Fullmetal Alchemist/Supernatural - (Nano 2008) [17]

[scriveyner]

Title: Untitled Nano 2008 - 17
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist, Supernatural
AU: Mashup
Characters/Pairing: Ed, Al, Dean, Sam, Castiel, Ruby
Rating: T
Length: 5794
Summary:



The room had been sealed, and well, too. Ed pounded around the frame of the door with his right hand. "Wood," he said, slapping the metal palm against it with a dull noise. "Thick, too."

"No hinges, no knob, how are we gonna get out?" Sam stood beside Ed, watching the diminutive alchemist at work.

"You're a knob," Dean muttered under his breath, the incomplete Stone still in one hand.

Sam ignored him, and Ed aimed a kick at the door. It shuddered a bit with the force of the kick. "Hm," he said. He turned around abruptly, then pointed at Sam. "You, move," he said.

"What?"

"Move, unless you want to get your ass pancake'd. It's all yours, Al."

Alphonse had walked back to the other side of the room. The three of them watched Al pace back and forth for a few moments, turn on one metal foot, and then launch at them with an insane speed.

Sam realized exactly what Alphonse was doing and took three giant steps back, yanking Dean with him.

The suit of armor hit the door head on. Alphonse had charged like a pro ball player, shoulder down and making ample use of the spikes. The door, while reinforced, was still just wood and stood no chance. It exploded outwards in shards of wood, blasting into the corridor and alerting everyone in the building to the occupant's escape.

Alphonse was half-lodged in the wood. Ed trotted over and using his elbow, helped break Al out of the remainder of the door. "Excellent," he said, giving Al's shoulder a pat. "Eight out of ten."

"What!" Al's tinny voice sounded indignant. "That was at least a /ten/, brother."

While Ed was freeing Al, both Sam and Dean were scoping the hallway. "It's clear," Dean called. Ed smacked Al. "You're front guard," he said.

Dean glanced back at Ed, eyebrows up. "You sure let your little brother take a lot of damage," he said.

Al dinged himself. "I can take it," he said evenly, before Edward could spark off. "It's okay, brother. It's the truth."

"It makes sense, the guy in the armor can shield us until we get offensive weapons of our own," Sam pointed out. Ed glanced down the corridor and grimaced; with the door open, slowly but surely the violet eyes were beginning to spread outwards from the room, opening up on the walls, the ceiling, the doors...

"The Gate's influence is spreading," Ed said.

Alphonse started down the hall, carefully blocking his body so that if a gunman suddenly popped up the others would be fully shielded. Dean leaped immediately after him and Ed made to follow, when Sam grabbed his arm. "What is this Gate you keep talking about?"

Edward hesitated. "There is... there's no good way to explain it," he said. "It's the thing that powers magic and alchemy and life could not exist without it, but it's somehow sentient and likes to fuck with people."

"Sounds like god to me," Sam murmured.

"Trust me," Ed said. "It's no god I'd pray to." He took off down the hall, before Al and Dean got too far ahead.

Sam glanced over at the unblinking violet eyes and shivered. They weren't following anyone in particular, and when one pupil rolled over and looked straight at him, Sam abruptly remembered seeing /Ed/ sitting at the wheel of the Impala, taller, tanner and with shorter blond hair and the shudder was full-body this time, before following the others.

#

It seemed, very quickly, that everyone with sense had abandoned the basement of the club - which was quite obviously now a front for the Thule Society. They opened a few doors and finally encountered some oblivious guys in guard uniforms. Before Al could move Sam had dispatched them both, tossing one gun to Dean and picking up the other one, before hesitating and looking at Ed and Al.

Al shook his head. "I don't use guns," he said sheepishly.

When Sam glanced over to Ed, Ed showed him both hands, palms up. "Don't need one, don't want one," he said, his eyes glittering dangerously. "I can do just fine without it."

"Kids shouldn't play with guns anyway," Dean grunted, checking the gun over before thumbing off the safety.

Al positioned himself quickly in front of Dean, who looked up in confusion. "What?"

