SPN fic: Live and Die This Way
Supernatural: Live and Die This Way
Pre-series gen, Dean-centric Winchester fic.
With thanks to gospelsharp for the beta!
Dean is seventeen, bleeding, and running for his life the first time he falls in love.
They’re in Nevada, riding out the end of the school year, and Dean thinks he might have flunked again. Pretends not to care, and it only visibly bothers Sam, who purses his lips at the mess of F-grade papers in their bedroom, stacks them at the opposite end of the desk to his own. Like he’s afraid his neat notes and essays are going to get contaminated, and Dean wishes that good grades had been all he’d had to worry about when he was thirteen.
There’s a pack of something that might be hellhounds hunting through the streets, and most of the small town’s pets are gone. Some of the cattle and people too, and these things got awful hungry, awful quick. John makes notes about hibernation and breeding patterns, about open gateways to places they can’t cross. Dean puts in extra hours at the little grocery store where he works, ducks behind the counter whenever one of his teachers comes in, and spends his paycheck on pawn-shop silver. Tiny town, diner and grocery store and soda fountain, junkyard and school and endless desert, and Dean feels like he’s suffocating.
Sam asks them why, even in tiny towns like this, the monsters still follow them like an itch. He never gets an answer.
~*~
Night falls, the town locks its doors, and Dean and John roll down the streets in their pickup. The Impala is gone, five years and seven states back when John got a nasty infection from a ghoul bite, couldn’t work for months. No jobs in town for a twelve-year old except bagging groceries for a buck fifty an hour, and John sold the Impala the night Dean came home with a bruised face and seventy-eight dollars clutched between broken fingers. Sold it for ten thousand and a pickup that won’t go above eighty, but it gets them through, and when Dean dreams at night of humming low over highways, flashing headlights and rumbles that echo off the empty desert, he never says a thing. In this tiny, dusty town, curtains twitch, pale faces ghosting behind dark glass, and Sam leaves every light blazing in the house for them to come home to. Every night for two weeks, shadows deep around them, eyes sharp for movement, and they feel like they’re blind. Always too late, always chasing ghosts. A step behind, and the bodies aren’t even cold when they trip over them in the dark. When the third human corpse is found, ripped and torn and nothing more than leftovers, John drops the pickup keys in Sam’s hand, Dean shoves extra bullets in his pockets, and they walk out into the night.
They split up at the centre of the town’s main street, radios clipped to belts. John turns one way, heads deeper into town and Dean watches him go, watches his father’s boots kick up desert dust from the cracked road. White lamplights glide off the barrel of the pistol hanging from John’s hand, and Dean feels the heat of them behind his eyes. Shoulders his shotgun, feels the weight of his knife in its thigh sheath, and he turns his back on his father. Walks towards the edge of town, and there’s no one to watch his dust.
Dean finds the first sign, some desert dog that wandered into town and never made it back out again. Belly slashed open, innards in the dirt, and it’s barely been touched. Dean dips the tips of his fingers into the blood, feels the heat against his skin and a chill up his spine. Radios his father, and,
“They didn’t even eat it.”
“Probably wasn’t big enough for them to bother,” John’s voice is static-rough over the air. “You seen anybody else out tonight?”
Dean shakes his head, even though John can’t see him. “Ain’t nobody here but us chickens.”
“Where are you?”
Dean looks around him, and only recognises a single house, neat and whitewashed and gleaming in the dark. Pretty Mary Galloway’s house, and he’d fucked her behind the janitor’s office a few weeks ago, after they’d both been trapped in detention far too long on a hot, still afternoon. Low sun blinding their eyes, and Dean remembers how the whole world seemed to be on fire. Burning and suffocating, and Dean doesn’t tell his father. Walks along the road until he comes to a junction, finds a road sign.
“Don’t go far,” John warns. “I’m going to come over, see if I can flush these things towards you.”
Dean doesn’t like that idea, but he clutches his shotgun tighter and doesn’t say. “And what if they’re behind you?”
