Supernatural- "I'm Just a Love Machine" (1/3)
Title: I’m Just a Love Machine
Universe: Supernatural
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing/s: preslashy DeanxCas (some ImpalaxDean and Sam suffering mightily in the background)
Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers through S4 and mid S5.
Word Count: 27,960
Summary: The Impala finally gets the chance to love Dean back. The problem is, Castiel seems to be in its way.
Dedication: for mclachlan, for holding my hand and smacking me upside the head on my real DCBB fic. Consider this down payment for all the tears and future handholding beta’ing that hot mess is going to require. Also, happy belated birthday to Sonia, and special thanks to sophiap for giving this a final once over for me after mclachlan fixed the worst of it. My friends are awesome.
A/N: Not gonna lie, the entire concept of this fic came about because I really, really wanted to use this title. Durhur priorities. Also, let it be known that I read way too much yaoi manga when this is a feasible fic idea to me. Originally this story was my deancasbigbang, but has since been downgraded to just the safety-net level stuff I wrote because I was too chicken shit to challenge myself with my real DCBB idea until my betas made me do it. XD My only regret at not using this for the big bang is that I would have loved to see an artist’s take on the Impala perving on Dean.
Disclaimer: No harm or infringement intended.
So far, Dean’s day has gone like this:
5:30am- The alarm clock in his and Sam’s hotel room goes off randomly, probably because the douchebag who had this room last seems to enjoy leaving surprises for the next guests by setting the clock radio up so that obnoxious FM DJs playing 90s boyband hits will blast from the nightstand right into Dean’s ear at ungodly hours of the morning.
7:00am- They eat breakfast at the world’s worst diner. The pancakes are pretty good and the coffee doesn’t suck, but all the same, it is a diner that runs out of bacon. What the hell kind of diner runs out of bacon first thing in the morning? This is America, dammit. There has to be bacon. What’s the point of democracy otherwise?
7:45am- He and Sam proceed to close in on the hunt they have been working for the last week. It involves lots of people going missing, no bodies, and acres and acres of sparsely inhabited, heavily wooded wilderness with some dark and freaky history. And ticks. Lots of ticks.
8:30am- Dean and Sam learn that the hunt they thought they’d been on for the last week turns out to not be a hunt so much as a bunch psychotic humans being serial killers for religion, which admittedly, can be expected to happen in the Winchesters’ line of work every once in a while. Especially given the fact that their lives often force them to drive through the very bowels of the southern United States. But even still, it never gets any less horrifying for all the times something like it does happen, simply because as far as Dean is concerned, there is nothing worse in this world than to be reminded of the fact that there are actual human beings who can do more depraved things to their fellow men (and women and children) than some of the real live monsters out there are even capable of imagining.
11:00am- Dean and Sam finish fighting off the Psychos for Jesus. For them, it has become harder to fight while aiming not to kill something than it is when you’re actually trying to wipe a sucker off the face of the planet. So yeah, he and Sam get beat up a little in the process, but in the end, they finish tying the crazy people down and call the cops, because there is a veritable mountain of bodies in the basement of these people’s crazy hillbilly church. Sometimes Dean hates people.
11:30am- Dean and Sam stop at a CVS for disinfectant. Dean steps in dog shit. It is a great reminder that Lucifer walks amongst them and the apocalypse is banging on their front door.
1:30pm- Dean and Sam get a call from Bobby on their way to Lubbock, Texas on the trail of what is sounding to be a troll. Bobby says there is a haunted wishing well they should probably see to along the way and that it shouldn’t take them more than an hour or two, tops, to handle (unless they’re even stupider than he thinks they are). Dean obediently exits at the interchange as per Bobby’s instructions and they start heading a little more north than west for a bit.
3:00pm- Dean and Sam pause at a small mountain town in the middle of Bumfuck, USA to gank the ghost of a Japanese-American woman who had been killed by her fiancé and thrown into the town’s formerly lucky wishing well. For some bizarre reason, her spirit had been making the wishes of the people who threw their coins in the well come true, except not in the ways they’d wanted so much as in horrible, bloody, ghost-approved gross ways. Sam and Dean are obliged to blow up the well in the process of destroying her, and both of them, along with the Impala, get showered with gunky water, loose change, and unidentifiable slimy pond bits. On top of that, some of the elderly inhabitants of the town who considered the well to be a part of their burg’s rustic charm take exception to having the well blown up by a bunch of whippersnapper strangers who have no respect for history. Whatever. It is not the first (or last) time that Dean and Sam are (or will be) run out of a town. Usually the towns they get run out of are the kind no one wants to stay in unless they have to anyway. This one is not an exception to the rule.
7:00pm- Dean and Sam finally arrive in Lubbock. They are exhausted, hungry, a little smelly, and dreading the upcoming troll hunt, because trolls always suck. They check into a ridiculously themed Rodeo hotel before managing to crawl to the nearest diner for dinner in the hopes of an hour or two of peace, quiet, and food before settling down to figure out the whole troll thing. Dean is just relieved that what has turned out to be a pretty shitty day is finally on its way to being over.
7:02pm- The day is not over. The hours of the day leading up to now, in retrospect, had been nothing more than a warm up for the truly shitty things yet to come in this day.
7:15pm- Dean’s dinner arrives before Sam’s while they are at the diner. Sam goes to the bathroom to wash up a little while he waits for his food to come, mostly because he finds some more well-water gunk stuck to the back of his ear while he’s sipping his Diet Coke. When he finds it he makes this horrified, violated face before excusing himself to the restroom to try and get it off. It is while Dean is sitting alone in the booth like this, eating a half-pound BBQ bacon cheddar monster with onion rings on Texas toast, that he chances a look out of the window. There is a man standing there. He’s tall, dressed in a black leather jacket and black jeans, and looks like he just got torn right off the pages of an Abercrombie catalogue. He’s also apparently really happy to see Dean.
Unbeknownst to Dean, this is when the actual shitty part of the day really starts.
~~~~~
Dean first notices the man staring at him through the diner window as he’s taking a huge, luxurious bite of his bacon cheeseburger. Admittedly, it’s kind of hard not to notice the guy, mostly because the dude has his nose smashed right up against the glass and is staring at Dean like a complete creeper through it while he fogs up the window with his breath.
Dean blinks and looks at the guy in honest to goodness bewilderment, and the minute he makes eye contact with him, the guy lights up in the same way Dean imagines Sam would light up if he ever got tickets to that Justin Bieber concert he secretly really wants to go to with all of his innocent, maidenly heart. Dean frowns at the guy, turns deliberately back to his food, and hopes the creepy stalker goes away before he ruins Dean’s meal.
Of course, with today being the shittiest day of all shittiest days to ever shit on a Winchester, the guy doesn’t get the hint to leave. Instead, he starts tapping lightly on the glass with his index finger, all excited like, while hopping from one foot to the other and shouting, “Dean! Dean! It’s me! Hey, it’s me! Hi!” with his face still pressed right up against the glass. He looks like he’s going to hyperventilate from the joy of Dean. Which, okay, Dean understands to a certain degree, because dude, look at him. But even still, the joy of Dean is not for other dudes, no matter how cool their jackets are or how bright and blue their eyes might be when they look at him. Or something to that effect. It’s an example.
The waitress comes back with Sam’s food then, gives Dean this knowing look when she sees the guy on the other side of the glass. Dean attempts a confounded shrug at her, but she obviously doesn’t buy it, setting Sam’s plate on the table before smirking a little and sauntering off to go gossip with the other waitresses about the two cute gay guys flirting by the window. Dean does his best to ignore everything and eat his freakishly delicious cheeseburger. He pretty much hates Texas with a fiery, burning passion most of the time, but at the very least, they do their beef right.
The guy at the window, disappointed at having lost Dean’s interest, starts waving his arms up and down in earnest then. “Dean! Dean, can you hear me?”
Sam comes back from the bathroom right at that moment-of course-and his eyebrows dart up immediately as he looks at Dean, and then at the guy next to the window, and then back at Dean again. “Friend of yours?” he asks after a bit, and Dean can tell from the look on Sam’s face that his treacherous little brother is seriously debating between sitting down across from Dean to eat or moving his plate to the counter on the other side of the restaurant, where he can pretend he doesn’t personally know anything about Dean or his long history of fanboy stalkers. It also looks like option number two is winning that internal battle.
“Dean, hey! Can you hear me? Should I speak louder? This glass is really thick, isn’t it? Dean!! Hi!!”
Dean sighs. “I have no idea who that freak show is,” he says, plainly. He glares at Sam for effect, because Sam seems to be well on his way to being downright amused at Dean’s predicament.