"Stop provoking him," Sam said absently, checking his own weapon over. "We should split up," he said, glancing over at Ed, who nodded. "We'll cover more ground quicker, and it's too easy to get bottled up in these hallways otherwise."

"There's probably more chimera to take care of," Ed said absently, drumming his fingers with his arms crossed. "Conte's somewhere upstairs with that Marta bitch, but I don't think any of the people guarding around here are going to be too much of an issue."

"How do the chimera need to be taken care of?" Sam asked.

"A bullet in the skull," Ed said without hesitation. He heard Al flinch and felt bad for a moment, but gave his brother a look. Al met his eyes and nodded once. "They need to be put out of their misery," Ed said calmly.

Sam nodded. "I think I can handle that," he said. He glanced over at Dean, who shook his head once. "No, I owe that bastard a punch in the mouth, and I've got the feeling you-" he pointed at Ed "-are planning to go take care of him after you ditch us."

Ed grimaced. "You don't have any idea what the fuck's going on here-"

"I can guess plenty," Dean said. "You're stuck with me, until Conte goes down, short stuff."

Edward's entire body stiffened, and Al slapped a gauntlet to his helmet, then turned to Sam. "Could you PLEASE tell your brother that my brother doesn't take very well to being called "short?'"

"I think he's going to get it eventually," Sam said with short smile as they watched Dean attempt to deflect most of Ed's blows and do an admirable job of it until Ed slammed the heel of his left foot into Dean's instep and won the fight in that single move.

#

Dean limped a bit behind Edward, covering the alchemist from behind while keeping up a running low grumble under his breath. "-freaking babysitting what the hell does he keep in his shoes, bricks, god dammit I was supposed to be in Palm Springs we had a hunt in fuckin' /Florida/..."

For his part Edward ignored Dean's running commentary. He kept glancing over his shoulder, shooting puzzled looks at Dean until he had had enough. "What the hell, kid," Dean snorted.

Ed stopped and turned, throwing his arms wide. "This isn't weird at all to you, is it?" he finally said.

Dean shook his head. "With some of the shit I've seen-" he started to say.

"You don't feel, I dunno, turned inside out? Like someone shook you until all your parts fell out and then mashed them back in helter-skelter?" Ed crossed his arms over his chest and sighed. "They don't remember, have you forgotten too?"

"No," Dean said quietly, after a moment. "I haven't."

"Why do we remember, then?" He turned around, the red coat settling back around him as he started back up the hallway. "There is no equivalent trade here," Ed said, mostly to himself.

Dean blinked, remembered hot desert sand and blue sky and the long trek toward a wasted city that left the taste of grit in his mouth and then shook it off and stalked after Ed.
#

Sam kept stealing glances at the suit of armor who didn't quite tower over him. The plume included he wasn't all that much taller than Sam himself was. As they worked their way around the maze of hallways to the other side of the building, Sam finally asked. "Why do you wear that armor?"

Alphonse stopped abruptly, then ducked his helmet. His body motions, Sam had noticed quickly, were over-exaggerated and almost seemed child-like. "I don't wear the armor," Al said after a long, quiet moment.

The silence stretched in the hallway as Sam tried to figure out what Al meant by that remark, how could one wear armor but not wear it? "I'm sorry," he said after chasing the thought around in circles. "I don't, I don't get it-"

Wordlessly, Al turned and took his helmet off. Sam was prepared for a lot of things - deformity or not, male, female - but he wasn't prepared for nothing at all. "You're - are you a /ghost/?"

Al sat his helmet back on his helm and then shook his head. "No," he said. "I don't think I am, I think I'm me. Brother saved my soul, but he's still trying to get my body back."

"He saved your soul," Sam echoed.

The suit of armor turned away and started back down the hallway. "We did - something really, really stupid after our mom died. We both should have died, but brother only lost part of his leg, but he's always been smart and quick on his feet and he saved me but it cost him his arm, too."

"Wait, Ed's a cripple?" That didn't make any sense, he had been trading punches with Dean easily.

"Something like that," Al ducked under a smaller doorway and abruptly they found a room lined with large cages. Sam stepped in behind him and hesitated, the stink of dung and neglect hanging heavy in the air. "What the hell is this," Sam said quietly.