“Then we walk back,” and the radio falls silent, and Dean is left alone in the dark. Shifts noiselessly from foot to foot , watches dust shifting on the wind. So close to the edge of town here, and Dean can see the desert creeping in, slowly devouring the town as it frays at the edges. Tarmac drowning under dirt, and there’s no future here.
He hears them before he sees them, low growls and snarls, and the dry scrape of claws against the ground. Grabs the radio, and,
“Dad, where are you?”
“Main street, why?”
“Well,” Dean swallows, and the shadows creep closer. “Fuck.” Ten minutes if he runs full out, and the creatures are between them. Dean raises his shotgun, holding it in both hands to keep it steady, and ignores the calls from the radio. Watches the dark bleeding out shadow shapes, feels the growling creep under his skin, and Dean holds his breath, sights down the nearest one, and fires.
There’s a howl, something high and awful that makes Dean wants to scratch at his ears, tear out the sound before it slips deeper. Lights go out in the houses down the street, people hiding and crouching in the dark, and the whole town knows something is wrong here, so terribly wrong. Shotgun and scream, and it just makes them angry. Undamaged, and Dean fires at them again and again, backs away from the sliding shadows and claws. Something leaps at him from the dark, cold breath and teeth and heavy weight and Dean goes down. Landing hard, arms crossing in front of his face and throat like John taught him, and he feels jaws tighten on his wrist. Bite down, and Dean kicks out, tries to throw off the creature before he gets pinned, before the rest of them join in. Feels the scrape of teeth against bone and he screams, scrabbles for the knife at his hip and lashes out. Tearing and wetness and heat, and then Dean is up and running, running, running.
Monsters behind, the desert in front, and he doesn’t stop. Doesn’t pause to hear the howls behind him, to see the shadows snapping and biting at his heels. Knife in his hand, shotgun somewhere else, and his foot catches on cracked paving. Twist, and the bite is his own this time, clamped on his lip as he scrambles up and away. Breath coming harsh, and the cold night air fills his throat, solid and choking and he isn’t going to last much longer.
Chain link fence looming up out of the darkness, high and sharp and silver, and Dean lets out something that isn’t a sob. Junk metal yard, and he didn’t realise he was so close. Fingers clutch at wide metal links and he’s swinging himself up and over, landing hard on something that gives and snaps inside him. The fence shrieks as the creatures hurl themselves against it, worry at the ground beneath it, and Dean’s hand goes to his hip. Comes up empty, and the radio is long gone. Backs away from the screaming things in front of him, and his legs don’t want to hold him up any more. Adrenaline making him want to curl over and puke and he forces himself back, further into the high piles of metal junk, of shapes and shadows and nowhere to hide. Broken cars, rusting refrigerators, and a high crane for shifting junk that he thinks he could climb. Hopes, and he turns towards it.
Dean hears the fence bend and give and he’s hurling himself forward, into the half-open trunk of a car and slamming it closed behind him. Fingers scraping on sharp rust, sudden stop into darkness, and he lies very, very still.
There’s growling outside the car, low and searching, and Dean lies sprawled on his stomach, not moving. Heart racing too hard, and it hurts to control his breathing, to keep slow in and out breaths that can’t be heard. Hears howls and growls and claws scraping at dirt, thump of bodies against rusted out cars, and when something hurls itself against the trunk of the car he’s hiding in, he can’t stop the high yelp of fear that escapes his lips. Fingers scrabbling at the seam of the trunk, but it holds closed, tight, and they can’t get in. Heavy thump of bodies, claws against metal, and it sounds like screaming.
Dean lies there, in the darkness and the dust, and bleeds into the cracks in the old metal.
~*~
He doesn’t realise he’s fallen asleep until he wakes, sharp jerk in the darkness and his head collides with the lid of the trunk. Curses and holds still, listens. No sounds outside, and the enclosed space feels hot and thick. Sun’s already risen, and there’s a faint glint of sun through a rusted-out spot somewhere near his feet. Dean takes a deep breath, stiff fingers clutching the knife that he never let go of, not all night, and shoves hard at the trunk lid.
