Chapter Text
Driving through the night is unpleasantly derivative. Last time, at the very least, the thought of the nearest motel had been an effective light at the end of the tunnel. Now, swerving on Route 66, Jay seems set on not stopping until sunrise. There’s no sign that they’ve been tailed. Hell, they’d abandoned the sirens before they’d even gotten close. It’s seemingly not enough.
Carter, the lucky bastard, has made a pillow out of his discarded shirt and is happily snoring away. As a matter of fact, so’s Ted. Alan, on the other hand, despairs.
“We should stop soon, Jay,” he says, as gently as he’s capable of -- which isn’t, in all honesty, very.
“We’ll stop in the next town.”
To Alan, it sounds like a death sentence. It’s been hours. On bad days, he tolerates Jay. On good days, he might even like him. Today ranks somewhere above bad. “And when’s that? You said the same thing ages ago.” He cards a hand through his hair, tired and malcontent with the grip of anxiety tightening around his heart now that he’s become aware of just how urgent the need to charge his ring is.
“I don’t know, Alan.” Jay sighs and there’s that familiar weight of the world on his shoulders. “In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t have a freakin’ map of the midwest memorised!” Another sigh. “Look, I’m sorry, I just want us to be safe, okay?”
The hero shtick might work on Joan but Alan doesn’t falter so easily. “We are safe,” he insists, “I’m not the one getting paranoid for no goddamn reason.”
Miraculously, no one stirs.
“I’m not paranoid for no reason! How can you just say that? You really think I’m willing to risk everything just because Ted wanted to prove he’s still got it or you’re gunning for an argument? I know you don’t care about the committee but I do, Joan and I are gonna have a family one day and I don’t wanna be mixed up in all that.” It spills out of Jay with the delicate, tightrope balance of a barely reined in breakdown. Alan’s spent years riling him up in every way he knows how and even he gets a sense of something other than exhaustion looming underneath the murky waters of friendship. One day, he might even learn to back down.
Alan, however, remains mostly true to himself today.
“Oh, right, sure. I don’t care, like I’m not the only one of us who could actually--”
Tendrils of dread grow colder by degrees as Alan swallows his words. It’s the same dizzying trepidation like in the bar, a truth too big to comprehend lurking too close at hand. He regrets it, all at once.
“The only one who could what?” Jay prompts.
Luckily, that is if luck’s got anything to do with it, Alan harbours any number of shameful secrets to fall back on. “More than half my writers are blacklisted, I’m working with-- with a skeleton crew at best and… I’ve gotten a couple offers to sell,” he admits and loathes what feels like a fast approaching headache, “I’m the only one of us who’s actually been affected by this, Jay. No heroics. No Mystery Men. Just me, losing everything as usual.”
“You want to sell GBC?”
“No, I don’t want to do anything.” If Jay has managed to catch up to himself, Alan’s still working on it. “Forget it.”
Out of the blue, Jay reaches out the best he can whilst keeping his eyes on the road. “Give me your hand, Alan.” For the longest time, it’s incomprehensible. Partially, and Alan’s sure he’s not mistaken there, because they’re smack dab in the middle of an argument.
“Okay…?”
He does, eventually, do as requested and his frown only deepens once Jay squeezes his hand. They’ve entered uncharted waters. “You know you can always count on me and Joanie, right? Sure, we’re all stressed about this but if you need anything, even a place to stay, you know our door’s always open,” Jay says, terrifyingly heartfelt. He’s a good man and Alan can’t help wondering whether that would hold up in the face of much more severe revelations.
Alan pulls back his hand, a lot more forceful than intended and uncomfortable with the contact. Anxiety-- no, panic digs deeper. “Thank you,” he murmurs.
---
The motel, when it does appear, is a horrifically abandoned-looking little building on the edge of the highway, succinctly accompanied by a neon sign blinking on and off -- undecided on its lack of vacancy. It’s worth a try now, just past a town whose name Alan hadn’t caught in the dark. The first shards of morning only just intervene. He and Jay have kept silent the rest of the way, supposedly for the sake of their sleeping companions. Consequently, the thrumming under Alan’s skin is yet to stop. A hint of arson would go a long way.
He kicks the back of Carter’s seat instead, watches him splutter through a rude awakening and declares We’re here! in the interest of also waking Ted up. Two birds, one stone.
“Where the hell is here?” Ted asks, squinting at his desolate surroundings.
At least, and that’s the good news, no one seems to have caught a glimmer of misaimed vulnerability. Alan breathes easy, just this once. Jay’s whole kumbaya spiel had been, quite frankly, enough to last a lifetime.
“Don’t know! Mr. Garrick’s calling the shots here,” Alan says, more animated than expected.
Jay rubs the back of his neck as he steps out, stiff from a night of driving and an impeccable posture induced by sheer paranoia. “Look, we can just-- sleep a couple hours here and then figure out which way we’re going. How’s that sound?” he asks and then, with all the courage of his convictions, adds, “and if any of you stop me from getting coffee this time, someone’s gonna pay.”
