The Audience With Forever (SPN/FMA Crossover, 'cesty cest cest)
Rating: R-NC17
Wordcount: 9000+
Notes: Elricest, Wincest, Sam/Al (in future chapters). Crossover, AU, WTF. Checked but unbeta'd. Read at your own risk, as the author is incapable of writing normal, sane fic. Instead, she puts ridiculous amounts of time and effort into...this. It promises to be utterly out-of-control. This is just the beginning of the madness, but I hope someone out there can enjoy it. This might be a slow start, because, frankly, I don't know where I'm going with this. Possibly to be heavily edited later down the road. :F
The Audience With Forever
It was a half-suburban contrived thing of smooth, black asphalt and crisp, painted lines. Skidmarks on the corners, gum on the sidewalks, dull, green weeds peaking from between narrow cracks along the surface.
Dean snorted and rubbed his hands over his face, willing wakefulness without coffee. He grit his teeth and tugged idly at his hair. He needed a trim and a shave. "Food, Sam!" The sun rose, slowly, making Sam's shadow stretch far across the sidewalk and onto the manicured lawn. He could smell the coffee and the bagels and normalcy of that trendy coffeeshop down the block.
"The only thing that's open is McDonald's." Sam said, just loud enough for Dean to hear from the second landing of the Motel 6. He didn't turn from the crossroads, hands in the pockets of his worn hoodie and breath fogging in desert-morning chill.
"Goddamn suburbs."
"Watch it. Cowboys might lynch us." Sam laughed up at him, neck turned at an odd angle. Dean groaned and let his forehead rest against the mint-green painted railing. Last night was a fucking joke. Right above the trendy coffeeshop, with its lackluster bands and half-wit comedians, up a flight of wooden stairs was 'Montana'. A bar. Bars were familiar, full of people, girls to flirt with, beers to nurse with their heads together over Sam's computer and Dad's journal and Dean's spider-scribbled notes in a coil-bound notebook.
"Cowboys. Right. You mean the soccer moms in their fuckin' miniSUVs." Dean growled into the leather of his jacket, face hidden in his arms.
They had walked through the doors. Took in the bright lighting, the perfectly clean sawdust on the floors. The less-than-fit girls in knee-high cowboy boots and midriff-baring tops. The odd rock-pop-country abomination blaring from Bose speakers. Clean-cut motherfuckers betting quarters on their pool games. The Bud-fucking-Light tap behind the bar. The people LINE DANCING. Line-fucking-dancing.
Without a word between them, they had slowly backed out of the swinging doors and settled for not laughing at the comedians at the Coffee Bazar. Bad coffee, annoying pseudo-intellectuals who prided themselves on their scholarships from Citrus college. It was fucking surreal.
"I don't know. They were pretty hot." Sam settled beside him, forearms on the railing.
Dean looked at him in disbelief, horror written across his gruff prettyboy face. Sam gathered his loose shirt in a mimic of bellyrolls and winked at him. They both laughed. Perhaps a bit too much. Fake bellyrolls and fucking Montana wasn't really that funny.
_
"We should be there by seven." Sam traced the thick line on the map labeled 210 West - Pasadena. "If traffic allows."
"Man." Dean sipped the sawdust and burn taste of McDonald's coffee. "California traffic is such a bitch. Lemme see those pics again? Thanks." He opened the plain manilla folder, soft with wrinkles at the corners. Pictures - mostly computer print-outs - spread over the McDonald's patio furniture. "Hey, dude." He nudged Sam. "Is this him with Martin Luther King Jr.?"
Sam leaned over to inspect it closely, one eyebrow raised. "Yeah, it is."
"The fuck is a German whiteboy doing with him?" Dean cleared his throat, pitching his voice deep. "I have a dream, that one day, I will hook up on da down low wit-"
"Dean!" Sam laughed. "That is so - it's just -"
"What? Dude's even prettier than you, Sammy." He picked up the print-out, tilting his head to the side. "Y'see there? They look pretty cozy-"
"DEAN!"
"Okay, okay. Shit, man." He tossed the picture back onto the haphazard pile, over grainy black and white photos from 1920, with captions in German. Ones in French, from 1950, in muted colors. From 1980, Japan, and the most recent photograph, a simple Alumni photo from Oxbridge University. The article dated it 1997. All odd, small snippets in old, foreign newspapers. Back indexes of scientific essays and studies. A bitch to find, but they found it.
The man hadn't aged a day.
_
The wide freeway lanes and dusty, monochrome quarries of San Dimas gave way to the narrow, lush streets of Pasadena. Little, frou-frou fenced trees lined the sidewalks, storefronts both unique and chain, mannequins poised elegantly in windows. Dogs waited for their owners outside of Starbucks, tied in little rows of Chihuahuas and Labradors and Golden Retrievers, giant mutts and little rat-things. It was a metropolitan life, a shopper's paradise, a bitch to maneuver a classic Impala through.
Dean grit his teeth and scooted the Impala as close as he dared to the parked cars, watching with a death glare as the driver squeezed his little Toyota through what was, originally, a one-lane street. "California drivers are fucking nuts."
"Seems a little odd that he'd live here." Sam checked the GPS on his cell-phone. "Make a left."
Dean gave a bland look to the gridlock before him. "Right. Of course."
"I just think it's odd." Sam tugged idly at his hair. "German engineer, Oxbridge Professor - and he chooses to live here?"
"Maybe he loves the people." Dean curled his lips at the people blocking the fucking intersection.
"Mm. No, remember what Doctor McHallen said?"
"From Oxbridge? How the fuck could I forget in that accent?" Dean exhaled, annoyed, and shook his head.
"They were kinda prissy. Stuck up. Hm?"
"Now you know how I feel about you." Dean muttered, turning the wheel this way and that, knuckles going white around the grip. Still. Blocking. The intersection.
"What?" Sam leaned close and narrowed his eyes. "What was that?"
"Nothing, nothing. Fuck this." The car lurched, revved like a fucking God. Tires squealed. There was the smell of burnt rubber.
"Dean - Dean - Dean, what the hell are you doing!? DEAN!" Sam clutched the armrest as they swerved around and barely missed taking the bumper of an H3 Hummer. Dean smirked. The tires squealed, momentum sang, Dean swung the car around and cut off an Audi.
"Shit. I think your bumper hit them."
"Psh. Did not."
"That was - that was retarded."
"That was awesome. Admit it. C'mon, Sammy. Admit it."
"Make a right on Green."
"Right on it!"
Sam sighed.
_
At around eight AM, they pulled into a quaint little side-street, mature trees overhead, quiet and subdued. It was the house at the end of the block. Through iron gates they saw a lush, sprawling yard, a veritible mansion of classic brick, a mature oak tree with yellowing leaves sketching color through the lawn. If not for the palm trees towering behind the property, it would have been extremely remnicent of Oxbridge.
"You were saying something about 'odd'?" Dean drolled, leaning out the car window to get a better view.
"This must cost a fucking fortune."
"Dude's about a hundred years old, Sam. More than enough time to make a fortune. Oh, callbox."
Dean was halfway out and to the callbox when Sam hissed - "DEAN!"
"What?"
"Let's think about this for a second!"
"What the hell is there to think about?" Dean growled, stomping, like a petulant child, to lean into the car window. "We go in, ask him how he did it, leave!"
"He's an immortal! It's not that goddamn simple, Dean - in other cultures, there are rules to approaching immortals -"
"Look, for all we know, he's really a senile, hundred-year-old man with really good face cream, okay?"
"And for all we know, he's not human. Or, if he is, he made a deal with gods or demons!" Sam snipped back.
"Wow. I got the shit bargain, didn't I?" Dean laughed, eyes averted to the swooping, tall gates.
Sam clenched his jaw and exhaled, slowly, through his nose. Dean stilled his laughter, then, and didn't need to look to see Sam rake his fingers through his hair, or the timid, gentle tremble of those fingers. "Sorry, man." He said. "Look, we can hedge all we want, right?" He shrugged. "Not gonna do us anything. I'll be respectful. Promise."
"No talking about his tryst with Martin Luther King Jr.?"
"Promise."
Dean turned back to the call box. The gate was already open, without a sound of motor or squeaking hinges.
_
The door opened before Dean could put a finger to the doorbell.
A kid answered the door. A boy, with flushed cheeks and a pretty face. "Yes?" He said, in a high, unbroken voice. A cultured voice.
"Uh, hey kid." Dean tried his best to smile and charm. The kid, so far, did not look impressed. "I'm Mack - that's Jon, my brother -" He motioned to Sam, who held up a hand in greeting. "Jon here's an old student of your - uh, Dad's -"
"My Dad died years ago." The kid said, not unkindly. He did take a step back into the foyer, though. Bad sign. Bad, bad sign.
"Oh, sorry." Sam cringed.
"You must be talking about my brother. Edward Elric?"
Brother? Okay. Completely off into left field now. "Yeah, that's him. I didn't know he had a brother!"
"Oh, you wouldn't." The kid said, disimissively. He opened the door wider. "Brother likes to keep his personal life and work life very separate." His eyes, an odd amalgam of metal color and earth tones, narrowed. "I'm surprised you'd want to visit him, though."
"Well, we were in the area." Sam shrugged. "I never got a chance to tell him I appreciated his talk on 'The Science of Humanitarian Efforts' back in Stanford -"
"He told me that was a good session." This time, the kid smiled, openly, proudly. "Still, it's your funeral, I guess. Unfortunately." He opened the door fully so they could speak in honest, open terms. "You've missed him by a day. He's in France, right now. He should be back tomorrow night."
"Ah, shit." Dean hissed.
"Did you have somewhere to go?"
"No, no. It's just we drove out here from Stanford a day early to catch him, you know? We're staying with reletives in, uh, LA, actually. Nothin' much to do." Dean shrugged, open-handed, a feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. This was going to shit, and fast. Since when were kids this smart and not gullible!?
The boy wrinkled his nose delicately at the mention of LA. "It smells of piss and trash in Los Angeles."
"Yeah, exactly." Sam laughed.
The kid looked at them thoughtfully. Any cliches about young eyes with great wisdom went right out the door. It was outright impossible to read him. He pursed his lips - girl's lips, full and pink - and said, finally - "You're welcome to stay, if you'd like. It gets a little lonely with just Noa and I." He lead them through the door. "I'm Alphonse, by the way. Here, let me take your coats. Are either of you hungry?"
"Yes." Said Dean.
"I really don't want to intrude." Said Sam.
They both glared at each other. Alphonse laughed, a free sound, as he hung up their coats. "You two remind me of me and Brother."
"Must be a universal sibling thing." Dean grinned.
"Oh, I doubt it." Alphonse said, airily. "The bathroom's down the hall, second door to your left. Kitchen's over here. It's time I cooked breakfast for us, anyway."
Al dissapeared into a doorway just slightly ahead - the kitchen, obviously. They went to their appointed direction. The hall was something rather inconspicuous for all its luxury - embossed green and creme striped wallpaper, polished oak molding, inlaid wood floors.
It was a duel sink. They closed the door after them, turned the water on.
"Get anything?" Dean whispered, quickly.
Sam fished the EMF reader from his inside jacket pocket, unhooking the earpiece from his ear, hidden beneath his hair and jacket collar which would allow him to hear the tell-tale squeals and beeps of any electromagnetic activity. "Not a peep."
"Do you think he's really his brother?"
"That would mean he's immortal too, right? Unless his hundred-fourteen-year-old parents had another kid."
"Maybe he's not his brother."
"What, then?"
Dean narrowed his eyes. "Did you see the way that kid looked?"
"Yeah. You can see the resemblence, not much, though, why?"
"Golddigger."
"You're fucking with me."
"What thirteen-year-old kid talks or moves like that?"
"Moves like what?"
"Sam, like a fucking stripper."
"You've lost it."
"Have I?"
"That's just so -"
"Not right? He's a European scholar from 1920, Sam. That shit was common in those groups."
"Was it?"
"I research too, ass."
"Are you sure they're not father-son?"
"Maybe." Dean obliged. "It would make sense to try to pass him off as a brother instead of a son, once he begins to age and Edward doesn't."
"Yeah, see?"
"I still don't like the way he acts. Where's his mom?"
"Oh, please, Dean." Sam dried his hands on impossibly fluffy towels, wincing as dirt and car oil smeared into the cream color. "People divorce. People die."
"Or are sacrificed for something - say, eternal youth?"
Silence settled between them.
"Either way you hack it, it's suspicious."
"Well, I'm not denying that. Maybe that Noa person is his mom."
"A chick named 'Noa'?"
_
Noa, it turned out, was certainly not his mother. Alphonse busied himself in the kitchen, somehow manning a sausage omelette and bacon and fresh biscuits at the same time, humming over the pops and splatters of hot oil.