“Well he obviously knows you,” Sam answers, but can’t add whatever other smart-assy thing he so obviously wants to because when they both look back at the window again, they realize that the guy is mysteriously and suddenly gone, like he’d managed to just vanish into thin air really fast. Which sucks, because in their line of work, they’ve come to learn that people who can disappear in the blink of an eye while knowing your name usually isn’t ever a good thing (unless it’s Cas, and even then, sometimes it’s iffy, if Dean is going to be completely honest here). Either way, it all probably means that they won’t get to enjoy dinner here in peace after all.
“So, uh, I guess we should go?” Sam says, tone turning apologetic while Dean sighs and throws his napkin on the table forlornly.
“Right. I’m done.” Dean digs out a few bills to leave next to his unfinished dinner so they can get out of here and get to a more easily defensible position in order to figure out what the hell is going on. He pauses to give one last mournful look at his half eaten burger before turning to go.
Which is when he runs right into the guy.
And staggers backwards, because it’s a lot like hitting a brick wall.
The guy manages to catch him before he falls though, reaching out in alarm and clamping a hand around the collar of Dean’s coat to steady him.
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, are you okay? I shouldn’t have been that close, I just got excited.”
Dean stares at the man for a moment, unable to tell if this is a prank or an attack or a really, really persistent case of hey baby, how you doin’, before remembering himself suddenly and wrenching his jacket free of the guy’s sturdy grip. There is a ripping sound as he does this, which is just perfect, and when the guy hears it, he quickly lets go, almost making Dean fall again in the process.
Dean however, is cool and manly and trained in the ways of the Marines, so he manages to keep his balance this time, even as he looks incredulously down at the fresh tear in his coat. “Okay,” he snarls in low tones, tempted to reach for the knife in his boot despite all of the people in the diner who are starting to glance over their way in interest, “who the hell are you and how do you know my name?” If they’re going to do this right here right now, Dean supposes they ought to do it right, so he squares his shoulders and menaces in the traditional Winchester way while he waits for the stranger to answer. It is pretty convincing and scary, the Winchester Menace, even though Dean doesn’t have John’s intimidating facial hair to add effect.
Except maybe it’s not nearly as convincing and scary without the beard as he’d first thought, because instead of being properly intimidated by the said Winchester Menace, the guy becomes a mixture of confused and wounded at not being recognized. “Dean,” he says plaintively, “you don’t know who I am?”
Dean scowls. Then he turns the Menace up to eleven. “Obviously. I’ve never seen you before in my life.” His fingers twitch at his side because they really, really wish they had a knife in them right now. That would make the Menace even more menace-y.
The man’s frown deepens as he runs a hand through jet-black hair. Then he gestures to himself like that should mean something to Dean, or magically make Dean remember him. “You don’t recognize me at all? Not even after all the times you’ve been inside me?” he asks.
Sam spit-takes at right about that moment, even though there is nothing currently in his mouth. “Oh god, seriously?!” he hacks, and doubles over with a hand over his mouth in order to gag out his trauma properly.
Which gets the guy to turn to Sam next, which is probably a good thing because Dean has that Dean-in-headlights look on his face he sometimes gets during awkward occasions like this. He wonders if this guy is another victim of one of his sometimes I get really drunk and don’t know what I do nights.
“Sam?” the man implores the younger Winchester softly, “How about you? You recognize me from riding me, right?”
It is Dean’s turn to spit-take now, because the last thing he wants on this earth is to be tunnel buddies with his brother. Though from the sound of things, maybe tunnel buddies is not the most accurate term. Jesus Christ.
Sam, now even more bewildered that this tall, leather-clad stranger is making insinuations about him as well, quickly puts both hands up and shakes his head. “No way, man. I have never… never done… that. With you. Or saw you do…that… with Dean.”
His is a very convincing and erudite speech. It’s a shame he never got around to becoming a lawyer after all.
In the meantime, the man looks totally devastated, and the Winchester brothers share a confused-and somewhat accusatory- look between one another when the man’s leather-clad shoulders out and out slump like they’d just kicked his puppy to death in the street in front of him, or something equally heinous and offensive.
“Look, dude, I think maybe you have us confused or something…” Dean begins, even though that clearly makes no sense because the guy knows their names. “But we really don’t know you.”
“Dean it’s me,” the man insists, blue eyes flashing at the Winchesters stubbornly. “The Impala!”
A beat.
And then, very slowly, Dean and Sam’s confused looks officially turn into incredulous ones, complete with wordless, eyebrows-only communication that only works between brothers who know each other way too well.
From there, their silent conversation consists of, “Dude is crazy” eyebrows followed by, “Did you really sleep with him, Dean?” eyebrows, followed by, “God no, what the hell, man!?” eyebrows, followed by, “So how does he know our names?” eyebrows, followed by, “I don’t know, maybe he reads Chuck’s books and thinks he’s my car; I wouldn’t put it past the crazy fans to believe that kind of ridiculous shit,” eyebrows, and abruptly ending with, “Right, that makes sense. I mean, because the car is…oh shit, Dean, look out the window,” eyebrows.
Dean, not liking the staccato tilt of Sam’s eyebrows even a little bit at that last part, slowly turns back towards the window instinctively, so he can stare out over the distance into the dark parking lot. His eyes widen in horror.
The Impala is gone.
Which really, is the perfect end cap to the perfect storm of fuck today. It is the only possible cherry that could have truly topped this magnificent shit sundae.
They had to mess with his baby.
The next thing Dean does is whirl around, pull his fist back, and punch the new guy in the face. It’s instinctive, okay. It’s what any man does when his car gets fucked with.
There is a crunch, and a yelp, and some stumbling after that, but not from the right parties.
A few seconds after that, while Dean is grimacing in pain and shaking out a hand that may very well be broken, he finally notices his duffle, Sam’s duffle, and the extra First Aid and weapons bag they keep in the Impala in a neat little pile at the man’s feet.
Shit.
This, he thinks, probably does not bode well for them.
~~~~~
Sometime later, back at the hotel, Dean’s car makes worried cooing noises at him and tries to help him ice his bruised hand. But Dean keeps recoiling backwards and glaring every time the Impala touches him, telling the poor car in no uncertain terms to back the hell off. If this isn’t the sign of a really bad break up, Sam is not sure what is. And here he’d been, thinking that Dean and the Impala were forever.
Dean is clearly a fickle mistress though, and watching the two of them is a lot like watching your parents get a divorce right in front of your eyes or something. Which is too bad, because Sam had totally been down to make a few wry quips about how happy he is for his brother now that his love for the Impala has finally become requited after all this time. Trust Dean to ruin all the fun.
As for the Impala, the poor guy seems to be suffering under some sort of delusion that now that he’s human, he and Dean will ride off into the sunset together or something, because now that they’re both human, or relatively so, it means being able to take their loving relationship to the next level.
Dean’s face when the Impala says “next level” is comic genius.
Sam has to rein in his burst of laughter however, because right now he is on the phone like a good little brother, intermittently giving the Impala weird, thoughtful looks while explaining the entire fantastical situation to Bobby. He even tries not to laugh too much at the ridiculous expression on Dean’s face, mostly because he knows that while it is kind of funny, the fact that they are in the middle of North Texas in the fall with no car is decidedly not so hilarious.
“I thought you said you were hunting a troll in Lubbock. How the hell did you turn your car into a person?” Bobby mutters, as if to reaffirm Sam’s own issues with the situation. The older hunter makes appropriately incredulous sounds from the other end of the line as Sam patiently pieces together a summary of their day for him and asks if maybe, Bobby could help them figure this out. Bobby, helpful as always, bites back a snort of contempt. “I don’t have time to be researching why the hell your damn car suddenly decided to turn into the Bionic Man. In case you forgot, there’s still the small problem of trying to stop the devil.”
Sam breathes a weary sigh into the phone. “Yeah, well, if you have the time, we’d really, really appreciate the help, Bobby. This is uh… this is probably out of our league, research wise.”
“Bobby, help us fix this!” Dean shouts from his seat on the far bed, while he glares at the Impala to get off of him so he can ice his own damned hand without being tempted to punch the bastard in the face with his good one and ruin that too.
The Impala looks totally confused as to when and why Dean suddenly became shy, but after a moment, obediently backs off and lets Dean alone for the time being. In so doing though, he only succeeds in making things worse when he hastily backs his ass into the TV. There is a crash, a screeching crunch of metal, and a few pathetic sparks of electricity that follow, signaling the television’s untimely death by indoor car accident.
