SPN FIC - The Wheels of Progress
Another one! Maybe you'll like this better than the last one. Yeah?
CHARACTERS: Castiel, Dean, Sam (Castiel POV)
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG, for language
SPOILERS: None (takes place sometime prior to Season 14)
DISCLAIMER: Nope; still no money being made
For perhaps fifteen seconds, Dean says nothing. Then he mutters just loudly enough to be sure that Sam will hear him, “It’s a freakin’ abomination, Sam. Anybody with any common sense will tell you that.”
THE WHEELS OF PROGRESS
By Carol Davis
“Oh, HELL no.”
That outburst isn’t exactly a surprise.
Neither is the sudden, all-but-screeching stop that almost tosses Cas off the back seat of Dean’s beloved Impala.
If these years of riding with Sam and Dean have taught Castiel anything, it’s that Dean Winchester is prone to abrupt outbursts of emotion, and to slamming on the brakes for a variety of reasons, only occasionally to avoid hitting small animals that have chosen the wrong moment to run across the road.
He’ll also stop (or nearly so) to ogle pretty girls. For small children who perhaps remind him of Sam as a toddler, for interesting-looking bars, and to take a closer look at signs that advertise All You Can Eat.
Even during a case. Even when they have somewhere to be.
Cas didn’t know Dean as a toddler, but he’s relatively sure he can describe what Dean was like back then.
Easily distracted, he thinks.
Prone to blurting out his displeasure.
It will do him no good to ask why they’ve stopped, why they’re still a hundred yards from their destination, and why Dean is fuming behind the wheel, which he’s gripping so hard that he’s making all the veins on the backs of his hands stand out blue against his skin. His shoulders have gone tense, as well, and are bunched up halfway to his ears.
“Dean,” Sam says quietly.
For perhaps fifteen seconds, Dean says nothing. Then he mutters just loudly enough to be sure that Sam will hear him, “It’s a freakin’ abomination, Sam. Anybody with any common sense will tell you that.”
“Dean…”
“Anybody with any common sense is not overreacting.”
“Dean. You need to do your damn job, man.”
Castiel leans a little to the right, enough to get a look at Dean in the rearview mirror. Dean’s eyes are narrowed, and his jaw is clenched. He looks as though he might well bite something off anyone who gets too close to him, some body part-their nose, maybe. Or a finger. But why he’s so upset is still a mystery. They’ve been driving through a cluster of small towns in traffic that’s not at all heavy, and half a mile ago they reached a commercial area. Nearby, Cas can see a supermarket, a dry cleaner’s, several fast food places, and a tire shop.
And their destination: 1159 Weston Road.
It’s an automobile dealership, something Cas wasn’t aware of before. Smaller than some he’s seen, but nothing out of the ordinary.
“Take this one with me, would you, Cas?”
Sam has turned around, and his displeasure with Dean is clear on his face. Clear, too, is the fact that he thinks Dean is being ridiculous, and that this is something they’ve discussed before. Something that Dean has been ridiculous about in the past. Before Castiel can respond, Sam has flipped open the door on his side of the car and is climbing out, straightening the jacket of what he refers to as his Fed Suit as he stands.
Dean hasn’t moved.
“Do you intend to do your damn job?” Cas asks him mildly.
Other than a slightly increased tension in Dean’s jaw, he gets no reply, so he slides to the edge of the back seat, pushes open the door, and climbs out. Sam made a point of banging his door shut, but Cas is gentler with his; there seems to be no point in punishing the car for Dean’s sudden and inexplicable snit.
They’re halfway to the dealership, walking side by side, when Cas asks the younger Winchester brother, “What is it this time?”
Sam stops walking and sighs.
Then he strides rapidly ahead, covering a lot of ground in a few seconds, and stops beside one of the many new cars that are lined up in the sunlight.
“This,” he says.
“I am… unenlightened.”
“It’s a 2018 Impala,” Sam explains.
“Yes. I see that.”
It’s there on the car’s backside: the word IMPALA spelled out in gleaming chrome letters. This one is silver-gray, but there are others close by that are different colors. Bright blue, crimson, white, a darker gray, and there, a black one. Why any of them would upset Dean is a mystery. They’re inanimate objects, a collection of metal and plastic.
And there, suddenly, is Dean, striding toward them with his fists bunched, the tail of his Fed Suit jacket flapping behind him.
He looks angry enough to shoot something.