She was an old woman, wrinkles deep in her face, her hair, thick and dark, dark grey. She sat in a wheelchair pulled up to the kitchen table, her brown skin mottled with age. Her eyes, hazy, brown, like too much milk poured into too little coffee. Her jewelry gleamed, a charicature above and beyond her. Her earrings, gold, large things, shifted as she creakily turned her neck to watch them. Her face remained unchanged.
He heard a tell-tale whirring and muted beep in his ear. He took a subtle step closer to her. A lean and shift, more than anything. He heard the whirr and beep again. Dean glanced at him. He looked back. A minute exchange. Dean knew.
"Ah, there you are. I'm almost done with breakfast." Al said, cheerily, as he slid bacon onto a plate. "Noa, this is Jon, one of brother's old students. From Standford. You remember?"
"Mm." She said, and Al smiled, a bright, unfettered gleam in his face. "And this is his brother, Mack. They came all the way out here from Stanford to say hi to Brother."
Noa said something - odd words, on a low, rasping breath. Al listened carefully. "Well, yes, bad timing, hm?"
She held out a gnarled, delicate hand to them, remnicent of old bark on small, slender twigs. Dean clenched his jaw, his muscles twitching beneath his yet-to-be-shaved morning stubble. Sam hedged, only a second, and reached forward to shake her hand. A proper image. A shy, young man. Dean was on his heels like a guard dog.
She moved quickly, and had a gentle, strong grip for an old woman. Her hands had callouses with the thin, lined skin of her palms. She held both their hands, and suddenly, her eyes were a clear, clear brown.
The EMF's earpiece shrieked, dully, in Sam's ear. He could barely catch what she was saying. They both tensed. Dean knew, very well, the weight of the pistol strapped securely between himself and his belt, hidden by his jacket.
"It's an old Romani saying." Alphonse explained, setting the table for four. "It's a blessing. For young people."
Noa let go of their hands, suddenly, and exhaled a shaking breath. It took every ounce of strength of Sam to not stumble away and take up a defensive stance.
"Thank you, ma'am." He whispered. Dean only nodded along, unable to take his eyes off her, an odd, empty feeling in his palms.
"Come, sit. Have breakfast. It's simple, but I hope you'll like it."
It was good. Really good. Sam told Alphonse stories about Stanford, and Alphonse told him, in careful, almost lilting words of his brother's latest projects, and so very incredibly vague about it on the whole. Noa watched, with eyes now clouded. Sometimes Al had to reach over to help her maneuver a fork, or lift a mug of coffee, strong and bitter and rich as the colors of her shawl.
_
"There's a few nice galleries, a Cheescake factory - oh, it's very, very good - on Colorado... really, just stick around Downtown and you'll find a decent number of things. Just please be back by nine. Noa goes to sleep then, and I'd hate for her to wake up to the doorbell."
"We'll be sure to do that. Thanks, Alphonse."
"Enjoy."
As the door closed, Dean mimicked "We'll be sure to do that, thanks Alphonse."
"Shut up." Sam said, over the creak of the Impala's door.
"Hey." Dean keyed the ignition. "Just make sure you don't fall for his boyish wiles -"
"Drive, Dean."
"I'm just making sure -"
"Dean!"
_
"Okay, so the situation is this -" Sam spoke clearly, firmly, as they wove their way through the midday lunch crowd. It wasn't difficult - people parted, automatically, Sam's height a very obvious visual marker.
"-The situation is this, Sam. This is not our normal gig."
"Well, yes -"
"Usually we find it, go in, salt and burn, and go for a beer after."
"Because it's been like that for the past four months, Dean."
Dean deflated. They passed the Cheesecake factory. The situation made even the most tempting sweet displays utterly repulsive.
"So, what exactly are we dealing with, here? Zombies?"
"I hope not. I don't think so. The EMF went off ONLY around Noa."
"Think she's the reason behind this? Why?"
"I don't know. You'd think she'd keep the whole eternal youth thing for herself."
"We're not after 'eternal youth'." Dean said, grimly, eyes locked on the crosswalk sign glowing red.
It switched to white. They stepped onto the street. "I know that." Sam whispered.
"Of course." Dean said. "This is our best bet, though."
"If they did make a deal with - with a demon. Or a god. To overcome death -"
"There's a sacrifice, Sam." Dean snapped. "There's ALWAYS a sacrifice. Demons don't deal like that. You know that."
Sam sighed, lips pursed, nostrils flaring, worried creases forming in the skin of his brow. "It's one day. One. Unless you have anyone else who's cheated death and age we can have a chat with, be my guest."
It was Dean's turn to sigh, jamming his hands roughly into the pockets of his jacket.
"Any research? Anything?"
"No."
"Okay, well, there are the Immaculates -"
"They die first."
"Right." Sam cleared his throat. Somewhere in their conversation, they had stopped, letting people part and weave around them. "In Buddhism, there's the Bodhi concept - someone so enlightened Karma doesn't apply to them anymore, and they become immortal -"
"So we're going to become monks?" Dean said, his eyebrow raised.
"If we have to!"
"Shit, man." Dean whined, his face screwed in a grimace, turning away as if the idea was so reprehensive. "It's not like THEY lived like monks!"
"True. Vampires?"
"Sunshine everywhere in the land of Better Homes and Gardens."
"Werewolves?"
"Are you just grasping for straws now?"
"Yes!"
"They didn't have any of the classic werewolf signs. It's close to the full moon. Why the hell would he invite us back?"
"They don't know, do they?"
"There have been no accounts of random missing people or animal abuse here or around here."
"France?"
Silence fell between then. "Let's check. There's a Starbucks around the corner."
"Wow. Who'da-"
"Don't say it."
"Fuckin' California."
"You used to like California."
"Yeah, when Dad was driving."
Sam laughed, half-heartedly. The reflection of people in the storefront windows, of them, was fleeting and translucent.
_
"There, now." Al said, softly, as he arranged braids, tied in red but now silver-light, on either side of her face. He smoothed the rest of her hair, gently letting it fall against her back. "You're beautiful as ever." Noa snorted, a wry smile trembling at her lips. Al kissed the crown of her head, his hands, soft and smooth, over her bangs, righting them carefully. "I mean it!"
She reached up and patted his hand with hers, her own still much bigger, much, it would seem, stronger. Decades later, Alphonse's thoughts, his memories, would wash over her as dewdrops evaporating in the sun - so gentle he regarded them, and the same calm swept over her mind. "They're gone."
She nodded, and motioned him close. Into the delicate shell of his ear, she whispered, her voice a rasp, dry and thin in the stark light of the window, the dark complexion of the wood-panel walls, the silver of her vanity mirror.
"I see." Al whispered, and at times like those, she could really remember his age. He cleared his throat, straightened his spine. "Well, how long has it been since the last one? Twenty years?"
She waved a hand, vaguely.
"Thank you for protecting brother and me." He said, softly, and kissed her forehead and her lips like he did in their youth. "Would you like to read?"
She nodded.
"Well, we have the updated thesis on -"
She hissed a Romani curse.
"USA Today it is." Al sighed, and laughed as she chuckled, deep in her chest. He settled beside her on the plush, deep couch, curling his smaller self into her, like he did when he was new and she was strong and it rained a deluge of water and smog on wet train platforms.
_
Sam leaned back, halfassed-made caramel mocha long gone cold. The barristas were starting to give them odd, rather sharp-eyed looks as the sun began to set. "Nothing." He sighed.
"Nothing?"
"A few kidnaps. All had witnesses or clues, though. No dissapearing into thin air."
"This guy's impossible to track." Dean chewed on his pencil, letting it splinter and crack between his teeth.
"As we've found out before."
"Eh, sloppy vampire?"
"When was the last time you've heard of that?"
"Elinor."
"Those were cows, Dean."
"Yeah, yeah."
"What time is it?" Sam asked, leaning forward again, face inches from the computer screen as he began to click and type, the furrow of his brow and quickness of his eyes cluing Dean into a plan of action.
"Seven, why?"
"Library's probably closed. Pasadena have a good one?"
"Probably not."
"Mm. Okay, so, we know roughly where he's been in the past hundred years. London, 1920. Transylvania, 1921-1922. Munich, 1923-1930-ish, or at least, that's when he ends up back in London. New York, then, 1940 -"
"You start cross-refferencing missing persons. I'll finish the timeline."
The street lights came on over stale coffee, long forgotten between the click of Sam's keypad and the harsh, blunt scribble of Dean's pen.
_
"You want to know how to cheat death." Alphonse said, in a serene, complacent way. He poured tea, amber and sweet with honey, into mismatched mugs.
Breakfast banter between the three went silent, then. Off in the foyer, a even the clip-clatter of the dogs' nails stopped. Shadows flitted, silhouettes of birds through the high, arched windows.
They shared a look between each other, curling broad hands and fingers with blunted, ragged nails around mugs of steaming tea. Habit. Dean's lips, Sam's lips, mirrors, set in impassivity. Dean leaned into the creaking old chair, exhaling a deep, deeply-held breath. They said nothing.
"You two are not the first, you know." Al took a sip of tea, sorted through the biscuits on the mosaic plate, watching them crumble beneath his fingers. "I don't think you'll be the last."
"How did - "
"Noa." He said, softly, nodding to her. "Is a clairvoyant. A bit similar to you, Sam, she tells me." He turned to Dean, suddenly, his eyes narrowed spitfire and cold, cold calculation. Too old and too much in that round, gentle thirteen-year-old face. "I don't like guns in this house, Mr. Winchester." Al said, a cold, clipped tone.
"I understand. Sorry." Dean didn't take his eyes off Al's, his jaw tense, his frame, all subtle muscle and masculine ease, left deceptively relaxed in his chair. "Standard occupation precautions."
"There is nothing here you have to be afraid of." Al spoke, kindly this time. Neither were fool enough to buy it.
"I think it's best if we just go for the rest of the day."
"I can't allow that." Al took a sip of his tea, bland in the way he said such forceful words. "Not until Brother comes back, and he thinks this over. You don't really expect our help without some consideration for us, do you?" He said, clearly amused.
"What kind of 'consideration'?"
"Secrecy, that's all." Al shrugged his small, round shoulders.
"By secrecy you mean -"
"It isn't such a bad place to stay, Dean." Al said, laughing. "We have the internet, books, a swimming pool, a pool table - I'm sure you'll find something to occupy your time for just a day."
"My time to spend where -"
"-Dean." Sam hissed.
Dean shut his mouth, leaning back into the chair, arms crossed, fingers curled into fists. Alphonse just smiled at this.
"And if we decide to leave?" Sam asked, slowly.
"If you leave, Brother won't tell you anything."
"How are you so certain?"
Alphonse smiled, a positively mischivious, fae expression. He leaned over to look Sam square in the eye, lifting a finger to his lips. "I'll tell him not to."
"And he does whatever you say."
"Pretty much." He shrugged, and settled back into his chair.
"It's not like anyone will believe us if we say something."
"People." Alphonse said, with a horribly weary, jaded tone. "Will believe anything under the right circumstances. But I'm not really worried about that. It's just insurance."
"Insurance." Dean scoffed.
"We'll stay." Sam said, easily.
"I'll need the gun." Al held his hand out, a small hand, too small for Dean's pistol.
"No way."
"Dean, just do it."
"Fuck -"
"DEAN!"
"Fuckit!" Dean dropped the clip and handed both to Alphonse, who stood to tuck it away in an upper cabinet. "You're getting fucking sloppy, Sam!"
"Easy." Al said. "I'm just keeping it here. You trust me, I trust you. I just really don't want it going off on accident, frightening the pets."
"I'm not enough of a newbie to have my own gun go off when I don't want it to."
"Of course." Al said, complacently, but still closed the cabinet doors. He laughed, as if there was no gun in his kitchen, and no imposters at his table. "Just like me and brother. I'm the younger - and always the more reasonable, right, Noa?"
Noa nodded, an unsteady, jolting movement.
"Oh, and for the record." Al said, gathering their plates, careful to leave Sam and Dean's untouched tea for them to finish. "My mother died before my dad did. I really am his brother - not a catamite, or a golddigger, or any of those odd things you were thinking of."
Dean twitched his fingers, as if to physically grasp a retort, something to save face. He stuttered, Al laughed, and he finally whirled a glare on Sam.
"What?"
"You and your mind-reading kind! Nothing is private!"
"Hey -"
Noa laughed. Wheezing, reedy, cracked. It hardly sounded as a laugh, but her eyes were bright, burnished, and clear.
_
"What now?" Dean asked, bouncing pool balls back and forth between himself and the lip of the pool table. Sam stood at the window, looking out at the lush, sprawling garden. Outside, Noa sat in her wheelchair, napping underneath a white gazebo crowned with climbing jasmine. Alphonse was tossing an old, faded rubber ball across the yard and into the pool. A pack of dogs - all strays, odd, scruffy mutts, mixed-breed here and there, a bit of collie, some german shepard, some labrador - chased the ball into the pool, competetive, and came running back, soaking wet.