Alphonse was walking along the cages. Most of the smaller ones were empty, but a few bigger ones housed some of the half-grown alligator-lion monstrosities, and at least one had a parrot far larger than any parrot should actually grow to. The chimera all rustled and growled, snapping beaks and malformed jaws, making noises unlike anything Sam had ever heard before.

"I don't feel right just shooting something in a cage," Sam said after a moment.

"There's no reason for anything like this to exist," Alphonse said after a moment. He opened the cage door that the large parrot chimera was in and it attacked his metal arm the moment he opened the door. Even on his hard armor it left deep horrible grooves. Al grabbed at it and finally got a good grip on it. He turned his head and snapped its neck.

Sam swallowed, and turned to the lion-alligator creatures, cocking his gun.

#

They found Conte, not surprisingly, in the study from earlier. Ed kicked the door down before Dean had a chance to, and as he came rolling through the door a single chimera, some sort of dog-bird hybrid about the size of a husky came flying at them both. Dean didn't have enough time to draw a bead on it but Ed clapped and drew his automail blade out, catching its jaws on the blade and going over backwards, helping the beast along with his feet so it slammed into the wall beside the door.

Ed seemed to have a handle on that so Dean leveled his gun at Conte, who sat behind the desk, a drink in his hand and a bored expression on his face. "If you're going to shoot me, you might as well get it over with," he said, taking a sip of his drink.

"Don't tempt me," Dean said.

An eye opened in the corner of the room and Dean glanced at it, and then back at Conte. Conte had seen it as well. "It's all gone to hell, you know," he said. "This is it."

Dean swallowed, this wasn't a seal, it couldn't be. Castiel would have shown up again, would have warned them. There was no way they'd let something as big as this go.

"The world is going to come apart," Conte said, staring into his glass. "It's already started falling apart, why else are there two of you?"

Ed threw the dog-bird-thing into the wall and this time it didn't get up again. "We're two separate people, fuck you," Ed said. He clapped his hands again, returning his strange metal arm to its normal shape.

Conte took a long sip. "Are you?"

Ed pointed at Dean and said, "I'm nothing like him, and this entirely fucked up thing is /all/ your fault and you're going to help me fix it before the entire world goes to pot!"

The man tipped his drink back, finishing it off. "That's what you think," he said. Then he started to laugh wildly, and then before Dean could move drew a gun and aimed it at Ed. "Your play," he said.

Ed stalked toward him, unafraid. "You're going to fix this mess," he repeated. "I've dealt with people bigger and scarier than you, Conte. Put the damn gun down before I make you eat it."

Dean had his gun trained on Conte but Conte didn't seem to see him. He stared at Ed, eyes growing wider and his expression growing more deranged by the moment, then he glanced wildly at Dean. He looked back and forth between them, then laughed once more and turned the gun on himself.

No one could get a word out before he pulled the trigger. Dean winced as Conte slumped backwards and turned to Ed, who still stood rooted to the spot. He was about to say something- it wasn't his fault, he hadn't expected Conte to take 'eat the gun' literally- but Edward kicked the man's desk, full force, splintering wood off of it. "GOD FUCKING DAMMIT," Ed yelled, turning his back on the desk. "There goes our only ticket to getting things back to normal!"

Dean stared at the mess, then thought for a moment, withdrawing the amber Stone from his pocket. "You've still got what's left of the red one, right?"

Edward looked at him, then flattened his hand over his chest, feeling the warmth of the Stone there. "Yeah, I do," he said softly. "You got an idea?"

"I think I do," Dean said.

#

"Where's Conte?" Sam asked Dean as they met back up before the room that held the array.

"Dead," Dean said.

"As a doornail," Edward said, brushing past them and hurrying over to Alphonse, who was standing in the room itself.

Sam watched them pass, then turned back to Dean, quirking an eyebrow. "Did you-?"

"Nah," Dean said. "Lunatic finished himself off, all for the better good. When we're done with this we need to burn this entire place to the ground."

Dean glanced past Sam and noticed that in the center of the room, in the center of the array itself a large set of black doors had appeared. Dean's eyebrows shot up and he walked past Sam to get a better look at it. "What the hell is /that/?"