“I’m sorry!” the Impala yelps, jumping abruptly away from the dresser. He looks down sadly at the mangled body of the TV. “That was an accident. I’m okay though. No scratches!” He turns to examine his own black jean-clad ass, which indeed shows no damage. Dean’s head however, looks like it’s suffering from the impact.
“What the hell was that noise?” Bobby demands, while Sam just kind of stares at the mess of wires and glass sputtering lamely in front of his eyes. Good to know that the laws of conservation of mass are still in effect. It would have been weirder if human-Impala didn’t weigh a ton. Maybe.
“The Impala just crushed the TV,” Sam explains over the phone lamely, while Dean mutters, “Great, now we gotta break into an empty room and switch them out,” mostly because he doesn’t want the cleaning ladies to come in tomorrow morning and try and charge them for the busted television.
“Jesus,” Bobby mutters. “What is it with that boy and bringing home all the super powered boyfriends?”
Sam snorts because he totally gets that, while Dean turns to him with a look that clearly says this isn’t as funny as Sam thinks it is. Sam answers with a look that says if the Impala were stalking me, you’d think this was the funniest thing since Cas asked you what bros before hos meant.
Dean scowls but grudgingly concedes the point by focusing on the bucket of ice his hand is currently shoved into.
Sam calmly hangs up on Bobby while the Impala continues to fret around Dean, crunching glass bits beneath his boots and making things generally worse by going off on dreamy teenage-girl style tangents about getting married to Dean and whether or not they can have man-car babies together or something.
“Well?” Dean barks, doing his level best to ignore the clingy car. “What’d Bobby say it was? Witches? I’ll bet it was witches. They have no sense of decency. They’d mess with a man’s car.”
Sam sighs. “He says he’ll look into it when he has time. For now, we have to concentrate on the hunt.”
Dean is incredulous. “What? What does he mean when he has time? This is an emergency!” He gestures to the Impala, who is talking about the merits of a spring wedding, even though fall is pretty too.
“The Impala isn’t hurting anyone, Dean,” Sam reminds his brother, though both Winchesters are forced to wince when the helpful car attempts to pick up the broken TV shards from the ground-still waxing poetic about April flowers- and ends up accidentally slamming his head into the dresser in the process. The wood cracks and splinters under the force, and Dean glares accusatorily at Sam, like that had somehow been his fault.
“Sorry! Sorry!” the Impala yelps.
“Er…the Impala isn’t trying to hurt anyone, Dean,” Sam corrects after a beat, patiently. “Meanwhile, something a lot like a troll is eating co-eds at Texas Tech.” He gives his older brother the patented must prioritize the danger list look, and Dean eventually sighs and relents.
“Fine,” the older Winchester snaps, before standing and turning to head to the door, his hand still ensconced deeply in the motel’s cheap plastic ice bucket. “Whatever.”
“Where are you going?” Sam asks in exasperation, at the exact same time the Impala lights up and chirps, “Where are you going?”
“To steal another TV,” Dean answers, which makes Sam sigh and settle back down in front of his laptop, because there’s real work to be done. If Dean committing petty crimes helps him feel better about this then more power to him, or something. Sam belatedly realizes that thoughts like these are what led to the apocalypse in the first place.
Sigh.
In the meantime, the Impala immediately goes towards Dean in an effort to help. “Do you want me to carry the TV for you?” he offers, brushing wood chips absently from his forehead. “I’m pretty strong.”
“No,” Dean,” barks back. “You stand in the corner until I get back. And stay there.” He disappears out the door without another word, leaving Sam alone in the room with a frowning man-car.
After the door slams shut, the Impala turns sad, sad eyes on the remaining Winchester. “He never used to be this shy with me in public.”
Sam blinks, not sure how to answer that. “Uh…well, you know how Dean is with the PDA.”
The Impala sighs, fluttery and content. “Yeah. I guess you’re right. He’ll come around eventually, though. I’ll make sure of that.”
Sam moves his laptop over towards the window a little and feels kind of disturbed.
~~~~~
It is while Dean is picking the lock of the door to one of the vacant rooms down the hall-one handed, he might add- that his phone rings in his pocket, and muttering to himself about timing, Dean attempts to pin the ice bucket to the wall with his hip so that he can use his bruised hand to answer the phone while still working on the lock with his good one. The door clicks unlocked at the exact same moment Dean manages to flip the phone open. He hears a tired, ruffled sounding, “Where are you?” without any semblance of a hello or a how are you to preface it from the other end. It’s good to know that despite all the weird shit that has happened today, Cas is still the weird shit in Dean’s life that invariably stays the same.
“Uh, Rodeo Inn, Lubbock, Texas. Room…” Dean looks up at the now propped-open door, “203.”
Then there’s a familiar gust of wind, the sound of settling feathers, and when Dean blinks again, Castiel is standing nose-to-nose with him, staring back at him from inside the room’s now open doorway. He looks slightly more ruffled than usual.
The angel frowns, still on his phone. “This is not your room.”
Dean snorts at the echo his words create through the line because he is also still on his phone. “Well this is where I am, which is what you asked,” he responds, reasonably.
Castiel silently concedes the point and they both hang up simultaneously, Dean with a slight wince. Castiel notices. “You hurt your hand.”
Dean scowls. “Yeah, well it’s been one of those days. Now move so I can steal the TV.”
Castiel looks vaguely disapproving at Dean’s plans but obliges by not asking any questions and quietly stepping aside. He also wordlessly accepts the ice bucket when Dean shoves it against his chest and lingers thoughtfully by the door so that Dean can do his work in relative peace. This is the kind of behavior that reminds Dean of why he decided to keep this angel in the first place, even though sometimes this angel is pissy and gives him funny looks and asks weird questions. Most of the time, Dean is certain that this angel is the best angel in the world.
“Keep a lookout, will you?” he tells Cas while he gets on his hands and knees beside the dresser to unplug the TV.
“What am I looking out for?” Castiel intones wearily, and Dean doesn’t have to turn around to know that the angel is frowning at his backside in tired confusion.
Dean shakes his head and peers at the mess of dust, cobwebs, and tangled wires behind the dresser. “Never mind,” he tells Cas with surprising patience. “So, what’d you want to tell me?”
A beat. “Tell you?” Castiel repeats.
Dean shrugs. “Yeah, you know. Lately you never call or show up unless there’s some new development or bad shit happening or something. So, what’d you find? Any God signs?” He listens with half an ear as he reaches for the surge protector, which is, of course, conveniently located just out of his reach and has enough dust layers to suggest that it hasn’t been cleaned in several decades. Awesome.
“I found nothing pertaining to my Father,” Castiel answers after a beat, dejectedly. Dean huffs a sigh at that, because he’s pretty sure as shitty as his day has been, Cas’s has probably been worse. “I did however, encounter several of my brothers in the Gobi Desert. It was… unpleasant.”
Dean winces sympathetically. “Yeah, I’ll bet.”
Castiel hesitates for a moment, before speaking again. “I didn’t come because I have news for you,” he admits, sounding the slightest bit sheepish. “Only because I sustained several injuries and require rest for some time, while they mend.”
Dean forgets about the surge protector for a moment and whirls around to look at Cas. “Injured? Where? You need me to do anything?”
Castiel shakes his head. “These are injuries to my wings, which you cannot perceive. They are minor, if irritating, and will heal on their own within days so long as I avoid any more strenuous travelling.” Pause. “I do not need your help with this, but even still, I felt compelled to find you.” He trails off abruptly, fingers tightening slightly on the ice bucket, like he’s confused about that part.
Dean relaxes a little. “Well yeah, Cas,” he says, voice gentle, “no one wants to be hurt and all by themselves. It’s not safe and it sucks.”
Castiel eyes him, relieved that Dean at least, understands this. “I see.”
Dean shakes his head and goes back to work under the dresser; he eventually snags the surge protector and manages to nudge the TV’s power cord within reach of his fully functioning hand. “Well, you’re welcome to chill out here for however long you need, man,” he says plainly, glad he doesn’t have to look the angel in the eye for this because it’s awkward and not manly at all. “Sam and I are hunting a troll,” he adds after a beat. “You can come if you want.” He isn’t sure if that still counts as rest for Cas, but he figures he’ll throw it out there anyway. Troll hunting with friends has to be easier than fighting your own family in lonely Asian deserts, in any case.
Cas lets out a quiet breath from behind him, sounding a mixture of grateful and tired. “Thank you, Dean.”
Dean swallows. “Sure.” Pause. Cough. “So…the Gobi Desert, huh? You think your Dad is into hot places or something?”