"I don't know." Sam whispered. The cat on the windowsill beside him stretched, and yawned. Regarded him with half-open jade-green eyes, and resumed its nap. It was silent, while outside, the dogs shook water from their coats and Al held his hands up to fend the water off, laughing.
"Yeah? Well, what do you feel?"
"Feel?"
"You're a telepath. I don't got much else to go on."
Sam shrugged. "Feel? Nothing. Think? A whole lot. But - nothing."
"No heeby-jeebies?"
Sam shook his head. "If I didn't know better, I'd say this is just - just normal."
"No weird visions?"
Sam thought about this, his thin lips taut. He shook his head, then. "Dreams."
"What?"
"Dreams. I haven't had them before. They might mean something. They might not. I'm not a soothsayer. I don't know."
"What kind of dreams?" Dean asked, pulling himself up to sit on the pool table.
"A door. Everything else is white. Not like a white room. Just flat white. It's - still. Quiet. Like I can go back through it, but I choose not to, because I know better. And I'm safe, as long as I stay where I'm at." He shook his head, laughing. "And it's a fucking creepy door, man."
"Haunted house creepy?"
"Not the half of it."
"Door to Hell creepy?"
"Not quite."
"Hm."
"Yeah."
Outside, the wind blew. Alphonse lay on the grass, letting the dogs maul him with licks and frantically wagging tails. He wrestled with them, and Sam watched him, thirteen and not, half-wet and bright in the sun. "A few more hours." Sam whispered, and Dean just shrugged, rolling the eight ball from corner to corner, diagonal.
_
"Dinner is ready." Al called through their room door. "You're welcome to join us, if you'd like."
Dean half-sat up, scowling at the door. "I'll just wait for your brother if it's all the same."
"Sam?"
"Yeah, same, Dean and I have things to discuss."
"Okay." Al said, clearly unconvinced. He hedged - they could hear his footsteps, soft in slippers. "I'll leave some in the fridge if you're hungry later."
The boy was practically holding them hostage and leaving them leftovers. Odd. Odd, odd, odd. He finally left, the tell-tale clip-clap of dog nails following him.
"Anything?"
"Activity. In Louisiana. Cicadas, crop failures - get this, water contamination. Red algae. In the water system."
Sam hissed through his teeth. "Nile river turned to blood. Biblical plague?"
"Fuckers are getting creative, huh?" Dean grinned, a two-dimensional charicature.
"Where in Louisiana?"
"New Orleans herself."
"Ouch." Sam shook his head, idly tapping at the laptop's keyboard to keep it from going to sleep. "They really know how to pick a place. What's Bobby got to say?"
"Same old shit - scout out, analyze the fuck out of the whole shit." Dean shrugged, tabbing through the text messages on his cell phone. He grinned. "Remember the chick from the Coffee Bazar?"
"Dean, as your brother, I refuse to let you hook up with someone you met at the Coffee Bazaar."
"Why?"
"It's called 'the Coffee Bazaar'!"
"I'm not in a position to be picky, Sammy." Dean kicked off one of the many pillows, letting them scatter over the floor. "I wasn't drunk and she was pretty. Which means she's, you know, not a dog."
"So you plan on hooking up in Edward Elric's place? That's so - " Sam frowned. "That's so fucking gross, man."
"No. On the way to Mardi Gras." Dean said, fingers scooting over his cell's keypad. "This texting shit's tedious - aww, crap -"
"-There's one problem."
"What?"
"Alphonse."
Dean scoffed, lifting a shoulder in a half-shrug. "Kid's skinny as a rail, Sam. Just lock him in a closet."
_
"'Skinny as a rail, just lock him in a closet.'" Sam mimicked in a very whiney impression of Dean's casual tone. As well as he could, anyway, face planted in the hallway runner and all.
Dean, his cheek digging into Sam's shoulderblade, flexed his jaw and shook his head to clear the familiar fuzz of one knock too hard to the temple. "Shit."
"I told you." Alphonse said with just the tiniest hint of breathlessness. He dug his bony little knee into the small of Dean's back, forcing him down and, by extension, Sam under him. Dean thrashed like a fish. Sam began to inch his way out from under. Alphonse did something weird and quick, somehow twisting Dean's arm and Sam's arm around each other and into the same lock, adding his weight to the small of Dean's back so that any single fucking movement was painful. "I told you, I told you, I told you. You really can't leave."
"This is BULLSHIT." Dean snarled.
"It's only for a few more hours." Al said, exasperated.
"I don't mean that!" Dean thrashed again, and Al leaned in. "I cannot possibly get my ass handed to me by a KID."
"I'm sorry if I hurt your masculinity, Dean." Al said, in all seriousness. "I've taken on bigger things than you when I was really thirteen, plus give ninety years to refine it. Don't worry." He patted Dean's head in a playful gesture, small but freakishly strong hand still holding his and Sam's wrists between his fingers.
In the kitchen, the distinct crack-hiss-wheeze of Noa's laughter crept through the dead stillness. Al frowned down at them, and they tried their damned best to level equal glares at him.
"Fucking bullshit. Sam, this does not leave this house!"
"What?"
"No one knows I got the shit beat out of me by a fucking prettyboy."
"I'm glad to hear that." Al said, cheerfully.
"What?" They both hissed.
"It means I'm doing something right." Al smiled, a secretive but entirely honest, pleased smile. "My partner likes the feminine look." He blinked back at their rather stunned faces. "Oh, you really think I've always been this girlish?" He just shook his head, laughing.
Suddenly, a chaotic ruckus of barking dogs and jingling keys rang through the house. Hinges creaked, and a rough, almost sultry voice drifted, edged in irritation. "What the hell?"
A positively ethereal smile lit Al's face, then, and he wiggled in his seat on them with an eager sort of happiness. "Brother, you're home!"
"Should I have waited a couple more hours? Or maybe longer. There are two of them, anyway." The man lifted a gloved hand and whipped a slender pair of eyeglasses off his elegantly-shaped nose, gold eyes positively beastial and very, very possessive.
Al pouted and whined, a weedling, almost coddling tone. "It's not like that and you know it."
Dean felt the toe of a boot prod his shoe. "Who the fuck are they, then?" Edward asked.
"They would like your little brother to unhand us." Sam hissed into the carpet.
"Hey, quick question." Dean said around carpet fibers. "Am I the only one who's seriously uncomfortable?"
"I wasn't talking to them, now was I?" Ed snapped. "Al?"
"Guess so." Dean groaned, the strain on his shoulder starting to throb something awful.
"They came here looking for you. I'll tell you all about it later, you know, but they know. And they tried to leave. Which is why I need to sit on them, now."
Ed sighed. "I leave you alone for two weeks -"
"The timing isn't my fault!"
"Where's Noa?"
"Kitchen - probably finishing my tea." Al sulked.
"Hold them. I'll be right back."
_
"Edward." Noa spoke, softly. Sure enough, she had Al's ridiculous cat-shape tea mug between her hands, half-finished.
"Hey." He smiled, circled the table to wrap his arm around her stooped shoulders, careful of the weight of the automail. He kissed her soft cheek.
"Welcome home." She whispered.
"Glad to be back." He smiled into her hair. It smelled of lavender, some dumb organic shit Al bought from Whole Foods. "Al's been a handful, hasn't he?"
"I'm glad to have him here." She took a deep, wheezing breath. "We've missed you."
"Mm. Tired?"
"A little."
"Come on, then." He toed off the stops to the wheelchair and gently wheeled her to the lift. They had a lift installed, when Noa's strength began to ebb. It was a simple thing, hissing softly its acent to the second floor.
Edward was always gentle, frank and sure in the way he held her. Helped her, steadied her feet, tucked the blankets around her chin. He double and triple-checked the call button on her bedside table. From the hallway, Al yelled "It's working!" and Noa laughed.
"What?" He asked, playfully, as he sat and gently smoothed her hair over her pillow.
"He's so loud for someone so little." She said, with a small smile on her face. Ed could only smile in return. No one was sure when, exactly, Noa had come to love Alphonse as much as Ed did.
"Took after me, he did." Ed's brow furrowed. "Wait -"
Noa laughed, the thin skin of her throat stretched near-translucent as her head fell back into the pillows. It took a while for her to regain her breath. "Mm. He's not as muscular as you." She smirked, a deviousness she'd learned when she was twenty-five and had spent enough company with them. "Or as handsome."
Ed rolled his eyes, as he often did, and kissed her thin lips. "He's his own."
"He is. Speaking of which." Noa sat up, fumbling for the TV remote. "He's a little tease."
"Oh?" Ed's eyebrows shot up.
"What do I see when I wake up? Him, curled up, stark naked beside me. I think he's forgotten I'm old."
"You're not that old."
"Old enough."
"Should I tell him -"
"I may be too old to do much of anything about it, Edward." She said, in false annoyance. "But I'm not entirely blind yet. I'd rather enjoy it while I can."
"Much of anything?" Ed blinked, his eyes wide.
She just smirked. "Ask Alphonse."
Ed sighed through his teeth, chipped and sharp from many battles. It was a fascismile of humor.
"A handsome husband and a beautiful lover, mine until I die. What girl could ask for more?"
"Still. I worry." Ed sighed, gently entwining his strong, broad fingers into her birdlike ones. Matching rings, tarnished on Ed's hand. Behind him, the blue glow of the television came on, a talking head news anchor, the low, static sound of electronic voice.
"Don't." Noa said, firmly, even in her rasp of a voice. "I'm happy he's here. I'm happy with this." She squeezed his hand, and there was a smile on her face, her teeth thin and yellow. "Don't go on too many travels. Not many."
"Noa." Ed's jaw tensed.
She patted his hand, then. His eyes were soft, for once. He hadn't aged - in that respect, in some ways, he was still a child. "You have other things to worry about. Two other things."
"Right." Ed sighed. "Never a dull moment."
"Don't pout like that." She admonished. "You'll need that absinthe for this one."
"Right, right." He fussed with the blankets under her chin, a habit he'd picked up from Al. "That does not sound reassuring at all." He ushered the cats out, as he'd always done. Pulled the covers of the birdcage halfway off, so the dawny yellow of Noa's canaries could keep with her more peaceful company than either himself or his brother.
He kissed her before he left, and she was already half-asleep. "Love you." He whispered, and she smiled. Her lips formed the words, but her voice had been stretched, and lay, tired, with her.
_
"Let them up."
Like some obedient dog, Al released them. He sighed a delicate little sigh, righted his shirt and brushed off his trousers. Dean and Sam collapsed onto the floor with twin groans, stretching and shaking feeling back into bruised limbs.
"Living room."
"Look here." Dean braced himself against the hallway wall as he stood, brow furrowed and temper ticking at his jaw. "I don't know what the fuck is going on -"
"Living room, or leave." Ed stated, plainly, and went to his luggage. Al smiled, then, and trotted after him, high voice nagging 'Did you get it? Did you?'
"Yeah, yeah, got it. Got a lot of stuff you'd like." Ed looked at a bottle of wine. "Well, this one's mine. Here." He tossed a green bottle to his brother, who caught it in deft hands and smiled widely at the label. "Some cheese, chocolates, something for your collection -"
"Oh?" Al peered over his brother's shoulder, nestling his chin into the crook of Ed's neck. "It's beautiful, brother."
"Yeah, some hobo artist. Crazy as fuck, but he's good."
"I do love it." Al whispered, kissed his neck, held the small painting in two hands and admired it with almost raptured facination. "I think it'll be good in the garden. I'll have to have it framed properly -"
"Told you." Dean's voice was low and thick, rolling his shoulder to gain feeling back into it.
Sam's eyes darted, from Alphonse and Edward to Dean, and then again. "Did he just -"
"Yep."
"So I'm not -"
"Nope."
"Ew." And Dean nodded his agreement.
"Yeah, yeah. Jesus Christ, you step into every gay stereotype of each goddamn decade." Ed continued to grumble, and ventured to the kitchen. There, cabinets banged, glasses clinked. Al stuck his tongue out childishly at Ed's back. In the living room, he propped the small painting onto a shelf cluttered with old books. "I collect paintings. Unknown artists. They're much more interesting." He said, smiling a little as he stepped back to observe it.
Dean ran blunt fingers through his hair. "That's precious."
Ed threw himself, haphazard, into a chair by the fireplace. He sighed, a rude thing, impatient, uncultured. "So why am I talking to you?"
Al set the single wine glass on the coffee table. Uncorked the bottle, poured the wine.
Dean looked at the wine, and the glass. He didn't miss the way Al's fingers, small and delicate, slid up the narrow neck of the bottle once the glass was half-full. Al's head, turned, a smile, eyes only for Ed. Dean cleared his throat, and scooted against the armrest, away from Sam. "You haven't aged."
