Thanks to Isis the Sphinx for beta-reading.

Chapter 2: Truths

The two of them were great thieves.

They had always been doing it they supposed. It just felt victimless in the past since it was credit card fraud, but taking purse pouches and foodstuffs felt wrong. Or maybe that wasn't the real thing they were worried about, since neither wanted to point out the yeti in the room, but the more they saw of China the more both felt something was very wrong. They had ignored the language barrier at first, Sam using the last few hours of his computer's battery life to write down the basic words for their survival on the back of the map he stole.

The map must have been written by a blind man because Dean couldn't recognize anything. He was actually really good at Geography. Did he know every country in the world? No, he didn't, but he knew the shapes and sizes of landmasses and he didn't recognize anything on this map.

It unnerved both of them, and the strange animals were not helping.

The bird-horse thing was not an ostrich and some of the wildlife had seemed to be chimeras at first, but people were not offset by them or frightened at all by the strange intermixed beasts. Apparently, these animals were normal, but still neither could accept that they weren't in China. Where else could have Cas sent them? Where would he leave them? And this sure wasn't the past or an apocalyptic future, though it had struck up a discussion between the two brothers.

It was the kind of conversation that dragged on for a day, for lack of anything better to do in their travels. Much like the conversation they were having now, Sam pilling over some parchments he had stolen from what looked like an angry mouse man.

The very ground quaked when the man looked in his satchel and discovered a huge hole, courtesy of one of the many hunting knives in the survival bag, where everything including his coin purse had fallen out of. Sam and Dean had simply needed to follow after like scavengers, picking up the falling pieces.

"I don't know Dean, I still … something just seems wrong, you know?" Sam said as he peered at the document, struggling to read each symbol.

Dean, who was currently sharpening a stick for an arrow he was making since he just happened to find a bow since he just happened to be unable to eat fruit anymore, lowered his eight inch hunting blade and stared at his brother for a moment before murmuring, "Not this discussion again. I thought you said we're in China? What? Is it one of the lesser known asian countries? It really doesn't matter. We'll just say Asia instead of China in our bitch-fits then."

Finally figuring out he was reading a guide of some kind, Sam placed his reading material down and glared at Dean, who had taken a perch a few feet in the air on a boulder with his feet dangling near Sam's shoulder. Pushing an offending foot away, the younger sibling continued, "I do believe that was you who stated China. I just said Chinese."

Dean, pulling the offending foot up onto his stone perch, shrugged his shoulders. He hadn't had as much practice with a bow as he did a gun, but since they were conserving the bullets for dire situations -like demons or angels or some other godforsaken monster- if he wanted red meat tonight he'd have to catch it this way.

He had good aim so he was sure after only a few missed shots he'd have a dead thing bowing to the flame of his campfire soon. At the thought of the campfire, Dean stopped his whittling and frowned. He really had to stop thinking like that all the time. He was starting to worry that he was starting to become a pyromaniac.

Eh … He'd been worse.

"Yes, it matters Dean. We need to get to a major city where they have an American Embassy. Then we can get a ride home."

Dean smiled to himself, chuckling once as he added, "Haha…stewardesses."

Sam just glared.

"What? It's been almost, what, three weeks? And though my Chinese is no longer just, 'I didn't take it', it's still not fluent enough to pick up chicks. A man, real man that is, has needs Sammy," muttered Dean as he stared at the shaft of his arrow, reaching for an arrow head he'd found at what could have only been a battlefield once. The whole valley had burned years ago if the crispy trees were any indication.

Eye twitching, a part of his mind still wondering how there weren't little Deans running around, Sam continued, "So, we needed to head to the nearest city, which I'm not really sure where we are or what is even a city on this map. This round thing might be it, but it would have to be hundreds of miles across, this B-Ba Sing Se. Yeah, that's what it translates into."

"Not a city I have ever heard of."

"Me either, plus the scroll we found is troubling," added Sam, pulling up the scroll he had been struggling to translate for the past few days.

"How so… is it about naked chicks?" Dean grinned, jabbing at his brother's apparently sissy characteristics again.

Sam actually gritted his teeth this time and Dean yelped, the rock he had been on seeming to have moved of its own accord, nearly sending the shorter sibling into a nose dive to the ground. Sam, with his quick reflexes, was immediately out of the way and to his feet with his precious scrolls in hand to stop Dean from falling on them.