A rustle of fabric sounds, what Dean amounts to a trench coat shoulder shrugging. “Not particularly. The Gobi Desert is quite cold.”
“Oh. Well, then, he like cold places, you think?”
“My working theory is that He prefers… isolated places.”
Dean grunts as he threads the unplugged TV wire through the dusty tangle of other wires crammed into the surge protector. “I guess that makes sense. Sounds lonely, though.”
Behind him, Castiel shuffles slightly, shifting his weight to the other foot. Dean, concentrating on untangling this unholy mess of plugs, doesn’t notice.
After a moment, Castiel speaks again. “I have brought you some chocolate,” he says, as if something Dean had just said suddenly reminded him of it. Either that or the angel is being random, which isn’t a stretch either. He has yet to master the art of the relevant segue.
Dean blinks. “Uh…chocolate? Gee, Cas, I didn’t know we were in that place in our relationship already. I don’t have anything for you.” Well, he has some chewing gum in his pocket, but the last time he’d tried to give Cas any the angel had chewed it about four times before swallowing it and declaring the sensation odd and rubbery. So that’s probably a no go.
When Dean sits up, successfully holding the TV plug after disentangling it from all the others, he can see Cas’s reflection watching him in the TV screen; it’s perplexed in a familiar but resigned sort of way as the angel reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small box. “Er, what I mean is,” Dean corrects, repentant, “you don’t have to bring me things, man. What’s the…what’s the occasion?”
Castiel looks right at him through the reflection on the television set. “Before I visited the desert, I was searching for my father at the highest peak of the Swiss Alps,” the angel begins, by way of explanation. “When I descended into the closest town to rest and warm myself again, a woman asked me why I looked so…down.”
“Yeah?”
“I told her I was searching for God. She laughed at me, and said that on occasion, tourists who bought the chocolate at her shop insisted it was truly divine.”
Dean frowns and thinks that somewhere in his mind, he used to believe Swiss chocolatiers had more class than that, or something. Maybe because he could never afford any of that fancy shit. Hershey’s all the way for him and Sam growing up, when they could indulge, or something. He turns to Cas then, while getting to his feet and preparing to pick up the TV. “So… you bought chocolate from her hoping you’d find God there?” he concludes, after a beat.
“Yes.” Castiel sounds so earnest about it Dean doesn’t have the heart to laugh, even though the story is kind of hilarious when you think about it.
“And?”
“It was…sweet.” Castiel’s frown deepens then, and eyes the box like it has greatly disappointed him as he turns it around in his hands. “But it had no essence of the divine in it. I did not enjoy the taste, but I thought you might.” Pause. “You are always telling me not to waste good food.”
Dean supposes that is true, even as he mourns Castiel’s lack of taste for not enjoying the awesomeness that is chocolate. Though at the same time, this clearly means more chocolate for Dean, which is a-okay in his book.
Dean finally manages to wrap up the TV cord around the screen and prepares to make off with the set. He winces a little when he lifts it though, because his bruised hand immediately protests the extra workload. “ Ow. Goddam…”
His muttering is cut off before he can finish, the weight of the TV gone as Castiel wordlessly takes it from him and pushes the small box of candy into Dean’s hands instead. It has been opened and looks pretty battered around the edges, probably from a combination of all the high-velocity hurling from one corner of the globe to another and the epic sounding angel fights it had been subjected to in the desert while sitting in the pocket of Cas’s ridiculous trench coat. Dean can see that it had come with a neatly tied ribbon once as well, but that said ribbon has been untied and then retied again, in the same haphazard way Dean imagines Castiel would knot his own tie if he ever deigned to try.
Dean looks at the box, amused and vaguely touched that even amidst Castiel’s search and Castiel’s battles, the angel still deigns to remember all the little things Dean says to him. “Thanks, Cas.”
Castiel wordlessly pushes the ice bucket back into Dean’s hands as well, before asking, “Which room is yours?”
“207,” Dean replies, and hastily adds, “It’s like two doors down man, we can walk,” so Cas doesn’t decide to zap them in on the Angel Express.
Castiel just looks at Dean, and then the stolen TV set in his arms. Dean grins at the face the angel makes at being made an accomplice in this petty crime because it’s the same kind of face Sam makes when he’s doing his wet cat impression. For the first time today, there’s actually something for Dean to smile about. “We’ll be real sneaky,” Dean assures him, and steers the angel out the door with a nudge of his shoulder. “Try to look inconspicuous.”
They stroll down the hallway like that together, Dean curious and shifting the ice bucket under his arm so he can pull on the ribbon of the chocolate box with his teeth.
Castiel calmly marches them back through the unlocked door to room 207.
~~~~~
Back in the room, Sam looks up from his computer screen at the sound of the door opening and promptly screams in righteous indignation at the tableau Dean and Cas make, standing there with a stolen TV in the angel’s arms. “Dean, are you making an angel steal a television for you?!” he demands, all scandalized, like Dean hasn’t made Cas do worse already. Then he pauses and looks at the open chocolate box Dean is holding, and gets even more butthurt, somehow. “And he brought you chocolate?”
“And none for you, man.” Dean grins around a truffle that really is pretty fucking divine from what he can tell. But then the moment of gloating is ruined by the sound of awkward shifting from the far corner of the room, clearly timed to remind Dean that today has been a shit day and that his car is still a dude. Which is stupid, because everyone knows that all cars are girls. What the fuck .
In the meantime, the Impala and Cas have spotted each other and are doing some weird mind-meld from across the room with one another- either that or death-glaring at each other- and Dean hastily puts the ice bucket down on the dresser top and moves between them in case Cas decides to get his smite on, or something. The last thing this room needs is two super-powered beings breaking the gross Texas-themed décor.
What follows is a tense minute of scrutiny on both of said super-powered beings’ parts.
Which makes Dean wonder if he should introduce them to clear the air, or something. Cas probably thinks the Impala is some sort of evil monster (which, Dean supposes, might be the case, but even still, he’d prefer for his car to not get smited…smoted? Smote? Whatever, you get the point).
Then he thinks his life is fucking ridiculous, because he’s about to introduce his angel to his car. Not to mention, he still has a stupid goddamn troll hunt to deal with amidst the oncoming apocalypse. God, his life.
Though on the plus side, it turns out that he doesn’t have to introduce anyone to anything after all.
“Castiel,” the Impala says eventually, and wraps his new human tongue around the word like it tastes bad in his mouth. “What are you doing here?”
“Impala,” Castiel acknowledges blankly, with a head tilt of grave concern in the car’s direction, kind of like the one he’d given Sam when they’d first met because Sam is an abomination or whatever. “I am helping Dean.”
The Impala huffs. “He doesn’t need your help; he has me now.”
Cas almost smirks. “I don’t imagine that he finds your new form to be more helpful than your first.”
Dean stares between the two of them. Sam is probably staring too, from somewhere behind his laptop screen. “Uh…so you two know each other already then?” Dean manages, only half joking.
Both beings turn to him and say, “Of course,” at the exact same time, except Cas says it like Dean is a deficient three-year-old while the Impala says it like he’s a Greek God. Both are equally unappreciated and not cool for a completely different set of reasons.
Dean eats another piece of chocolate while Castiel sets down the TV on the table right in front of Sam-Sam makes this hilariously put-out face that clearly wants to know when he got lost in the shuffle here-before the angel turns back to Dean.
“Your car has taken human form,” he says after a beat, like he’s not quite sure how to break the news to Dean and is doing his best to be sympathetic even though it’s still kind of out of his bounds. Dean looks at him with that are you kidding me thing he does with his eyebrows, which Sam is really good at reading but that Castiel still gets confused with Dean’s god I’m sexy face.
And from the strange expression Cas is giving him, Dean is going to go right ahead and conclude that Cas picked the wrong one of those two options. Again.
“We uh, we noticed, Cas. On account of walking here with him,” he says, frowning. He pops another chocolate in his mouth because so far, they are the only thing good about today. Plus, a man needs to be properly fueled when troll hunting. Which they still have to do.
The Impala watches him eat his chocolate and looks strangely anxious. “Did Castiel bring you those, Dean?” he asks. “I could bring you better ones. Bigger ones. Like the size of my love.”
Castiel doesn’t seem impressed by the offer. “I don’t understand what size has to do with it.” Pause. “Those are handmade from Switzerland,” he adds, and then looks like he doesn’t quite understand why he felt the need to say that last part either.
Sam sighs from where he is now hidden behind their stolen TV. “Uh, question, Cas, I mean. If you don’t mind.”