"No shit." The words had no venom. Ed took the glass from Al's hands. It was almost a surprise when Al didn't freakin' bow or something, so damn subservient.
"How?"
"Eating virgins." Ed smiled, all flashy teeth, some crooked, pointed canines.
Al looked away, at his painting. "Maybe once." He muttered, then laughed when Ed's fingers wormed into his armpits.
Al hitched a soft little gasp, the breath from his lips ruffling his older brother's hair. Ed's fingers dug into Al's chest and waist deeply, in a way that had to hurt, and Al only laughed.
Dean cleared his throat, a pointed, irritated sound. Then shot Sam a halfhearted glare, bags under his eyes, when Sam began to speak. "Sir, we would like to get out of your hair as soon as possible, so -"
"Really?" Al chirped, his high voice a sing-song. His footsteps bare over the cold hardwood floors. He leaned over, then, hands resting on the armrest. Eyes level with Sam's. "Then why not tell us what you did?" He said with flushed lips and a breathless voice.
"I don't know." Sam, his large hands, curled into fists on his knees. His lips set, refusing to back down to that odd, coy agressiveness.
"Oh?"
"I was - " Sam struggled, glanced to Dean.
Dean sighed, scrubbing his rough palms over his stubble-rough face. "He was dead." Bravado gone, factual and bland spoken.
Al stepped back, practically skittering to the harbor of his brother's side. "Explain."
_
By the time their patchwork, convoluted tale was done, Al was sitting at his brother's feet, hunched over, pensieve and quiet. Ed was flipping the slender stem of the wine glass between his fingers, like an oversized coin. It was quite some time, the minute and hour hands of the grandfather clock shifting circular. An odd monologue, rushed through in Dean's voice, backtracked in Sam's, odd little half inside-joke laughs peppering Hell.
"...You're our best lead." Dean finished, lamely. The quiet, disconcerting.
Sam rolled his shoulders, his back aching, his elbows on his knees, his fingers entwined at the knuckles. He glanced from one Elric to the other.
Then, suddenly, Ed laughed.
Ed laughed until he couldn't breathe, slapping his thigh, the glass dropped and cracked, rolling along the floor. Al squinted, dissaprovingly, but didn't say much.
"I thought we fucked up." Ed laughed, coughed, and laughed again. "Holy shit, I thought WE fucked up -"
"-Brother." Al said, softly.
"What? At least we didn't 'unleash Hell on earth' and have a part to play in the impending apocalypse." Ed snickered, leaning into the armrest of his chair. Al glanced at them, puppy-dog, and apologetic. Suddenly Ed righted himself, a frown deeply etched on his lips, usurping the giddily youthful display of before. "You expect me to believe this shit?"
Dean smiled, laughed, not quite a laugh. A sarcastic quirk of his lips, sideways, charming. "Yeah, far-fetched, isn't it?" He shook his head, laughing. "Pretty fucking unbelievable. Kind of like not aging for one hundred years?"
Al elbowed his brother's leg. "He has a point, brother." He said, softly.
"Please." Ed spoke, boldly, bristling, intimidating despite his size. "You expect me to believe this shit? Fairy-tales and nightmares - Dark Ages mumbo-jumbo?" He leaned over, and rapped his knuckles mockingly on the coffee table. It was a startlingly bold sound through the gloves. "I'm a scientist, kids, not a fucking pastor. Why not pray to God?" And he mocked 'God', bitterly.
Dean sneered. Just as bitter, he said - "I can't talk to God. Can't hear him. Can't see him. Tell you what, though - " He leaned forward, his elbows digging into the knees of his oil-stained jeans, and looked Ed square in the eye. " - That fuckin' demon? I sure as hell heard her. Saw her. Every one of them."
Sam said nothing. Al watched him, and spoke, quietly. "The sins would be considered demons." Al picked at the fray of his sweater. "The gate - what? Purgatory? Hell? The Thule Society thought I was a demon, remember, Brother?" He sighed, his brow furrowed. "Parallels, Brother. Transmutation there, Magic here, science here, alchemy there, Homunculus there, Demon here? Dante possessed Lyra. I possessed the armor. It isn't so impossible."
"You're not a demon."
"Parallels don't have to be exact." Al shrugged, glancing, against his will, at a picture on the mantle. Him but pale, handsome where Al was beautiful.
"Bullshit."
Complacently, Al stood, and took his brother's hand. "You're just tired and grumpy. Have you eaten?"
"Yes."
Al pulled him to his feet. "You need sleep. You need time to think."
"I need these two out of my house." Ed snarled.
"I believe them. So does Noa. Didn't she tell you?"
"Noa isn't your fucking mom, Al, stop playing us against each other!"
"I am not. She does believe them. Ask her tomorrow morning."
"If you think I have time - "
"We have a lot of time." Al said, patiently.
"As if I can sleep with them in my house - "
"I'll help you." Al whispered, moving in promise, leading his brother - his brother - up the stairs. The lilting way of Al's voice faded between the shadows of the hallway. A cat, one of many, with bright blue eyes, wound its way with sensual grace between and around Sam's ankles, and Dean's ankles. Dean hit the coffee table with the heel of his boot in frustration, and Sam watched the cat look at Dean with what could be considered dissapproval.
_
Sam found him outside in the pale sun of AM. Walked to his side, determination making his eyes flint and steel. His hands, jammed into his pockets, where the seam carved a red line into his knuckles. Laundry hung all along clotheslines, white shirts and white sheets, water dripping onto his hair and shoulders.
"I bet you're used to handwashing things." Al said, around a clothespin in his mouth.
"Why?"
"You don't have a home with a washer or a dryer." Al stood on tiptoes, clipped the pin. The wind pulled the clotheslines taut. The sheets whipped, snapped, sharp and wet.
Sam shrugged. "Bathtub. Laundromat."
"Mm. I remember."
"You weren't there." Sam reached into the plastic basin. Shook out a pillowcase. Soapy fingers on wooden pins.
"Maybe I was, once." Al wiped his hair from his face with the less-soapy backs of his hands. "I bet you've been places we've gone to fifty years ago."
"Fifty?"
Al shrugged. Tugged wrinkles out of fabric. "Or twenty. Or sixty."
"I wouldn't be surprised." Sam said, warily.
"Brother is researching. Trying to figure something out. It's how he works." Al said, softly, and traced the crisp collar of a grey dress shirt. "Dean?"
"Still asleep. Spent all night bitching. He believes us?"
"I convinced him to at least look into it."
Sam nodded his thanks. Convinced. Right.
"Thanks for helping me." Al favored him with a smile. "At this rate, I'll have breakfast ready by the time Brother realizes other things exist and Dean wakes up."
"I can help." Sam said, quickly. "I'm not much of a cook - "
"This is enough." Al said, firmly. He jerked at the hems and sleeves of a shirt, unwrinkling it before it dried. "Thank you. I know my brother's being difficult." Al stopped, and stepped back, unclipping a pin from his sleeve. "You're looking at me strange. Why?"
"You're - " Too domestic. Odd. Subservient. You've just fucked your brother and now I can't look mine in the eye. He cleared his throat. "You do all the housework here, don't you?"
"Mm." Al nodded.
"Why?"
"I don't want a maid." Al said. "They snoop. Noa's old. Brother - he gets caught up in his mind a lot. He can't clean worth shit." Al shrugged. "I'm happy. It makes me happy."
"I think I'd punch Dean." Sam muttered. Al frowned at him, a thoughtful pout.
"This reminds me of home." Al said, softly. "Back there, then, no dryers. I think that's why I do it like this."
"Old habits?"
"Yep." Al smiled.
"I guess he's lucky you're around." Sam said, quietly.
"You're trying to be polite. I appreciate that." Al said, in honesty. "Dean is too."
Sam just shook his head. "He's only here because he's humoring me."
Al curled his fingers on the clothesline, half-hanging off of it. "If he dies for you?"
"It won't happen." Sam said, quickly, habitually, before the sound of cars and dogs and people up and down the street could fill in a pause between him and Al.
"It can."
"I'll bring him back."
"Can you?"
"We told you - "
"I know it's possible." Al said, softly. "But -can you-?"
Sam narrowed his eyes. "And that means - ?"
Al rested his cheek against the sheets, the wet of it molding into the shape of his face. "If he dies for you, and you bring him back."
"It worked. Unless there's a catch. A toll."
"Maybe I'm wrong." Al said, smiling. Sam could have sworn it was fond. "I don't think you two will live exceptionally long, anyway. That's good."
"Is it?" Sam said, laughing.The clothing wet everything down to white and snatches of vibrant green lawn.
Al smiled. It was sad. Content. "If he dies for you, and he's brought back - nothing's gonna be the same."
Sam swallowed, thickly. Hooked his fingers onto the clothesline, a pace, two, away from Al's. Bigger. Calouses where the grip of his gun met his palm.
"Did you think about that?"
"It doesn't matter." Sam said, fiercely.
"You didn't."
"No. I just won't let him die. Not for me."
"Some things of you will die for him." Al said, softly.
"Like - ?"
"I don't think you'll be us." Al whispered. There was a strange light, a gloss and wet in his eyes as he looked at him. Really, really looked at him. Briskly, he turned and began to empty the leftover water of the basin into the grass.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Al stood, and looked at him. "I didn't even like men." He whispered, softly. "Not at first. It happens. In bits and pieces."
"People change." Sam said, fingers clenching around the clothesline.
"Noa said you were almost engaged, once."
Sam set his jaw. Inhaled a shaking breath. "I'll help with breakfast."
_
Dean stumbled down the stairs, hair askew, flat on the side where he lay on his pillow. "Eggs." He stated, bluntly. He shook his head, then, took the coffee someone offered him, and shook his head again.
Sam was pouring coffee. Five cups. Odd little mismatched mugs. Al hovered over the stove. The sunlight gleamed through the curtains, plain curtains. A gold coin hung from the doorknob leading out to the patio.
Dean sat heavily at the table, drank his coffee, and said - "This is creepily domestic."
"Here. Eggs." Al scraped them onto each plate. The yolk broke, yellow and thick. While Dean ate, Al frowned at his hair and ran his fingers through it.
"Whoa, what? Hey!" Dean leaned away, almost manic in the wide-eyed glare he gave the boy.
"Your hair looks stupid." Al said, bluntly, and tried to smooth it down with no gentleness with the flat of his palm.
"So does yours." Dean snipped.
Sam laughed into the rim of his coffee.
Ed stumbled down the stairs, a book open in the flat of his palm. An old journal, by the looks of things. Handwritten, faded pages. Worn leather spine.
"Morning, Brother." Al chirped. "I'm glad you at least remembered a robe." He stirred syrup into a mug of coffee. "Did you remember your boxers?"
Ed stopped, made an odd move as if considering to go back to his room, then shrugged.
Sam's fingers twitched above his fork, his jaw set and he shifted his weight and bulk around. Dean half-smiled and rubbed his bedhead into something (hopefully) more presentable, half-smiled and nothing else because Sam gave him that 'look' and quelled anything he had to say.
Ed looped an arm around Al's waist, and kissed his brother's neck, humming softly, a gentle bite that made Al laugh. His eyes never left the pages. "I can't find a correlation." He said, huskily, into the mess of his little brother's hair.
"I don't think you will." Al sighed, and slid a mug of coffee into Ed's hand and put a piece of toast to his mouth. Ed ate mechanically. "Dad was an Alchemist. He didn't have much time to study this world's sciences in full, did he?"
"He knew more about the Thule Society than most."
"You said yourself. Sheer, dumb luck."
"Maybe not. How'd they know to use Envy?"
"Parallels." Al sing-songed as he set breakfast potatoes out on a skillet. Better than a diner any day.
"One is All, All is One."
"Cycle of Life. Animism?"
Over Al's voice and Ed's grumbling, Dean shook the tabasco bottle vigorously over his potatoes. Al looked at him and wrinkled his nose in disgust, and Dean shook the bottle with even more relish.
Ed frowned, a sad little element. "Assessment, deconstruction and reconstruction."
"Christian rebirth. Baptism. Baptism through fire. The crucifixion?"
"No linear, solid pantheon though." Ed turned his focus to them, Sam and Dean, as they focused with commendable will on their respective breakfasts. "Does it matter? What pantheon or religion these demons come from?"
"Christian exorcisms - latin, holy water, crucifixes, Solomon's symbols, shields and seals." Sam sighed. "But, there are other hunters who use Hoodoo. In Japan, Buddhism and Shinto rites and rituals. Sometimes we use a pentacle to protect ourselves while we use a latin Catholic exorcism. There's no set-in-stone way."
"God isn't real." Ed spoke, bluntly. "Can't see how you can use Christian rituals without faith."
"Exactly." Dean said.
"I can't find a correlation." Ed sighed, and tossed the journal away. There were circles in the open pages. Geometric shapes.
