until she tells him to take a hike and shut the damn door. When he's gone she lets fly and it's like she's forgotten how damn good it feels to take a long piss when you really have to, and it's this moment that makes her realize that he's been telling the truth.
She's alive.
***
When she's finished she tries getting to her feet, but has to call again for Castiel's help. He could be loaning her a pen, for all it seems to affect him.
"I don't understand the embarrassment you all feel with your bodies," he says as he's steering her back to her bed. "They all have the same functions and needs."
"Yeah, well, here I am with my ass hanging out of my hospital johnny tee, and we've barely met."
"I had my hands in your viscera. It's a manner of introduction."
Was that a flicker of humor? "Who are you? You talk about people like we've got nothing to do with you. What are you?"
He turns her so all she has to do is bend her knees to be back in bed, and locks eyes with her. "I am an angel of the Lord."
She busts out laughing at this. "Oh shit, no really, what?"
Just then the door swings open and the overhead lights blaze and Faith's knees give way and the t-shirt slides up and she slides down, treating whoever to the sight of Faith's bare ass and Castiel's hands gripping her upper arms.
"Castiel, you sly dog," a glee-filled voice exclaims.
***
"I've made use of your room," Castiel says.
"I can see that," says the same voice.
Faith twists to look at the newcomer -- plural, actually -- and the motion makes her reel.
"What'd you do, roofie the girl?" Same smartass talking, a pretty boy in a battered leather jacket. His friend, a looming guy with a mop of hair, takes everything in but says nothing.
"I resurrected her," Castiel says. "She is not yet recovered." He adjusts her pillow, then helps her lie back, drawing the covers back over her bare legs.
Now the tall one has something to say. "Resurrected?"
"Well," says smartass, "if you can't find a live one --" He thumps Castiel on the shoulder, like they're a couple of frat boys on their way to get laid.
Castiel draws himself up. "Impugn my honor if it amuses you, but she is a warrior for the Lord, and is due some respect."
"Warrior?" repeats the tall one.
"Lord?" echoes Faith.
"Impugn?" says the smartass.
"She prevented Lilith's demons from opening one of the seals, but it cost her life."
"She's a hunter?" the tall one asks.
"No. She didn't choose this life, it chose her. She comes from a long line of women warriors."
"Really? Damn, that's hot."
"Dean," says the tall one. "Castiel, where was this? We were trailing some demons to a cabin up north of Clark Fork, but by the time we got there--" He looks at Faith. "There was a lot of blood. You killed them all?"
"Most of that was mine. I killed one early on, but the rest --" She looks to Castiel -- "was that you?"
He nods slowly. "I slew the others. But she had already thwarted their attempt to open the seal, by her very death."
"I'm not sure I understand," tall guy says.
"She chose the time of her death. She willed it. And denied them the key that would unlock the seal."
This being talked about like she's not in the room is beginning to irritate her -- and being made out to be some kind of superhero -- "They cut my heart out and I died. It's not climbing Mt. Everest."
"You stopped its beating."
"Whatevs."
***
Dean:
She's a spitfire, this one. A warrior. Dean likes her.
Abruptly Castiel's head comes up and he cocks his head like he's listening to something off in the distance. "Uriel calls to me. I must go now. Let her stay until the fever has subsided."
"Uh ... sure," Sammy stammers.
Castiel catches Dean by the arm and draws him toward the door. They step outside the motel room, into the damp, foggy night. "Do you remember our first meeting?"
"Kinda hard to forget, there, Cas."
"I said you have a problem."
"Yeah. You said I don't have any faith."
Castiel thwacks him on the shoulder then, so hard that Dean has to stutter-step to catch his balance. By the time he untangles his feet, Castiel has vanished.
Dean gives his head a shake and steps back inside, just as the brunette babe accepts the wadded sweatpants that Sammy hands her.
"So Shaggy," she says. "You and Fred there, you kill demons and shit?"
"We do," Sam says.
She waves the sweats toward the door. "And Scooby Doo, he's one of the team?"
"God no," Dean says. "He's strictly a free agent."
Sam offers his hand for her to shake. That boy is so damn earnest. "I'm Sam. Sam Winchester. And this is my brother, Dean."
She nods. "The doubter. I'm Faith. Faith Lehane."
Dean whirls toward the door as if Castiel will still be there. "Sonofabitch."
