[reverse darkest timeline au: you stay here]

[stilljustandrew]

The thing about a road trip is: you need roads.

No one's been maintaining this particular stretch of highway for years, which means there are places where they have to maneuver slowly around pitted and cracked surfaces, around fallen trees, around the abandoned wreckage of less fortunate cars. One such heap looks a little too deliberate, according to Kali, and they go back to detour wide around that one for fear of ambush.

There's an enclave somewhere around here, she says, calls itself Nowhere Special. Human, which doesn't mean friendly; there's every chance the ambush was theirs. Or of some enemy camp looking to take over their territory.

It's late afternoon, somewhere between misty and drizzly, when they pull up to the long-abandoned gas station.

Comments

[semicharmed]

"Okay, okay." Drive now: towards the road, such as it is. Jamison hesitates a moment before going back the way they first came.

At least he knows how to find the gas station if he goes this way.

"Yeah," he concurs. "Better safe than sorry. Uh, anything in particular stick out about the sound?"

[nita_callahan]

"Uh--"

She rubs her forehead.

"I mean, it sounded like something big moving around out there. Either one big thing or a few human-sized things. And I thought I smelled sulfur." She wrinkles her nose. "But I've been smelling that on and off since we got here."

[semicharmed]

Matt considers, wrinkling his own in sympathy.

"It's weird out here--environmentally, I mean. Even the rain feels like it resents me."

Add sulfur to 'something big,' and you get a whole lot of not good!

[nita_callahan]

"Like it resents you," Nita murmurs, thoughtful. "Yeah."

A moment later, she blinks and focuses on him again.

"Are you sure we're going the right way?"

[semicharmed]

He slides a glance to her.

"I'm sure we're going the wrong way. But I'm hoping whatever you heard will have cleared out in a bit, and then--hn."

Matt pauses to ease around a fissure in the asphalt that's ambitiously pushed up a bevy of reedy grasses.

"Ugh, this is what road trips back home were really missing."

That and mortal danger!

[nita_callahan]

Dry: "A complete lack of infrastructural funding?"

Then: "No, right, of course. But once we get out of here -- I think we ought to keep going north. See if we can get around this area without getting into any more trouble."

[semicharmed]

"What do you think is north?" Matt says with a frown.

Kali didn't say anything about looking north next, did she? Was he zoning out again?

Past the fissure, he's able to pick up some speed.

[nita_callahan]

"Hopefully nothing? I just feel like we ought to give this area a wide berth."

[semicharmed]

"Fair, fair," he concedes.

This stretch of road doesn't afford any immediate north-turning opportunities, but he'll keep his eyes peeled.


A long pause.

"Hey, uh, Nita?"

[nita_callahan]

"Yeah?"

[semicharmed]

“Uh ... this is so embarrassing. Please don’t tell Kali. But uh ...



What exaaaaactly is the thing we’re looking for?”

[nita_callahan]

"--wait, are you serious?"

[semicharmed]

“I’m sorry!” he protests. “My brain was already making like three different lists, and I kind of spaced out and by the time I clocked back in Kali already—“

His fingers flutter on the wheel as if they’d like to make an expansive defensive gesture.


“I do kinda smell sulfur, though.”

[nita_callahan]

"Matt," Nita sighs.

"A sword? Remember?"

[semicharmed]

“I’m sorry,” he sighs again, and thinks.

(And slows down, to navigate around a tangle of crashed cars.

The creepiest thing about them is there’s no obvious cause of a wreck.)

“It rings a vague bell,” he adds cautiously. “Belonged to an angel? Or hurts angels?”

Or possibly summons angels? Maybe not the angel angle at all, he has no clue.

[nita_callahan]

"Kills," she responds promptly. "Even archangels."

She looks out the window and adds, half to herself, "Hell of a thing."

[semicharmed]

"Yeah," Jamison murmurs, eyes on the road. "Diabolical."



After a little while, he says, "I think I'm gonna try turning around now."

[nita_callahan]

"--What, you want to go back? We need to keep going."

[semicharmed]

"No, we don't," he says, bemused.

"How's Kali gonna find us?"

[nita_callahan]

"I mean, she's a goddess, she'll figure it out."

[semicharmed]

Matt looks at her with a frown.

"And I bet we can figure out how to deal with whatever you heard. Assuming it's even there anymore."

[nita_callahan]

Nita shifts in her seat.

"Yeah."

She looks nervous, though.

[semicharmed]

"We won't go barreling in," he assures her. "We can stop a little ways off and just like, scope it out. Sound okay?"

[nita_callahan]

"That concealment charm is still working, right?"

[semicharmed]

"Well I had to break it so you could see the car," he says, turning the wheel and starting to ease back down the road (such as it is). "But recasting it won't take long."

A slight smile. "Not even if I overpower it."