"It was never supposed to work to begin with, Brother."
(End Chapter One)
Wordcount: 9000+
Notes: Elricest, Wincest, Sam/Al (in future chapters). Crossover, AU, WTF. Checked but unbeta'd. Read at your own risk, as the author is incapable of writing normal, sane fic. Instead, she puts ridiculous amounts of time and effort into...this. It promises to be utterly out-of-control. This is just the beginning of the madness, but I hope someone out there can enjoy it. This might be a slow start, because, frankly, I don't know where I'm going with this. Possibly to be heavily edited later down the road. :F
The Audience With Forever
It was a half-suburban contrived thing of smooth, black asphalt and crisp, painted lines. Skidmarks on the corners, gum on the sidewalks, dull, green weeds peaking from between narrow cracks along the surface.
Dean snorted and rubbed his hands over his face, willing wakefulness without coffee. He grit his teeth and tugged idly at his hair. He needed a trim and a shave. "Food, Sam!" The sun rose, slowly, making Sam's shadow stretch far across the sidewalk and onto the manicured lawn. He could smell the coffee and the bagels and normalcy of that trendy coffeeshop down the block.
"The only thing that's open is McDonald's." Sam said, just loud enough for Dean to hear from the second landing of the Motel 6. He didn't turn from the crossroads, hands in the pockets of his worn hoodie and breath fogging in desert-morning chill.
"Goddamn suburbs."
"Watch it. Cowboys might lynch us." Sam laughed up at him, neck turned at an odd angle. Dean groaned and let his forehead rest against the mint-green painted railing. Last night was a fucking joke. Right above the trendy coffeeshop, with its lackluster bands and half-wit comedians, up a flight of wooden stairs was 'Montana'. A bar. Bars were familiar, full of people, girls to flirt with, beers to nurse with their heads together over Sam's computer and Dad's journal and Dean's spider-scribbled notes in a coil-bound notebook.
"Cowboys. Right. You mean the soccer moms in their fuckin' miniSUVs." Dean growled into the leather of his jacket, face hidden in his arms.
They had walked through the doors. Took in the bright lighting, the perfectly clean sawdust on the floors. The less-than-fit girls in knee-high cowboy boots and midriff-baring tops. The odd rock-pop-country abomination blaring from Bose speakers. Clean-cut motherfuckers betting quarters on their pool games. The Bud-fucking-Light tap behind the bar. The people LINE DANCING. Line-fucking-dancing.
Without a word between them, they had slowly backed out of the swinging doors and settled for not laughing at the comedians at the Coffee Bazar. Bad coffee, annoying pseudo-intellectuals who prided themselves on their scholarships from Citrus college. It was fucking surreal.
"I don't know. They were pretty hot." Sam settled beside him, forearms on the railing.
Dean looked at him in disbelief, horror written across his gruff prettyboy face. Sam gathered his loose shirt in a mimic of bellyrolls and winked at him. They both laughed. Perhaps a bit too much. Fake bellyrolls and fucking Montana wasn't really that funny.
_
"We should be there by seven." Sam traced the thick line on the map labeled 210 West - Pasadena. "If traffic allows."
"Man." Dean sipped the sawdust and burn taste of McDonald's coffee. "California traffic is such a bitch. Lemme see those pics again? Thanks." He opened the plain manilla folder, soft with wrinkles at the corners. Pictures - mostly computer print-outs - spread over the McDonald's patio furniture. "Hey, dude." He nudged Sam. "Is this him with Martin Luther King Jr.?"
Sam leaned over to inspect it closely, one eyebrow raised. "Yeah, it is."
"The fuck is a German whiteboy doing with him?" Dean cleared his throat, pitching his voice deep. "I have a dream, that one day, I will hook up on da down low wit-"
"Dean!" Sam laughed. "That is so - it's just -"
"What? Dude's even prettier than you, Sammy." He picked up the print-out, tilting his head to the side. "Y'see there? They look pretty cozy-"
"DEAN!"
"Okay, okay. Shit, man." He tossed the picture back onto the haphazard pile, over grainy black and white photos from 1920, with captions in German. Ones in French, from 1950, in muted colors. From 1980, Japan, and the most recent photograph, a simple Alumni photo from Oxbridge University. The article dated it 1997. All odd, small snippets in old, foreign newspapers. Back indexes of scientific essays and studies. A bitch to find, but they found it.
The man hadn't aged a day.
_
The wide freeway lanes and dusty, monochrome quarries of San Dimas gave way to the narrow, lush streets of Pasadena. Little, frou-frou fenced trees lined the sidewalks, storefronts both unique and chain, mannequins poised elegantly in windows. Dogs waited for their owners outside of Starbucks, tied in little rows of Chihuahuas and Labradors and Golden Retrievers, giant mutts and little rat-things. It was a metropolitan life, a shopper's paradise, a bitch to maneuver a classic Impala through.
Dean grit his teeth and scooted the Impala as close as he dared to the parked cars, watching with a death glare as the driver squeezed his little Toyota through what was, originally, a one-lane street. "California drivers are fucking nuts."
"Seems a little odd that he'd live here." Sam checked the GPS on his cell-phone. "Make a left."
Dean gave a bland look to the gridlock before him. "Right. Of course."
"I just think it's odd." Sam tugged idly at his hair. "German engineer, Oxbridge Professor - and he chooses to live here?"
"Maybe he loves the people." Dean curled his lips at the people blocking the fucking intersection.
"Mm. No, remember what Doctor McHallen said?"
"From Oxbridge? How the fuck could I forget in that accent?" Dean exhaled, annoyed, and shook his head.
"They were kinda prissy. Stuck up. Hm?"
"Now you know how I feel about you." Dean muttered, turning the wheel this way and that, knuckles going white around the grip. Still. Blocking. The intersection.
"What?" Sam leaned close and narrowed his eyes. "What was that?"
"Nothing, nothing. Fuck this." The car lurched, revved like a fucking God. Tires squealed. There was the smell of burnt rubber.
"Dean - Dean - Dean, what the hell are you doing!? DEAN!" Sam clutched the armrest as they swerved around and barely missed taking the bumper of an H3 Hummer. Dean smirked. The tires squealed, momentum sang, Dean swung the car around and cut off an Audi.
"Shit. I think your bumper hit them."
"Psh. Did not."
"That was - that was retarded."
"That was awesome. Admit it. C'mon, Sammy. Admit it."
"Make a right on Green."
"Right on it!"
Sam sighed.
_
At around eight AM, they pulled into a quaint little side-street, mature trees overhead, quiet and subdued. It was the house at the end of the block. Through iron gates they saw a lush, sprawling yard, a veritible mansion of classic brick, a mature oak tree with yellowing leaves sketching color through the lawn. If not for the palm trees towering behind the property, it would have been extremely remnicent of Oxbridge.
"You were saying something about 'odd'?" Dean drolled, leaning out the car window to get a better view.
"This must cost a fucking fortune."
"Dude's about a hundred years old, Sam. More than enough time to make a fortune. Oh, callbox."
Dean was halfway out and to the callbox when Sam hissed - "DEAN!"
"What?"
"Let's think about this for a second!"
"What the hell is there to think about?" Dean growled, stomping, like a petulant child, to lean into the car window. "We go in, ask him how he did it, leave!"
"He's an immortal! It's not that goddamn simple, Dean - in other cultures, there are rules to approaching immortals -"
"Look, for all we know, he's really a senile, hundred-year-old man with really good face cream, okay?"
"And for all we know, he's not human. Or, if he is, he made a deal with gods or demons!" Sam snipped back.
"Wow. I got the shit bargain, didn't I?" Dean laughed, eyes averted to the swooping, tall gates.
Sam clenched his jaw and exhaled, slowly, through his nose. Dean stilled his laughter, then, and didn't need to look to see Sam rake his fingers through his hair, or the timid, gentle tremble of those fingers. "Sorry, man." He said. "Look, we can hedge all we want, right?" He shrugged. "Not gonna do us anything. I'll be respectful. Promise."
"No talking about his tryst with Martin Luther King Jr.?"
"Promise."
Dean turned back to the call box. The gate was already open, without a sound of motor or squeaking hinges.
_
The door opened before Dean could put a finger to the doorbell.
A kid answered the door. A boy, with flushed cheeks and a pretty face. "Yes?" He said, in a high, unbroken voice. A cultured voice.
"Uh, hey kid." Dean tried his best to smile and charm. The kid, so far, did not look impressed. "I'm Mack - that's Jon, my brother -" He motioned to Sam, who held up a hand in greeting. "Jon here's an old student of your - uh, Dad's -"
"My Dad died years ago." The kid said, not unkindly. He did take a step back into the foyer, though. Bad sign. Bad, bad sign.
"Oh, sorry." Sam cringed.
"You must be talking about my brother. Edward Elric?"
Brother? Okay. Completely off into left field now. "Yeah, that's him. I didn't know he had a brother!"
"Oh, you wouldn't." The kid said, disimissively. He opened the door wider. "Brother likes to keep his personal life and work life very separate." His eyes, an odd amalgam of metal color and earth tones, narrowed. "I'm surprised you'd want to visit him, though."
"Well, we were in the area." Sam shrugged. "I never got a chance to tell him I appreciated his talk on 'The Science of Humanitarian Efforts' back in Stanford -"
"He told me that was a good session." This time, the kid smiled, openly, proudly. "Still, it's your funeral, I guess. Unfortunately." He opened the door fully so they could speak in honest, open terms. "You've missed him by a day. He's in France, right now. He should be back tomorrow night."
"Ah, shit." Dean hissed.
"Did you have somewhere to go?"
"No, no. It's just we drove out here from Stanford a day early to catch him, you know? We're staying with reletives in, uh, LA, actually. Nothin' much to do." Dean shrugged, open-handed, a feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. This was going to shit, and fast. Since when were kids this smart and not gullible!?
The boy wrinkled his nose delicately at the mention of LA. "It smells of piss and trash in Los Angeles."
"Yeah, exactly." Sam laughed.
The kid looked at them thoughtfully. Any cliches about young eyes with great wisdom went right out the door. It was outright impossible to read him. He pursed his lips - girl's lips, full and pink - and said, finally - "You're welcome to stay, if you'd like. It gets a little lonely with just Noa and I." He lead them through the door. "I'm Alphonse, by the way. Here, let me take your coats. Are either of you hungry?"
"Yes." Said Dean.
"I really don't want to intrude." Said Sam.
They both glared at each other. Alphonse laughed, a free sound, as he hung up their coats. "You two remind me of me and Brother."
"Must be a universal sibling thing." Dean grinned.
"Oh, I doubt it." Alphonse said, airily. "The bathroom's down the hall, second door to your left. Kitchen's over here. It's time I cooked breakfast for us, anyway."
Al dissapeared into a doorway just slightly ahead - the kitchen, obviously. They went to their appointed direction. The hall was something rather inconspicuous for all its luxury - embossed green and creme striped wallpaper, polished oak molding, inlaid wood floors.
It was a duel sink. They closed the door after them, turned the water on.
"Get anything?" Dean whispered, quickly.
Sam fished the EMF reader from his inside jacket pocket, unhooking the earpiece from his ear, hidden beneath his hair and jacket collar which would allow him to hear the tell-tale squeals and beeps of any electromagnetic activity. "Not a peep."
"Do you think he's really his brother?"
"That would mean he's immortal too, right? Unless his hundred-fourteen-year-old parents had another kid."
"Maybe he's not his brother."
"What, then?"
Dean narrowed his eyes. "Did you see the way that kid looked?"
"Yeah. You can see the resemblence, not much, though, why?"
"Golddigger."
"You're fucking with me."
"What thirteen-year-old kid talks or moves like that?"
"Moves like what?"
"Sam, like a fucking stripper."
"You've lost it."
"Have I?"
"That's just so -"
"Not right? He's a European scholar from 1920, Sam. That shit was common in those groups."
"Was it?"
"I research too, ass."
"Are you sure they're not father-son?"
"Maybe." Dean obliged. "It would make sense to try to pass him off as a brother instead of a son, once he begins to age and Edward doesn't."
"Yeah, see?"
"I still don't like the way he acts. Where's his mom?"
"Oh, please, Dean." Sam dried his hands on impossibly fluffy towels, wincing as dirt and car oil smeared into the cream color. "People divorce. People die."
"Or are sacrificed for something - say, eternal youth?"
Silence settled between them.
"Either way you hack it, it's suspicious."
"Well, I'm not denying that. Maybe that Noa person is his mom."
"A chick named 'Noa'?"
_
Noa, it turned out, was certainly not his mother. Alphonse busied himself in the kitchen, somehow manning a sausage omelette and bacon and fresh biscuits at the same time, humming over the pops and splatters of hot oil.