Dean, who had regained his balance atop the boulder, took a moment to bark at his brother, "You saved the scrolls and not me? I'm hurt."

Waving off his brother's false need of sympathy, Sam sat down a little farther away, stating, "Get down then. The ground must be unstable, but, like I was stating, there's something strange about the scroll. It's talking about…Well, the nearest I can translate it is bent or bending? It's a fighting style with the basic steps for self-taught lessons. Apparently, there is something about a kata to fend off fire as well."

"Does it come with pictures?" said Dean as he jumped down.

"Yeah, actually it does. It looks to be some type of karate or something where you…kick rocks, barefoot," said Sam, frowning as he stared at the ink little diagram men on the scroll.

Dean made a pained look at that statement and murmured, "I'm good with my normal fighting skills, Sammy. Earning a stubbed toe doesn't sound like any fun to me."

"Me either … but … it keeps saying something about chi or life force to control an element."

"You saying we jacked some voodoo scroll from a witch doctor?" Dean asked as sat down across from his brother and started on his next arrow shaft, leaving the tail for last since he still had to collect some feathers.

"No, no…it didn't seem dark at all from the tone. It seemed the norm here," Sam remarked as he looked at the little drawing's movements, half tempted to try one but knowing better. He'd stubbed his toes enough times in the last few days, having started to go barefoot.

He just felt so much more secure without the constricting shoes on.

Shaking his head, Dean stated, "Well, we have bigger worries than magic karate, like getting back home to kick Cas' ass. So let's have some Chinese lessons, I'll catch us some dinner afterwards, and then we'll see if we can find a town. Maybe you can get some decent directions now that you know a few words."

About to nod his head in agreement, Sam stalled and asked, "Why am I volunteered to ask for directions?"

Smiling as he leaned forward to start a fire with just a flint rock he had picked up to conserve matches, Dean mocked, "Because real men don't ask for directions. "

Neither Winchester noticed that the bolder Dean had been sitting on cracked.

…

"Soooo…this is…"

"I know Sam…I know. Don't say it."

"Embarrassing. I mean … we are supposed to be hunters and we got caught by…"

"Fourteen year olds, children…I get it Sam. Stop rubbing it in," barked Dean in English as they glared down from their cages down at a group of scruffy kids that were a few yards down on the ground. It had been Dean that had seen the berries, Sam had tried to stop him and…yeah…live monkey traps. So, Dean now felt like a monkey in this. Just bring him a damn banana and be done with it.

Clearing his throat, hoping his accent wasn't too heavy, Sam yelled down in Chinese, "Can you help? We…Uh…stuck?"

A boy down below barked a laugh, a reed or something in his mouth as he replied back in Chinese, "I can see that? Are you Fire Nation or just a retard?"

Sam had to think for a moment, translating the sentence in his head, hoping he had understood that correctly. Though, from the way the kids were now laughing and pointing, he was sure the kid had been sarcastic and that he had translated the country wrong. Fire was not a name of a Nation.

Shrugging it off, Dean replied, "We Americans."

The kids all stopped laughing and looked confused for a minute before the scruffy kid, probably a preteen, thirteen at tops, frowned and stated in Chinese, "Am-hair-icaaaas-n? Is that a Fire Nation lie?"

"Lie?" Sam's head tilted to the side, noting that Dean had grown bored with the discussion with the prepubescent at their feet and was hacking away at the rope with his eight inch hunting knife. A bit overkill really, but that didn't stop Sam from snapping at the other, "Dean, what are you doing? That is nearly a two story fall to the ground! Stop. Stop that right now!"

Dean, who was hacking away at the rope with far too much enthusiasm, stalled as his cage twirled around in the air, stating, "Sammy, ghosts have thrown us farther than this fall to the ground and besides…I need to get down there to beat that kid. I know he called us something nasty. I swear if he called me a sissy, I'll beat his ass."

Sam frowned at his brother, "I don't think he called us anything like that…just give me a few minutes before you hurt yourself."

Stalling again, Dean glared at his brother, Sam squinting for the first time when he realized Dean's green eyes now seemed to have this golden ring around the iris. It was a haunting color really, supernatural almost. When the hell had that happened? Yeah, he didn't often stare into his brother's eyes or anything like some fanfiction writers liked to claim, but what had caused that?