“Don’t start,” Sam warns him as he approaches. “Will you, please? Don’t start this again. It’s a freaking car, Dean.”
“It’s a damn sacrilege, is what it is. The damn thing has BLUETOOTH.”
It’s the stress, Cas thinks.
He would offer the opinion that no human who leads what they think of as a normal life would fly off the handle like this, but he knows that isn’t true. Humans fly off the handle “all the damn time,” as Dean would put it, and as time goes on, as a species humans have gotten worse and worse at handling their problems-even at handling things that aren’t actually a problem.
Like this car.
It has no impact on Dean’s life whatsoever.
But Dean looks as if he would very much like to walk through this unimpressive car dealership and plant a grenade in each one of these cars. As if he would like to watch those grenades explode one by one, or perhaps all at the same time, and turn these shiny, brand-new cars into heaps of debris.
Then, slowly, it begins to make sense.
Late one night, after Dean had at last surrendered to getting a few troubled hours of sleep, Sam explained to Cas what Dean had done after their father was killed: how he had taken a crowbar to his beloved Impala and had all but ruined it, out of grief, and anger, and helplessness. He had beaten the car until he couldn’t lift the crowbar anymore, until his hands were bruised and raw.
“I’m sorry, Dean,” Castiel says now, quietly.
Dean seldom takes things like that well. Expressions of sympathy.
He will walk away, Cas thinks. He’ll find a bar somewhere nearby, or he’ll simply walk until he’s exhausted himself, or until Sam catches up with him and insists that he come back, that they’ve got a job to do and Dean needs to stop not doing it.
Instead, Dean simply stands there with his fists still bunched up tight and his jaw clenched.
That will be painful, eventually.
“It’s-” he sputters, glaring at the silver-gray car. “It’s-”
“I know,” Sam replies. “It’s a librarian’s car.” When Castiel expresses puzzlement at that, Sam shakes his head, warning Cas that that’s a question that has no answer. “They ruined the whole thing in the nineties. They ruined pretty much everything in the nineties, particularly music. I’ve heard it all before, Dean. In fact, I can pretty much recite it. The nineties suck, and anything post-millennium sucks even worse. I get it.”
“You boys interested in our newest model?”
The salesman has appeared so suddenly that Cas suspects him of being otherworldly. But he’s not; he’s just one of those humans who are so desperate to make a sale that they’ve taught themselves how to pop in out of nowhere.
Dean fixes him with a look that, by rights, ought to kill him on the spot.
“We-” Sam starts.
He’s going to do the job. Identify the three of them as FBI agents and ask for information about the people who disappeared from this area, the last one from the rear of the dealership two nights ago. Then-Dean’s foul humor notwithstanding-they’ll find out everything this white-haired man knows, and they’ll either follow a new lead or go back to the motel and do some more research, make some more phone calls.
With luck, Dean won’t unload his displeasure all over this white-haired man.
Cas straightens his shoulders a little, shifting into what he hopes will pass as the demeanor of an FBI agent. But he’s still learning what that is, and he knows it’s a problem that his only examples are the Winchester brothers and a collection of actors on TV. He’d very much like to observe some real FBI agents and learn from them, when time allows.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Dean’s head move.
He’s spotted something on the other side of the lot. No, not a problem; it’s something that’s dissolving his anger like pouring water on salt.
Slowly, his mouth lolls open.
“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” says the white-haired man, clearly proud of whatever it is that’s captured Dean’s attention. Smiling, he follows at an easy stroll as Dean crosses the lot, with Sam and Castiel bringing up the rear.
It’s a car.
Not just any car, of course. Even Cas can see that.
This is a beautiful car, a work of art. A long, sleek convertible, snow-white, with bright red leather interior. Whitewall tires, squared-off fins. A gigantic chrome grille. “First generation,” the white-haired man explains. “A 1958 Chevy Bel Air Impala. And not restored. She’s been kept just like this all these years.”
Dean’s fingers have drifted toward the car, but he looks like a child whose parents have warned him not to touch.
He’s awestruck, almost to the point of tears.
“Dual headlamps-first year for that. Coil-spring suspension. Turbo-thrust V8.”
Several years ago, while Cas was recovering from the business with Metatron, he spent an afternoon reading the history of the Chevrolet Impala.
For all that Dean’s car means to him-for all that it’s his base of operations, and that he thinks of it as a weapon, a warrior in its own right-his father bought it as a family car, and it was very much seen that way during the 1960s and 70s. It was big and roomy, and solid, something that would accommodate Mom and Dad and several children. The trunk wasn’t meant to contain the bodies of werewolves or rugaru, or a massive collection of weapons; it was meant to carry groceries, or camping equipment, or luggage.