"The Gate, I think," Sam said.

Edward had walked up to it - keeping a respectful distance. Then he very cautiously and obviously walked a full circuit around the doors that were now freestanding in the center of the room.

"This isn't good," he said. "This is not fucking /good/." He sat down abruptly, just dropping into a seated position with his arms crossed, craning his neck to look up at the black doors. "This is not fucking good at /all/, and I have no idea how to stop it."

Alphonse came over and stood slightly behind his brother, but he had nothing to say.

"There isn't any sort of clappy-alchemy-mojo you can use to make it go away?" Dean asked, producing the amber Stone.

Immediately the Stone started glistening in the light, in a wet way that it hadn't been doing before. Ed eyed the Stone and shook his head. "No, the Gate is - it's sucking the presence of alchemy out of the room entirely. I couldn't get enough juice going for a basic first-level transmutation, never mind something good enough to seal the Gate."

"What if we draw an array around the Gate?" Alphonse suggested.

Edward considered this, leaning back on his hands. "Can't hurt to try it," he said. "Solomonic array, or maybe an unbound one?"

"Unbound seems the best," Al said. "But the power could go crazy-everywhere. It'll be hard to contain it."

"I can do it," Ed said confidently.

Sam eyed them both worriedly. "What is an unbound array?"

"It's an array that doesn't use the binding circle to control the transmutation," Alphonse explained. "The elements and sigils are still drawn concentrically-"

"Sometimes linearly works better for a concentrated transmutation," Ed said thoughtfully.

Al paused, and made sure Ed was through before continuing. "But it's something only really powerful -or /reckless/ - alchemists tend to use. Without the binding circle the transmutation can get out of control very fast and end very badly." He turned to look at Ed. "I don't know if it's a good idea, brother."

"You have any other ideas Al, I'm all ears," Ed said, his attention fixed on the figures that had creepily emerged from the frame of the door, twisted and fixed in agonizing positions.

"I'll help," Al said. "It'll be easier to control the array with both of us working together-"

"No." Ed shook his head. "I'll fix this."

"There is another way," Castiel murmured.

Alphonse leaped a /mile/, all clattering and flailing armor nearly going over backwards. Edward's head shot up at the familiar voice, and Dean and Sam straightened in surprise.

Castiel was standing beside Ed, his arms folded behind his back and studying the Gate as well. Edward bit his lip and glanced up at the angel. "We go back through that thing, and it'll take something," Ed said quietly. "It'll take Al and more."

"Don't you have something to offer it in return?" Castiel asked.

Edward hesitated. The Gate loomed, its presence beginning to overpower the room. Its dark doors had pushed their way up to scrape the ceiling. "The incomplete Stone," Ed said, thinking carefully on it. "That would do it, I think, but barely."

"What are you talking about?" Sam eyed Castiel and then glanced to Ed, bewildered.

"Our world's on the other side of the Gate," Alphonse said. "All of it, not just the parts that were brought here by Conte's meddling. We have to go home to close the Gate, don't we," he addressed Castiel.

Castiel nodded.

"So just go through the damn doors, then," Dean said.

"I don't think it's that easy," Sam said.

"No," Ed said, standing up. "It isn't." He turned around and looked at Dean, who without a word handed him the incomplete Stone. Ed stood with it cupped in his hands for a moment, staring down into the facets of the imperfect stone. Then he turned and held it out to Al, who cocked his head at Ed but accepted the Stone. "You hold it, Al," Ed said. He glanced at Sam and Dean and held Dean's eye for a moment before nodding. "Wish I could say it's been a pleasure," he said, before turning back to the Gate.

"How are we going to get the Gate to open it's doors-" Al said as Ed walked up to stand beside him, before the mammoth black doors. Abruptly, all the eyes in the room turned to focus on Ed and Al and Edward shivered.

The doors slowly creaked opened.

It was pitch black on the interior, so dark no light could penetrate it. Suddenly, the eyes within the door opened, all the same unnatural shade of violet the covered the walls and ceiling. They all turned and focused on Al, whose helmet turned to stare at Ed even as the long, tentacle-like hands wrapped around him. "Brother-!"