They hadn't eaten anything strange, well, maybe Dean had. He swore his brother was eating twice as much as usual. Pretty much anything that could move, which was something he didn't want to think about. The last few meals had looked like chimeras. In fact, everything that Dean had caught recently had seemed interbred.

Neither one of them wanted to bridge the subject, but the map, the language, the utter lack of any modern day utilities or culture like a t-shirt bugged them both. Something wasn't right here and the golden ring in Dean's eyes was making Sam's stomach sink as the younger brother pursed his lips.

Dean, who had pulled his knife down, was now frowning at Sam, who was staring at him.

"Your staring is creeping me out, Sammy. I-is there something on my face? Berry juice…a tick? You know I hate ticks so you better tell me if it's fucking tick. Worse than fucking vamps, Sam. Those things are almost worse than fucking vamps."

Shaking his head, hoping to god that maybe there was just copper or something in Dean's all-meat diet of late, Sam stated, "It's nothing…just thinking."

Glaring at his little brother for a moment, Dean flatly stated, "You're lying…"

Rolling his eyes, not wanting a fight a few feet off the ground, the dirty-blond rolled his eyes. "Fine…it's a tick."

"Eww, eww… ehhh! Where is it?!"

"S-stop wiggling! Dean, DEANNNNNNNN!"

…

Metal makes a most unpleasant sound when mixed with bones and slamming into the ground, though not as unpleasant as a desperate brother's scream as the children struggled to get him out of the trees.

…

There was a ball of fire in his chest.

It was a small sun next to his heart and it was growing, blooming, a life all its own and it belonged to him. It was his to use. It was there to comfort his scarred soul. In fact, it was nestling up against his hell-stained soul right now; fiery wisps reaching out to touch the scars, soothing a part of him he always thought ruined. He might have wept because for the first time in a long time he was warm on the inside.

His soul, through the jokes and the gags and the love making, had long since felt cold since hell and all the shit in between, but this thing; it was breathing with the sun, with the fire, with the flames.

Dean was warm.

So he opened his eyes, the gold having eaten the green just a little bit more as they lazily tried to focus, the fire pit in front of him wavering. He had thought that it rose and fell with his breath for a moment, but the hunter didn't get to focus on that when Sam suddenly staggered inside the—hut, maybe—he was in with three children hanging off him. They were pulling Sam's hair, giggling at his strange clothes, and all the irritation stalled when the younger brother noticed Dean's gaze.

Sam couldn't help but give a relieved half-smile as he sat down on the dirty floor, the kids all sitting down next to him as if waiting for another story.

Sam, seeing their expecting gazes, said something in a Chinese dialect to the small youths and they all whined and moped, yet reluctantly made their ways outside. Sam called something back in the foreign language before he waited for the three little stinkers to disappear out the door. Only once he was sure they were gone, did he speak.

"How you feeling? You're lucky we've had lots of experience setting bones as children or you might never be able to walk again. Plus, the next nearest healer is in a Fire Nation colony which from what I understand is a bad move."

"Fire Nation?" murmured Dean, his throat dry as he made to sit up, only to fall back against the straw mat, whining.

"Did the set bones recollection go over your head?" Sam growled as he got up on his knees and headed towards Dean's feet, lifting up the thin raggedy brown sheet that had been draped over the limbs, revealing a wrapped leg.

Dean moaned and wiped his hand down his face as he cringed at the idea of being bed-ridden for four to eight weeks, joking to cover up the dismay. "Well, there goes my dancing career."

"It's not a joking matter," bit out Sam, finally looking mad as he covered the limb back up. "You hit your head Dean! You could have been bleeding out in your brain and I wouldn't have known until I found you cold in the morning. And then you have the audacity to stay unconscious for nearly a week! I had to clean your bed-pan-bowl and that almost tempted the limits of a brother's love."

Dean cringed at the bed-pan comment, adding, "Well, if it's any consolation, I'm in a lot of pain."

Sam rolled his eyes, shifting to the other side of the room and reaching for a small vial. "Here's some poppy-seed oil. It should kill most of the pain."