Not all calm, then. Alan allows a private smile.
Attached to the motel, as it turns out, is a truck stop and a greasy spoon diner, both of which delight and enchant more than half the group. Nevertheless, Alan graciously bows out at Ted’s offer of some food and company, courtesy of a restless night and the simple fact that a room all to himself sounds not unlike heaven. It seems very nearly crucial to charge his ring, too.
---
It’s the giggling that startles Alan, breathing harshly through the remnants of a forgotten dream. After he’d hauled up his luggage and pulled a quick And I shall shed my light over dark evil, he’d proceeded to strip down to his undershirt and quite purposely crawl into bed. There shouldn’t be, by all accounts, any girlish giggles to upset the one hour of sleep he’s thoroughly earned.
“Shh, c’mon, I’m pretty sure my buddy here don’t wanna join in the fun.”
That’s Ted, overflowing with amusement, and that’s also -- coincidentally -- the last straw. Alan opens his eyes. The sight that greets him is a resolutely appalling one. Ted is putting up an admirable fight as he struggles with the key still stuck in the door, a malady that had already befallen Alan when he’d come in, and a bottle-blonde in an absurd skirt clinging to his arm. He glances at the railway lantern, a brilliant green even after all these years, on the nightstand and wonders whether throwing it at Ted’s paramour counts as an unauthorised use of his powers.
If nothing else, the mystery deepens. Ted reeks of what can only be Alan’s remarkably cheap cigarettes. That has him sitting up, startling this morning’s entertainment in the process.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Alan asks. On a second thought, he dedicates various efforts to fishing for his discarded shirt before anyone gets any ideas. Back to the safety of his pastel polo, he fixes the girl with an icy glare and it’s only a legendary willpower that keeps any flames from spreading. Privacy is one thing Alan values greatly.
And certainly one thing he’d appreciate in this trying time.
“Relax, big guy, I thought you were still snoozing,” Ted starts, having finally accomplished the miracle of locking the door, “and this here is-- um. She’s a real dynamite gal, I’ll tell ya that much.”
As a matter of fact, Alan has no need to be told that much. If given the chance, he’d advise against it. He sits on the edge of the bed and slips on his shoes and regrets the momentary glance to where Ted’s started getting in the mood. It’s a tragic thought. “Not that!” Alan intervenes, though he’s getting the distinct impression it’s already too late. “I mean, were you smoking my cigarettes? That I paid for?”
“Thought you borrowed Jay’s wallet?”
“I don’t see how that’s related.” Ultimately, that’s all Alan’s got to say on the subject. It’s 7 AM on a day he’s already lost track of and if he can’t sleep in, the rest of the world might as well suffer for it. He picks up his lantern, tenderly cradled close like Ted’s doing to the girl, and walks through the wall. It’s never felt like much of anything, this vague sensation of wading through molasses until he’d find himself on the other side. The light had blinded him the first time, he knows to shield his eyes now. It’s not until he hears the so-called dynamite gal scream that Alan realises what he’s done. He can’t feign interest.
Jay, too, screams when Alan passes through his wall. This room, a mirror image of Alan’s own, fails to reveal anything of note other than a better view of the great big nothing stretching beyond the motel. Road trips aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.
“Don’t look at me, Ted’s got company,” he says, in lieu of any real explanation.
As Alan lays on Carter’s bed, going by the massive wings haphazardly folded one over the other at its foot, Jay pulls a Face. One of those patented ones.
“It’s barely morning, I can’t believe Ted is seriously feeling up to--”
“Why’s Carter got his wings out?” Alan’s not big on small talk. There’s a tint of genuine curiosity here, underneath an unfazed desire to sleep. Another glance at the wings fails to elucidate any mysteries.
“He said he wants to fly up and, um, find the way,” Jay explains, nearly flushed with embarrassment at the acknowledgement of having participated in Carter’s delusions.
“What, like-- a bird?”
“Not like a bird. He said it’s what he did at home? In ancient Egypt?” Jay rubs a hand across his face and Alan wonders whether he’s really missed the intricacies of herding choice members of the Justice Society of America or he’s already gotten a taste of his own medicine. It’s hard to tell. Times like these are what Wes’ sleeping-gas-gun is made for, he’s sure.
“Right. Well, I’ll take a look at the brochures in the lobby later. I’m sure we’re either in Missouri or about to enter it,” Alan offers, restraining most of the distaste he’s got for the notion, “Anyway, I’m going to sleep now.” He sets his lantern down near Carter’s wings, throws an arm over his face to block the daylight -- plus, should the need arise, any Jay-isms -- and hopes for the best.
---
By late afternoon, no one’s made it downstairs. Alan wakes up twice to the rising crescendo of Ted’s extracurriculars, once more to a hushed argument between Jay and Carter that involves vague, urgent gestures towards the wings at the foot of the bed and, to his great dismay, a final time when the bed dips beneath a certain someone’s weight. Alan curls up tight around the pillow he’s forgone for his head in favour of hugging it and only lightly singes the sheets when no relief comes. At last, he looks up at his assailant.
