"Son…..of…..a…..bitch."
Dean's emphasis on each word went further than Sam cared for but he couldn't deny that his brother's off-moment mirrored his own. Not only did they own a house…they owned a pink house.
The outside itself wasn't pink, thankfully, but everything inside it, right down to the floor tiles was adorned in some shade of pink. Pink curtains with pink ruffle trim, a magenta couch with light pink throw pillows, the back of it covered in a pink crochet blanket. Pink rugs here and there stood out viciously against the darkened hardwood floors. The kitchen was beige and light pink with white countertops, the cabinets pink with glossy-white knobs. The bathroom, bedrooms, living room, dining room all pink. Even the crawlspace below the house was pink. Pink. Pink. Everything fucking pink.
"Oh god we're Elle Woods now," Dean's expression was a mixture of disgust and that kind of look young children have when faced with the possibility of touching a member of the opposite sex and catching the "cooties."
"Now all we need is a damn Chihuahua and we're good to go," Bobby leaned over to pluck a pink candle (go figure) off the coffee table, sniff it, wrinkle his nose in revulsion, then set it back down with a cough. "That's like ammonia to my sinuses."
"It's like an early 1900's version of the Playboy mansion before it was a big deal," Dean snarked.
"Yeah except there aren't any Bunnies to offset the crappy interior design," Sam replied jokingly, snatching a pillow from off the couch. Silk, probably the cheap imitation, and more feminine than he could handle.
Dean set down the duffle-bag he'd had slung over his shoulder onto the wooden floor. They'd made a pit-stop along the way to gather "supplies": meaning guns and booze (which had actually been easy to get wouldn't you know), the "bare necessities" of the hunter life, or at least two of the three. Dean was making for the kitchen to check up on the third member of that group, opening up random cabinets, the pantry door, the icebox, but finding nothing.
"Dammit," he slammed a cabinet door shut. "Well no go-juice for now which means one of you is going to have to play housewife," he formed his hand into a fist and placed into his other open palm.
"Now that we have some money," Bobby interjected, holding up a hand. "Why not just eat out instead of resorting to Rock Paper Scissors? I'm pretty sure there wont be any food here we can nuke in a microwave, meaning we'd have to fix it from scratch. Are either of you big fans of Rachael Ray?"
Dean made a shrug-smile face, "Fine by me, like hell am I going to cook."
"Well god-forbid you lift a spatula instead of a wrench," Bobby countered provokingly, but Dean merely shrugged in nonchalance.
The next hour or so was spent doing what Sam liked the call "rigging". At various locations in the house, in concealed but easy-to-find (for them) locations, they placed any one of a gun or blade. Sawed-off shotguns, 9mm semiautomatic's, machetes, bow knives, even a dagger or two. The gun-shop owner hadn't appeared the slightest bit suspicious for their need to have so many weapons, which lead Sam to believe that military officials sometimes carried their work home with them. No car meant no trunk to "rig" out, so their house was the next best thing. Bobby went to work drawing Devil's Trap's on every ceiling in each room while Dean was busy putting salt-lines at every door and window. The black sinister markings of the Traps clashed dramatically with the innocent vibes of the feminine décor which, if by some off-chance the house was ever invaded by demons or other creatures, would make them appear to be quite the comic relief to the bad guys. The booze went straight into the cabinets, but no glasses meant no indulgence until they either ran to the nearest store or overcame the "no drinking after each other" rule.
"Well that about does it," Bobby emerged from one of the bedrooms, replacing the cap on a permanent marker. "But we need Holy Water something fierce if Sam's instinct on the Fuhrer is right and I'm fresh out of Rosary's."
"I hate not having a Panic Room now," Dean placed the salt-bags into one of the cabinets and shut it closed. "But good thing we know how to Exorcise by heart, that helps some."
"Too bad we don't have that special knife of yours," Bobby stuck the marker back in the duffle-bag and zipped it shut.
Most of the stuff that they really needed was still in the Impala which, from what Dean had told Sam, had been given quite the donkey-kick by a horde of demons and was now lying on its roof, useless except to attract attention of a passerby. Dean still muttered incoherently and viciously under his breath whenever his beloved car was mentioned, pissed off at the fact that it had been trashed by something demon-related incident once again. But Sam was more concerned about the weapons they'd left behind, including the archangel's blade as well as the demon-killing knife, the former having fallen from Sam's grasp when Castiel went to tear his soul out.