Then Alphonse was gone, and Ed let out a sigh, sliding his hands into his pockets, shoulders relaxing. The doors did not slam shut, but the tentacle-like hands withdrew. "Al'll be all right," he said out loud, as if he had forgotten he wasn't alone.

"What just happened?" Sam said.

"You knew that the Stone would only be enough passage for one of you," Dean said pointedly. "But if you stay here, you'll destroy this world!"

Edward glanced back over his shoulder. "I don't intend to stay here," he said.

"Ed," Sam asked. "What does the Gate take if you don't have something to trade?"

Edward shrugged loosely. "An arm, a leg. Maybe some organs." He glanced back at the eyes. "Maybe more."

Sam started to step forward. "We'll make another Stone, it can't be that difficult-" Dean caught his arm and Sam looked over at him. "We can't let him just," Sam said.

Dean shook his head. "He's made his choice already," he said.

Ed quirked a smile, and nodded at Dean. "Thanks," he said, before turning back to fully face the eyes. This time the tentacle-hands reached out and caressed him, and Ed shuddered, already hearing the bloodthirsty laughter he'd heard echoed in nightmares.

Suddenly, a pair of arms wrapped around his shoulders. Edward blinked in surprise and looked up, to see Castiel standing behind him, reinforcing him. The tentacle-hands held no fear now, and Edward closed his eyes.

Dean and Sam both had to throw up their arms to block out the blinding flash of light, but when the flash faded the eyes and the Gate itself was gone, but whiteness was radiating out from the center of the room, working its way into the etched symbols and into the cracks of the room, and the entire place started to shake.

Sam shoved Dean hard, and they ducked out of the room as the club building began to fall in on itself, the residue of alchemical energy collapsing behind them.

#

They stood outside of the building, watching confused people mill around as they tried to figure out precisely what happened. Dean brushed some debris from his jacket and shoved his hands in his pockets. No one could tell him precisely what the building was, and Dean knew that by the morning it would be written off as an unexplained incident, probably attributed to teenage hooligans.

Sam wiped sweat and dust off of his face with the back of his sleeve. "Wonder if they got back," he said.

Dean glanced up at the sky, where the first pink wisps of dawn were beginning to peek over the trees. "I think they did," he said. "Otherwise, I don't think that thing would have closed up cleanly, yanno?"

"Yeah," Sam said softly.

"This is going down as one of the most fucked up hunts we've ever dealt with," Dean announced. He glanced over but Sam had one of those far-off looks in his eyes, something which usually meant he was thinking too hard again. "What is it, Sammy?"

"It's strange, Dean." Sam tilted his head forward, his shaggy hair masking his eyes easily. "I can't... I can't remember how we got to this point. It was just like suddenly we were down there in the middle of things, when the last thing I remember was passing out in the Impala."

"It's fine," Dean said.

"No, it's not fine, Dean!" Sam looked over at him. "What if, what if it was like the time I was possessed?"

Dean shook his head. "It doesn't matter," he said. "And you weren't possessed, 'cause I remember how everything went down."

Sam glanced at him. "What happened?"

"I'll tell you when you're older," Dean said automatically, and Sam smacked his shoulder.

"Asshole. Tell me now."

"Later," Dean said with a yawn, scratching his neck. "I don't know about you, I need a shower and at least twelve hour's sleep to recover from this bullshit. Then I'm thinking sun. Miami sound good?"

Sam rolled his eyes as Dean turned his back on the collapsed building and started walking. "Miami, really?"

"Coeds, man. They all go there to get away from the cold." Dean glanced up and down the street. "Any idea where the hell we parked the Impala-?"

"It's at the motel on the other side of town." Ruby was leaning against one of the cars on the other side of the road. Dean eyed her, scowling. "Glad to see everyone's back to their old selves," she said.

"Ruby-" Sam started, but Ruby held out a hand. "I was just making sure you two chuckleheads didn't get eaten alive by those lunatics," she said, her arms crossed. "You don't need or want my help, I get it." She glanced over at Dean, then looked at Sam, her look lingering a long moment before she turned away.