It opens easily, surprising him, and he’s off balance. Catches himself against the back of the car, blinks desperately in the sudden, bright sunlight, and the world tilts into view. Quiet, empty, and he crawls out of the car. Hisses under his breath when his ankle won’t take his full weight, and he leans against the car for a moment, hands on the wings, and tells himself he isn’t shaking.
Under the rust and desert dust, the curve of the car looks odd somehow. Dean stares at the scratched metal under his fingers, looks up, looks at it, and, oh.
~*~
Dean limps home through the empty town, sun low and bright against his eyes. Too early for anyone to be up and awake, but he stays away from the main street anyway, loops around back home, and Sam is sitting on the front porch, face pale and pinched and wide-eyed. He clambers to his feet as soon as he sees Dean, starts racing down the sidewalk towards him and there’s a radio already in his hand.
“Dad, he’s here!” Sam shouts into the radio, before skidding to a halt next to Dean, grabbing him by the arm. “Where have you been? We thought, we didn’t know, Dad’s been out all night looking for you, and-” Stops himself, stares, and, “Oh, god, you’re bleeding, is it bad? Get inside. Where have you been?”
Dean lets Sam lead him home, into the kitchen, and he slumps on the floor, back against the kitchen cabinets. He can taste dust and grit between his teeth, and Sam is grabbing at his chewed wrist, turning it over gently. First aid kit open on the floor beside them, and Sam kneels on the linoleum and starts cleaning the wound.
“Dad found the shotgun and radio,” Sam says quietly. “He thought, we.” He stops. His hands are shaking against Dean’s skin and he takes a deep breath, steadies himself. Opens iodine and bandages, methodical and quick and sure. “I need to stitch some of this.”
“Give me a cool scar?” Dean asks, and it’s enough to still the last of the shakes from Sam’s fingers, soft huff of laughter, and the wound is closed and covered by the time John arrives, breathless and stern and he drops to his knees, assesses Dean with eyes and fingers and words.
“You okay?”
Dean nods. “Yessir. I’m sorry, the radio…”
“Doesn’t matter,” John says, and Dean’s eyes widen. “We’ll sort that later. Where were you?”
“I hid. Up at the junk yard.”
“I went up there to look for you. You didn’t hear me calling?”
Dean frowns. Thinks of falling asleep, and how it’s sometimes like passing out, and never knowing the difference. “Guess not. Dad, I found something.”
“The nest?” Hopeful, and Dean hates shaking his head.
“No. Something. Come see?” He pulls himself to his feet, steadies himself against the counter. Sam hovers at his side, ready to reach out, but Dean waves him away.
“Don’t you want to wash up first?” Sam asks, worried. “Get some sleep?”
“Later,” and Dean is so, so glad that Sam doesn’t mention how they should be getting to school right about now.
~*~
They climb into the pickup and Dean directs them back to the junk yard. No one else there yet, and they park just outside the ruined fence, climb over it’s sad remains.
“There,” Dean points into the mound of rusting car frames and refrigerators and fence posts, at the open trunk where he’d been hiding, where he’d been saved, and,
“Fuck,” John breathes, and he starts forward. Stops, and it’s like he’s forgotten, just for a moment, how to walk. Inches forward, fingers outstretched, and he drifts his hand along the dented wing of the car, along familiar lines and grooves and dents and tears he’s never seen before. “Oh. Baby.”
“It’s her, isn’t it?” Dean’s leaning against the side of the car and John’s eyes narrow at the way his son is letting it support his weight. Nonchalant appearance, and John doesn’t miss the fine lines of pain on Dean’s face.
“Yes,” and John closes his eyes. Breathes in desert dust and heat, and under it the faint, familiar smell of oil and leather.
“That’s your old car?” asks Sam, who was only eight when they sold the Impala and has never understood the way Dean and John would talk wistfully of the machine, as if she was some mythic beast or avenging angel, running at a hundred down empty highways and never giving out, not once, even that time with a hole in her engine from a harpy claw and leaking oil like it was blood.
Dean nods, turns to John. “Dad, we can’t just leave her here.”