Sam absent-mindedly rubbed a hand across his stomach, the phantom pain from Cas's fingers penetrating his lower abdomen having lessened a great deal since last night. He wondered vaguely what Cas might be up to right now, if he was out searching for them. Hell he could already be here for all they knew, probably tearing the place apart trying to find them. The very idea of Cas finding them here scared Sam more than any crazed alchemist or shady Fuhrer.
And apparently he wasn't alone.
"Well, now that we've got a minute," Bobby went over to sit on the couch, resting his arm along the back of it. "Are we going to talk about what happened back in that room or are we going to continue ignoring it like we've been doing?"
Good ol' Bobby, always straight to the point, his tone insinuating that this would be a bullshit-free conversation. And he was right, they had been ignoring it for the past several hours, but now the weight of their predicament was closing in on them in a suffocating manner. In their defense however, there had been plenty of distractions between now and their first landing into this alternate universe to keep them from focusing intently on what had happened.
"Alrighty then," Dean went to occupy the other end of the couch, and Sam sat on the arm of one of the chairs. "Well I think it's easy to deduce that Cas has flown off the handle in a big way."
Bobby quirked an eyebrow, "You think?"
Dean closed his eyes and sighed dramatically, "Okay fine, but what the hell are we going to do about it? I mean it's not like he's going to listen to us. I mean damn Bobby he tried to rip out Sam's soul," he turned to face his brother. "Speaking of which, how's that going for you? I mean you're obviously still running on a conscience."
Sam shrugged, "I think he came close but yeah it's still there. Although I've never seen Cas get that dark and ensue a First-Testament-God-like wrath on us."
"Yeah well I'm starting to wonder if Cas might have been a closet S&M pervert," Dean replied cynically intertwining his fingers and placing them behind his head, palms out, like a make-shift pillow.
"Well I think it's safe to say that we…" Sam began but he stopped short. There, just outside on a sidewalk across the road from their house, was none other than the Elric brothers. Ed walking slightly ahead of Al, once again adorning his red coat, but what Sam hadn't noticed before was the black pants, shirt and boots. He wore the gloves Sam had noticed last night and his metallic hand clasped the handle of a large suitcase slung over his right shoulder. Alphonse walked with his usual clanking steps, all seven-some-odd-feet of armor towering over his older brother.
You don't know a damn thing about it! Just stay the hell away from us you hear?
Maybe so, but the familiarity Sam had felt each time he'd encountered either one or both of the Elrics was still there. Not to mention the two of them exhibited some characteristics that mirrored some of his and Dean's own aspects. He may not know much, but the four of them were connected somehow.
"Sam?"
Sam didn't turn to answer; instead he got up and went straight to the front door, yelling over his shoulder that he would be back later. He didn't have much time, the source for the information he'd wondered about was walking down the street, and out of the city from the looks of that suitcase.
He ignored Dean and Bobby calling his name, shutting the door behind him and running across the street. Ed and Al were facing away from him so they didn't notice him approaching, but Sam made quick work to tap Al on his back then dart around the nearest corner. Sam hadn't forgotten Ed's warning from earlier, but he had the feeling that Al would talk to him, he just needed to get him alone somewhere. Al stopped for a moment, turning to glance behind him, noticed Sam standing suspiciously behind the corner of the café they'd just passed, and gave an involuntary gasp.
Ed heard the sound, and turned to face his brother, curiosity making his youthful face smooth as opposed to the stressful looks that brought about a crease or two in his forehead, something Sam had wondered was customary for him. "What is it Al?"
The younger Elric whipped his head around to look at his brother, "I um….I just remembered I left something…..back at the hotel." He placed a hand at the back of his head and rubbed it nervously, motioning for Ed to go on, "You go ahead and get our tickets for the train, I'll catch up with you."
Ed looked skeptical, dropping the suitcase so that it dangled next to him. "Are you sure?" his voice was gentile, which surprised Sam and yet didn't surprise him considering that Ed was talking to his brother, seemingly of the belief that it was just the too of them, like they were the only two people in the world that mattered. Just each other. Sam recognized that kind of brotherly atmosphere, exactly how many times had he and his own brother had these kinds of moments?
Mini-Dean indeed.
"Uh yeah, I'll be okay," Al nodded; well it was more of an entire upper-body nod since he couldn't exactly nod his head. "I'll just run back to our room, be back before you know it."
Ed seemed wary of his brother going back alone, but he inevitably shrugged and turned to walk off, waving at Al as he went, "Hurry it up though, we've already been delayed in going to Lior, we can't keep dodging alright?"