She was an old woman, wrinkles deep in her face, her hair, thick and dark, dark grey. She sat in a wheelchair pulled up to the kitchen table, her brown skin mottled with age. Her eyes, hazy, brown, like too much milk poured into too little coffee. Her jewelry gleamed, a charicature above and beyond her. Her earrings, gold, large things, shifted as she creakily turned her neck to watch them. Her face remained unchanged.
He heard a tell-tale whirring and muted beep in his ear. He took a subtle step closer to her. A lean and shift, more than anything. He heard the whirr and beep again. Dean glanced at him. He looked back. A minute exchange. Dean knew.
"Ah, there you are. I'm almost done with breakfast." Al said, cheerily, as he slid bacon onto a plate. "Noa, this is Jon, one of brother's old students. From Standford. You remember?"
"Mm." She said, and Al smiled, a bright, unfettered gleam in his face. "And this is his brother, Mack. They came all the way out here from Stanford to say hi to Brother."
Noa said something - odd words, on a low, rasping breath. Al listened carefully. "Well, yes, bad timing, hm?"
She held out a gnarled, delicate hand to them, remnicent of old bark on small, slender twigs. Dean clenched his jaw, his muscles twitching beneath his yet-to-be-shaved morning stubble. Sam hedged, only a second, and reached forward to shake her hand. A proper image. A shy, young man. Dean was on his heels like a guard dog.
She moved quickly, and had a gentle, strong grip for an old woman. Her hands had callouses with the thin, lined skin of her palms. She held both their hands, and suddenly, her eyes were a clear, clear brown.
The EMF's earpiece shrieked, dully, in Sam's ear. He could barely catch what she was saying. They both tensed. Dean knew, very well, the weight of the pistol strapped securely between himself and his belt, hidden by his jacket.
"It's an old Romani saying." Alphonse explained, setting the table for four. "It's a blessing. For young people."
Noa let go of their hands, suddenly, and exhaled a shaking breath. It took every ounce of strength of Sam to not stumble away and take up a defensive stance.
"Thank you, ma'am." He whispered. Dean only nodded along, unable to take his eyes off her, an odd, empty feeling in his palms.
"Come, sit. Have breakfast. It's simple, but I hope you'll like it."
It was good. Really good. Sam told Alphonse stories about Stanford, and Alphonse told him, in careful, almost lilting words of his brother's latest projects, and so very incredibly vague about it on the whole. Noa watched, with eyes now clouded. Sometimes Al had to reach over to help her maneuver a fork, or lift a mug of coffee, strong and bitter and rich as the colors of her shawl.
_
"There's a few nice galleries, a Cheescake factory - oh, it's very, very good - on Colorado... really, just stick around Downtown and you'll find a decent number of things. Just please be back by nine. Noa goes to sleep then, and I'd hate for her to wake up to the doorbell."
"We'll be sure to do that. Thanks, Alphonse."
"Enjoy."
As the door closed, Dean mimicked "We'll be sure to do that, thanks Alphonse."
"Shut up." Sam said, over the creak of the Impala's door.
"Hey." Dean keyed the ignition. "Just make sure you don't fall for his boyish wiles -"
"Drive, Dean."
"I'm just making sure -"
"Dean!"
_
"Okay, so the situation is this -" Sam spoke clearly, firmly, as they wove their way through the midday lunch crowd. It wasn't difficult - people parted, automatically, Sam's height a very obvious visual marker.
"-The situation is this, Sam. This is not our normal gig."
"Well, yes -"
"Usually we find it, go in, salt and burn, and go for a beer after."
"Because it's been like that for the past four months, Dean."
Dean deflated. They passed the Cheesecake factory. The situation made even the most tempting sweet displays utterly repulsive.
"So, what exactly are we dealing with, here? Zombies?"
"I hope not. I don't think so. The EMF went off ONLY around Noa."
"Think she's the reason behind this? Why?"
"I don't know. You'd think she'd keep the whole eternal youth thing for herself."
"We're not after 'eternal youth'." Dean said, grimly, eyes locked on the crosswalk sign glowing red.
It switched to white. They stepped onto the street. "I know that." Sam whispered.
"Of course." Dean said. "This is our best bet, though."
"If they did make a deal with - with a demon. Or a god. To overcome death -"
"There's a sacrifice, Sam." Dean snapped. "There's ALWAYS a sacrifice. Demons don't deal like that. You know that."
Sam sighed, lips pursed, nostrils flaring, worried creases forming in the skin of his brow. "It's one day. One. Unless you have anyone else who's cheated death and age we can have a chat with, be my guest."
It was Dean's turn to sigh, jamming his hands roughly into the pockets of his jacket.
"Any research? Anything?"
"No."
"Okay, well, there are the Immaculates -"
"They die first."
"Right." Sam cleared his throat. Somewhere in their conversation, they had stopped, letting people part and weave around them. "In Buddhism, there's the Bodhi concept - someone so enlightened Karma doesn't apply to them anymore, and they become immortal -"
"So we're going to become monks?" Dean said, his eyebrow raised.
"If we have to!"
"Shit, man." Dean whined, his face screwed in a grimace, turning away as if the idea was so reprehensive. "It's not like THEY lived like monks!"
"True. Vampires?"
"Sunshine everywhere in the land of Better Homes and Gardens."
"Werewolves?"
"Are you just grasping for straws now?"
"Yes!"
"They didn't have any of the classic werewolf signs. It's close to the full moon. Why the hell would he invite us back?"
"They don't know, do they?"
"There have been no accounts of random missing people or animal abuse here or around here."
"France?"
Silence fell between then. "Let's check. There's a Starbucks around the corner."
"Wow. Who'da-"
"Don't say it."
"Fuckin' California."
"You used to like California."
"Yeah, when Dad was driving."
Sam laughed, half-heartedly. The reflection of people in the storefront windows, of them, was fleeting and translucent.
_
"There, now." Al said, softly, as he arranged braids, tied in red but now silver-light, on either side of her face. He smoothed the rest of her hair, gently letting it fall against her back. "You're beautiful as ever." Noa snorted, a wry smile trembling at her lips. Al kissed the crown of her head, his hands, soft and smooth, over her bangs, righting them carefully. "I mean it!"
She reached up and patted his hand with hers, her own still much bigger, much, it would seem, stronger. Decades later, Alphonse's thoughts, his memories, would wash over her as dewdrops evaporating in the sun - so gentle he regarded them, and the same calm swept over her mind. "They're gone."
She nodded, and motioned him close. Into the delicate shell of his ear, she whispered, her voice a rasp, dry and thin in the stark light of the window, the dark complexion of the wood-panel walls, the silver of her vanity mirror.
"I see." Al whispered, and at times like those, she could really remember his age. He cleared his throat, straightened his spine. "Well, how long has it been since the last one? Twenty years?"
She waved a hand, vaguely.
"Thank you for protecting brother and me." He said, softly, and kissed her forehead and her lips like he did in their youth. "Would you like to read?"
She nodded.
"Well, we have the updated thesis on -"
She hissed a Romani curse.
"USA Today it is." Al sighed, and laughed as she chuckled, deep in her chest. He settled beside her on the plush, deep couch, curling his smaller self into her, like he did when he was new and she was strong and it rained a deluge of water and smog on wet train platforms.
_
Sam leaned back, halfassed-made caramel mocha long gone cold. The barristas were starting to give them odd, rather sharp-eyed looks as the sun began to set. "Nothing." He sighed.
"Nothing?"
"A few kidnaps. All had witnesses or clues, though. No dissapearing into thin air."
"This guy's impossible to track." Dean chewed on his pencil, letting it splinter and crack between his teeth.
"As we've found out before."
"Eh, sloppy vampire?"
"When was the last time you've heard of that?"
"Elinor."
"Those were cows, Dean."
"Yeah, yeah."
"What time is it?" Sam asked, leaning forward again, face inches from the computer screen as he began to click and type, the furrow of his brow and quickness of his eyes cluing Dean into a plan of action.
"Seven, why?"
"Library's probably closed. Pasadena have a good one?"
"Probably not."
"Mm. Okay, so, we know roughly where he's been in the past hundred years. London, 1920. Transylvania, 1921-1922. Munich, 1923-1930-ish, or at least, that's when he ends up back in London. New York, then, 1940 -"
"You start cross-refferencing missing persons. I'll finish the timeline."
The street lights came on over stale coffee, long forgotten between the click of Sam's keypad and the harsh, blunt scribble of Dean's pen.
_
"You want to know how to cheat death." Alphonse said, in a serene, complacent way. He poured tea, amber and sweet with honey, into mismatched mugs.
Breakfast banter between the three went silent, then. Off in the foyer, a even the clip-clatter of the dogs' nails stopped. Shadows flitted, silhouettes of birds through the high, arched windows.
They shared a look between each other, curling broad hands and fingers with blunted, ragged nails around mugs of steaming tea. Habit. Dean's lips, Sam's lips, mirrors, set in impassivity. Dean leaned into the creaking old chair, exhaling a deep, deeply-held breath. They said nothing.
"You two are not the first, you know." Al took a sip of tea, sorted through the biscuits on the mosaic plate, watching them crumble beneath his fingers. "I don't think you'll be the last."
"How did - "
"Noa." He said, softly, nodding to her. "Is a clairvoyant. A bit similar to you, Sam, she tells me." He turned to Dean, suddenly, his eyes narrowed spitfire and cold, cold calculation. Too old and too much in that round, gentle thirteen-year-old face. "I don't like guns in this house, Mr. Winchester." Al said, a cold, clipped tone.
"I understand. Sorry." Dean didn't take his eyes off Al's, his jaw tense, his frame, all subtle muscle and masculine ease, left deceptively relaxed in his chair. "Standard occupation precautions."
"There is nothing here you have to be afraid of." Al spoke, kindly this time. Neither were fool enough to buy it.
"I think it's best if we just go for the rest of the day."
"I can't allow that." Al took a sip of his tea, bland in the way he said such forceful words. "Not until Brother comes back, and he thinks this over. You don't really expect our help without some consideration for us, do you?" He said, clearly amused.
"What kind of 'consideration'?"
"Secrecy, that's all." Al shrugged his small, round shoulders.
"By secrecy you mean -"
"It isn't such a bad place to stay, Dean." Al said, laughing. "We have the internet, books, a swimming pool, a pool table - I'm sure you'll find something to occupy your time for just a day."
"My time to spend where -"
"-Dean." Sam hissed.
Dean shut his mouth, leaning back into the chair, arms crossed, fingers curled into fists. Alphonse just smiled at this.
"And if we decide to leave?" Sam asked, slowly.
"If you leave, Brother won't tell you anything."
"How are you so certain?"
Alphonse smiled, a positively mischivious, fae expression. He leaned over to look Sam square in the eye, lifting a finger to his lips. "I'll tell him not to."
"And he does whatever you say."
"Pretty much." He shrugged, and settled back into his chair.
"It's not like anyone will believe us if we say something."
"People." Alphonse said, with a horribly weary, jaded tone. "Will believe anything under the right circumstances. But I'm not really worried about that. It's just insurance."
"Insurance." Dean scoffed.
"We'll stay." Sam said, easily.
"I'll need the gun." Al held his hand out, a small hand, too small for Dean's pistol.
"No way."
"Dean, just do it."
"Fuck -"
"DEAN!"
"Fuckit!" Dean dropped the clip and handed both to Alphonse, who stood to tuck it away in an upper cabinet. "You're getting fucking sloppy, Sam!"
"Easy." Al said. "I'm just keeping it here. You trust me, I trust you. I just really don't want it going off on accident, frightening the pets."
"I'm not enough of a newbie to have my own gun go off when I don't want it to."
"Of course." Al said, complacently, but still closed the cabinet doors. He laughed, as if there was no gun in his kitchen, and no imposters at his table. "Just like me and brother. I'm the younger - and always the more reasonable, right, Noa?"
Noa nodded, an unsteady, jolting movement.
"Oh, and for the record." Al said, gathering their plates, careful to leave Sam and Dean's untouched tea for them to finish. "My mother died before my dad did. I really am his brother - not a catamite, or a golddigger, or any of those odd things you were thinking of."
Dean twitched his fingers, as if to physically grasp a retort, something to save face. He stuttered, Al laughed, and he finally whirled a glare on Sam.
"What?"
"You and your mind-reading kind! Nothing is private!"
"Hey -"
Noa laughed. Wheezing, reedy, cracked. It hardly sounded as a laugh, but her eyes were bright, burnished, and clear.
_
"What now?" Dean asked, bouncing pool balls back and forth between himself and the lip of the pool table. Sam stood at the window, looking out at the lush, sprawling garden. Outside, Noa sat in her wheelchair, napping underneath a white gazebo crowned with climbing jasmine. Alphonse was tossing an old, faded rubber ball across the yard and into the pool. A pack of dogs - all strays, odd, scruffy mutts, mixed-breed here and there, a bit of collie, some german shepard, some labrador - chased the ball into the pool, competetive, and came running back, soaking wet.