Allowing Sam to tilt his head up, he took a sip, choking it down. "Eh… that's some nasty shit, Sammy, but can you tell me why I'm in this creepy hut?" Dean asked, looking at the half decayed wooden walls, lack of a door, and dirt floor before continuing, "Instead of being around lots of cute nurses?"

Sam looked away, uncomfortable.

Dean, though feeling fuzzy, doubted it was because of the medicine. What could steal words from Sam? They had saved the world, what, five times? They had seen a lot of shit. So what could bother Sam? Did he even want to know?

Swallowing hard, ignoring that wavering flames in the middle of the room as if the fire had just been partly smothered, Dean asked, "Sammy…what happened? Why can't I have my pretty nurses?"

Closing his eyes, letting a breath out smoothly as he turned his head to look outside at the darkness, he spoke, "Well, when you fell, the kids decided to help us. Said we were too weird to be Fire Nation and started helping me learn more Chinese as well as…where we are…and what's going on here."

Dean had no idea what the Fire Nation was, but was sure they would get to that later. He just nodded.

"Turns out there's a war going on with the Fire Nation. This use to be a part of the Earth Kingdom, apparently, and these kids are all orphans from the battle or…are war children," said Sam in a soft voice.

Dean frowned. "Sam, I've never heard of a Fire Nation or Earth Kingdom. Are sure you weren't the one to hit your head?"

Sam glared, his expression still very serious. That was the kind of expression Sam got when the apocalypse was nigh. Fuck a chick in a cheese basket, this was bad. They were already in the middle of saving the world and they had another one on the horizon. The world just wanted to die, that must be it, because this saving the world thing, maybe one or twice, understandable, but really?

Did god really hate them both that much?

Sam interrupted his brother's internal meltdown with a sigh, stating, "No, you did. Now, let me finish…"

Sam suddenly seemed pained, as if he was struggling for the right words to say which only made Dean even more nervous as he struggled to slowly sit up, this time minding his leg and aching back, murmuring, "Just out with it. I can't take the suspense."

"You've never heard of those countries before because they are not on Earth," said Sam, carefully, leaving it hang there.

Dean, who was holding his abdomen because it was aching, chuckled in his throat, understanding what had not been said.

"W-what? You're kidding Sammy. There are no such things as aliens. Aliens are just explanations people make up because they don't want to call them monsters. Remember the last alien encounter we had? Well, you didn't have a soul then…but it was fairies Sam. Little, pain in the ass, fairies! A djinn would be more likely but then again I haven't been having a good time so I don't think that's it. Or, maybe the angles are just fucking with our heads? Think of that for…"

"Shut up, Dean!" Sam barked suddenly, "We are not on Earth. Cas wanted to keep us away and he did a hell of a good job. I don't know if it's an alternate dimension or another planet or some form of hell! All I know is that those animals neither of us recognize…chimera…they are normal animals here! And the stars! I took a few astrology classes and none of the star patterns are normal! And English…the kids didn't even know there were other languages around. The whole planet speaks some form of Chinese, Dean. We are not on fucking Earth! They don't even know what electricity is."

The elder brother wilted and suddenly felt really sick, the whole room starting to tilt as if he had vertigo, his voice weak as he whispered, "I-I need to lie down, Sam. T-that's a little too much to take for me at once, yah know."

Sam immediately looked ashamed, getting in closer as he put a hand on his brother's back, helping him lay down, his voice soft, "S-sorry, I figured this out a few days ago and it's been eating at me."

Nodding his head slightly, Dean suddenly felt every limb and their bruises. Swallowing the pain, the elder hunter whispered, "I get you. I get you."

Swallowing hard, feeling tears prickle at the sides of his eyes, Dean felt vulnerable for the first time in a long time, his voice shaking as a hard realization hit him suddenly, "Sammy…I don't think we are going to be able to save the world this time. Can't save a place if you don't even know where the hell it is."

Sam, who was watching the flames almost smolder out completely, the room becoming so dark the moon outside was almost offering more light to the shanty hut than the flames were, nodded and whispered, "I know, Dean. I know."

XXX

Paw07: Oooh, a sad chapter ending. Regardless, I really shouldn't be working on this, but eh… I've been in an Avatar mood. Updates will most likely be sporadic though. Reluctant Hero is still on the top of my list of things to work on. Later!