Supernatural fic: Beat the Devil, 1/1 [G] Dean, Sam - 6.02 coda
I'm on a writing kick thanks to the new season and I'm enjoying it while it lasts. :)
Title: Beat the Devil
Rating: G
Characters:Dean, Sam
Spoilers: up to & incl. 6.02
Notes: Coda to 6.02, prequel to 6.03
This may be Kripked (Gambled?) by tonight but I truly believe they won't give us this scene so I stuck it in before they could skip.
Dean POV.
10/08/10 08:03:47 AM
Beat the Devil
At first, Dean just drove. He told himself it was to shake the cobwebs out of her carburettor but it was really more for the love of seeing the landscape go by in a blur, and listening to the roar of her engine under loud strains of ACDC and Deep Purple. For a while he didn't even glance at the passenger seat. Having it empty wasn't such a huge deal. Sammy had his own wheels, his bitch wheels. Bitch car... the Bitch Mobile! Dean couldn't wait to see the expression he'd get the first time he called it that out loud. Couldn't wait to see that bitch face again.
Eventually all the weirdness that there was around that - around Sam being back, around how he hadn't told Dean until he was forced into it, around his new 'family', the Campbell clan... the air quotes were there in Dean's head, he couldn't help it. He was suspicious and no amount of assurance that they wanted to welcome him into the fold was going to make those doubts go away. Sam already had a family. Even if there was something hinky about him coming back, about Sam himself... well, it wasn't like that had never happened before. Whatever it was, Dean was quite certain he could get to the bottom of it. Sam was just going to have to accept that. And he wasn't still butthurt about it, so don't even go there.
There was some satisfaction for Dean at the extra milliseconds of silence after Sam answered the phone and Dean summoned him to a meetingplace. Sammy was surprised. Finally. It wasn't much of a reaction but Dean had already figured out how to readjust his read enough to be certain of that.
I can still come out of your blindside, baby brother.
Even being a civilian hadn't stripped him of all his skills, thankyouverymuch.
Since he'd cheated, and was already practically there, Dean got to the Pig Stand first. It was a standard stop for them, anytime they had come this way, crisscrossing the country a zillion times in the last five years. Places like this were disappearing, being replaced with 'Taco Bell' and 'KFC' and McDonald’s, but there still a few regional chains and one-off joints hanging on, and Dean cherished them.
Sam usually got the chicken sandwich or a BLT, so Dean ordered the two foot-longs with extra chili, cheese and onions with happy relish, the moment he saw the Charger pull up.
He didn't watch Sam openly, but there was a large convex mirror next to the cashier's window that let him observe every moment. He saw Sam park the Bitch Mobile next to his baby, get out, unfolding his Sasquatch legs from the driver's side.. glance towards Dean at the window.
Then he saw Sam's head turn towards the Impala. It was a funny kind of head-turn. Almost.. surreptitious. A little involuntary.
That was one thing, after all she was a beautiful lady and she deserved some respect from the younger Winchester. She practically raised him, alongside of Dean.
But the way Sam's hand reached out... the way his fingertips touched and slid along the gleaming, perfectly kept metal with a slow, lingering caress...
Dean was frowning when he turned around.
Leave it to Sammy to spoil his enjoyment of this moment, which should have been all his.
Dean wiped the frown off and grabbed the tray, coming over to the two parked cars.
“Gotcher foot-long,” he said brightly, and eked a little pleasure from Sam's briefly raised eyebrow. The smile that followed was just as brief, a less observant person would have missed it entirely. Just another of those weird notes of lately. Flash of something. Affection? With a pulse of bittersweet.
“And you know I would have ordered anything else...”
Dean's smirk was childish. “It's a chili cheese foot-long, Sammy. They almost don't make 'em like this any more. Just eat it. If you don't, I'll have to, and after all the healthy food Lisa's been feeding me, you know it would probably kill me, and that would be all your fault.”
The rolled eyes from Sam were obvious and perfunctory, and didn't stop him from reaching for one of the little cardboard boats they used for foot-long chili dogs and nothing else.
Dean grinned. “Good boy. I got you tots too.”
“Fantastic.”
The little boats and a dozen or more napkins were safely nestling in the big oil drum waste can before the conversation started up again in more than a dilatory way.