"I don't know." Sam whispered. The cat on the windowsill beside him stretched, and yawned. Regarded him with half-open jade-green eyes, and resumed its nap. It was silent, while outside, the dogs shook water from their coats and Al held his hands up to fend the water off, laughing.
"Yeah? Well, what do you feel?"
"Feel?"
"You're a telepath. I don't got much else to go on."
Sam shrugged. "Feel? Nothing. Think? A whole lot. But - nothing."
"No heeby-jeebies?"
Sam shook his head. "If I didn't know better, I'd say this is just - just normal."
"No weird visions?"
Sam thought about this, his thin lips taut. He shook his head, then. "Dreams."
"What?"
"Dreams. I haven't had them before. They might mean something. They might not. I'm not a soothsayer. I don't know."
"What kind of dreams?" Dean asked, pulling himself up to sit on the pool table.
"A door. Everything else is white. Not like a white room. Just flat white. It's - still. Quiet. Like I can go back through it, but I choose not to, because I know better. And I'm safe, as long as I stay where I'm at." He shook his head, laughing. "And it's a fucking creepy door, man."
"Haunted house creepy?"
"Not the half of it."
"Door to Hell creepy?"
"Not quite."
"Hm."
"Yeah."
Outside, the wind blew. Alphonse lay on the grass, letting the dogs maul him with licks and frantically wagging tails. He wrestled with them, and Sam watched him, thirteen and not, half-wet and bright in the sun. "A few more hours." Sam whispered, and Dean just shrugged, rolling the eight ball from corner to corner, diagonal.
_
"Dinner is ready." Al called through their room door. "You're welcome to join us, if you'd like."
Dean half-sat up, scowling at the door. "I'll just wait for your brother if it's all the same."
"Sam?"
"Yeah, same, Dean and I have things to discuss."
"Okay." Al said, clearly unconvinced. He hedged - they could hear his footsteps, soft in slippers. "I'll leave some in the fridge if you're hungry later."
The boy was practically holding them hostage and leaving them leftovers. Odd. Odd, odd, odd. He finally left, the tell-tale clip-clap of dog nails following him.
"Anything?"
"Activity. In Louisiana. Cicadas, crop failures - get this, water contamination. Red algae. In the water system."
Sam hissed through his teeth. "Nile river turned to blood. Biblical plague?"
"Fuckers are getting creative, huh?" Dean grinned, a two-dimensional charicature.
"Where in Louisiana?"
"New Orleans herself."
"Ouch." Sam shook his head, idly tapping at the laptop's keyboard to keep it from going to sleep. "They really know how to pick a place. What's Bobby got to say?"
"Same old shit - scout out, analyze the fuck out of the whole shit." Dean shrugged, tabbing through the text messages on his cell phone. He grinned. "Remember the chick from the Coffee Bazar?"
"Dean, as your brother, I refuse to let you hook up with someone you met at the Coffee Bazaar."
"Why?"
"It's called 'the Coffee Bazaar'!"
"I'm not in a position to be picky, Sammy." Dean kicked off one of the many pillows, letting them scatter over the floor. "I wasn't drunk and she was pretty. Which means she's, you know, not a dog."
"So you plan on hooking up in Edward Elric's place? That's so - " Sam frowned. "That's so fucking gross, man."
"No. On the way to Mardi Gras." Dean said, fingers scooting over his cell's keypad. "This texting shit's tedious - aww, crap -"
"-There's one problem."
"What?"
"Alphonse."
Dean scoffed, lifting a shoulder in a half-shrug. "Kid's skinny as a rail, Sam. Just lock him in a closet."
_
"'Skinny as a rail, just lock him in a closet.'" Sam mimicked in a very whiney impression of Dean's casual tone. As well as he could, anyway, face planted in the hallway runner and all.
Dean, his cheek digging into Sam's shoulderblade, flexed his jaw and shook his head to clear the familiar fuzz of one knock too hard to the temple. "Shit."
"I told you." Alphonse said with just the tiniest hint of breathlessness. He dug his bony little knee into the small of Dean's back, forcing him down and, by extension, Sam under him. Dean thrashed like a fish. Sam began to inch his way out from under. Alphonse did something weird and quick, somehow twisting Dean's arm and Sam's arm around each other and into the same lock, adding his weight to the small of Dean's back so that any single fucking movement was painful. "I told you, I told you, I told you. You really can't leave."
"This is BULLSHIT." Dean snarled.
"It's only for a few more hours." Al said, exasperated.
"I don't mean that!" Dean thrashed again, and Al leaned in. "I cannot possibly get my ass handed to me by a KID."
"I'm sorry if I hurt your masculinity, Dean." Al said, in all seriousness. "I've taken on bigger things than you when I was really thirteen, plus give ninety years to refine it. Don't worry." He patted Dean's head in a playful gesture, small but freakishly strong hand still holding his and Sam's wrists between his fingers.
In the kitchen, the distinct crack-hiss-wheeze of Noa's laughter crept through the dead stillness. Al frowned down at them, and they tried their damned best to level equal glares at him.
"Fucking bullshit. Sam, this does not leave this house!"
"What?"
"No one knows I got the shit beat out of me by a fucking prettyboy."
"I'm glad to hear that." Al said, cheerfully.
"What?" They both hissed.
"It means I'm doing something right." Al smiled, a secretive but entirely honest, pleased smile. "My partner likes the feminine look." He blinked back at their rather stunned faces. "Oh, you really think I've always been this girlish?" He just shook his head, laughing.
Suddenly, a chaotic ruckus of barking dogs and jingling keys rang through the house. Hinges creaked, and a rough, almost sultry voice drifted, edged in irritation. "What the hell?"
A positively ethereal smile lit Al's face, then, and he wiggled in his seat on them with an eager sort of happiness. "Brother, you're home!"
"Should I have waited a couple more hours? Or maybe longer. There are two of them, anyway." The man lifted a gloved hand and whipped a slender pair of eyeglasses off his elegantly-shaped nose, gold eyes positively beastial and very, very possessive.
Al pouted and whined, a weedling, almost coddling tone. "It's not like that and you know it."
Dean felt the toe of a boot prod his shoe. "Who the fuck are they, then?" Edward asked.
"They would like your little brother to unhand us." Sam hissed into the carpet.
"Hey, quick question." Dean said around carpet fibers. "Am I the only one who's seriously uncomfortable?"
"I wasn't talking to them, now was I?" Ed snapped. "Al?"
"Guess so." Dean groaned, the strain on his shoulder starting to throb something awful.
"They came here looking for you. I'll tell you all about it later, you know, but they know. And they tried to leave. Which is why I need to sit on them, now."
Ed sighed. "I leave you alone for two weeks -"
"The timing isn't my fault!"
"Where's Noa?"
"Kitchen - probably finishing my tea." Al sulked.
"Hold them. I'll be right back."
_
"Edward." Noa spoke, softly. Sure enough, she had Al's ridiculous cat-shape tea mug between her hands, half-finished.
"Hey." He smiled, circled the table to wrap his arm around her stooped shoulders, careful of the weight of the automail. He kissed her soft cheek.
"Welcome home." She whispered.
"Glad to be back." He smiled into her hair. It smelled of lavender, some dumb organic shit Al bought from Whole Foods. "Al's been a handful, hasn't he?"
"I'm glad to have him here." She took a deep, wheezing breath. "We've missed you."
"Mm. Tired?"
"A little."
"Come on, then." He toed off the stops to the wheelchair and gently wheeled her to the lift. They had a lift installed, when Noa's strength began to ebb. It was a simple thing, hissing softly its acent to the second floor.
Edward was always gentle, frank and sure in the way he held her. Helped her, steadied her feet, tucked the blankets around her chin. He double and triple-checked the call button on her bedside table. From the hallway, Al yelled "It's working!" and Noa laughed.
"What?" He asked, playfully, as he sat and gently smoothed her hair over her pillow.
"He's so loud for someone so little." She said, with a small smile on her face. Ed could only smile in return. No one was sure when, exactly, Noa had come to love Alphonse as much as Ed did.
"Took after me, he did." Ed's brow furrowed. "Wait -"
Noa laughed, the thin skin of her throat stretched near-translucent as her head fell back into the pillows. It took a while for her to regain her breath. "Mm. He's not as muscular as you." She smirked, a deviousness she'd learned when she was twenty-five and had spent enough company with them. "Or as handsome."
Ed rolled his eyes, as he often did, and kissed her thin lips. "He's his own."
"He is. Speaking of which." Noa sat up, fumbling for the TV remote. "He's a little tease."
"Oh?" Ed's eyebrows shot up.
"What do I see when I wake up? Him, curled up, stark naked beside me. I think he's forgotten I'm old."
"You're not that old."
"Old enough."
"Should I tell him -"
"I may be too old to do much of anything about it, Edward." She said, in false annoyance. "But I'm not entirely blind yet. I'd rather enjoy it while I can."
"Much of anything?" Ed blinked, his eyes wide.
She just smirked. "Ask Alphonse."
Ed sighed through his teeth, chipped and sharp from many battles. It was a fascismile of humor.
"A handsome husband and a beautiful lover, mine until I die. What girl could ask for more?"
"Still. I worry." Ed sighed, gently entwining his strong, broad fingers into her birdlike ones. Matching rings, tarnished on Ed's hand. Behind him, the blue glow of the television came on, a talking head news anchor, the low, static sound of electronic voice.
"Don't." Noa said, firmly, even in her rasp of a voice. "I'm happy he's here. I'm happy with this." She squeezed his hand, and there was a smile on her face, her teeth thin and yellow. "Don't go on too many travels. Not many."
"Noa." Ed's jaw tensed.
She patted his hand, then. His eyes were soft, for once. He hadn't aged - in that respect, in some ways, he was still a child. "You have other things to worry about. Two other things."
"Right." Ed sighed. "Never a dull moment."
"Don't pout like that." She admonished. "You'll need that absinthe for this one."
"Right, right." He fussed with the blankets under her chin, a habit he'd picked up from Al. "That does not sound reassuring at all." He ushered the cats out, as he'd always done. Pulled the covers of the birdcage halfway off, so the dawny yellow of Noa's canaries could keep with her more peaceful company than either himself or his brother.
He kissed her before he left, and she was already half-asleep. "Love you." He whispered, and she smiled. Her lips formed the words, but her voice had been stretched, and lay, tired, with her.
_
"Let them up."
Like some obedient dog, Al released them. He sighed a delicate little sigh, righted his shirt and brushed off his trousers. Dean and Sam collapsed onto the floor with twin groans, stretching and shaking feeling back into bruised limbs.
"Living room."
"Look here." Dean braced himself against the hallway wall as he stood, brow furrowed and temper ticking at his jaw. "I don't know what the fuck is going on -"
"Living room, or leave." Ed stated, plainly, and went to his luggage. Al smiled, then, and trotted after him, high voice nagging 'Did you get it? Did you?'
"Yeah, yeah, got it. Got a lot of stuff you'd like." Ed looked at a bottle of wine. "Well, this one's mine. Here." He tossed a green bottle to his brother, who caught it in deft hands and smiled widely at the label. "Some cheese, chocolates, something for your collection -"
"Oh?" Al peered over his brother's shoulder, nestling his chin into the crook of Ed's neck. "It's beautiful, brother."
"Yeah, some hobo artist. Crazy as fuck, but he's good."
"I do love it." Al whispered, kissed his neck, held the small painting in two hands and admired it with almost raptured facination. "I think it'll be good in the garden. I'll have to have it framed properly -"
"Told you." Dean's voice was low and thick, rolling his shoulder to gain feeling back into it.
Sam's eyes darted, from Alphonse and Edward to Dean, and then again. "Did he just -"
"Yep."
"So I'm not -"
"Nope."
"Ew." And Dean nodded his agreement.
"Yeah, yeah. Jesus Christ, you step into every gay stereotype of each goddamn decade." Ed continued to grumble, and ventured to the kitchen. There, cabinets banged, glasses clinked. Al stuck his tongue out childishly at Ed's back. In the living room, he propped the small painting onto a shelf cluttered with old books. "I collect paintings. Unknown artists. They're much more interesting." He said, smiling a little as he stepped back to observe it.
Dean ran blunt fingers through his hair. "That's precious."
Ed threw himself, haphazard, into a chair by the fireplace. He sighed, a rude thing, impatient, uncultured. "So why am I talking to you?"
Al set the single wine glass on the coffee table. Uncorked the bottle, poured the wine.
Dean looked at the wine, and the glass. He didn't miss the way Al's fingers, small and delicate, slid up the narrow neck of the bottle once the glass was half-full. Al's head, turned, a smile, eyes only for Ed. Dean cleared his throat, and scooted against the armrest, away from Sam. "You haven't aged."