John’s looking into the trunk, at damp bloodstains and scuff marks in the dust. “This where you hid?”
“She never let them get me,” and Dean looks down at his hands. Holds them out, palms up, and his skin is scraped and raw. Rust sticking to sweat, and he’s got the Impala’s blood under his skin. Thundering through his veins, and he remembers how the car shook and screamed around him, and never gave him up.
The junk yard owner arrives shortly after, staring at his broken fence and knowing with a shiver that whatever is wrong with the town was here, right here, and he still glares when Dean spins him a story about wild dogs, about running away and hiding. Asks five thousand for the car and John laughs in his face, argues about rust and rips and who the hell treats a car like that anyways? and drops it down to an even three with delivery and access to the junk yard to scavenge for parts. John drives his boys home then, with a last look back at the Impala, and thinks, funny how things turn out.
Dean sleeps out the day, Sam brings him homework, and the junk yard owner tows the car around that night, leaves her sitting in the driveway like an old watchdog, and they don’t go hunting that night.
~*~
Dean strips her down, rests her hulk on breezeblocks and pulls out the engine parts, spreads them out on clean sheets in the garage, and never goes back to school. Spends the rest of the summer between the grocery store and junk yard and driveway, evenings sitting at the edge of town with friends and beer and watching the desert slowly reclaim the town. Feel of grit always under his tongue, and they flush out the hellhounds one night, Dean and John and Sam, kill every last one of them with lead and silver and runes carved on bone. Leave town three days later, everything they own packed up in the truck, Dean and Sam following in the Impala. Deep rumble of the engine, smell of old leather, and John had dropped the keys into Dean’s hand that morning with a soft,
“You take her.”
Dean’s fingers trace old grooves on the steering wheel, finger bumps and nail marks, and somewhere in those is John, and somewhere in those is Mary. Rust in his veins, his blood soaked and dried into the car. They leave the town to be swallowed by the desert, this year or the next or the next. Running at a hundred, and Dean will never let her down.
End.
And now I go to destroy the hearing in my other ear at the Disco Ensemble gig! ::waves::
Pre-series gen, Dean-centric Winchester fic.
With thanks to gospelsharp for the beta!
Dean is seventeen, bleeding, and running for his life the first time he falls in love.
They’re in Nevada, riding out the end of the school year, and Dean thinks he might have flunked again. Pretends not to care, and it only visibly bothers Sam, who purses his lips at the mess of F-grade papers in their bedroom, stacks them at the opposite end of the desk to his own. Like he’s afraid his neat notes and essays are going to get contaminated, and Dean wishes that good grades had been all he’d had to worry about when he was thirteen.
There’s a pack of something that might be hellhounds hunting through the streets, and most of the small town’s pets are gone. Some of the cattle and people too, and these things got awful hungry, awful quick. John makes notes about hibernation and breeding patterns, about open gateways to places they can’t cross. Dean puts in extra hours at the little grocery store where he works, ducks behind the counter whenever one of his teachers comes in, and spends his paycheck on pawn-shop silver. Tiny town, diner and grocery store and soda fountain, junkyard and school and endless desert, and Dean feels like he’s suffocating.
Sam asks them why, even in tiny towns like this, the monsters still follow them like an itch. He never gets an answer.
~*~
Night falls, the town locks its doors, and Dean and John roll down the streets in their pickup. The Impala is gone, five years and seven states back when John got a nasty infection from a ghoul bite, couldn’t work for months. No jobs in town for a twelve-year old except bagging groceries for a buck fifty an hour, and John sold the Impala the night Dean came home with a bruised face and seventy-eight dollars clutched between broken fingers. Sold it for ten thousand and a pickup that won’t go above eighty, but it gets them through, and when Dean dreams at night of humming low over highways, flashing headlights and rumbles that echo off the empty desert, he never says a thing. In this tiny, dusty town, curtains twitch, pale faces ghosting behind dark glass, and Sam leaves every light blazing in the house for them to come home to. Every night for two weeks, shadows deep around them, eyes sharp for movement, and they feel like they’re blind. Always too late, always chasing ghosts. A step behind, and the bodies aren’t even cold when they trip over them in the dark. When the third human corpse is found, ripped and torn and nothing more than leftovers, John drops the pickup keys in Sam’s hand, Dean shoves extra bullets in his pockets, and they walk out into the night.