Slowly, Cas looks back across the lot at the car Dean was so angry about.
No, it makes no real sense that the new Impalas upset him so much. Car manufacturers change their designs all the time; it’s been that way for a hundred years, since the very first Chevys rolled off the assembly line. They answer-and perhaps try to anticipate-the needs and desires of the public. But it makes complete sense to Castiel that Dean, who has lost so much and is always threatened with losing even more, would try to hold on to the things that are still precious to him.
That car. The look of that car. The idea of that car.
But here is something even better. Something that Dean-who is more overwhelmed than he was when Castiel strode into that barn years ago and informed him that I am an angel of the Lord-certainly wishes he could look at with the man who bought that other Impala, the black one, the one that is Dean’s last link to home.
Although sometimes he wishes he could (and sometimes is glad he cannot), Cas can’t read minds, but what’s on Dean’s mind right now is so clear that it might as well be written across the sides of the new cars that line most of this lot.
Oh, Father, Cas thinks.
His prayer won’t be answered; his prayers never are.
But he wishes with all that he is, just for a moment, that he had the ability to bring people back from the dead.
That he could, just for a little while, bring John Winchester out of heaven; that he could bring him to this small, unnoteworthy Chevrolet dealership on the outskirts of Orley, Nebraska, so that father and son could stand side by side in the afternoon sunlight and admire this pristine 1958 Bel Air Impala-this beautiful, beautiful car with its bright red leather interior and its yards of polished chrome and its immaculate whitewall tires.
Out of the corner of his eye, he catches a glimpse of Sam, and he knows without asking that Sam is wishing for the same thing.
Finally, inch by inch, Dean turns away from the car.
His head is bowed, and even the white-haired man, someone who has never met Dean before this particular afternoon, must be aware that Dean is trying very hard not to cry.
But Dean is nothing if not strong, and resilient, and stubborn.
He lifts his head smoothly and settles his shoulders.
And he says to his brother and his brother-in-arms: “Yeah. Okay, then. Got a friggin’ job to do. Let’s do it.”
He’s already got his fake badge in his hand.
* * *
CHARACTERS: Castiel, Dean, Sam (Castiel POV)
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG, for language
SPOILERS: None (takes place sometime prior to Season 14)
DISCLAIMER: Nope; still no money being made
For perhaps fifteen seconds, Dean says nothing. Then he mutters just loudly enough to be sure that Sam will hear him, “It’s a freakin’ abomination, Sam. Anybody with any common sense will tell you that.”
THE WHEELS OF PROGRESS
By Carol Davis
“Oh, HELL no.”
That outburst isn’t exactly a surprise.
Neither is the sudden, all-but-screeching stop that almost tosses Cas off the back seat of Dean’s beloved Impala.
If these years of riding with Sam and Dean have taught Castiel anything, it’s that Dean Winchester is prone to abrupt outbursts of emotion, and to slamming on the brakes for a variety of reasons, only occasionally to avoid hitting small animals that have chosen the wrong moment to run across the road.
He’ll also stop (or nearly so) to ogle pretty girls. For small children who perhaps remind him of Sam as a toddler, for interesting-looking bars, and to take a closer look at signs that advertise All You Can Eat.
Even during a case. Even when they have somewhere to be.
Cas didn’t know Dean as a toddler, but he’s relatively sure he can describe what Dean was like back then.
Easily distracted, he thinks.
Prone to blurting out his displeasure.
It will do him no good to ask why they’ve stopped, why they’re still a hundred yards from their destination, and why Dean is fuming behind the wheel, which he’s gripping so hard that he’s making all the veins on the backs of his hands stand out blue against his skin. His shoulders have gone tense, as well, and are bunched up halfway to his ears.
“Dean,” Sam says quietly.
For perhaps fifteen seconds, Dean says nothing. Then he mutters just loudly enough to be sure that Sam will hear him, “It’s a freakin’ abomination, Sam. Anybody with any common sense will tell you that.”
“Dean…”
“Anybody with any common sense is not overreacting.”
“Dean. You need to do your damn job, man.”