“Brought you a hot dog, big guy,” Ted says, sitting cross-legged on the bed. There is, in fact, a hot dog on the nightstand. Confusingly, it also includes the plate from the diner.
“Was the girl a waitress?” is all Alan can manage, sleep-rough and disoriented.
Ted winks.
When all that provokes is a groan from Alan, he sits him up and hands him the hot dog, seemingly in an inexplicable hurry. “Jay wants to get goin’ soon,” Ted explains, “I don’t think we’re wasting time but you know how he gets, can’t risk getting home late to Joanie. I talked him into giving ya a couple minutes.”
It’s very likely less a gesture of goodwill and more of a hard-earned knowledge of how Alan gets, too.
---
The lobby, if it can be generously called that when it’s all stained carpets and a reception desk presumably barely presentable even back in its heyday, houses a thoroughly impressive collection of pamphlets, maps and all manner of memorabilia from places that can only be classified as anywhere but here. Currently, it also accommodates Carter -- wings strapped over his Hawaiian shirt -- and Jay.
By the time Ted and Alan make it downstairs, luggage in tow, the fight’s in full swing. As much as it can be when Jay’s involved, at any rate. It’s not the journey, Alan finds out, but rather the proposed pit stops that have the more respectable half of the group at each other’s throats.
“Carter, you’ve been to the Grand Canyon before! We’ve all been!” Jay’s gesturing as he talks, fast and maybe tapping into his speed without quite realising it. “Why would we spend two entire days there? There’s nothing to do!”
“What if I wanna look for fossils, huh?” Carter challenges, crossing his arms. It’s not especially intimidating, his chest straps digging into his shirt and pulling at it awkwardly. Par for the course, the shirt’s barely staying buttoned as it is. “And don’t say they’ve all already been found because I know what I’m about, Garrick.”
“Guys, what do you think?” Jay asks.
With the full force of Jay and Carter’s attention on him, Alan feels the unfamiliar urge to slink behind Ted. He resists it.
“Look, my pa took me there buncha times back in the day,” Ted offers, easy, “there’s nothin’ much to do, like Jay’s saying. View’s nice enough, I guess, if you’re into the whole desert business. Me? I prefer what’s waitin’ for us in Vegas, if you know what I mean.”
They all do, regrettably.
Alan shrugs. “Me and Doiby used to drive around a lot,” he concludes. If it’s not saying much, it certainly isn’t meant to.
Just like that, the disagreement fails to blow over. It only takes Carter a couple minutes to resume a would-be screaming match. Jay hints at Miraclo, even after a self-confessed lack of it, and it doesn’t go over well. From there, it escalates without much trouble. Alan watches and considers the consequences of his actions -- rare, even in the field -- as he glances at his ring, then at his companions and back again in turns. He doubts there’s too much of a chance HUAC is listening in on a little motel in the middle of nowhere, ready to catch former Mystery Men in the act. Satisfied with what he’s determined, and unconcerned with the receptionist, Alan takes matters into his own hands.
All it takes is a puff of smoke, reeking of ozone and clinging to the back of one’s throat. Then, a blinding flash of green light. Fire, really, at a closer glance. Alan has only pulled this trick once before.
It’s only a second until they’re assaulted by the sights and sounds of Las Vegas. Jay’s down on his knees, coughing his lungs out in front of the Sands Hotel and Casino.
“Alan!” he gasps out.
The smoke clears, Jay’s indignation stays behind.
“I didn’t aim it at you!” It’s a shaky defence, Alan knows, but it’s the truth, too. Perplexingly, no one stops and stares. If the light show isn’t out of place in Vegas, then there’s a good chance the motel they’ve left behind might spark a thorough investigation. Ted and Carter have already wandered off inside and Alan can’t imagine Carter’s wings to look especially out of place either. He puts a hand on Jay’s shoulder, somewhere in the vicinity of sweaty from the heat of the ring. It’s taken a lot more than he’d thought.
And maybe his willpower has faltered since the days of the hearing.
They’re here to have fun.
“C’mon, let’s catch up to the fellas before they get in any trouble,” Alan says, as if trouble’s ever started without him.
Jay, life-long ruiner of plans, does stop in his tracks halfway up the staircase though. “Ohmigod, the car.” He turns to clutch at Alan, eyes gone worryingly wide. Up close, they’re remarkably hazel. “We-- the-- the car’s still back at the motel! Joan’s gonna kill me. As in, really actually kill me. We saved up for ages-- I--”
“So? We’ll go back for it tomorrow.” Alan smiles, maybe he even means it. For now, he lets the threat of the committee and all that implies fade into the background noise of their destination. “C’mon, I’m pretty sure Ted’s got your wallet this time.”
“This time?!”