The Love of Dean Winchester's Life: a SuperWho romance (part three)
Part one and part two.
When he woke up forty minutes later, he was alone in the room. Whatever Sam was doing, it was taking him an awfully long time. As for the Impala-Dean felt oddly betrayed to see he’d left him. But then, watching somebody sleep for forty minutes couldn’t be that interesting.
A shadow moved in front of the motel room window, the silhouette of a figure that was becoming familiar after only a day. Dean got up, smoothing the worst of the wrinkles from his slept-in clothes, and went outside.
The Impala-the car, that is-was parked beneath a streetlight glowing orangely in the dusk, its doors and trunk all open. The Impala-the man-was walking around it, running his hands over chrome, rubber, and leather, inspecting everything, studying it as if there’d be a test on Monday.
Dean joined him. “Hey.”
“Oh. Hello.” He didn’t look up from a close inspection of the back seat ashtray. He reached out and jiggled something-the toy soldier stuck in there. The Impala chuckled softly. “I always wondered what this would feel like from the outside.”
“Does it bother you?” Dean remembered when Sam had first stuck the toy there, and how irritated he’d been. Not that the soldier itself was a big deal, but the fact that it was there permanently, despite all his best efforts to pull, wiggle, and/or chisel it out, had galled him. He hadn’t considered how it might feel to be the one whose ashtray it had now become part of.
“It itched a little, at first. Not literally. But you get the idea.” As if to illustrate, the Impala rolled up one of Jimmy Novak’s sleeves and scratched the arm idly. “But now I’m used to it. I’d miss it if it came out. Same with the Legos.”
“Good. I was going to apologize for those next. But…um, if I don’t have to…thanks.”
He chuckled again. Now his fingers ran over another part of the car, pointing, moving-Dean realized he was tracing the initials they’d carved into the Impala years ago. S.W. D.W.
“But that must have hurt,” he found himself saying out loud. “We used a knife, for crying out loud.” He was suddenly appalled at his own behavior towards the most beloved object in his life. “I swear, if we knew you were in there-”
“I don’t mind. Really. I kind of liked it.”
“Kinky son of a gun, aren’t you?” Dean muttered.
The Impala smiled, baring teeth that had been all too ready to sink into Dean earlier that morning. “If you say so.”
Dean coughed, trying to clear his mouth of an obstruction that was probably his own foot.
“It isn’t as if I’m capable of feeling literal pain. Or I wasn’t until today. The only sensation anything like it-and maybe it’s more like fear-is when something went really wrong. T-boned by a semi wrong,” the Impala added significantly. And then he held up a slender hand before Dean could say anything. “You’re not going to try apologizing for that, are you?”
“Sorry. I don’t normally apologize so much.”
The Impala looked at him in a way he must have learned from Sam.
“Oh. Sor-damn it.”
“Maybe you never should have started.” And then he was moving again, lifting the windshield wipers, leaving faint streaks over the glass. Normally Dean would get on somebody’s back for that, but if it was his own windshield the Impala was streaking, maybe it wasn’t a human’s place to say anything.
“I feel colder than I thought,” he remarked. He licked his lips. Then, “Anyway. Actually, I should thank you. For after the crash. You didn’t have to do that, you know.”
“Of course I did. How easy do you think a ’67 Impala is to replace? -How easy do you think you are to replace?” Dean’s foot scuffed the ground in an aborted effort to kick himself. For the first time in his life he found himself wishing this would become more of a chick-flick moment, and less unintentionally offensive. Sam or Bobby might be able to see what they meant to him under his didn’t-give-a-damn exterior, but he wasn’t sure the Impala could. And he didn’t want Baby to ever think he was replaceable.
He didn’t look offended at all. In fact, he was watching Dean over his roof with a shy smile.
Of course. He should know better than to assume that just because the dude was a car, he wouldn’t know how to speak Winchester like a native.
“So of course I rebuilt you,” he said. “Anyway, it’s not like this family is ever very good about letting each other die.”
“No,” the Impala said, that faint smile growing. “We always try to bring each other back, don’t we? Maybe I’ll return the favor sometime.”
He leaned against his metal body, not a casual lounge so much as a slump-whether that was because he still was new to Jimmy’s body and didn’t know how to work it, or because something was really wrong, Dean didn’t wait to find out. He was beside the Impala in a moment, grabbing his arm and shoulder to support him.
“It’s okay. I was just…” The Impala leaned against the car again, this time much more carefully. Supposed to be casual, then. But he seemed distracted, and his eyes wouldn’t quite meet Dean’s. “All day, I’ve been trying to find a word. A big one. Complicated. It made me happy, but it also might be sad. And I think I’ve found it.”
“What?”
“Alive,” the Impala whispered. “I’m alive.”
Dean leaned beside him, the line of the Impala’s roof cutting into his spine. “Alive. Yeah, I see how that’s sad.”