Castiel leans a little to the right, enough to get a look at Dean in the rearview mirror. Dean’s eyes are narrowed, and his jaw is clenched. He looks as though he might well bite something off anyone who gets too close to him, some body part-their nose, maybe. Or a finger. But why he’s so upset is still a mystery. They’ve been driving through a cluster of small towns in traffic that’s not at all heavy, and half a mile ago they reached a commercial area. Nearby, Cas can see a supermarket, a dry cleaner’s, several fast food places, and a tire shop.
And their destination: 1159 Weston Road.
It’s an automobile dealership, something Cas wasn’t aware of before. Smaller than some he’s seen, but nothing out of the ordinary.
“Take this one with me, would you, Cas?”
Sam has turned around, and his displeasure with Dean is clear on his face. Clear, too, is the fact that he thinks Dean is being ridiculous, and that this is something they’ve discussed before. Something that Dean has been ridiculous about in the past. Before Castiel can respond, Sam has flipped open the door on his side of the car and is climbing out, straightening the jacket of what he refers to as his Fed Suit as he stands.
Dean hasn’t moved.
“Do you intend to do your damn job?” Cas asks him mildly.
Other than a slightly increased tension in Dean’s jaw, he gets no reply, so he slides to the edge of the back seat, pushes open the door, and climbs out. Sam made a point of banging his door shut, but Cas is gentler with his; there seems to be no point in punishing the car for Dean’s sudden and inexplicable snit.
They’re halfway to the dealership, walking side by side, when Cas asks the younger Winchester brother, “What is it this time?”
Sam stops walking and sighs.
Then he strides rapidly ahead, covering a lot of ground in a few seconds, and stops beside one of the many new cars that are lined up in the sunlight.
“This,” he says.
“I am… unenlightened.”
“It’s a 2018 Impala,” Sam explains.
“Yes. I see that.”
It’s there on the car’s backside: the word IMPALA spelled out in gleaming chrome letters. This one is silver-gray, but there are others close by that are different colors. Bright blue, crimson, white, a darker gray, and there, a black one. Why any of them would upset Dean is a mystery. They’re inanimate objects, a collection of metal and plastic.
And there, suddenly, is Dean, striding toward them with his fists bunched, the tail of his Fed Suit jacket flapping behind him.
He looks angry enough to shoot something.
“Don’t start,” Sam warns him as he approaches. “Will you, please? Don’t start this again. It’s a freaking car, Dean.”
“It’s a damn sacrilege, is what it is. The damn thing has BLUETOOTH.”
It’s the stress, Cas thinks.
He would offer the opinion that no human who leads what they think of as a normal life would fly off the handle like this, but he knows that isn’t true. Humans fly off the handle “all the damn time,” as Dean would put it, and as time goes on, as a species humans have gotten worse and worse at handling their problems-even at handling things that aren’t actually a problem.
Like this car.
It has no impact on Dean’s life whatsoever.
But Dean looks as if he would very much like to walk through this unimpressive car dealership and plant a grenade in each one of these cars. As if he would like to watch those grenades explode one by one, or perhaps all at the same time, and turn these shiny, brand-new cars into heaps of debris.
Then, slowly, it begins to make sense.
Late one night, after Dean had at last surrendered to getting a few troubled hours of sleep, Sam explained to Cas what Dean had done after their father was killed: how he had taken a crowbar to his beloved Impala and had all but ruined it, out of grief, and anger, and helplessness. He had beaten the car until he couldn’t lift the crowbar anymore, until his hands were bruised and raw.
“I’m sorry, Dean,” Castiel says now, quietly.
Dean seldom takes things like that well. Expressions of sympathy.
He will walk away, Cas thinks. He’ll find a bar somewhere nearby, or he’ll simply walk until he’s exhausted himself, or until Sam catches up with him and insists that he come back, that they’ve got a job to do and Dean needs to stop not doing it.
Instead, Dean simply stands there with his fists still bunched up tight and his jaw clenched.
That will be painful, eventually.
“It’s-” he sputters, glaring at the silver-gray car. “It’s-”
“I know,” Sam replies. “It’s a librarian’s car.” When Castiel expresses puzzlement at that, Sam shakes his head, warning Cas that that’s a question that has no answer. “They ruined the whole thing in the nineties. They ruined pretty much everything in the nineties, particularly music. I’ve heard it all before, Dean. In fact, I can pretty much recite it. The nineties suck, and anything post-millennium sucks even worse. I get it.”
“You boys interested in our newest model?”
The salesman has appeared so suddenly that Cas suspects him of being otherworldly. But he’s not; he’s just one of those humans who are so desperate to make a sale that they’ve taught themselves how to pop in out of nowhere.