“I’m sorry, Sam. I only bought the one box, and I thought Dean would share,” Castiel admits, while Dean gives him a dirty look.
Sam becomes vaguely bemused at that. “No, not about the chocolate, though if Dean wasn’t a giant ass he’d give me some. But he is, so, you know, nothing we can do about that.” Sam stands and gestures to the corner instead, where the Impala is supposed to stay until Dean says it can leave. “Why aren’t you surprised the car is uh…alive?”
Dean just eats the last chocolate in front of Sam and waves the empty box in his brother’s face because Sam’s angel doesn’t bring him chocolates because he doesn’t have one.
Meanwhile, Castiel blinks at Sam’s question in a way that Dean thinks is Cas’s this is why I don’t bring you things, stupid Sam face. “Your car has been alive for longer than either you or Dean has, Sam,” the angel says out loud, patiently. “I don’t see why I should be surprised to find it still alive.”
Dean promptly chokes on his chocolate.
“Uh, what?” Sam says, a little more eloquently, while the Impala panics and asks Dean if he wants water, or a ride to the ER, or mouth to mouth resuscitation.
Castiel, apparently way less concerned about Dean’s obstructed airway than the car is, calmly stands and watches Dean while the Impala crashes into the bathroom to get him a cup of water.
“And you didn’t think to tell us that my car is alive?!” Dean manages a minute later, after he’s taken a sip of water and made the Impala go stand in the corner again, before he breaks any more stuff. Those crashes he’d heard coming from the bathroom just now hadn’t sounded promising.
“I didn’t want to bring it up,” the angel admits, after a long, slightly sheepish pause. “Seeing that my relationship with your vehicle is…contentious at best. I felt it would have been awkward to put you in the middle of that.”
Dean and Sam stare at each other. Sam does a few opening-and-closings of his mouth for a second, but no words come out.
Dean kind of gets where his brother is coming from with that, but he has way too much dignity to do a fish impression. So he holds a hand to his head and says, “My car is alive. It has been for more than thirty years, and you didn’t want to tell me this because you and the car don’t get along?”
Castiel frowns, like he has no idea why Dean is taking that aggravated tone with him. “Yes,” the angel answers, slightly ruffled. “Also, after weighing the pros and cons, it seemed entirely pointless to bring my grievances to you.”
“Yeah, since Dean obviously can’t fix what an enormous, homewrecking dick you are,” the Impala chimes in, arms crossed.
Castiel glares at him. “I could crush you where you stand if I desired to,” he reminds the former vehicle, a low rumbly edge in his voice.
The Impala is not impressed. “But you won’t, because Dean loves me best.”
Castiel’s jaw twitches. The Impala looks triumphant.
Dean groans. “I can’t believe my fucking life sometimes,” he mutters.
In the meantime, Sam has finally regained his faculties. Or what is left of them. “Waitaminute!” he huffs, throwing his hands out on either side of him. “Can we please rewind to the part about the car being alive in the first place? What does that even mean, Cas? Is it cursed?”
Cas sighs and takes a seat on the edge of the bed closest to the table. He tilts his head slightly, in a way that means he’s thinking very carefully about how to simplify this upcoming explanation so that it doesn’t make the puny humans’ heads explode. “I believe the closest human term for this phenomenon on earth is tsukumogami,” he says, which makes about as much sense to Dean as putting dogs in sweaters (which is to say, none). For some reason Sam thinks it’s adorable though.
Speaking of Sam, he is now nerdgasming from the coffee table, which just figures. “Really? Really?” Sam delights, looking at the sulking Impala with a newfound appreciation. “It’s… the spirit of the car?”
Dean feels compelled to sit down at that moment as well, and nudges Cas over on the mattress a bit so he can. “What the hell is a wookiemygummy?” he demands, flat out.
“Tsukumogami,” Sam corrects, like a bitch. “It’s the living spirit in all things, Dean. I mean, it’s kind of a…Shinto idea, mostly, with some other influences clearly, but what it basically says is that everything has a spirit, even small, everyday objects.”
Dean gives his brother his blankest look. Sam sighs in exasperation. “Basically, the belief behind a tsukumogami is that sometimes, when a certain item or object has a purpose, and is used for that purpose with reverence and love by the people who it belongs to for many years, that object will develop its own…awareness. Or, become alive, I guess, depending on your definition of the word.”
Sam pauses then, to make a face at Dean when he plays his own words back to himself. “I knew you loved that car way too much.”
“And I love Dean back!” The Impala choruses obediently from the corner, though he is still glaring something fierce at Castiel while the angel sits comfortably next to Dean on the motel’s outlandish desert-printed bedspread. “And we’re going to get married and live happily ever after, because now we can. In some states.”
Dean is way too boggled by this new turn of events to remember to tell the car to shut up. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, so there are a billion potential spirits out there made of stuff we use, and no one decided to tell us about this? How do we kill them?!”
“They are not dangerous,” Castiel explains. “And they are not known for taking human form, or manifesting on this plane of existence at all, from what I have observed. A tsukumogami object also takes at least a hundred years to come into full awareness.” Pause. “Your case is obviously…unique.”
“When the fuck is it not,” Dean mutters, while the Impala shuffles forlornly in the corner.
“We should discover what has caused this and undo it quickly,” Castiel surmises. The Impala sputters.
“Of course you would say that!” The car rails, arms crossed and glowering at the angel. “Why can’t you accept our love?! Just because you don’t like me doesn’t give you the right to take away Dean’s best shot at happiness, Castiel.”
Dean twitches. “Look, buddy. There is no love between you and me,” he insists, because the Impala sounds like a man-ified version of Becky only as a Dean girl or whatever. Either way it’s creepy. “You and I are love-free. We’re not getting married or having little Bionic Man babies. Got it?”
The Impala’s anger at Castiel turns to utter heartbreak at Dean’s words. “D-Dean?” He stammers. “But you always say that I’m your baby and that you love me more than anyone else.”
The dude looks like he’s going to cry.
And Sam does not help. “It is true, man. You do say that,” he confirms.
Dean sputters. “Look, you are my car. I am not marrying my car.”
The Impala takes a step towards him and vibrates in place, like it’s taking all his willpower to not just zoom over and wrap Dean up in his arms. “But I’m not a car now. I was given this form so that I could make you happy. I’m your reward!” Pause. “I know you never think you deserve anything good, but you do. And I’ll be good to you, at least as good to you as you always are to me.”
Dean looks at Cas for help on this one because Sam is obviously not up to offering any.
Castiel blinks. “I agree that you deserve good things, Dean.”
“And you shouldn’t be such a jerk,” Sam adds, clearly sympathetic to the Impala’s plight.
Dean decides that his angel is now about as helpful as his brother, which is to say not at all. Dean sighs and stands, putting up his hands placatingly while the Impala looks all fiery-eyed and righteous with conviction over just how much Dean deserves good things. “Look, man, it’s… uh, it’s flattering that you feel that strongly about me, but I really can’t accept your feelings, okay.” God, Dean feels like he’s in middle school or something. “I mean, there are too many things going on right now, and I’m focused on other stuff and other people and that whole apocalypse thing. Plus you’re a car.”
The Impala stops. “Other…people?” he manages, and Dean just figures that’s the phrase the guy zeroes in on. “Like… you love other people?”
Dean blinks. “What now?” He’s not sure how the car got from here to there, but he’s pretty sure it’s not his fault. He hopes.
The Impala frowns, not noticing Dean’s boggled expression as the former car goes all thoughtful and disappointed. “But the only people I ever see you with are Sam and Bobby and…” the car trails off abruptly, turning disbelieving eyes on Castiel. “Castiel?!” He demands hotly, “You’re in love with Castiel?! I knew he loved you, but I thought there was no way that was going to be requited. When? How?”
Dean is not sure how to answer any of that. Or maybe incapable, because he’s finally echoing Sammy on that whole impression-of-a-fish thing his brother had going for him a little while ago.
Cas looks on curiously, like he gets accused of loving Dean all the time.
Sam just looks like he is starting to get impatient with all this exciting talk about his brother’s love life and the fact that Dean obviously needs to learn his lesson about kissing the hood of his car in the future, and talking to it in a voice that cheap phone sex operators probably use to lure overweight businessmen into long, expensive conversations with.
“Yes,” Sam cuts in abruptly, while Dean is still reeling from all the oh my god sensations of being accused of being an item with Cas. “Dean and Cas are a thing. They’ve been this… thing… for a long time now and you wouldn’t want to hurt Dean by pressuring him into another relationship when he’s obviously already in a…thing, do you?”
