"I don't mean to sound insensitive or anything, but ... Dude. You look like shit."

Edge looked up from where he was bent over tying his shoes to see Christian watching him from the bathroom doorway, appearing for all the world to be a rabid dog thanks to the toothpaste foaming in his mouth. "Gee, thanks. It's nice to know you care."

"No problem." Christian retreated into the bathroom and noisily finished whatever it was he was doing, then came back out wiping the last bits of toothpaste from the corners of his mouth. "So, since we've decided to play Thelma and Louise, where are we goin' today?"

"Don't know."

"Good enough."

Christian fell silent while he started on a search for his shoes, victoriously unearthing them from underneath his bed. He couldn't remember putting them there, but that wasn't important. "So," he started again, sliding his feet into his shoes and checking the laces that never came untied, "you didn't spend all night pacing, did you?"

"Not the whole night, no."

Christian looked up when he heard Edge fidgeting nervously with the doorknob. "I...had another nightmare, didn't I?"

That was another thing that drove Edge crazy. He could never be positive about when Christian really didn't remember freaking out at some ungodly hour of the morning or when he just didn't feel like talking about it and thus feigned ignorance to the matter entirely. In any event, it left Edge helpless and clueless as to what to say the next morning. There wasn't really much use in lying to him, but telling him the truth might send the already moody Christian into one of his dreaded temperamental fits. Not knowing what else to do, he nodded simply and said, "yeah. A bad one."

"Eh," Christian shrugged carelessly. "I'll deal."

"You've been 'dealing' for years, Chris, and it's not helping things any. Maybe you should try talking to someone --"

"Are you saying I need a shrink?"

"No! I mean . . ." Edge trailed off, trying to think of how to tactfully phrase his words as Christian came closer to the door. "Keeping it all locked inside isn't helping you at all. I'm just saying that maybe you need to talk about all of it to someone."

"Fine! You wanna hear my sob story? I'm terrified to go to sleep at night because I never know what I'm gonna remember when I wake up. All I ever manage to do when I'm asleep is go back to that hellhole and hide in my room, crying like some ... some little kid ... listening to my brother in the next room getting raped by our goddamned father and knowing I couldn't do anything about it because the minute I said something he'd beat the shit outta me. I could hear you crying and begging him to stop and every time I did I just wanted to find a corner to go crawl into and die." He stopped, unable to speak past the lump that had formed in his throat. "Shit. Give me the keys. I'm driving."

******

"If I go crazy then will you still call me Superman?"

"Please stop singing."

"If I'm alive and well will you still go on holding my hand?"

"Christian! For the last time, you are a horrible singer, now shut up!"

Five hours into the drive and they were ready to rip each other's throat out. Edge had wrestled the keys away from Christian as soon as he realized the only reason his brother wanted to drive was because he had a cast iron stomach and thus intended to stop at every fast food place they saw. He was willing to let it go until their second stop at Burger King. Really, though, Christian didn't mind too much; it was easier to annoy someone without the pressure of having to pay attention to the road. That explained why he was singing along -- loudly -- with every song that came on the radio that he recognized . . . and even some he didn't, if he was feeling especially obnoxious.

"Look at it this way," he started, taking a few final slurps of his milkshake and then tossing it into one of the many empty bags gathered at his feet. "It's not the Barbie Girl song."

"Nothing's worse than listening to you sing along with the Backstreet Boys."

"'Cause I want it that way. Tell my why --"

"No!" Edge ordered, reaching across the armrest to slap at Christian. "No! Absolutely not! I listened to it once. I will *not* listen to it again."

"Huh. You're right. That's too ... '98." Christian paused and then grinned in sadistic glee. "He met Marmalade down in old Moulin Rouge, struttin' her stuff on the street."

"That's it. Get out. Get out of the damn car. I hope Gangrel finds you and leaves you a dry carcass alongside the road somewhere," Edge grumbled, pulling into a gas station and beside a pump. "And I hope a vulture gets what's left."

"But I was even gonna do the L'il Kim parts! Uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh! See? I'm a natural."

Edge glared at Christian, then climbed out of his seat. "Alright, listen to me, you annoying brat. Can I trust you by yourself long enough to put twenty bucks worth of gas in the car?"

"Not twenty and a dime?"

"Twenty," Edge repeated, brow narrowed. "And then I want you to get right back in the car."

"Oh yeah, Gangrel's gonna be hanging out at a gas station in the middle of bumfuck Illinois."

"You heard what I said. Do you want anything?"

"A girl. A naked girl. In my bed. No, *handcuffed* to my bed."

