The Trickster

He remembers seeing the slow formation of this new country uncountable years past, from a much higher vantage point than he's got right now. Several hundred miles inland, the earth humps up into shallow ridges like the scales on a dragon's back -- shallow, at least, compared to the spot he picked to spend all his time before now. It'll do, though.

Homesick isn't the word for it. It's more like...wistful, he guesses. There was a while there where he didn't see much of anything besides an underground cavern and a whole bunch of sinews-turned-chains around his wrists.

The snow rises deep around his legs. He moves through it with ease as he scales the mountain, bundled in furs that he doesn't really need, listening to the wind whipping past. Further up the way, a cave burrows into the mountainside.

When he notices the orange light flickering inside, and the horse tied up beside its entrance, he pauses to frown.

So this is how it's going to be.

He gets one look at Dean Winchester and he knows his options just got a whole lot smaller than he'd like. Chucklehead Senior may not know him with a big old capital K, but he knows enough -- and where one Winchester goes, the other always follows. They're like a pair of codependent puppies. Or a bad hangover after a night out.

...Or so he assumes. Lucky thing about literally making your own booze? All fun, no work.

But he digresses.

He gives himself a little time to weigh his options: stick it out, let it go, something he'll make up at the last second just when he needs it (always his favorite). Sheer stubbornheaded dislike shoves him right for option A, but he throws in a conciliatory nod toward option two -- not for himself, but for Kali, who gets a short note left at the bar before he heads out for the night. Heads up, is all it says. The hunters who busted me in Ohio are here.

Kali of all gods doesn't need to be told anything stupid like be careful. She'll manage fine. This is just...because he doesn't want her trying to immolate him again if she finds out from somebody else. Yeah.

And then he steps outside and just like that his little mental radar goes ping.

---

Here's the thing. The big guys? They've got plans for those two. They're gonna happen whether he likes them or not, but if he can put them off a little longer, he's damn well going to try. It's kind of the name of the game nowadays: stick a foot out in front of the powerful and grab some popcorn to watch them fall. Right?

The problem is that Sam and Dean just keep making it so easy for those guys to get their own toe in. It's going to get worse, too. Word on the street is that Dean's clock is ticking shorter and shorter, and Sam's getting desperate as a cheerleader on prom night to keep him alive. He'd do anything, they say. Doesn't matter if the devil himself strolled up and struck a deal: he'd take it.

That's gotta change. It's gotta change fast.

So he snaps his fingers as soon as he hears that ping -- and time loops around and takes a great big chomp out of its own tail. He keeps walking down the road, whistling to himself, before sticking out a couple fingers to snag a door handle to the local diner.

(It doesn't open on the diner right away; he takes a pit stop in Milliways first to work a little magic mojo there, too. No point to this exercise if there's an easy out, right?)

(But it takes like five minutes tops, and then -- )

Then he settles down at the counter of the diner and gets himself a big plate of pancakes. He's got a little time before they really cozy up in here.

And then?

Sam'll get to see just how it's going to be.

He's got to admit it: he likes it here.

Take that however you want -- "here" as in the flourishing America, "here" as in New York, "here" as in the little speck of land right by a bronze statue of a lady with a torch. The port of entry on Ellis Island hasn't been around too long by now, maybe three or four years, but he finds he keeps turning up at the place to spend a couple days here and there watching the tide of newcomers roll inland.

And, you know. Maybe give a little bit of a helping hand when he wants.

Leaning against an out of the way pillar, he takes a bite of a pastry he picked up at one of the bakeries over on the mainland. An immigration official drops the papers of the man he's serving, to cries of dismay and a mild bit of pandemonium.

If, by the time they're picked up and reordered, a couple lines of text on those papers have altered juuuuust enough to give the guy clear passage when he otherwise would've been tossed out on his ass? Hey, it's a big port. Nobody's gonna notice.