Sam shot an accusing look at Dean as Ruby stalked away. "What did you /do/?"

"What did *I* do?" Dean shrugged. "Don't look at me, for once this really isn't /my/ fault."

"Because I really believe that," Sam said.

Dean rolled his eyes. "I'm going to go take a hot shower, down a few beers and pass the hell out," he said, turning and beginning the long walk through the center of town. Sam glanced over his shoulder but Ruby was already gone, so he sighed and followed Dean.

#

Dean woke up from his thankfully dreamless sleep suddenly, he felt the weight shift on the side of the bed. Castiel was sitting there, leaning forward but not looking at him. "Don't tell me," Dean said, covering his eyes with one hand. "We fucked up another seal, didn't we?"

"No," Castiel still didn't look at him. "That was not a seal. That was ... something else."

"Oh." Dean sat up, swung his legs over the edge of the bed so he was sitting beside Castiel. "So did they make it back-?"

Castiel looked at him finally. After a moment in which Dean's gut actually clinched for the kid, he nodded his head slowly. "They are safe," he said. "For now."

Dean's exhale was audible. "Good." He looked down at his hands, elbows on his knees. "Who'd've thunk another world..." he murmured, then ran a hand through his hair.

"There are many worlds," Castiel said. "Many different versions of this world, many different versions of their own. Their own is safe as is yours."

Dean glanced over at Castiel.

"It's going to get harder, Dean." Castiel looked over at him. "We can't afford to lose any more battles." He stared at Dean, sad eyes catching the light. "This never happened."

"What?"

Dean watched Castiel get up and walk over to Sam, putting his fingers lightly on Sam's forehead. Sam sighed gently in his sleep and rolled over.

Castiel stopped and looked at Dean, who shook his head once. "No one else will remember it," Castiel said. "It will only be a burden to remember."

Dean lifted his chin defiantly at the angel. "I've got plenty of burdens," he said. "This isn't one."

He couldn't interpret the look that Castiel gave him, but the angel nodded. Dean dropped his head back to pillow and drifted back off into sleep.

#

It was the slide whistle of a train's engine pulling in to the the station that dragged Edward out of his dreams. He blinked against the muzziness in his vision and stared at the ceiling of the crappy inn in slight confusion. The familiar flicker of the street lamp outside cast faint shadows across the ceiling, and as the late train's passengers streamed from the station the shadows leaped and jumped eerily.

Edward sat up quickly and looked around in confusion. Alphonse shifted on the bed next to his, metal sliding against metal in the darkness. "Brother?" Al called softly. "Did you have another nightmare?"

He dragged his left hand over his face, confused. Something, he was forgetting something of importance. He glanced over at Alphonse, into the dark emptiness of the helmet and for a moment allowed himself to imagine Al whole, with scruffy bedhead, frowning thoughtfully at him through the dark of night.

"No," Edward said softly. "Not a nightmare." He glanced around the room, drawing his knees up to his chest under the covers and exhaled, trying to shake the feeling that was settling over him that he was forgetting something very, very important. "Al, do you-" Edward trailed off, and then wiped his forehead on his left hand and laughed.

Alphonse made an inquisitive sound. "Brother, are you all right?" He started to get up out of his seat on the bed and it all came rushing back to Edward in a tidal wave. He flopped over on his bed and started laughing, only slightly hysterically. Alphonse was of course freaked out by this, he was over by Edward's bedside in a heartbeat. "Brother, brother what is it, what's wrong? Why are you laughing like that, you're scaring me, brother!"

One hand still over his eyes, Edward lifted the other to look at Alphonse. "You don't remember?" he asked, a different lifetime echoing and dying behind his eyes. He watched Alphonse hesitate, one armored gauntlet outstretched to him.

"Remember what, brother?"

"Never mind," Edward said, flopping into his pillow. To his surprise he felt something move with him, under his shirt. Edward sat back up, lifting the leather thong up over his head. The small pouch sagged, mostly empty but still in it beat the tiniest trace of warmth.

Alphonse watched, completely confused as Edward opened the pouch and tipped it over into his hand. From out of the pouch rolled a tiny pebble, glowing with life. It was minuscule even in Edward's hand, it was barely the size of a fingernail.