"What?" Sammy asks.
"I think that humorless bastard just made a joke." What's going to take a while to figure out is, how elaborate a joke it is.
End
nwhepcat
Castiel, Faith Lehane, Dean Winchester (POVs), Sam Winchester
R (violence, language)
Supernatural, post 4.10 "Heaven and Hell"; Buffy the Vampire Slayer, post 7.22 "Chosen"
Summary: Castiel has an affinity for doubters who do the work of the Lord. Faith finds another second chance offered by someone who calls himself angel. Dean walks in and unexpected things happen.
Thanks to girlguidejones and nestdweller for reading, commenting, encouraging.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters. Wish I did.
Note: This 'verse continues in Waiting for the end of the World and the serialized novel-length story Living on a Prayer
Castiel:
The Second has fallen in battle.
Even torn as she is, her fingers scrabble at her weapon, clutching tightly as she can in hopes of one final burst of energy to take down her killers.
Her final words would seem random, incoherent to an outsider.
"Kakistos."
Not because she believes the ancient vampire is yet alive, but in memory of what she'd seen him do. Her watcher savaged, entrails uncoiled, strewn outside the husk of her body. The name signals the Second Slayer's recognition that this is the fate she has met as well.
"Hurry!" one of the demons calls out. "We need her heart while it's still beating."
Her next word is barely a flutter of her lips. "Angel."
Signifier of the redemption she longs for, that she believes she'll never attain.
Castiel knows he's not the one she's calling for, but he comes.
He shows his true form, because she has crossed over and it no longer matters. The demons scream, clutching at their eyes, smearing the Slayer's blood on their faces.
He smites them with her weapon, showing no mercy.
The seal remains intact.
***
Faith:
She's burning and her head hurts like it's full of broken glass. Something presses against her forehead, soft and even hotter than her own skin.
Better get used to the heat. Gonna be a lot of that from now on.
Smells better than she'd expected, but then, she has no idea what brimstone's supposed to smell like.
"Sleep," a voice says, and she thinks, Sleep? I'm dead. But there's no resisting the suggestion; she sinks into sleep like a stone in a clear pool.
***
Faith drifts upward into hazy consciousness again. She's still burning, but the headache is almost gone. Shifting her limbs, she hears the rustle of sheets -- there are sheets in hell?
It takes superhuman effort to open her eyes, and the light drives the headache right back home, but she discovers she's in a clean, unremarkable room. Too bad she can't go back to Monsignor Strynkowski and report that his lovingly detailed descriptions of hell were all wrong.
Maybe the torture chambers are full up, and she's in a waiting area. Still -- sheets?
"You're awake." A form emerges from a shadowed corner of the room and comes to loom over her. Now here it comes. "Is there anything you require?"
No way in hell -- ha, literally -- is she revealing any weakness to her own personal torturer. "No."
"You thirst."
Well, yeah. Monsignor Strynkowski was big on describing the raging thirst and the cracked lips and how you'd get to see into heaven and watch your good Catholic loved ones chugging all the ice water they wanted, and how you'd beg for just a droplet, but would be denied.
Her torturer -- who's decked out more like a rumpled accountant than a demon -- takes a glass of water from the nightstand. Which figures, because probably none of her loved ones made it into heaven, so she gets to watch him drink instead.
But he doesn't. He helps her raise her head enough to drink, holding the glass to her lips. Some goes in her mouth, some dribbles down her cheek and neck.
"No bendy-straws in hell," she mutters as he withdraws the glass and settles her back on the pillow. (Pillows in hell!) He wipes the spilled water from her face and neck and touches his palm to her burning forehead, and she slides back into sleep.
***
Faith screams and jackknifes up in bed.
Her jailer or whatever he is leans forward and takes her by the shoulders, his movement accompanied by the soft creak of an old chair. "You're safe now, Faith." It's hard to withstand his gaze, too unwavering and intense. People just don't look at you that way. His brow furrows. "You truly believe yourself in hell?"
She backpedals. "I dunno. I'm dead, I know that. I don't exactly think I have the EZ-Pass through the pearlies. And it's like a blast furnace here."
"You have a fever." He releases her shoulders and reaches for the water glass, which has been topped up. He offers it in such a way that she can take the glass or drink as he holds it. She lets him keep it, but touches the side of the glass as she drinks. The coolness of it against her fingertips is blissful. She'd hold it to her forehead, if she had any faith that she had strength enough to do so.
