Title: Family Farm
Fandom: Fullmetal Ghostrider (All-New Ghost Rider / Fullmetal Alchemist fusion)
Length: 1300
Rating: PG
Warnings: gun
Summary: Robbie and Gabe finally track down Tio Maldito's current alias at his current home, a pig farm in South Dakota.
Notes: This is part of an AU in which Robbie Reyes is the Hell Charger and Gabe lost his legs. Because Alchemy.

They'd followed Tio's trail of properties from Eli Morrow's garage in Los Angeles, East to the Eliot Miller's haunted house in Albuquerque, North to Elijah Royal's woodchipper rental service in Boise and now they'd crossed the Rockies and zig-zagged through endless cornfields and nameless state roads to turn off onto the gravel drive of Yeli Moroz's organic pig farm in Iowa.

“I see pigs,” Robbie said. Behind the fence was a single-wide manufactured home and a cluster of buildings and silos, galvanized-steel cylinders, a few spotted pink-and-black hogs lolling in the dust behind a fence. “Maybe he's here.”

“He could at least pick up the phone,” Gabe grumbled, glaring at the padlocked cattle gate blocking the drive.

“I'll honk,” Robbie warned him, and then let loose with the Charger's horrible human scream that sounded far more realistic than Robbie had yet managed when he synthesized his own voice. Gabe winced. Robbie gave the horn three long blasts, paused, waited. “What time is it?”

“Six forty-three.”

“Maybe he's cooking dinner.”

They stared at the house, the pigs shuffling around in the small paddocks near the barns, the crows perched on top of the outbuildings. “I'm honking again,” Robbie announced, and screamed some more.

The front door of the single-wide opened and a man burst out onto the porch.

It was hard to make him out in the shadow of the house, but his clothes were dark, and when he pushed himself away from the porch railing, he moved slow, shuffling. Gabe had a sudden fear that they'd missed Tio again: Tio was younger than Dad, and Dad would have been only sixty. The man got in the driver's seat of a little garden utility cart, started the engine, and drove down to the gate. He dismounted the cart slowly and approached the padlock on the gate as Gabe rolled down Robbie's driver's side window. Now that he was closer, Gabe's hope rose again—this man didn't look old; he had dark hair—though it could be dyed—and his face was deeply lined but not shriveled. He wore a faded black suit with a collared shirt open to show off a heavy gold chain around his neck, and as he tipped his head this way and that, examining Gabe, his gaze was heavy and sharp. “Is that Tio?” Gabe asked Robbie, and Robbie make a noncommittal whistle. Made sense, Robbie had been little when Mom and Dad disappeared and Tio with them.

“What you doing with that car?” the man demanded. He had a weird accent, middle-American by way of TV reruns.

“Are you Elias Reyes?” Gabe yelled, and the man reached under his jacket and aimed a pistol at his face.

“Who's asking?”

Robbie revved so hard the Charger shook. The sun was in Gabe's eyes and he couldn't see the man's expression, could barely make out the gun. Robbie's gear selector slammed into reverse, and Gabe grabbed it, not to yank it out of gear, but enough to tell Robbie he wasn't ready to back away yet. “Tio!” Gabe yelled. “I'm your nephew! Alberto and Juliana's son!”

The man's head tipped almost to his shoulder and he lowered the gun slightly. “Robbie?”

“Robbie's my older brother,” Gabe said. He stopped himself from saying more; it wasn't in the plan to come right out with the Robbie's soul is trapped in your car bombshell. “I'm Gabe. Gabriel Reyes.”

“The fetus?” the man exclaimed. He stared at them a minute more, aim wavering over the ground, and at last disappeared the pistol back under his armpit and unlocked the gate. He stepped around to the driver's seat, braced his hands on his knees, and leaned down. This close Gabe saw that his black hair was dyed, graying roots, and his nose was large and somehow lopsided. He smelled like bacon and the same spiced aftershave the Charger had smelled like when Robbie had first uncovered it in the garage. “Huh. You could be Robbie. Same weird eyes.”

He was one to talk; the man had the palest brown eyes Gabe had ever seen, verging on yellow. He laughed nervously. “It's Gabe. And you're Tio Maldito?”

The man straightened, then staggered half a step. “Haven't heard that in a few,” he grunted. “Call me Eli. Or Tio. And I suppose there's a reason you tracked me down and brought my car back.”

A reason? Gabe could hardly think of a reason not to. “You're family,” he said. “Of course we looked you up.” Robbie cautiously flicked his gear selector into Drive and let his engine chug at a low idle.

“Surprise visit?” Tio checked.

“I called ahead.”

“Oh.” He blinked at Gabe, then looked back and forth up the empty road. “Who else knows you're here?”

“Nobody.”

“Huh.” Tio shuffled to the gate and gave it a perfunctory swing; it creaked halfway across the driveway and then stopped. “How 'bout you hop out and get the gate for me and we'll trade wheels.”

Robbie rumbled, and Gabe winced. “I, uh, I'm sorry.”

Tio scowled at him and reached his right hand under his jacket—he had to have an itch, he couldn't be reaching for his gun— “It's my car.”

Gabe gave Robbie's wheel a squeeze. The soul-seal talk would be very awkward. “I'd have to get my wheelchair.” He licked his lips; this was as good a way to breach the point as any. “We had an Alchemy accident and I lost my legs.”

Tio shuffled back to Robbie's window and looked in, as though Gabe might be pranking him. “Alchemy accident.”

“Equivalent exchange.”

“Huh.” Tio rested his hand on Robbie's roof, stared down at the stumps of Gabe's legs. He swayed from side to side, silently, then met Gabe's eyes with a wide grin. “Long trip? Follow me. I got a couch and I got food; I'll get you fed and rested and we can talk Alchemy accidents in the morning.” He pushed off from Robbie and shuffled over to the gate, slowly pushed it the rest of the way open.

“Sorry I can't help,” Gabe called.

Tio waved him off. “I got it, kid. Go park in front of the machine shop. I'll meet you at the house.”

Robbie crackled his speakers softly. “What'd he say?”

“He said to park over by the machine shop.” Gabe pointed, then remembered that Robbie couldn't see inside his cabin that well except what his mirrors were facing, and he guided Robbie up the driveway and over the mud and gravel toward a big metal pole-barn that cast long shadows over the weeds. At last Robbie stopped and shut off his engine, and Gabe let out a shuddery breath. Their trip was finally over. They'd found their family—they had family. And they hadn't crashed or gotten arrested or kidnapped or lost or run out of money or anything; Gabe hadn't screwed this up. “We made it.”

A whistle of agreement.

“You gonna be okay out here all night?”

Robbie was still and silent, and then he said, “There's room in the shop to get my hood under cover if it rains. Call me if...lllllll...We don't know Tio that well. Call me if there's a problem. And can you tell him about me tonight or tomorrow? I've got stuff to ask him about, too.”

“I'm gonna have to. He thinks you're his car.”

Robbie buzzed a bit like he was going to say something, then he went boo-woop and fell silent again. Gabe got to work hauling his wheelchair out the door and gathering his papers and stuffing them in his backpack and unplugging Robbie's new phone so he could strap it to the headrest of the driver's seat where Robbie could see it, and by the time he was done with all of this, Tio had pulled up on his garden cart and was squinting at them in the slanting sunlight. Gabe put his hands to his wheels and shoved himself over the uneven ground, toward the stairs he wouldn't be able to ascend without help, from the shadow of the pole-barn to the shadow of the double-wide, where he smelled bacon cooking.

 

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