They split up at the centre of the town’s main street, radios clipped to belts. John turns one way, heads deeper into town and Dean watches him go, watches his father’s boots kick up desert dust from the cracked road. White lamplights glide off the barrel of the pistol hanging from John’s hand, and Dean feels the heat of them behind his eyes. Shoulders his shotgun, feels the weight of his knife in its thigh sheath, and he turns his back on his father. Walks towards the edge of town, and there’s no one to watch his dust.
Dean finds the first sign, some desert dog that wandered into town and never made it back out again. Belly slashed open, innards in the dirt, and it’s barely been touched. Dean dips the tips of his fingers into the blood, feels the heat against his skin and a chill up his spine. Radios his father, and,
“They didn’t even eat it.”
“Probably wasn’t big enough for them to bother,” John’s voice is static-rough over the air. “You seen anybody else out tonight?”
Dean shakes his head, even though John can’t see him. “Ain’t nobody here but us chickens.”
“Where are you?”
Dean looks around him, and only recognises a single house, neat and whitewashed and gleaming in the dark. Pretty Mary Galloway’s house, and he’d fucked her behind the janitor’s office a few weeks ago, after they’d both been trapped in detention far too long on a hot, still afternoon. Low sun blinding their eyes, and Dean remembers how the whole world seemed to be on fire. Burning and suffocating, and Dean doesn’t tell his father. Walks along the road until he comes to a junction, finds a road sign.
“Don’t go far,” John warns. “I’m going to come over, see if I can flush these things towards you.”
Dean doesn’t like that idea, but he clutches his shotgun tighter and doesn’t say. “And what if they’re behind you?”
“Then we walk back,” and the radio falls silent, and Dean is left alone in the dark. Shifts noiselessly from foot to foot , watches dust shifting on the wind. So close to the edge of town here, and Dean can see the desert creeping in, slowly devouring the town as it frays at the edges. Tarmac drowning under dirt, and there’s no future here.
He hears them before he sees them, low growls and snarls, and the dry scrape of claws against the ground. Grabs the radio, and,
“Dad, where are you?”
“Main street, why?”
“Well,” Dean swallows, and the shadows creep closer. “Fuck.” Ten minutes if he runs full out, and the creatures are between them. Dean raises his shotgun, holding it in both hands to keep it steady, and ignores the calls from the radio. Watches the dark bleeding out shadow shapes, feels the growling creep under his skin, and Dean holds his breath, sights down the nearest one, and fires.
There’s a howl, something high and awful that makes Dean wants to scratch at his ears, tear out the sound before it slips deeper. Lights go out in the houses down the street, people hiding and crouching in the dark, and the whole town knows something is wrong here, so terribly wrong. Shotgun and scream, and it just makes them angry. Undamaged, and Dean fires at them again and again, backs away from the sliding shadows and claws. Something leaps at him from the dark, cold breath and teeth and heavy weight and Dean goes down. Landing hard, arms crossing in front of his face and throat like John taught him, and he feels jaws tighten on his wrist. Bite down, and Dean kicks out, tries to throw off the creature before he gets pinned, before the rest of them join in. Feels the scrape of teeth against bone and he screams, scrabbles for the knife at his hip and lashes out. Tearing and wetness and heat, and then Dean is up and running, running, running.
Monsters behind, the desert in front, and he doesn’t stop. Doesn’t pause to hear the howls behind him, to see the shadows snapping and biting at his heels. Knife in his hand, shotgun somewhere else, and his foot catches on cracked paving. Twist, and the bite is his own this time, clamped on his lip as he scrambles up and away. Breath coming harsh, and the cold night air fills his throat, solid and choking and he isn’t going to last much longer.