Dean brushed off Sam's inquiries about Lisa, not quite ready to poke at that yet. Sam gave his brother a funny look when Dean asked if he was living at the compound and simply shook his head no. Dean wanted to prod that one a bit, ask why, see what he could needle out of Sammy about that and about a lot of things.
But first he asked another question that had been waiting on the back of his tongue.
“What's with you and my car, when you first got here? You know, I offered her to you. You didn't bite.”
“I don't know what you mean,” but there was a flicker of eyes to one side and Dean felt an old spurt of triumph.
“Yeah you do. When you got here... you practically fell on your knees and kissed her. What's the deal? If you aren't careful, you're gonna make Bitch Mobile jealous...”
Sam's raised eyebrows at the new moniker were only mildly satisfying but Dean had already lost interest because of something he sensed under all of that. There was an extra few milliseconds of silence from Sammy, and his eyes pinned to the object of their discussion for a heartbeat.
When he spoke, he seemed to come back from a far distance, a long way away.
“It's just good to see her out from under the tarp.”
That pulled a scowl from Dean, and maybe Sam got the same kind of satisfaction from that expression that his older brother had gotten from the raised eyebrows.
Dean's eyes narrowed.
“There's more to it than that. Why does everything have to be such a damn secret? Give.”
Because, it was ridiculous, wasn't it? “Cut the Mister Mysterioso crap, or I'm heading back to Lisa and the kid, and screw you and your Campbells.”
Sam leveled a straight look at his brother, his expression both mildly surprised, and yet not surprised at the same time. There was a super-brief flash of something, something that Dean almost recognized as old pain because hadn't he seen that particular look in the mirror far too many times to count?
It was gone in an instant, because Sammy was good at covering. As good as his older brother. Maybe better. But the words that followed had the ring of truth.
“It's not a secret, Dean. It's just good to see her back on the road. She saved your life, you know.”
Dean frowned but he bit his tongue so as not to interrupt the moment, because he wanted whatever little scrapings he could get from it.
Sam's glance swept over the Impala and then back over to Dean.
“She beat the Devil, Dean,” he murmured quietly. And his smile, soft as clouds made of fiberglass, cut back into himself with a thousand welcome knives.
~
10/08/10 09:15:38 AM
*Pig Stands. In case you're curious. ;)
~
Title: Beat the Devil
Rating: G
Characters:Dean, Sam
Spoilers: up to & incl. 6.02
Notes: Coda to 6.02, prequel to 6.03
This may be Kripked (Gambled?) by tonight but I truly believe they won't give us this scene so I stuck it in before they could skip.
Dean POV.
10/08/10 08:03:47 AM
Beat the Devil
At first, Dean just drove. He told himself it was to shake the cobwebs out of her carburettor but it was really more for the love of seeing the landscape go by in a blur, and listening to the roar of her engine under loud strains of ACDC and Deep Purple. For a while he didn't even glance at the passenger seat. Having it empty wasn't such a huge deal. Sammy had his own wheels, his bitch wheels. Bitch car... the Bitch Mobile! Dean couldn't wait to see the expression he'd get the first time he called it that out loud. Couldn't wait to see that bitch face again.
Eventually all the weirdness that there was around that - around Sam being back, around how he hadn't told Dean until he was forced into it, around his new 'family', the Campbell clan... the air quotes were there in Dean's head, he couldn't help it. He was suspicious and no amount of assurance that they wanted to welcome him into the fold was going to make those doubts go away. Sam already had a family. Even if there was something hinky about him coming back, about Sam himself... well, it wasn't like that had never happened before. Whatever it was, Dean was quite certain he could get to the bottom of it. Sam was just going to have to accept that. And he wasn't still butthurt about it, so don't even go there.
There was some satisfaction for Dean at the extra milliseconds of silence after Sam answered the phone and Dean summoned him to a meetingplace. Sammy was surprised. Finally. It wasn't much of a reaction but Dean had already figured out how to readjust his read enough to be certain of that.
I can still come out of your blindside, baby brother.
Even being a civilian hadn't stripped him of all his skills, thankyouverymuch.
Since he'd cheated, and was already practically there, Dean got to the Pig Stand first. It was a standard stop for them, anytime they had come this way, crisscrossing the country a zillion times in the last five years. Places like this were disappearing, being replaced with 'Taco Bell' and 'KFC' and McDonald’s, but there still a few regional chains and one-off joints hanging on, and Dean cherished them.