Dean fixes him with a look that, by rights, ought to kill him on the spot.
“We-” Sam starts.
He’s going to do the job. Identify the three of them as FBI agents and ask for information about the people who disappeared from this area, the last one from the rear of the dealership two nights ago. Then-Dean’s foul humor notwithstanding-they’ll find out everything this white-haired man knows, and they’ll either follow a new lead or go back to the motel and do some more research, make some more phone calls.
With luck, Dean won’t unload his displeasure all over this white-haired man.
Cas straightens his shoulders a little, shifting into what he hopes will pass as the demeanor of an FBI agent. But he’s still learning what that is, and he knows it’s a problem that his only examples are the Winchester brothers and a collection of actors on TV. He’d very much like to observe some real FBI agents and learn from them, when time allows.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Dean’s head move.
He’s spotted something on the other side of the lot. No, not a problem; it’s something that’s dissolving his anger like pouring water on salt.
Slowly, his mouth lolls open.
“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” says the white-haired man, clearly proud of whatever it is that’s captured Dean’s attention. Smiling, he follows at an easy stroll as Dean crosses the lot, with Sam and Castiel bringing up the rear.
It’s a car.
Not just any car, of course. Even Cas can see that.
This is a beautiful car, a work of art. A long, sleek convertible, snow-white, with bright red leather interior. Whitewall tires, squared-off fins. A gigantic chrome grille. “First generation,” the white-haired man explains. “A 1958 Chevy Bel Air Impala. And not restored. She’s been kept just like this all these years.”
Dean’s fingers have drifted toward the car, but he looks like a child whose parents have warned him not to touch.
He’s awestruck, almost to the point of tears.
“Dual headlamps-first year for that. Coil-spring suspension. Turbo-thrust V8.”
Several years ago, while Cas was recovering from the business with Metatron, he spent an afternoon reading the history of the Chevrolet Impala.
For all that Dean’s car means to him-for all that it’s his base of operations, and that he thinks of it as a weapon, a warrior in its own right-his father bought it as a family car, and it was very much seen that way during the 1960s and 70s. It was big and roomy, and solid, something that would accommodate Mom and Dad and several children. The trunk wasn’t meant to contain the bodies of werewolves or rugaru, or a massive collection of weapons; it was meant to carry groceries, or camping equipment, or luggage.
Slowly, Cas looks back across the lot at the car Dean was so angry about.
No, it makes no real sense that the new Impalas upset him so much. Car manufacturers change their designs all the time; it’s been that way for a hundred years, since the very first Chevys rolled off the assembly line. They answer-and perhaps try to anticipate-the needs and desires of the public. But it makes complete sense to Castiel that Dean, who has lost so much and is always threatened with losing even more, would try to hold on to the things that are still precious to him.
That car. The look of that car. The idea of that car.
But here is something even better. Something that Dean-who is more overwhelmed than he was when Castiel strode into that barn years ago and informed him that I am an angel of the Lord-certainly wishes he could look at with the man who bought that other Impala, the black one, the one that is Dean’s last link to home.
Although sometimes he wishes he could (and sometimes is glad he cannot), Cas can’t read minds, but what’s on Dean’s mind right now is so clear that it might as well be written across the sides of the new cars that line most of this lot.
Oh, Father, Cas thinks.
His prayer won’t be answered; his prayers never are.
But he wishes with all that he is, just for a moment, that he had the ability to bring people back from the dead.
That he could, just for a little while, bring John Winchester out of heaven; that he could bring him to this small, unnoteworthy Chevrolet dealership on the outskirts of Orley, Nebraska, so that father and son could stand side by side in the afternoon sunlight and admire this pristine 1958 Bel Air Impala-this beautiful, beautiful car with its bright red leather interior and its yards of polished chrome and its immaculate whitewall tires.
Out of the corner of his eye, he catches a glimpse of Sam, and he knows without asking that Sam is wishing for the same thing.
Finally, inch by inch, Dean turns away from the car.
His head is bowed, and even the white-haired man, someone who has never met Dean before this particular afternoon, must be aware that Dean is trying very hard not to cry.
But Dean is nothing if not strong, and resilient, and stubborn.
He lifts his head smoothly and settles his shoulders.
And he says to his brother and his brother-in-arms: “Yeah. Okay, then. Got a friggin’ job to do. Let’s do it.”
He’s already got his fake badge in his hand.
* * *