Chain link fence looming up out of the darkness, high and sharp and silver, and Dean lets out something that isn’t a sob. Junk metal yard, and he didn’t realise he was so close. Fingers clutch at wide metal links and he’s swinging himself up and over, landing hard on something that gives and snaps inside him. The fence shrieks as the creatures hurl themselves against it, worry at the ground beneath it, and Dean’s hand goes to his hip. Comes up empty, and the radio is long gone. Backs away from the screaming things in front of him, and his legs don’t want to hold him up any more. Adrenaline making him want to curl over and puke and he forces himself back, further into the high piles of metal junk, of shapes and shadows and nowhere to hide. Broken cars, rusting refrigerators, and a high crane for shifting junk that he thinks he could climb. Hopes, and he turns towards it.
Dean hears the fence bend and give and he’s hurling himself forward, into the half-open trunk of a car and slamming it closed behind him. Fingers scraping on sharp rust, sudden stop into darkness, and he lies very, very still.
There’s growling outside the car, low and searching, and Dean lies sprawled on his stomach, not moving. Heart racing too hard, and it hurts to control his breathing, to keep slow in and out breaths that can’t be heard. Hears howls and growls and claws scraping at dirt, thump of bodies against rusted out cars, and when something hurls itself against the trunk of the car he’s hiding in, he can’t stop the high yelp of fear that escapes his lips. Fingers scrabbling at the seam of the trunk, but it holds closed, tight, and they can’t get in. Heavy thump of bodies, claws against metal, and it sounds like screaming.
Dean lies there, in the darkness and the dust, and bleeds into the cracks in the old metal.
~*~
He doesn’t realise he’s fallen asleep until he wakes, sharp jerk in the darkness and his head collides with the lid of the trunk. Curses and holds still, listens. No sounds outside, and the enclosed space feels hot and thick. Sun’s already risen, and there’s a faint glint of sun through a rusted-out spot somewhere near his feet. Dean takes a deep breath, stiff fingers clutching the knife that he never let go of, not all night, and shoves hard at the trunk lid.
It opens easily, surprising him, and he’s off balance. Catches himself against the back of the car, blinks desperately in the sudden, bright sunlight, and the world tilts into view. Quiet, empty, and he crawls out of the car. Hisses under his breath when his ankle won’t take his full weight, and he leans against the car for a moment, hands on the wings, and tells himself he isn’t shaking.
Under the rust and desert dust, the curve of the car looks odd somehow. Dean stares at the scratched metal under his fingers, looks up, looks at it, and, oh.
~*~
Dean limps home through the empty town, sun low and bright against his eyes. Too early for anyone to be up and awake, but he stays away from the main street anyway, loops around back home, and Sam is sitting on the front porch, face pale and pinched and wide-eyed. He clambers to his feet as soon as he sees Dean, starts racing down the sidewalk towards him and there’s a radio already in his hand.
“Dad, he’s here!” Sam shouts into the radio, before skidding to a halt next to Dean, grabbing him by the arm. “Where have you been? We thought, we didn’t know, Dad’s been out all night looking for you, and-” Stops himself, stares, and, “Oh, god, you’re bleeding, is it bad? Get inside. Where have you been?”
Dean lets Sam lead him home, into the kitchen, and he slumps on the floor, back against the kitchen cabinets. He can taste dust and grit between his teeth, and Sam is grabbing at his chewed wrist, turning it over gently. First aid kit open on the floor beside them, and Sam kneels on the linoleum and starts cleaning the wound.
“Dad found the shotgun and radio,” Sam says quietly. “He thought, we.” He stops. His hands are shaking against Dean’s skin and he takes a deep breath, steadies himself. Opens iodine and bandages, methodical and quick and sure. “I need to stitch some of this.”
“Give me a cool scar?” Dean asks, and it’s enough to still the last of the shakes from Sam’s fingers, soft huff of laughter, and the wound is closed and covered by the time John arrives, breathless and stern and he drops to his knees, assesses Dean with eyes and fingers and words.
“You okay?”
Dean nods. “Yessir. I’m sorry, the radio…”
“Doesn’t matter,” John says, and Dean’s eyes widen. “We’ll sort that later. Where were you?”
