The Supreme is Dead

[Andrew Vida]

 There was too much confusion in Andrew's life, lately. Focusing on trying to help oust the Big Bad of the moment out of bodies that didn't belong to him was keeping Andrew grounded, as pitiful as it was. He was a Vida through and through in that regard, which only caused chips to stack against him mentally because it meant he had an iron-clad bite when it came to a goal. He was still unawakened as far as the Areli blood went, but that blood was practically singing since the sudden emergence of two ancient Areli (by their standards anyways, since they'd all been more or less purged), two newly-awakened in his siblings, and two latent Arelis running around. And for Andrew, a goal, whether he liked it or not, whether he wanted it or not, was now to awaken like he was "supposed to". Whoever thought it had been a good idea to pair Vida and Areli up banking on the fact that mortal enemies wouldn't still sleep together had clearly never observed the relationships forged in war and chaos and trauma.

He'd gone to the Hollow to see how things were moving; the twins were elsewhere, trying to chase down leads as to things they could employ in defense of the Dark Lord, Lucifer himself, so he couldn't mother over them, and honestly he didn't want to. He had finished one beer and was in a heated conversation with Chloe about why "just summoning demons in a church" didn't work the way she THOUGHT it would, when something happened.

"I'm just saying, Andrew, I feel like there are way more simple solutions to the problems you guys are having," Chloe was saying. She was in the process of handing him a beer when she saw his entire visage change. She let go of the bottle like she'd been slapped, but it was more because after the last time Ash had almost killed her, she knew not to touch Supernatural creatures when they suddenly began to act out of the ordinary. She screamed for Darren and backed away, keeping her round serving tray up in front of her in case she needed to use it to act as a barrier between them.

Andrew's grip tightened on the bottle that he'd been handed until it shattered in his hand, sending foam and beer and glass and blood down in a wash to the floor. He couldn't unclench his hand, no matter how hard he tried. He opened his mouth to speak out but felt like he'd been rooted to the spot by iron spikes. Every muscle in his body tensed, and he began to shake uncontrollably. He felt himself slipping out of reason and into a terrifying place in his mind where everything was just sound and colour, screaming and bright reds on top of the noise - and then everything went black.

He collapsed to the ground, seizing violently, arms bare from his short-sleeved shirt grinding against the broken glass and lodging it into his flesh further. Chloe knew that NO Witches, especially not Vidas, suffered from any physical maladies like epilepsy, so SOMETHING had to have happened - and because it was more than likely magical in nature, she needed to continue putting distance between them as quickly as possible. She scampered back as Darren and Anthony jumped the bar to come to Andrew's aid, plowing directly into Ash, whose presence she hadn't even noticed until that point.

"What the fuck is happening?" she demanded, her voice high-pitched and breathy from the sudden rush of adrenaline she felt.

[Ash Leone]

While not explicitly trying to eavesdrop, it was still almost impossible for Darren not to hear most of the conversations happening around him with his hearing, which was perhaps part of what the patrons at the Hollow paid for - discretion.  He didn't talk about it, and he certainly pretended he hadn't heard a damn thing if it ever came up.  He heard Chloe going back and forth with Andrew, which made it even harder not to pay attention, since Andrew's voice was one that he got used to paying attention to, and it wasn't like it was a boring conversation, but he never actually got around to hearing all of the ways her ideas wouldn't work or what ideas were better, since Andrew very suddenly went down like his strings had been cut.

That was how Darren registered it from the corner of his eye, at least.  What he quickly realized as the scent of blood on the air hit him and he actually put his focus on it was that Andrew had gone so rigid through the convulsions that he'd essentially thrown himself from the chair.  Chloe was probably the smartest one in the room getting away from him, but Darren wasn't about to leave the man there and he didn't actually know what anyone in the building could do. A Vida shouldn't be having this reaction, so whatever had caused it had to be pretty damn bad. 

"Chloe, call my uncle!" he shouted, hoping that Victor was at the guildhouse and not on shift at the hospital, but he knew a few basic things to try to help Andrew until they got someone there.  He pulled the bar towel from where it had been hanging from his pocket, folding it quickly and trying to shove it under Andrew's head with a sweep of his hand to brush away the glass nearby.  "Help me roll him over, Anth.  We gotta get rid of this glass."

Chloe may have expected Ash to know what was happening and possibly to sweep in and do something, and if conditions had been different, he would have tried to calm Andrew, if nothing else could be done while he rode the seizure out, but it wasn't the shots and sounds of breaking glass that brought Ash out of the back rooms. 

It hit him like he'd fallen from the side of a boat into the choppy, frigid seas of the far North Atlantic, stealing the breath from his body with a violent gasp as the cold, bone deep horror and loss washed over his entire being, blocking out the storeroom around him.  He dropped the clipboard with a clatter that he didn't hear over the roar of death and drowning in the sucking depth of the power vacuum, and his pen rolled under a shelf to most likely be lost forever.  "Dani."

It all fell back with the speed and threat of a tsunami pulling the waves out to sea, but he drew a hard, shaky breath and grabbed his keys on his way out to the front.  There was a look about him like he'd completely disconnected from everything around him, but when Chloe crashed into him, he turned his face toward her, despite seeming to look through her, and then passed his gaze over the scene in front of him.

"The Supreme is dead.  Call Crimson, or don't.  It doesn't matter," he said calmly, and it was true.  Andrew would either come out of it in a moment, or he wouldn't.  Ash didn't care.

There wasn't much he cared about at that moment, except leaving, which he did by gently taking Chloe by the shoulders and moving her aside so that he could exit the bar without another word.  Driving probably should have been an issue, but he arrived at Celeste's house without really thinking about any of the journey, though he was distantly aware of the mundane details of it.  He was just...numb to it, and then he was there, staring up at the dark house in front of him.