"I can't have a fever. I'm dead."
"You were, but I have raised you. The fever is necessary for regeneration, but it will pass soon enough."
"Regen-- who are you?"
"My name is Castiel."
"My guts were on the floor, and my heart was ripped out. You don't come back from that. I'm stuck in some weird corner of the afterlife, and you're screwing with my head." At least she isn't stuck with her body as it was at the moment of her death. Dragging her guts around in her hands isn't her idea of a great way to spend eternity.
"You believe in the afterlife?"
"Well, I don't exactly believe in life -- in my currently being alive, I mean -- so I'm kinda backed into a corner here." Besides, Buffy has told her about heaven, and Angel has talked about hell. She believes. Suddenly Faith's head swims, and she feels like she might pass out (but who passes out when they're dead?).
Castiel rises and helps her sink back against her pillow. "Your strength will return to you, but you haven't finished healing."
He's clearly not gonna drop this alive thing.
He studies her, seemingly puzzling over something that he understands as little as Faith does him.
"What?" she demands, though her voice is weakening.
"You stopped your heart," he says, something like wonder in his voice.
"They cut it outta me." And saying that makes her feel so very not-good.
Castiel reaches to the nightstand and comes up with a damp washcloth, which he dabs on her forehead. "You willed it to stop, before they could make use of it."
"Well, fuck 'em. They didn't ask nice." This is so fuckin' weird, talking tough while half-fainting in bed with some weird guy in a trench coat hovering over her.
A twitch of his lips, like there's a smile trying to batter its way out of its bonds. "You sound like Dean."
"Who?"
"Another who doubts the reality of the light, yet fights against the dark."
"Yeah, well, I've seen plenty of dark, but don't know anyone who's seen the light. Hank Williams, maybe, but he's dead."
Castiel touches the cool cloth to her cheeks, her lips and back to her forehead. "I have seen it." Maybe that's what gives him the intense, other-worldly look he has.
"Yeah?"
"What you did -- it was not in vain. You kept the darkness at bay."
She starts to drift. "How come saving the world is never a done deal?"
"It has always been a work in progress."
***
When Faith wakes up to the sound of voices, the room is dark except for a flickering blue glow. At first she thinks Castiel is on the phone or there's someone there, but when the canned laughter kicks in, she realizes he's watching television, legs stretched out on the room's other double bed.
She lifts herself to one unsteady elbow to look at him. If anything, his expression is even less relaxed than it was when he was talking to her. He looks like he's one of those scientists who go off to the jungles to study lost tribes, watching some bizarre ritual.
"Maybe you should take notes," Faith says.
"I have a photographic memory," he replies, without any trace of humor, just a slight pause before the word photographic, as if he's making sure he's got the phrase right. He turns to her. "How are you feeling?"
"Wobbly." Her arm is shaking like a Hitachi Magic Wand. "But I've gotta pee."
"I'll help you."
"You can walk me to the bathroom door."
Castiel swings his feet to the floor, and she notices he's still wearing his shoes. She matches his movement, and she notices she's pretty much naked from the waist down, though the t-shirt she's wearing looks to cover more than some skirts she's worn in her day.
Faith plants a hand on the nightstand and tries to hoist herself up, but neither her arm or legs are up to the job.
Castiel raises her to her feet and pulls her close to steady her. "I can carry you, if you prefer."
"No, thanks. This is fine." It's slow going, though. She feels like she's learning to walk all over again. He supports her almost completely, and when she gets to the bathroom, she grabs the doorway with both hands, then the sink. "Pull the door shut, will ya?"
Castiel does so without comment, Faith she leans on the sink, legs vibrating as she gazes at herself. She looks better than she expected, but anything short of dead counts as better than expected. Planting her feet, she lifts the hem of the faded Stanford t-shirt she's wearing and takes a look at her belly and chest.
Not a scratch on her.
Suddenly her right knee buckles and then the other, and she falls with a crash against the toilet, whacking her elbow as she goes down.
Castiel opens the door in response to her yelp, and as much as she wants to tell him to leave her alone, she snaps, "Hurry up before I piss all over the floor."
He hoists her up and onto the toilet, lingering until she tells him to take a hike and shut the damn door. When he's gone she lets fly and it's like she's forgotten how damn good it feels to take a long piss when you really have to, and it's this moment that makes her realize that he's been telling the truth.