“I hid. Up at the junk yard.”
“I went up there to look for you. You didn’t hear me calling?”
Dean frowns. Thinks of falling asleep, and how it’s sometimes like passing out, and never knowing the difference. “Guess not. Dad, I found something.”
“The nest?” Hopeful, and Dean hates shaking his head.
“No. Something. Come see?” He pulls himself to his feet, steadies himself against the counter. Sam hovers at his side, ready to reach out, but Dean waves him away.
“Don’t you want to wash up first?” Sam asks, worried. “Get some sleep?”
“Later,” and Dean is so, so glad that Sam doesn’t mention how they should be getting to school right about now.
~*~
They climb into the pickup and Dean directs them back to the junk yard. No one else there yet, and they park just outside the ruined fence, climb over it’s sad remains.
“There,” Dean points into the mound of rusting car frames and refrigerators and fence posts, at the open trunk where he’d been hiding, where he’d been saved, and,
“Fuck,” John breathes, and he starts forward. Stops, and it’s like he’s forgotten, just for a moment, how to walk. Inches forward, fingers outstretched, and he drifts his hand along the dented wing of the car, along familiar lines and grooves and dents and tears he’s never seen before. “Oh. Baby.”
“It’s her, isn’t it?” Dean’s leaning against the side of the car and John’s eyes narrow at the way his son is letting it support his weight. Nonchalant appearance, and John doesn’t miss the fine lines of pain on Dean’s face.
“Yes,” and John closes his eyes. Breathes in desert dust and heat, and under it the faint, familiar smell of oil and leather.
“That’s your old car?” asks Sam, who was only eight when they sold the Impala and has never understood the way Dean and John would talk wistfully of the machine, as if she was some mythic beast or avenging angel, running at a hundred down empty highways and never giving out, not once, even that time with a hole in her engine from a harpy claw and leaking oil like it was blood.
Dean nods, turns to John. “Dad, we can’t just leave her here.”
John’s looking into the trunk, at damp bloodstains and scuff marks in the dust. “This where you hid?”
“She never let them get me,” and Dean looks down at his hands. Holds them out, palms up, and his skin is scraped and raw. Rust sticking to sweat, and he’s got the Impala’s blood under his skin. Thundering through his veins, and he remembers how the car shook and screamed around him, and never gave him up.
The junk yard owner arrives shortly after, staring at his broken fence and knowing with a shiver that whatever is wrong with the town was here, right here, and he still glares when Dean spins him a story about wild dogs, about running away and hiding. Asks five thousand for the car and John laughs in his face, argues about rust and rips and who the hell treats a car like that anyways? and drops it down to an even three with delivery and access to the junk yard to scavenge for parts. John drives his boys home then, with a last look back at the Impala, and thinks, funny how things turn out.
Dean sleeps out the day, Sam brings him homework, and the junk yard owner tows the car around that night, leaves her sitting in the driveway like an old watchdog, and they don’t go hunting that night.
~*~
Dean strips her down, rests her hulk on breezeblocks and pulls out the engine parts, spreads them out on clean sheets in the garage, and never goes back to school. Spends the rest of the summer between the grocery store and junk yard and driveway, evenings sitting at the edge of town with friends and beer and watching the desert slowly reclaim the town. Feel of grit always under his tongue, and they flush out the hellhounds one night, Dean and John and Sam, kill every last one of them with lead and silver and runes carved on bone. Leave town three days later, everything they own packed up in the truck, Dean and Sam following in the Impala. Deep rumble of the engine, smell of old leather, and John had dropped the keys into Dean’s hand that morning with a soft,
“You take her.”
Dean’s fingers trace old grooves on the steering wheel, finger bumps and nail marks, and somewhere in those is John, and somewhere in those is Mary. Rust in his veins, his blood soaked and dried into the car. They leave the town to be swallowed by the desert, this year or the next or the next. Running at a hundred, and Dean will never let her down.
End.
And now I go to destroy the hearing in my other ear at the Disco Ensemble gig! ::waves::