"See you," Al called after him, turning to walk in the opposite direction. After he'd gone several feet he glanced behind him, when Ed disappeared around the bend and was gone, Al made straight for Sam who'd been waiting in the shadows of an alley.
"What are you doing here?" The younger Elric glanced back in the direction Ed had gone, "If brother finds out I'm talking to you he'll be upset."
Sam huffed, a half-grin on his face, "So he told you about our little spat earlier huh?"
Alphonse went to stand before the hunter, "He told me enough."
Sam nodded, the grin disappearing to make room for a frown, "Look Al I'm not here to cause any trouble, but you have to understand."
"Understand what?"
"Understand that I know a thing or two about spirit attachments, or soul-attachments as far as you're concerned," Sam nodded pointedly at Al's armor. "Not to mention I'm a little curious about this thing you call Alchemy…among other things."
"You want to learn Alchemy?" Al seemed surprised, as if he'd expected Sam to request something more sinister or underhanded. "That could take a while, it's not something you just pick up over night."
"I realize that," Sam pointed out. "But we're kind of in a rut here without many resources and we need something to go by, I figured this Alchemy thing could be that something."
Al placed a hand on his head, obviously struggling between wanting to help Sam and his loyalty to his brother. "But we're leaving soon, today in fact. We've already had to postpone this trip once to help bring down Isaac the Freezer."
"The State Alchemist?" Sam queried, "That's actually another thing that I was curious about, more specifically those ice walls. How is it that he could create something like that? And on that scale? I mean, did it have something to do with all the red light?"
Al's head snapped back for a split second, he made another gasping noise and Sam was sure he'd struck on something. So there was more to all this than he'd originally thought.
"But above all that," He went on, not giving Al time to brush him off again. "I want to know about you and your brother. What happened that made you lose your whole body, and Ed two limbs?"
Another gasp, this one more audible, and Al was taking a step back. It was obvious that he was debating whether to walk away again or finally open up about his past. Sam hated to pressure him like this, but they were running out of time and who knew when the five of them would run into each other again.
"You…..you said you know something about….spirit attachments," Al began, his voice once again that soft innocent sound of a lost little boy. "What did you mean exactly? Do you….know about me? Do you understand who…what…..I am?"
Realizing that his answer had a depth to it that only Alphonse could truly comprehend, Sam understood how much the question meant to him. If Al's soul, as Isaac had said, was indeed infused with the armor, than the boy would certainly feel as though he wasn't exactly human. Sam was familiar with that sensation, that state of mind, of being something other than human with human-like qualities. If you had never experienced it than you could never understand the detached feeling of it, the out-of-body sensation where the most trivial functioning's' were a constant reminder that you weren't exactly…well….normal.
"Yes I do," Sam replied, his voice soothing to the younger Elric. "I've dealt with plenty of things in my life Al. Some I could probably explain, but the rest would be too much for anyone, even someone like you, to handle." He looked back in the direction of the house, his thoughts trailing through years of running and gunning with anything and everything supernatural, "Spirit attachments are a form of 'imprinting', or the soul's attempt to leave a trace of itself behind when a person dies. It usually happens when you have some kind of unfinished business and you basically, but unconsciously, will yourself to want to stay behind to finish whatever business you have. But…"
"But what?"
Al wasn't going to like this part, but Sam was asking for honesty, in return it was only right to give it back. "Some spirit attachments are formed with a violent death, when someone was brutally murdered or they committed suicide. The spirit doesn't necessarily have to be attached to an object to remain behind; sometimes they'll just wander around the location they were killed, just a ghost. The connection isn't always stable; sometimes it takes next to nothing to…..get rid of them for good. And sometimes they just…..go out on their own."
Al was silent for a moment, soaking all this in with a mixture of disbelief and a sadness that could only be expected from someone like him. Naturally he would be afraid knowing all this; he himself was a spirit attachment, technically, with the risk of some sort of malfunction. Things like that happened, and he was rightly afraid of it, but Alphonse was different. He didn't fit the pattern of a normal spirit attachment, not completely that is.
"Our mom…..." he began, placing a hand on his head again, remembering. "She died when Ed and I were just boys…a sickness took her…...We couldn't live without her so…..so we paid for a teacher to show us how to do Alchemy…."
He paused, seemingly lost in some painful memory. Sam cautiously prompted with, "And then what?"