She's alive.
***
When she's finished she tries getting to her feet, but has to call again for Castiel's help. He could be loaning her a pen, for all it seems to affect him.
"I don't understand the embarrassment you all feel with your bodies," he says as he's steering her back to her bed. "They all have the same functions and needs."
"Yeah, well, here I am with my ass hanging out of my hospital johnny tee, and we've barely met."
"I had my hands in your viscera. It's a manner of introduction."
Was that a flicker of humor? "Who are you? You talk about people like we've got nothing to do with you. What are you?"
He turns her so all she has to do is bend her knees to be back in bed, and locks eyes with her. "I am an angel of the Lord."
She busts out laughing at this. "Oh shit, no really, what?"
Just then the door swings open and the overhead lights blaze and Faith's knees give way and the t-shirt slides up and she slides down, treating whoever to the sight of Faith's bare ass and Castiel's hands gripping her upper arms.
"Castiel, you sly dog," a glee-filled voice exclaims.
***
"I've made use of your room," Castiel says.
"I can see that," says the same voice.
Faith twists to look at the newcomer -- plural, actually -- and the motion makes her reel.
"What'd you do, roofie the girl?" Same smartass talking, a pretty boy in a battered leather jacket. His friend, a looming guy with a mop of hair, takes everything in but says nothing.
"I resurrected her," Castiel says. "She is not yet recovered." He adjusts her pillow, then helps her lie back, drawing the covers back over her bare legs.
Now the tall one has something to say. "Resurrected?"
"Well," says smartass, "if you can't find a live one --" He thumps Castiel on the shoulder, like they're a couple of frat boys on their way to get laid.
Castiel draws himself up. "Impugn my honor if it amuses you, but she is a warrior for the Lord, and is due some respect."
"Warrior?" repeats the tall one.
"Lord?" echoes Faith.
"Impugn?" says the smartass.
"She prevented Lilith's demons from opening one of the seals, but it cost her life."
"She's a hunter?" the tall one asks.
"No. She didn't choose this life, it chose her. She comes from a long line of women warriors."
"Really? Damn, that's hot."
"Dean," says the tall one. "Castiel, where was this? We were trailing some demons to a cabin up north of Clark Fork, but by the time we got there--" He looks at Faith. "There was a lot of blood. You killed them all?"
"Most of that was mine. I killed one early on, but the rest --" She looks to Castiel -- "was that you?"
He nods slowly. "I slew the others. But she had already thwarted their attempt to open the seal, by her very death."
"I'm not sure I understand," tall guy says.
"She chose the time of her death. She willed it. And denied them the key that would unlock the seal."
This being talked about like she's not in the room is beginning to irritate her -- and being made out to be some kind of superhero -- "They cut my heart out and I died. It's not climbing Mt. Everest."
"You stopped its beating."
"Whatevs."
***
Dean:
She's a spitfire, this one. A warrior. Dean likes her.
Abruptly Castiel's head comes up and he cocks his head like he's listening to something off in the distance. "Uriel calls to me. I must go now. Let her stay until the fever has subsided."
"Uh ... sure," Sammy stammers.
Castiel catches Dean by the arm and draws him toward the door. They step outside the motel room, into the damp, foggy night. "Do you remember our first meeting?"
"Kinda hard to forget, there, Cas."
"I said you have a problem."
"Yeah. You said I don't have any faith."
Castiel thwacks him on the shoulder then, so hard that Dean has to stutter-step to catch his balance. By the time he untangles his feet, Castiel has vanished.
Dean gives his head a shake and steps back inside, just as the brunette babe accepts the wadded sweatpants that Sammy hands her.
"So Shaggy," she says. "You and Fred there, you kill demons and shit?"
"We do," Sam says.
She waves the sweats toward the door. "And Scooby Doo, he's one of the team?"
"God no," Dean says. "He's strictly a free agent."
Sam offers his hand for her to shake. That boy is so damn earnest. "I'm Sam. Sam Winchester. And this is my brother, Dean."
She nods. "The doubter. I'm Faith. Faith Lehane."
Dean whirls toward the door as if Castiel will still be there. "Sonofabitch."
"What?" Sammy asks.
"I think that humorless bastard just made a joke." What's going to take a while to figure out is, how elaborate a joke it is.
End