Dean stares at Sam like he thinks his brother has gone evil again. Castiel has his brow furrowed and his lips pursed like he’s trying to figure out if what Sam means by a thing and a relationship is what he thinks Sam means.
Sam, Dean thinks, is using vague terms on purpose because he is totally being a sneaky lawyer about this.
Silence.
And then Sam clears his throat and nods at Dean while giving Dean a look; he gestures vaguely to the Impala and then gives Dean a second, more urgent look.
“Right!” Dean finds himself chiming in, almost by instinct. He and Sam have run so many cons together that it’s second nature to just go with whatever the other sets up for them now, regardless of how insane it might be. United Winchester front, or something. “Cas and I are a…thing.” Pause. “Together. Cas and I are together, so you know, I can’t be with you. Or anything. Because you know I’m not a cheater, right?”
Cas turns his frown on Dean now, because while it is true that they are together in this same room, he’s not sure if together in this context means what Dean is insinuating it means. He hates it when the Winchesters are vague, but then again, they’ve accused him of doing the same thing, so he supposes there is that.
In the meantime, Dean gives Cas a look a lot like the one Sam had given Dean a moment ago. From previous experience (a moment ago), Cas implicitly understands that he is supposed to stand up and agree with Dean in a fervent and vague manner. That is apparently the goal of this strange exercise.
So he stands and says, “Yes. We are…a thing. Together.”
Sam and Dean look relieved, so Castiel supposes he has performed correctly.
Then Dean, swelling with confidence, does something odd.
He grabs Castiel’s hand in his and twines their fingers together.
Castiel isn’t sure if he’s supposed to respond in like, but seeing as to how it had worked a moment ago, he reaches out and grabs Sam’s hand and threads their fingers together too.
The Impala looks at the three of them in confusion.
Dean grits his teeth, but forces a smile. “Right. So that’s us. One big happy family.”
Sam not-so-subtly pulls his hand out of Cas’s. “Right! So, uh…now that that’s all cleared up…can we please focus on this troll hunt? You know, the one where people are dying?”
All eyes are on the confounded Impala, waiting for his reaction.
The car eventually sighs. “I think I get it,” he says, after a moment.
Dean-hand still intertwined with Cas’s- looks hopeful.
But then the Impala stands up straighter. “Clearly, I’ve been given human form to stop Dean from making a horrible mistake.” His eyes are on Castiel when he says the last two words, and they’re dripping with barely concealed disdain.
Castiel frowns, because he’s pretty sure he understands what the Impala is suggesting. It, somehow, is much clearer about things than either of the brothers despite only very recently being given the gift of speech.
Dean frowns too, for different reasons entirely, most of which involve not liking his car’s tone at all. “What are you saying, exactly?” He demands, and is strangely defensive on Castiel’s behalf. He never knew his car could be such a bitch, for all that it’s apparently a dude.
But the Impala looks at Dean and just smiles, warm and loving and as affectionate as ever. “What I’m saying is, I’m going to make you realize that you belong with me, Dean. Then you can break up with Castiel, and we can be happy together like we’re meant to be.”
Dean gapes.
Sam shrugs-hey, he’d tried - and points to the laptop screen. “Can we concentrate on the troll?” he reminds them. “It isn’t going to stop killing people while the universe tries to sort out Dean’s love life.”
Dean glares at Sam, because clearly his plan had been stupid and isn’t working since the Impala is a little bit psycho for Dean. Sam just raises his eyebrows and glances at Dean’s hand, which is still tangled resolutely with Cas’s.
Dean hastily releases the angel. “Okay, right. Work,” he declares, glancing pointedly at the Impala. “If you’re my ba…car… then you know that the job always comes first.”
The Impala looks at Dean with unbounded fondness. “Of course! I’d never stand in the way of your work, Dean. Or tell you how to do it, or make it more difficult for you, or lie to you or use it against you, or trick you about it in any way. I’ve seen how that hurts you before,” he says sweetly, with another one of those pointed looks at Castiel.
Castiel narrows his eyes and silently glowers back. Sam thinks he’s got a pretty convincing handle on the Winchester Menace. Must be from being on the receiving end of it so many times.
“Jesus Christ,” Dean mutters, and gestures to Sam in a resigned sort of huff. “Okay, so troll. We are talking about the troll now and nothing else. Got it?”
Sam nods and turns the laptop towards his brother so Dean can see. “So uh, from the articles and the police reports Bobby’s sent me, it looks like so far, it’s been five girls, five weeks. They always disappear from either a frat party or from one of the local bars near Tech’s campus. We’ve got one witness who says she swears she saw her friend being abducted by a ten foot tall man with hideous facial disfigurements and awful breath. When she tried to fight him off to save her friend, he flung her into a wall. She broke her leg and her collarbone.”
Dean winces. “And the cops?”
“Say her BAC was way too high to consider her testimony completely reliable. They are investigating some of the frat houses though.”
“Her testimony sounds pretty accurate to me,” Dean mutters, and sits down again. “A fucking troll. Great. I hate looking for tunnels.”
“I can help with the troll!” the Impala offers. “I can definitely help with the troll. Because I’m still useful even though I’m not as strong as I used to be.” Pause. “Unlike some people.”
Castiel turns the Winchester Menace up to twelve without even trying to.
Dean ignores the pissy angel and instinctively balks at the notion of taking his car on a hunt as backup. Sam, still determined not to be helpful, just looks thoughtful at the proposition. “You know, he kind of has a point, Dean. We could use him.”
Dean can’t believe this. “No, Sam. He’s not human!”
“Neither is Cas,” Sam points out. Cas eyes both brothers dubiously, but the Menace subsides when he does, which is probably a good sign.
Sam just keeps looking at Dean. “And the Impala is pretty strong. Which would probably help against trolls. Which are also not human, and also really strong.”
“I’m fast too,” the Impala reminds them.
“He’s fast too,” Sam echoes, still looking expectantly at Dean.
Dean is resolute. “Sam.”
Sam is just as resolute. “Dean.”
There is some staring after that. That possibly evolves into a telling look from Sam, one that obviously means, we need all the muscle we can get for this one, and he might keep one of us from getting hurt like that girl did. Maybe even me.
Sam is a sneaky, sneaky bastard.
Which is why, eventually, Sam wins.
“Fine,” Dean sighs after he loses the staring contest because his little brother plays some dirty fucking pool when he wants to. Dean turns and glances sternly at the Impala. “But you do everything I say. And no being creepy in public, man.”
“Of course!” The Impala looks so stupidly grateful to be of service that Dean finds himself kind of uncomfortable looking the former car in his big, blue eyes. So Dean does the natural Dean thing; he averts his gaze quickly.
Except he averts right into the slightly disapproving big blue eyes of an angel. “Shut up,” Dean tells Cas, before he can speak.
Castiel sighs but obligingly doesn’t say anything because he’s awesome, while Sam gloats to himself at the table and suggests that they go interview the injured witness tomorrow at the hospital after breakfast.
And so, Dean’s shitty day finally ends fifteen minutes before midnight, with Dean reluctantly agreeing to take his falling angel, his suddenly humanoid car, and his once-upon-a-time demon blood enhanced little brother out in the morning for a good old fashioned troll hunt. It almost sounds like a joke, when he thinks about it. An angel, a robot, and an abomination walk into an underground bar.
Dean has a feeling that this particular punchline is going to suck though.
NEXT
Universe: Supernatural
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing/s: preslashy DeanxCas (some ImpalaxDean and Sam suffering mightily in the background)
Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers through S4 and mid S5.
Word Count: 27,960
Summary: The Impala finally gets the chance to love Dean back. The problem is, Castiel seems to be in its way.
Dedication: for mclachlan, for holding my hand and smacking me upside the head on my real DCBB fic. Consider this down payment for all the tears and future handholding beta’ing that hot mess is going to require. Also, happy belated birthday to Sonia, and special thanks to sophiap for giving this a final once over for me after mclachlan fixed the worst of it. My friends are awesome.
A/N: Not gonna lie, the entire concept of this fic came about because I really, really wanted to use this title. Durhur priorities. Also, let it be known that I read way too much yaoi manga when this is a feasible fic idea to me. Originally this story was my deancasbigbang, but has since been downgraded to just the safety-net level stuff I wrote because I was too chicken shit to challenge myself with my real DCBB idea until my betas made me do it. XD My only regret at not using this for the big bang is that I would have loved to see an artist’s take on the Impala perving on Dean.
Disclaimer: No harm or infringement intended.