Al seemed to refocus on his audience, "Well, we learned Alchemy….then we came back home and…...we tried to bring her back."
"How?"
"Human Transmutation," Al replied, the story becoming easier for him to tell now that he'd grown a little more comfortable with the topic of conversation. "It's taboo for alchemists but it's also a form of bioalchemy that involves the process of attempting to bring something to life…..or in our case…bringing someone back to life."
"Did it work?...Sort of?"
Al shook his head, "What you have to understand is that Alchemy follows certain laws, because it's not magic, it's science. The more dominant of those laws is Equivalent Exchange, which basically means that you can't create something from nothing. The materials of your input have to equal in mass and volume with the product you want to create. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost."
Sam furrowed his eyebrows, "How did that effect your transmutation?"
"It backfired," Al answered him, the innocent-vibe depleting as he took on a more serious tone. "One thing we learned that night was nothing could be given in exchange for mom's soul, and nothing could equal the material needed to create human life. For that alone, my brother lost his left leg and I lost my entire body," he placed a hand on the general area of his stomach. "In an attempt to keep me here, Ed used his right arm as material to transmute my soul to this suit of armor. I couldn't imagine what it must've been like for him…lying in his own blood…trying to save me….." his voice broke and he covered his metal face in both hands, quietly sobbing to himself, or at least sounding as though here were. Even without the necessary physical attributes required for crying, Alphonse still had a way to do it, and he did so now.
Loss. Sacrifice. Giving away a part of oneself to keep one's family by their side. It was all too familiar to Sam, simply because he remembered certain things that were parallel with what Al had just told him. Losing their mother when he and Dean were just kids, Sam still missing her even though he had no real memories of what she was like. Dean's sacrifice to bring Sam back to life, the price he paid to keep his brother by his side. Sam understanding the feeling of having a body but no soul, the exact reverse of Al's situation, which seemed worst compared to what Sam had gone through. He'd had a physical body to survive with, just no soul to occupy it. Sam couldn't imagine not having a body made of flesh and bone. Even though Al didn't need to eat or even sleep, and didn't tire out, it was still painful to bear the weight of the price they'd paid for crossing boundaries.
Sam looked at Al, watching him cry tearless-ly, and all he could see was a younger version of himself. They may not have attempted to bring their own mother back, but he and Dean knew a thing or two about dying and being resurrected, the burden of it and how much it cost you. More than anything Sam recognized in Al what he'd always recognized in himself; that feeling of being lost and seemingly alone. If you had never experienced what it felt like to be considered "human" when there was so much about you that made you less than human, you couldn't possibly understand.
"Al…" Sam disrupted the boys anguish, "Listen to me, because this is going to sound completely crazy and I wouldn't be surprised if you tried to have us committed." He took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly, "My brother and I…along with our friend, you know the guy with the hat?...We're not from here."
Al lifted his head to look at Sam, puzzled. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that….well…this isn't even our…our world really…." To Sam's own ears he sounded crazy, but how else could he explain this?
Al continued to stare at him, his hands suspended at waist-level, baffled.
Sam ran his lower lip through his teeth, "I know how nuts that sounds but you've got to believe me. It's not even that we're not from this world, we're not even from the same time as you," when Al continued to stare Sam fished into his pocket and retrieved his cellphone. "Look at this," he held it out to Al, "It's a cellphone. It's like a regular phone, but portable; no cord needed."
Al reached out, cautiously, and took the device from Sam. He started pressing on the tiny buttons of Sam's Blackberry (he'd had to replace his other phone after their encounter with Samuel Colt), the screen lit up and Al had a sudden intake of breathe as he began fiddling with the phone.
"I'm from the future," Sam told the younger Elric. "The year 2012 actually, at least in our alternate universe." He approached Al carefully, gesturing with his hands, "You've got to believe me Al, I'm not crazy. Anything you want to know just ask and I'll tell you but right now there are more important things to worry about."
Al stopped his fiddling to look at Sam in what he guess was a suspicious manner, "Which is what?"
"How to get us home," Sam answered him. "More importantly, what could possibly be powerful enough to get us here in the first place."
Al looked at him for a moment, then his gaze swept back to Sam's cellphone, cradled in the palm of his "gloved" hand. Al swiped his thumb over the buttons, the screen lighting up again to reveal the time (well the time it would be if they were in Sam's world), as well as a flickering message on the screen indicating that the battery was running low.