“You do?”
“Life. Crap happens. Usually to good people who don’t deserve it. And then it ends. Yeah, it is sad.”
“But good things happen, too.”
“Sometimes.” He glanced sidelong at the Impala, studying his profile. The streetlight gleamed over his black hair like the car’s chrome, striking orange dots like sparks off each. “Even when you have to thank the damn Trickster for them.”
The Impala laughed. Sometimes, when he laughed deep enough, Dean thought he could hear an engine purring. “What I really think, it’s that alive is only sad when it’s over. Which it isn’t…yet.” His chin tipped towards his shoulder, a gesture that looked confused and melancholy and oddly dignified all at once. “There was another word. I didn’t get to say it to you when I should have.”
“What’s that?”
“I just wanted to say…” He turned to face Dean then, drawing Jimmy’s body to its full height, azure eyes bright and meeting Dean’s proudly. “Hello, Dean Winchester. It’s very good to meet you.”
“Hello, Baby,” Dean said. He started to smile, but then they were closing the space between them, both at once, and when their lips met it was much, much better than that morning. Because now it wasn’t just some random cute guy-the thought slipped past Dean’s mental gatekeepers easily, since he was a little distracted at the moment-it was someone he’d known his entire life, not human maybe, but somebody he’d loved even with the first primitive glimmerings of the emotion. The Impala’s hands closed on the sides of his face, a little tightly perhaps but not enough that he’d complain, and angled him closer.
For a former car with absolutely zilch experience, he was very talented. He also had some interesting tastes. By the time the kiss broke, Dean’s lower lip was swollen if not actually bleeding. And it was a very pleasant feeling.
“Come on,” the Impala was murmuring, a hand on his sleeve pulling him towards…the backseat?
“You sure about this?” he found himself asking. Because Dean was sure, but compared to how strange the Impala’s experience of this night might turn out, sleeping with his car in said car’s own leather interior was positively vanilla.
Then again, the dude was kinky.
“Believe me, this is something I’ve been very curious about,” the Impala said.
Dean slid in after him. Despite the streetlight overhead, the interior was shadowed, and the road and parking lot outside were all but deserted. Privacy wouldn’t be a problem-once all the doors were closed.
The Impala followed his gaze and smiled. He snapped his fingers and the doors promptly shut. A moment later, the trunk locked with a heavy thud.
“You can do that?” Dean asked.
“Apparently so.” Fingers hooked on his jacket collar drew Dean even closer. “Let’s see what else I can do.”
#
By the time they came back in the room, Sam was lying on one of the beds, out like a light. Looked like he had been for hours. The Impala glanced down at him fondly before throwing himself onto the second bed. He slid over just enough to allow Dean to lay down beside him.
“This will be interesting,” the Impala said. “Falling asleep. Never done it before.”
“Did you take notes when you watched me?”
“No. I assumed it…comes naturally.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “It does. Relax, dude. Actually, you should-that’s step one.”
The Impala’s face was an inch from his on the pillow. Dean could feel his breath on his cheek when he spoke. “How far away is nine-thirty?”
With his guts tying in knots, Dean glanced at the bedside clock. “About eight hours.”
“Do you think I’ll wake up before then?”
He swallowed and said a little sharply, “You’ll wake up sooner the sooner you go to sleep.”
“But if I don’t…this might be it.”
Dean turned to him and slipped an arm around the Impala’s shoulder unthinkingly. “Don’t worry.”
“I’m trying not to.” A hand slipped into his, damp but warm, and he gripped it back. Dean wouldn’t blame anybody for sweaty palms at a time like this. Damn the Trickster, was it too much to ask that he could warn a guy what was going to happen to him? Did he ever consider that his creations might have thoughts, feelings? What was going to happen?
“Hey, Dean.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t, um…try not to drool on my face, okay?”
“I’ll try not to,” he promised. Then he added, “even if it is a face worth drooling over.”
“You’re so sweet to me.” Hard to say if that was sarcasm, from that inexperience, sleep-heavy mouth.
“Don’t feel scared,” Dean found himself saying. “You’re with me.”
“Yeah. Always have been…always will be.”
“Exactly.”
Silence, then, except for three sets of increasingly deep breathing, and every so often the hum of a car on the road.
#
Sometime during the night, Dean and Jimmy Novak’s bodies had wound up on far opposite sides of the bed-perhaps the Impala was a restless sleeper-and it turned out that was for the best.
Dean felt instant, deep, smarting sympathy for Amelia Novak the moment her husband opened his eyes. There was nothing quite like waking up with someone entirely different than the one you went to sleep beside.
At least he knew what had happened, and why.
“You’re okay, man,” he told Jimmy. “Had a bit of a wild day yesterday. But everything’s cool now. Um, sorry about the sleeping arrangements, there were only two beds…”
Jimmy sat up, then moved his feet towards the floor by slow inches, as if expecting something to rise up from under the bed and chomp them at any moment. “Wild day? Yeah…I guess.” He laughed a little hysterically.