Edward closed his hand over it, an expression lit all over his face that Alphonse barely recognized. He brought his closed fist to his breastbone, bending over it and his shoulders moving ever so slightly.

"Brother?" Alphonse asked cautiously.

He opened his eyes to look at Al, a grin cracking through the expression on his face. "It's the Stone, Al," he whispered, as if saying the words aloud would undo the wonder. "Some of it survived, we have it - Al, it's the Philosopher's Stone."

Edward barely noticed as he coiled over his prize, Al hovering over him, but the movement caught his eye. Settled on the windowsill was a single pure white feather. The moonlight caught it and Ed stared at it, before the cool night breeze stirred it and it floated out into the night.

#

The Impala drifting slightly off the road into the rumble strip jolted Dean out of the doze he had fallen in. "Jesus," he shouted, smacking Sam in the arm. Sam had jerked awake and swerved them back into their lane. "Pull over you ass, I'm taking over if you're going to pass out on me!"

"I'm fine," Sam said, swiping his hand across his eyes blearily. "I'm good, I'm awake-"

"Get off the damn road," Dean yelled at him.

Sam grumbled something and they pulled off the road. The highway was unlit and there were few commuters out at this time of the night. Sam slammed the door behind him and went off a bit into the woods to take a leak, and Dean stood with his back against the door, the cool night air biting some wakefulness back into him.

He glanced up at the sky, wondering idly if they'd put enough distance behind them to stop here for the night, sleeping in the Impala until it got too bright to nap comfortably outdoors. Sam was slogging through the weeds back at him, grumbling about all-night drives audibly. "You're such a pussy," Dean said, moving from in front of the passenger's side door and ducking under Sam's half-hearted punch. "Out of practice there, Sammy?"

"Fuck you," Sam snorted, slamming the passenger door and sprawling out over the seat comfortably.

Dean rolled his eyes and got back into the driver's seat, making sure to take his time getting comfortable and adjusting the mirror back the way /he/ liked it. Sam opened one eye and glared at him. "We're not sleeping /here/, are we?"

"Aw, not keen on roughing it, baby?" Dean smirked. Sam groaned and rolled his eyes at the roof of the Impala.

"You are such a jackass."

Dean laughed and started the car. As he glanced over at Sam, he remembered a tow-headed, copper-eyed passenger sitting sprawled just the same way and chuckled. Sam eyed him darkly through tired eyes. "You worry me when you laugh like that, Dean."

He shook his head to clear it, then smirked at Sam. "I worry you? Aww, it's so nice to know you care."

Sam reached over and shoved him. "Man, it is too early for you to be fucking with my head."

Dean eased the Impala back on to the road. "Huh," he said after a long moment. "You really don't remember it, do you?"

"Remember what?" Sam sounded sleepy again and Dean chanced a glance over.

"Never mind," Dean said softly, taking an exit off the main interstate and heading south. "It's not that important."

#

Epilog

Al had hiked himself up on the fence, neck craned up as he watched the slow fade of the sky through all the colors imaginable. They had headed west, to dryer climates and flatter stretches of land that never seemed to change. Ed was rummaging around in the trunk one-handed, two long necks in his other hand. He fished around for the bottle opener and finally came up victorious, popping the bottle caps off before tossing the opener carelessly back in the trunk.

Ed joined Al, leaning up against the fence and handing one beer up to his younger brother. They stood in companionable silence, watching the sun set over the far distant mountains.

"Job well done," Al finally said, and Ed reached his bottle up to clink against Al's before they both took long drinks.

The silence stretched comfortably, until Ed's cell phone jangled noisily to the strains of AC/DC. Al rolled his eyes and Ed fished in his pockets, coming up with the phone after three tries. He flipped it open and straightened up, taking a few steps away from the fence.

Al took a long drink of his beer as Ed finished up the conversation, then tucked the phone back into his pocket. Ed glanced up at him and took a swig of his beer. "There's a gwyllion over in Nevada who's been making life difficult for hikers," he said, jerking his head toward the car. "You ready?"

Al smirked at his older brother. "Let's roll."