"That just means that it's almost out of power," Sam replied when Al had glanced at him pointedly upon seeing the flickering message.
The younger Elric bent forward on one knee, used his index finger to draw a circle on the concrete with a piece of chalk that Sam hadn't known he'd been carrying. He drew two circles, one inside of another, with three triangles at three different points over both circles. Then he drew one large triangle overlapping the other shapes, set the chalk piece aside, placed Sam's phone in the middle of the matrix, then placed both hands at the edge of the circle. The same burst of blue light that Sam had witnessed just last night erupted around the edges of the circle, like miniature flickers of blue lighting strikes dancing across the interior of the design. It went on for about a second or two before Al removed his hands and picked up the phone, which appeared to be unchanged, and hand in back to Sam.
He took the device from him, immediately pressing buttons and looking it over to see what Al had done to it. When the screen lit up Sam realized that the battery had gone from having only about a fifth of power left to having a full bar. He looked up open-mouthed at Al, dumbstruck but in awe of what had just happened.
Al merely shrugged, or what could pass for shrugging, "It wasn't that hard to figure out. I just gave it a little power boost that's all."
Sam was afraid to make a wrong move at this point, but it seemed as if… "So you believe me?"
Al appeared at a loss for words for a moment, turning his head to face back into the street, his right hand closing absent mindedly into a fist. "I'm not sure exactly…..but you don't seem to be lying about where you're from…or the year it seems."
Sam let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. This was good, now if he could only get Ed somewhat on board with his brother's ideology.
"And if you want to talk about crazy," Al reached up to place one hand on either side of his head, twisting it slightly back and forth, then popping it off altogether. "I could probably give lessons on crazy, in case you haven't noticed," he leaned forward to reveal his hollow insides, "It's quite insane to have a walking-talking suit of armor with no body inside of it."
Sam stared at the emptiness that was Al's armor, and the red symbol located at the base of where his neck should be, just below the back-end of the helmet. "Is that drawn in blood?" he asked, suddenly resisting the urge to reach out and touch it.
"My brother's blood," Al told him, pointing at the symbol with a free hand, the gesture seeming almost ghost-like now that he was doing it headless. "That's my Blood Seal; it's the medium between my soul and this armor. That's how my brother bonded my soul, using his own blood to draw it. If you destroy that, you can kill me."
Sam frowned, "Why would you tell me something like that?"
"Because," Al straightened up and replaced his helmet back. "Even though I don't trust Sam, I also don't think you're the dubious type. You could've ratted me out already…but you didn't."
"I don't see the point in it really," Sam chuckled, reveling in the sensation of laughter since he hadn't had much reason to laugh lately. "Besides after what I've just told you, you probably owed one me anyway."
Al reciprocated Sam's chuckling, "Equivalent Exchange."
"So you'll help then?"
"I want to Sam," Al started off, "but – "
"I thought I told you to stay away from us."
That accusatory statement came from the sudden appearance of Edward Elric, suitcase at his feet, arms crossed over his chest, that same look of disgruntlement on his face as he glanced first at Sam (with suspicion) to Al (with disbelief).
"Brother," Al replied, turning to face the eldest Elric more directly. "Sam was just explaining to me –"
"It doesn't matter what he says Al," Ed interrupted him, "we don't have time –"
"Well you're going to have to make time," Sam cut him off, his voice stern knowing that Ed had already worked himself into some kind of typical-teenage rebellious attitude now that Sam was present.
"Don't go ordering me around!" Ed shot back, waving a hand in front of him in an angry gesture. "I put up with enough of that from Mustang!"
Sam would've asked who Mustang was, but at the moment he didn't particularly care. "What I mean is there's a lot more that you don't know, that I can tell you. But I need you to hold back on going anywhere for the time being and stick around with us for a while."
Ed refolded his arms across his chest, "And why should I? Because you've managed to manipulate my brother into siding with you?"
"No," Sam retorted, "I want you to stick around because I could tell a thing or two about resurrecting someone that would make your head spin…among other endless heaps of crap that you should probably know about."
Ed looked taken aback, his golden eyes widened in genuine surprise. He continued to stare at Sam with suspicion, his mistrust evident in the way he narrowed his gaze on the younger Winchester, but he eventually exhaled. "We'll give you a few hours but then we have to leave, the next train to Lior leaves tonight."
"I don't think so," Sam replied immediately, "that's not going to work."
"What then?"
"You might want to start unpacking Elric," Sam gave a crooked grin; "this conversation is going to take a while."