"Something I can buy at a Speedway. Preferably something under ten dollars, 'cause I've only got tens and twenties with me."

Christian sighed quietly and stepped out of the car, going around to the gas tank where Edge stood. "Mountain Dew. And a bag of Fritos."

Edge nodded wordlessly and took off for the main building.

"Oh! And a pack of Lifesavers! And some of those little white donuts!" Christian called over the top of the car. Whether Edge didn't hear him or he had and was blatantly ignoring him was beyond him, but it didn't matter much to him anyway. He wasn't so much hungry as just wanting to be as annoying as possible. Deciding to go easy on his brother for once by only putting in twenty dollars' worth of gas in the car, he slid the hose back into his spot and screwed the cap back on the tank and then set to work on trying to locate the bathroom. The milkshake had been what broke the proverbial camel's back, mostly because of the two large cups of Dr. Pepper he'd had earlier that morning.

And, he noted to himself once he was in the back of the building, if he didn't find a bathroom soon he was going to thank God he was male and just whip it out and do his business right there in the bushes.

He figured it was about his luck when he finally did find a bathroom, only to find it locked. Shrugging carelessly, he turned and unzipped his jeans, crying out hoarsely when he turned and came face-to-face with Gangrel.

"If you piss on me, I'll kill you without a second thought," the older man warned, watching Christian closely. "Now then, to make myself the cliche villain of the situation, we can do this the hard way or the easy way. Truthfully, I'd very much prefer the easy way, as I'm sure you would as well."

"Grel, uh . . . maybe we can talk this out."

"I find it hard to make deals with any man wearing boxers with . . . are those smiley faces?"

Christian flushed a dull crimson, hastily zipping his jeans and leaving his hands on the button at the top just incase. "Hey, they were a birthday present! And they're comfortable! And chicks dig 'em! That's your problem, Grel, you need to get laid. Do you need some smiley face boxers in your life?"

Unimpressed with Christian's frantic rambling, Gangrel folded his arms across his chest and began to shift his weight impatiently from one foot to the other. "I really have no desire to hurt you, Christian, but don't think I'll hesitate to do so if the need arises. There's no need for you to make this any harder on yourself than it is."

Eyes flicking anxiously from the corner of the building and back to Gangrel, Christian's mind was working rapidly to come up with a decent escape plan. The best one that surfaced involved a gun and a wooden stake, but finding himself lacking both, he settled for plan B instead. He grabbed an empty milk crate on the ground beside him and hurled it as hard as he could at Gangrel's head, then took off running for the side of the building. He hadn't, however, anticipated Gangrel using the incredible speed advantage he held over humans; he gasped when a pair of strong arms wrapped around his throat, and before he knew it the world began to dim around him.

"Not fair," he mumbled before the inviting darkness claimed him. He collapsed in Gangrel's arms, warranting a shake of a head and a sad frown.

"Stupid boy," Gangrel scolded even while knowing Christian was unconscious and not in the least bothered by the remark. He let go of Christian's neck and then wrapped his arms around the boy's surprisingly thin waist, hoisting him up and taking to the air, thankful a storm was brewing and clouds obscured onlookers' vision.

Edge emerged from the gas station with a plastic bag in one hand, a bottle of Slice in the other, and his keys in his mouth. His brow furrowed to see that Christian was not only *not* in the car, but indeed, absolutely nowhere to be found. Distracted, he set the bag in the back seat of the car, leaning on the open door and puzzling over where his brother may have wandered off to.

That's when it hit him -- that smell. The same one he had always associated with Gangrel, nothing but the faintest traces of blood and death and decay and an untold antiquity, and a ball of ice cold dread dropped into his stomach, making him shut the door and lean against the car just to keep from falling to the ground.

"God, no," he groaned, forehead leaning over to rest against the cool metal of the top of the Rodeo. "God, no, please...don't do this to him..."

But then again, the back of his mind reasoned, God had nothing at all to do with this, and He was seeing to it that He didn't become involved, either.

Not knowing what else to do, Edge got into the car and drove until the gas station disappeared from his rear view mirror and all that could be seen in any direction was flat land covered with tall grass and a few trees strewn about. He pulled to the side of the road, gravels crunching noisily beneath the tires, but he ignored the sound and got back out of the car. Every rational part of him was telling him that the smartest thing he could do would be to just keep his nose out of business that didn't concern him and let Gangrel do whatever it was that he wanted to do. Then again, most of his choices in life had gone against what was smartest and veered more towards what was easiest.

Cursing himself and the world under his breath, he took flight, headed for where a long-buried part of his mind knew Gangrel could be found.