"No shit." The words had no venom. Ed took the glass from Al's hands. It was almost a surprise when Al didn't freakin' bow or something, so damn subservient.
"How?"
"Eating virgins." Ed smiled, all flashy teeth, some crooked, pointed canines.
Al looked away, at his painting. "Maybe once." He muttered, then laughed when Ed's fingers wormed into his armpits.
Al hitched a soft little gasp, the breath from his lips ruffling his older brother's hair. Ed's fingers dug into Al's chest and waist deeply, in a way that had to hurt, and Al only laughed.
Dean cleared his throat, a pointed, irritated sound. Then shot Sam a halfhearted glare, bags under his eyes, when Sam began to speak. "Sir, we would like to get out of your hair as soon as possible, so -"
"Really?" Al chirped, his high voice a sing-song. His footsteps bare over the cold hardwood floors. He leaned over, then, hands resting on the armrest. Eyes level with Sam's. "Then why not tell us what you did?" He said with flushed lips and a breathless voice.
"I don't know." Sam, his large hands, curled into fists on his knees. His lips set, refusing to back down to that odd, coy agressiveness.
"Oh?"
"I was - " Sam struggled, glanced to Dean.
Dean sighed, scrubbing his rough palms over his stubble-rough face. "He was dead." Bravado gone, factual and bland spoken.
Al stepped back, practically skittering to the harbor of his brother's side. "Explain."
_
By the time their patchwork, convoluted tale was done, Al was sitting at his brother's feet, hunched over, pensieve and quiet. Ed was flipping the slender stem of the wine glass between his fingers, like an oversized coin. It was quite some time, the minute and hour hands of the grandfather clock shifting circular. An odd monologue, rushed through in Dean's voice, backtracked in Sam's, odd little half inside-joke laughs peppering Hell.
"...You're our best lead." Dean finished, lamely. The quiet, disconcerting.
Sam rolled his shoulders, his back aching, his elbows on his knees, his fingers entwined at the knuckles. He glanced from one Elric to the other.
Then, suddenly, Ed laughed.
Ed laughed until he couldn't breathe, slapping his thigh, the glass dropped and cracked, rolling along the floor. Al squinted, dissaprovingly, but didn't say much.
"I thought we fucked up." Ed laughed, coughed, and laughed again. "Holy shit, I thought WE fucked up -"
"-Brother." Al said, softly.
"What? At least we didn't 'unleash Hell on earth' and have a part to play in the impending apocalypse." Ed snickered, leaning into the armrest of his chair. Al glanced at them, puppy-dog, and apologetic. Suddenly Ed righted himself, a frown deeply etched on his lips, usurping the giddily youthful display of before. "You expect me to believe this shit?"
Dean smiled, laughed, not quite a laugh. A sarcastic quirk of his lips, sideways, charming. "Yeah, far-fetched, isn't it?" He shook his head, laughing. "Pretty fucking unbelievable. Kind of like not aging for one hundred years?"
Al elbowed his brother's leg. "He has a point, brother." He said, softly.
"Please." Ed spoke, boldly, bristling, intimidating despite his size. "You expect me to believe this shit? Fairy-tales and nightmares - Dark Ages mumbo-jumbo?" He leaned over, and rapped his knuckles mockingly on the coffee table. It was a startlingly bold sound through the gloves. "I'm a scientist, kids, not a fucking pastor. Why not pray to God?" And he mocked 'God', bitterly.
Dean sneered. Just as bitter, he said - "I can't talk to God. Can't hear him. Can't see him. Tell you what, though - " He leaned forward, his elbows digging into the knees of his oil-stained jeans, and looked Ed square in the eye. " - That fuckin' demon? I sure as hell heard her. Saw her. Every one of them."
Sam said nothing. Al watched him, and spoke, quietly. "The sins would be considered demons." Al picked at the fray of his sweater. "The gate - what? Purgatory? Hell? The Thule Society thought I was a demon, remember, Brother?" He sighed, his brow furrowed. "Parallels, Brother. Transmutation there, Magic here, science here, alchemy there, Homunculus there, Demon here? Dante possessed Lyra. I possessed the armor. It isn't so impossible."
"You're not a demon."
"Parallels don't have to be exact." Al shrugged, glancing, against his will, at a picture on the mantle. Him but pale, handsome where Al was beautiful.
"Bullshit."
Complacently, Al stood, and took his brother's hand. "You're just tired and grumpy. Have you eaten?"
"Yes."
Al pulled him to his feet. "You need sleep. You need time to think."
"I need these two out of my house." Ed snarled.
"I believe them. So does Noa. Didn't she tell you?"
"Noa isn't your fucking mom, Al, stop playing us against each other!"
"I am not. She does believe them. Ask her tomorrow morning."
"If you think I have time - "
"We have a lot of time." Al said, patiently.
"As if I can sleep with them in my house - "
"I'll help you." Al whispered, moving in promise, leading his brother - his brother - up the stairs. The lilting way of Al's voice faded between the shadows of the hallway. A cat, one of many, with bright blue eyes, wound its way with sensual grace between and around Sam's ankles, and Dean's ankles. Dean hit the coffee table with the heel of his boot in frustration, and Sam watched the cat look at Dean with what could be considered dissapproval.
_
Sam found him outside in the pale sun of AM. Walked to his side, determination making his eyes flint and steel. His hands, jammed into his pockets, where the seam carved a red line into his knuckles. Laundry hung all along clotheslines, white shirts and white sheets, water dripping onto his hair and shoulders.
"I bet you're used to handwashing things." Al said, around a clothespin in his mouth.
"Why?"
"You don't have a home with a washer or a dryer." Al stood on tiptoes, clipped the pin. The wind pulled the clotheslines taut. The sheets whipped, snapped, sharp and wet.
Sam shrugged. "Bathtub. Laundromat."
"Mm. I remember."
"You weren't there." Sam reached into the plastic basin. Shook out a pillowcase. Soapy fingers on wooden pins.
"Maybe I was, once." Al wiped his hair from his face with the less-soapy backs of his hands. "I bet you've been places we've gone to fifty years ago."
"Fifty?"
Al shrugged. Tugged wrinkles out of fabric. "Or twenty. Or sixty."
"I wouldn't be surprised." Sam said, warily.
"Brother is researching. Trying to figure something out. It's how he works." Al said, softly, and traced the crisp collar of a grey dress shirt. "Dean?"
"Still asleep. Spent all night bitching. He believes us?"
"I convinced him to at least look into it."
Sam nodded his thanks. Convinced. Right.
"Thanks for helping me." Al favored him with a smile. "At this rate, I'll have breakfast ready by the time Brother realizes other things exist and Dean wakes up."
"I can help." Sam said, quickly. "I'm not much of a cook - "
"This is enough." Al said, firmly. He jerked at the hems and sleeves of a shirt, unwrinkling it before it dried. "Thank you. I know my brother's being difficult." Al stopped, and stepped back, unclipping a pin from his sleeve. "You're looking at me strange. Why?"
"You're - " Too domestic. Odd. Subservient. You've just fucked your brother and now I can't look mine in the eye. He cleared his throat. "You do all the housework here, don't you?"
"Mm." Al nodded.
"Why?"
"I don't want a maid." Al said. "They snoop. Noa's old. Brother - he gets caught up in his mind a lot. He can't clean worth shit." Al shrugged. "I'm happy. It makes me happy."
"I think I'd punch Dean." Sam muttered. Al frowned at him, a thoughtful pout.
"This reminds me of home." Al said, softly. "Back there, then, no dryers. I think that's why I do it like this."
"Old habits?"
"Yep." Al smiled.
"I guess he's lucky you're around." Sam said, quietly.
"You're trying to be polite. I appreciate that." Al said, in honesty. "Dean is too."
Sam just shook his head. "He's only here because he's humoring me."
Al curled his fingers on the clothesline, half-hanging off of it. "If he dies for you?"
"It won't happen." Sam said, quickly, habitually, before the sound of cars and dogs and people up and down the street could fill in a pause between him and Al.
"It can."
"I'll bring him back."
"Can you?"
"We told you - "
"I know it's possible." Al said, softly. "But -can you-?"
Sam narrowed his eyes. "And that means - ?"
Al rested his cheek against the sheets, the wet of it molding into the shape of his face. "If he dies for you, and you bring him back."
"It worked. Unless there's a catch. A toll."
"Maybe I'm wrong." Al said, smiling. Sam could have sworn it was fond. "I don't think you two will live exceptionally long, anyway. That's good."
"Is it?" Sam said, laughing.The clothing wet everything down to white and snatches of vibrant green lawn.
Al smiled. It was sad. Content. "If he dies for you, and he's brought back - nothing's gonna be the same."
Sam swallowed, thickly. Hooked his fingers onto the clothesline, a pace, two, away from Al's. Bigger. Calouses where the grip of his gun met his palm.
"Did you think about that?"
"It doesn't matter." Sam said, fiercely.
"You didn't."
"No. I just won't let him die. Not for me."
"Some things of you will die for him." Al said, softly.
"Like - ?"
"I don't think you'll be us." Al whispered. There was a strange light, a gloss and wet in his eyes as he looked at him. Really, really looked at him. Briskly, he turned and began to empty the leftover water of the basin into the grass.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Al stood, and looked at him. "I didn't even like men." He whispered, softly. "Not at first. It happens. In bits and pieces."
"People change." Sam said, fingers clenching around the clothesline.
"Noa said you were almost engaged, once."
Sam set his jaw. Inhaled a shaking breath. "I'll help with breakfast."
_
Dean stumbled down the stairs, hair askew, flat on the side where he lay on his pillow. "Eggs." He stated, bluntly. He shook his head, then, took the coffee someone offered him, and shook his head again.
Sam was pouring coffee. Five cups. Odd little mismatched mugs. Al hovered over the stove. The sunlight gleamed through the curtains, plain curtains. A gold coin hung from the doorknob leading out to the patio.
Dean sat heavily at the table, drank his coffee, and said - "This is creepily domestic."
"Here. Eggs." Al scraped them onto each plate. The yolk broke, yellow and thick. While Dean ate, Al frowned at his hair and ran his fingers through it.
"Whoa, what? Hey!" Dean leaned away, almost manic in the wide-eyed glare he gave the boy.
"Your hair looks stupid." Al said, bluntly, and tried to smooth it down with no gentleness with the flat of his palm.
"So does yours." Dean snipped.
Sam laughed into the rim of his coffee.
Ed stumbled down the stairs, a book open in the flat of his palm. An old journal, by the looks of things. Handwritten, faded pages. Worn leather spine.
"Morning, Brother." Al chirped. "I'm glad you at least remembered a robe." He stirred syrup into a mug of coffee. "Did you remember your boxers?"
Ed stopped, made an odd move as if considering to go back to his room, then shrugged.
Sam's fingers twitched above his fork, his jaw set and he shifted his weight and bulk around. Dean half-smiled and rubbed his bedhead into something (hopefully) more presentable, half-smiled and nothing else because Sam gave him that 'look' and quelled anything he had to say.
Ed looped an arm around Al's waist, and kissed his brother's neck, humming softly, a gentle bite that made Al laugh. His eyes never left the pages. "I can't find a correlation." He said, huskily, into the mess of his little brother's hair.
"I don't think you will." Al sighed, and slid a mug of coffee into Ed's hand and put a piece of toast to his mouth. Ed ate mechanically. "Dad was an Alchemist. He didn't have much time to study this world's sciences in full, did he?"
"He knew more about the Thule Society than most."
"You said yourself. Sheer, dumb luck."
"Maybe not. How'd they know to use Envy?"
"Parallels." Al sing-songed as he set breakfast potatoes out on a skillet. Better than a diner any day.
"One is All, All is One."
"Cycle of Life. Animism?"
Over Al's voice and Ed's grumbling, Dean shook the tabasco bottle vigorously over his potatoes. Al looked at him and wrinkled his nose in disgust, and Dean shook the bottle with even more relish.
Ed frowned, a sad little element. "Assessment, deconstruction and reconstruction."
"Christian rebirth. Baptism. Baptism through fire. The crucifixion?"
"No linear, solid pantheon though." Ed turned his focus to them, Sam and Dean, as they focused with commendable will on their respective breakfasts. "Does it matter? What pantheon or religion these demons come from?"
"Christian exorcisms - latin, holy water, crucifixes, Solomon's symbols, shields and seals." Sam sighed. "But, there are other hunters who use Hoodoo. In Japan, Buddhism and Shinto rites and rituals. Sometimes we use a pentacle to protect ourselves while we use a latin Catholic exorcism. There's no set-in-stone way."
"God isn't real." Ed spoke, bluntly. "Can't see how you can use Christian rituals without faith."
"Exactly." Dean said.
"I can't find a correlation." Ed sighed, and tossed the journal away. There were circles in the open pages. Geometric shapes.
"It was never supposed to work to begin with, Brother."
(End Chapter One)