Sam usually got the chicken sandwich or a BLT, so Dean ordered the two foot-longs with extra chili, cheese and onions with happy relish, the moment he saw the Charger pull up.
He didn't watch Sam openly, but there was a large convex mirror next to the cashier's window that let him observe every moment. He saw Sam park the Bitch Mobile next to his baby, get out, unfolding his Sasquatch legs from the driver's side.. glance towards Dean at the window.
Then he saw Sam's head turn towards the Impala. It was a funny kind of head-turn. Almost.. surreptitious. A little involuntary.
That was one thing, after all she was a beautiful lady and she deserved some respect from the younger Winchester. She practically raised him, alongside of Dean.
But the way Sam's hand reached out... the way his fingertips touched and slid along the gleaming, perfectly kept metal with a slow, lingering caress...
Dean was frowning when he turned around.
Leave it to Sammy to spoil his enjoyment of this moment, which should have been all his.
Dean wiped the frown off and grabbed the tray, coming over to the two parked cars.
“Gotcher foot-long,” he said brightly, and eked a little pleasure from Sam's briefly raised eyebrow. The smile that followed was just as brief, a less observant person would have missed it entirely. Just another of those weird notes of lately. Flash of something. Affection? With a pulse of bittersweet.
“And you know I would have ordered anything else...”
Dean's smirk was childish. “It's a chili cheese foot-long, Sammy. They almost don't make 'em like this any more. Just eat it. If you don't, I'll have to, and after all the healthy food Lisa's been feeding me, you know it would probably kill me, and that would be all your fault.”
The rolled eyes from Sam were obvious and perfunctory, and didn't stop him from reaching for one of the little cardboard boats they used for foot-long chili dogs and nothing else.
Dean grinned. “Good boy. I got you tots too.”
“Fantastic.”
The little boats and a dozen or more napkins were safely nestling in the big oil drum waste can before the conversation started up again in more than a dilatory way.
Dean brushed off Sam's inquiries about Lisa, not quite ready to poke at that yet. Sam gave his brother a funny look when Dean asked if he was living at the compound and simply shook his head no. Dean wanted to prod that one a bit, ask why, see what he could needle out of Sammy about that and about a lot of things.
But first he asked another question that had been waiting on the back of his tongue.
“What's with you and my car, when you first got here? You know, I offered her to you. You didn't bite.”
“I don't know what you mean,” but there was a flicker of eyes to one side and Dean felt an old spurt of triumph.
“Yeah you do. When you got here... you practically fell on your knees and kissed her. What's the deal? If you aren't careful, you're gonna make Bitch Mobile jealous...”
Sam's raised eyebrows at the new moniker were only mildly satisfying but Dean had already lost interest because of something he sensed under all of that. There was an extra few milliseconds of silence from Sammy, and his eyes pinned to the object of their discussion for a heartbeat.
When he spoke, he seemed to come back from a far distance, a long way away.
“It's just good to see her out from under the tarp.”
That pulled a scowl from Dean, and maybe Sam got the same kind of satisfaction from that expression that his older brother had gotten from the raised eyebrows.
Dean's eyes narrowed.
“There's more to it than that. Why does everything have to be such a damn secret? Give.”
Because, it was ridiculous, wasn't it? “Cut the Mister Mysterioso crap, or I'm heading back to Lisa and the kid, and screw you and your Campbells.”
Sam leveled a straight look at his brother, his expression both mildly surprised, and yet not surprised at the same time. There was a super-brief flash of something, something that Dean almost recognized as old pain because hadn't he seen that particular look in the mirror far too many times to count?
It was gone in an instant, because Sammy was good at covering. As good as his older brother. Maybe better. But the words that followed had the ring of truth.
“It's not a secret, Dean. It's just good to see her back on the road. She saved your life, you know.”
Dean frowned but he bit his tongue so as not to interrupt the moment, because he wanted whatever little scrapings he could get from it.
Sam's glance swept over the Impala and then back over to Dean.
“She beat the Devil, Dean,” he murmured quietly. And his smile, soft as clouds made of fiberglass, cut back into himself with a thousand welcome knives.
~
10/08/10 09:15:38 AM
*Pig Stands. In case you're curious. ;)
~