“Wait and I’ll get you a cup of coffee.” Dean went to the room’s coffee maker and fumbled with the packets, staring at decaf and regular as if the words no longer meant anything. He brought Jimmy a cup, but didn’t feel like putting anything in his stomach just yet. He didn’t think it would make it past whatever was happening in his throat.
“So what do you remember of yesterday?” he asked Jimmy after a few sips had brought more color to the man’s face.
“It was really, really weird.” Jimmy put the cup down and ran over his head, as if trying to rub out memories. “I must have been dreaming. Or hallucinating, or something. Maybe it was a trip. I’m usually, uh, pretty straight-laced, I don’t know what one would be like. But there’s this show I like.” He darted a glance at Dean as if expecting to see judgment there. “Kind of silly, maybe. But I dreamed I was in it. Not on set or something. In it. Like one of the characters.”
“That is pretty weird,” Dean said evenly.
“But it was cool, too. If you like that sort of thing. And the funny part is-it was like I was in future shows. Got to see the resolution of some plot arcs and things. Never had a dream like that in my life.”
“The world’s a very weird place,” Dean said, all the wisdom he felt capable of dispensing this morning. Maybe Jimmy would one day find out just how weird. For the guy’s sake, Dean sincerely hoped not.
“I wonder what my wife will think. I wonder if I should tell her. See, she’s the one who started me watching the show…”
“I think your wife will just be glad to see you home.” Dean walked Jimmy to the door. “Go get her, tiger.”
As the man stepped out, Dean thought to ask, “So what was the show?”
“Oh.” Jimmy looked down at his shoes. “Just this…show. It’s called Doctor…”
Dean nodded encouragingly.
“Doctor Sexy, M.D,” Jimmy Novak said.
“Oh. Good show.”
Jimmy clearly suspected Dean was mocking him, but he wasn’t going to make an issue of it this morning. He started walking across the parking lot, towards the road.
“Really good show,” Dean muttered. There, beneath a streetlight, black chrome gleamed in morning sunshine. He waited a moment, catching his breath as if he’d just run miles. Then he went to the Impala.
“Good morning, Baby,” he said, running a hand over the front door. He pulled it open and slid inside, put the key in the ignition. Here goes nothing he thought, and turned it.
The engine growled.
The light gleaming off the hood was getting in Dean’s eyes, making them sting. “Hello, Baby.”
“Hello, Dean,” the radio said.
Nursing the bump on his head from the ceiling of the car, Dean stared at the speaker grille. “What the hell?”
“Tricksters can create anything,” the radio chirped, as if he’d tuned to some informational show. “And usually they unmake it just as easily, cleaning up after themselves, leaving no trail. But some things, once created, don’t go away easily. Like souls.” Static crackled, sounding oddly like laughter. “It makes sense, I suppose. I might have been created yesterday, but my memories and…presence seem to go back to 1967. It makes sense that they’d go on through today and tomorrow, too.”
“And the day after that?” Dean said hopefully.
“Forever, maybe. As long as I’m in one piece.”
“Forever, then. You know how I am about keeping you in one piece.”
The static laughed louder. Then, in an almost apologetic tone-the Impala’s voice sounded a bit like Jimmy Novak’s, Dean realized, except a little throatier, as if it were produced by a three hundred horse power engine-it continued, “I didn’t know this would happen. That I’d ever be able to speak to you again. So yesterday, I just said everything I wanted to…thus a lot of chick-flick moments. It’s kind of ironic. Now we can talk anytime. So…I guess I can shut up now.”
Dean smiled, then bent to plant a kiss on the rim of the steering wheel. In return, the radio began playing Led Zeppelin’s Ramble On.
Leaves are falling all around,
Its time I was on my way.
Thanks to you, I’m much obliged
For such a pleasant stay.
#
“There’s one thing that still bothers me,” Dean told Sam twenty miles later.
“Just one? Okay, shoot.”
“The Trickster claimed he was hanging out in the pool of that…TARDIS-thing.”
“And?”
“It looked pretty tiny to fit a pool in.”
“Oh.” Sam looked out the window, not quickly enough to hide a smirk. “Dean, the TARDIS is bigger on the inside.”
“That’s a damn weird show.”
“Sure. Anyway, did you read the papers this morning? About that clown in Maine-think it looks like one of our jobs?”
Miles of road passed by beneath them.
-end-
Coda: Lines adapted from The Doctor’s Wife that I couldn’t fit into this fic, but couldn’t bear to leave by the roadside:
"FBI."
"Hello, Pretty!"
"What the hell is this?"
"Relax. It's me, Dean. And a…friend. -And that's Bobby."
"Okay, look. You have to go to the panic room! We don't have time to explain."
"The pretty one?"
"Why the tone of surprise, idjit?"