So far, Dean’s day has gone like this:
5:30am- The alarm clock in his and Sam’s hotel room goes off randomly, probably because the douchebag who had this room last seems to enjoy leaving surprises for the next guests by setting the clock radio up so that obnoxious FM DJs playing 90s boyband hits will blast from the nightstand right into Dean’s ear at ungodly hours of the morning.
7:00am- They eat breakfast at the world’s worst diner. The pancakes are pretty good and the coffee doesn’t suck, but all the same, it is a diner that runs out of bacon. What the hell kind of diner runs out of bacon first thing in the morning? This is America, dammit. There has to be bacon. What’s the point of democracy otherwise?
7:45am- He and Sam proceed to close in on the hunt they have been working for the last week. It involves lots of people going missing, no bodies, and acres and acres of sparsely inhabited, heavily wooded wilderness with some dark and freaky history. And ticks. Lots of ticks.
8:30am- Dean and Sam learn that the hunt they thought they’d been on for the last week turns out to not be a hunt so much as a bunch psychotic humans being serial killers for religion, which admittedly, can be expected to happen in the Winchesters’ line of work every once in a while. Especially given the fact that their lives often force them to drive through the very bowels of the southern United States. But even still, it never gets any less horrifying for all the times something like it does happen, simply because as far as Dean is concerned, there is nothing worse in this world than to be reminded of the fact that there are actual human beings who can do more depraved things to their fellow men (and women and children) than some of the real live monsters out there are even capable of imagining.
11:00am- Dean and Sam finish fighting off the Psychos for Jesus. For them, it has become harder to fight while aiming not to kill something than it is when you’re actually trying to wipe a sucker off the face of the planet. So yeah, he and Sam get beat up a little in the process, but in the end, they finish tying the crazy people down and call the cops, because there is a veritable mountain of bodies in the basement of these people’s crazy hillbilly church. Sometimes Dean hates people.
11:30am- Dean and Sam stop at a CVS for disinfectant. Dean steps in dog shit. It is a great reminder that Lucifer walks amongst them and the apocalypse is banging on their front door.
1:30pm- Dean and Sam get a call from Bobby on their way to Lubbock, Texas on the trail of what is sounding to be a troll. Bobby says there is a haunted wishing well they should probably see to along the way and that it shouldn’t take them more than an hour or two, tops, to handle (unless they’re even stupider than he thinks they are). Dean obediently exits at the interchange as per Bobby’s instructions and they start heading a little more north than west for a bit.
3:00pm- Dean and Sam pause at a small mountain town in the middle of Bumfuck, USA to gank the ghost of a Japanese-American woman who had been killed by her fiancé and thrown into the town’s formerly lucky wishing well. For some bizarre reason, her spirit had been making the wishes of the people who threw their coins in the well come true, except not in the ways they’d wanted so much as in horrible, bloody, ghost-approved gross ways. Sam and Dean are obliged to blow up the well in the process of destroying her, and both of them, along with the Impala, get showered with gunky water, loose change, and unidentifiable slimy pond bits. On top of that, some of the elderly inhabitants of the town who considered the well to be a part of their burg’s rustic charm take exception to having the well blown up by a bunch of whippersnapper strangers who have no respect for history. Whatever. It is not the first (or last) time that Dean and Sam are (or will be) run out of a town. Usually the towns they get run out of are the kind no one wants to stay in unless they have to anyway. This one is not an exception to the rule.
7:00pm- Dean and Sam finally arrive in Lubbock. They are exhausted, hungry, a little smelly, and dreading the upcoming troll hunt, because trolls always suck. They check into a ridiculously themed Rodeo hotel before managing to crawl to the nearest diner for dinner in the hopes of an hour or two of peace, quiet, and food before settling down to figure out the whole troll thing. Dean is just relieved that what has turned out to be a pretty shitty day is finally on its way to being over.
7:02pm- The day is not over. The hours of the day leading up to now, in retrospect, had been nothing more than a warm up for the truly shitty things yet to come in this day.
7:15pm- Dean’s dinner arrives before Sam’s while they are at the diner. Sam goes to the bathroom to wash up a little while he waits for his food to come, mostly because he finds some more well-water gunk stuck to the back of his ear while he’s sipping his Diet Coke. When he finds it he makes this horrified, violated face before excusing himself to the restroom to try and get it off. It is while Dean is sitting alone in the booth like this, eating a half-pound BBQ bacon cheddar monster with onion rings on Texas toast, that he chances a look out of the window. There is a man standing there. He’s tall, dressed in a black leather jacket and black jeans, and looks like he just got torn right off the pages of an Abercrombie catalogue. He’s also apparently really happy to see Dean.
Unbeknownst to Dean, this is when the actual shitty part of the day really starts.
~~~~~
Dean first notices the man staring at him through the diner window as he’s taking a huge, luxurious bite of his bacon cheeseburger. Admittedly, it’s kind of hard not to notice the guy, mostly because the dude has his nose smashed right up against the glass and is staring at Dean like a complete creeper through it while he fogs up the window with his breath.
Dean blinks and looks at the guy in honest to goodness bewilderment, and the minute he makes eye contact with him, the guy lights up in the same way Dean imagines Sam would light up if he ever got tickets to that Justin Bieber concert he secretly really wants to go to with all of his innocent, maidenly heart. Dean frowns at the guy, turns deliberately back to his food, and hopes the creepy stalker goes away before he ruins Dean’s meal.
Of course, with today being the shittiest day of all shittiest days to ever shit on a Winchester, the guy doesn’t get the hint to leave. Instead, he starts tapping lightly on the glass with his index finger, all excited like, while hopping from one foot to the other and shouting, “Dean! Dean! It’s me! Hey, it’s me! Hi!” with his face still pressed right up against the glass. He looks like he’s going to hyperventilate from the joy of Dean. Which, okay, Dean understands to a certain degree, because dude, look at him. But even still, the joy of Dean is not for other dudes, no matter how cool their jackets are or how bright and blue their eyes might be when they look at him. Or something to that effect. It’s an example.
The waitress comes back with Sam’s food then, gives Dean this knowing look when she sees the guy on the other side of the glass. Dean attempts a confounded shrug at her, but she obviously doesn’t buy it, setting Sam’s plate on the table before smirking a little and sauntering off to go gossip with the other waitresses about the two cute gay guys flirting by the window. Dean does his best to ignore everything and eat his freakishly delicious cheeseburger. He pretty much hates Texas with a fiery, burning passion most of the time, but at the very least, they do their beef right.
The guy at the window, disappointed at having lost Dean’s interest, starts waving his arms up and down in earnest then. “Dean! Dean, can you hear me?”
Sam comes back from the bathroom right at that moment-of course-and his eyebrows dart up immediately as he looks at Dean, and then at the guy next to the window, and then back at Dean again. “Friend of yours?” he asks after a bit, and Dean can tell from the look on Sam’s face that his treacherous little brother is seriously debating between sitting down across from Dean to eat or moving his plate to the counter on the other side of the restaurant, where he can pretend he doesn’t personally know anything about Dean or his long history of fanboy stalkers. It also looks like option number two is winning that internal battle.
“Dean, hey! Can you hear me? Should I speak louder? This glass is really thick, isn’t it? Dean!! Hi!!”
Dean sighs. “I have no idea who that freak show is,” he says, plainly. He glares at Sam for effect, because Sam seems to be well on his way to being downright amused at Dean’s predicament.
“Well he obviously knows you,” Sam answers, but can’t add whatever other smart-assy thing he so obviously wants to because when they both look back at the window again, they realize that the guy is mysteriously and suddenly gone, like he’d managed to just vanish into thin air really fast. Which sucks, because in their line of work, they’ve come to learn that people who can disappear in the blink of an eye while knowing your name usually isn’t ever a good thing (unless it’s Cas, and even then, sometimes it’s iffy, if Dean is going to be completely honest here). Either way, it all probably means that they won’t get to enjoy dinner here in peace after all.
“So, uh, I guess we should go?” Sam says, tone turning apologetic while Dean sighs and throws his napkin on the table forlornly.
“Right. I’m done.” Dean digs out a few bills to leave next to his unfinished dinner so they can get out of here and get to a more easily defensible position in order to figure out what the hell is going on. He pauses to give one last mournful look at his half eaten burger before turning to go.
Which is when he runs right into the guy.
And staggers backwards, because it’s a lot like hitting a brick wall.
The guy manages to catch him before he falls though, reaching out in alarm and clamping a hand around the collar of Dean’s coat to steady him.
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, are you okay? I shouldn’t have been that close, I just got excited.”
Dean stares at the man for a moment, unable to tell if this is a prank or an attack or a really, really persistent case of hey baby, how you doin’, before remembering himself suddenly and wrenching his jacket free of the guy’s sturdy grip. There is a ripping sound as he does this, which is just perfect, and when the guy hears it, he quickly lets go, almost making Dean fall again in the process.
Dean however, is cool and manly and trained in the ways of the Marines, so he manages to keep his balance this time, even as he looks incredulously down at the fresh tear in his coat. “Okay,” he snarls in low tones, tempted to reach for the knife in his boot despite all of the people in the diner who are starting to glance over their way in interest, “who the hell are you and how do you know my name?” If they’re going to do this right here right now, Dean supposes they ought to do it right, so he squares his shoulders and menaces in the traditional Winchester way while he waits for the stranger to answer. It is pretty convincing and scary, the Winchester Menace, even though Dean doesn’t have John’s intimidating facial hair to add effect.
Except maybe it’s not nearly as convincing and scary without the beard as he’d first thought, because instead of being properly intimidated by the said Winchester Menace, the guy becomes a mixture of confused and wounded at not being recognized. “Dean,” he says plaintively, “you don’t know who I am?”
Dean scowls. Then he turns the Menace up to eleven. “Obviously. I’ve never seen you before in my life.” His fingers twitch at his side because they really, really wish they had a knife in them right now. That would make the Menace even more menace-y.
The man’s frown deepens as he runs a hand through jet-black hair. Then he gestures to himself like that should mean something to Dean, or magically make Dean remember him. “You don’t recognize me at all? Not even after all the times you’ve been inside me?” he asks.
Sam spit-takes at right about that moment, even though there is nothing currently in his mouth. “Oh god, seriously?!” he hacks, and doubles over with a hand over his mouth in order to gag out his trauma properly.
Which gets the guy to turn to Sam next, which is probably a good thing because Dean has that Dean-in-headlights look on his face he sometimes gets during awkward occasions like this. He wonders if this guy is another victim of one of his sometimes I get really drunk and don’t know what I do nights.
“Sam?” the man implores the younger Winchester softly, “How about you? You recognize me from riding me, right?”
It is Dean’s turn to spit-take now, because the last thing he wants on this earth is to be tunnel buddies with his brother. Though from the sound of things, maybe tunnel buddies is not the most accurate term. Jesus Christ.
Sam, now even more bewildered that this tall, leather-clad stranger is making insinuations about him as well, quickly puts both hands up and shakes his head. “No way, man. I have never… never done… that. With you. Or saw you do…that… with Dean.”
His is a very convincing and erudite speech. It’s a shame he never got around to becoming a lawyer after all.
In the meantime, the man looks totally devastated, and the Winchester brothers share a confused-and somewhat accusatory- look between one another when the man’s leather-clad shoulders out and out slump like they’d just kicked his puppy to death in the street in front of him, or something equally heinous and offensive.
“Look, dude, I think maybe you have us confused or something…” Dean begins, even though that clearly makes no sense because the guy knows their names. “But we really don’t know you.”
“Dean it’s me,” the man insists, blue eyes flashing at the Winchesters stubbornly. “The Impala!”
A beat.
And then, very slowly, Dean and Sam’s confused looks officially turn into incredulous ones, complete with wordless, eyebrows-only communication that only works between brothers who know each other way too well.
From there, their silent conversation consists of, “Dude is crazy” eyebrows followed by, “Did you really sleep with him, Dean?” eyebrows, followed by, “God no, what the hell, man!?” eyebrows, followed by, “So how does he know our names?” eyebrows, followed by, “I don’t know, maybe he reads Chuck’s books and thinks he’s my car; I wouldn’t put it past the crazy fans to believe that kind of ridiculous shit,” eyebrows, and abruptly ending with, “Right, that makes sense. I mean, because the car is…oh shit, Dean, look out the window,” eyebrows.
Dean, not liking the staccato tilt of Sam’s eyebrows even a little bit at that last part, slowly turns back towards the window instinctively, so he can stare out over the distance into the dark parking lot. His eyes widen in horror.
The Impala is gone.
Which really, is the perfect end cap to the perfect storm of fuck today. It is the only possible cherry that could have truly topped this magnificent shit sundae.
They had to mess with his baby.
The next thing Dean does is whirl around, pull his fist back, and punch the new guy in the face. It’s instinctive, okay. It’s what any man does when his car gets fucked with.
There is a crunch, and a yelp, and some stumbling after that, but not from the right parties.
A few seconds after that, while Dean is grimacing in pain and shaking out a hand that may very well be broken, he finally notices his duffle, Sam’s duffle, and the extra First Aid and weapons bag they keep in the Impala in a neat little pile at the man’s feet.
Shit.
This, he thinks, probably does not bode well for them.
~~~~~
Sometime later, back at the hotel, Dean’s car makes worried cooing noises at him and tries to help him ice his bruised hand. But Dean keeps recoiling backwards and glaring every time the Impala touches him, telling the poor car in no uncertain terms to back the hell off. If this isn’t the sign of a really bad break up, Sam is not sure what is. And here he’d been, thinking that Dean and the Impala were forever.
Dean is clearly a fickle mistress though, and watching the two of them is a lot like watching your parents get a divorce right in front of your eyes or something. Which is too bad, because Sam had totally been down to make a few wry quips about how happy he is for his brother now that his love for the Impala has finally become requited after all this time. Trust Dean to ruin all the fun.
As for the Impala, the poor guy seems to be suffering under some sort of delusion that now that he’s human, he and Dean will ride off into the sunset together or something, because now that they’re both human, or relatively so, it means being able to take their loving relationship to the next level.
Dean’s face when the Impala says “next level” is comic genius.
Sam has to rein in his burst of laughter however, because right now he is on the phone like a good little brother, intermittently giving the Impala weird, thoughtful looks while explaining the entire fantastical situation to Bobby. He even tries not to laugh too much at the ridiculous expression on Dean’s face, mostly because he knows that while it is kind of funny, the fact that they are in the middle of North Texas in the fall with no car is decidedly not so hilarious.
“I thought you said you were hunting a troll in Lubbock. How the hell did you turn your car into a person?” Bobby mutters, as if to reaffirm Sam’s own issues with the situation. The older hunter makes appropriately incredulous sounds from the other end of the line as Sam patiently pieces together a summary of their day for him and asks if maybe, Bobby could help them figure this out. Bobby, helpful as always, bites back a snort of contempt. “I don’t have time to be researching why the hell your damn car suddenly decided to turn into the Bionic Man. In case you forgot, there’s still the small problem of trying to stop the devil.”
Sam breathes a weary sigh into the phone. “Yeah, well, if you have the time, we’d really, really appreciate the help, Bobby. This is uh… this is probably out of our league, research wise.”
“Bobby, help us fix this!” Dean shouts from his seat on the far bed, while he glares at the Impala to get off of him so he can ice his own damned hand without being tempted to punch the bastard in the face with his good one and ruin that too.
The Impala looks totally confused as to when and why Dean suddenly became shy, but after a moment, obediently backs off and lets Dean alone for the time being. In so doing though, he only succeeds in making things worse when he hastily backs his ass into the TV. There is a crash, a screeching crunch of metal, and a few pathetic sparks of electricity that follow, signaling the television’s untimely death by indoor car accident.
“I’m sorry!” the Impala yelps, jumping abruptly away from the dresser. He looks down sadly at the mangled body of the TV. “That was an accident. I’m okay though. No scratches!” He turns to examine his own black jean-clad ass, which indeed shows no damage. Dean’s head however, looks like it’s suffering from the impact.
“What the hell was that noise?” Bobby demands, while Sam just kind of stares at the mess of wires and glass sputtering lamely in front of his eyes. Good to know that the laws of conservation of mass are still in effect. It would have been weirder if human-Impala didn’t weigh a ton. Maybe.
“The Impala just crushed the TV,” Sam explains over the phone lamely, while Dean mutters, “Great, now we gotta break into an empty room and switch them out,” mostly because he doesn’t want the cleaning ladies to come in tomorrow morning and try and charge them for the busted television.
“Jesus,” Bobby mutters. “What is it with that boy and bringing home all the super powered boyfriends?”
Sam snorts because he totally gets that, while Dean turns to him with a look that clearly says this isn’t as funny as Sam thinks it is. Sam answers with a look that says if the Impala were stalking me, you’d think this was the funniest thing since Cas asked you what bros before hos meant.
Dean scowls but grudgingly concedes the point by focusing on the bucket of ice his hand is currently shoved into.
Sam calmly hangs up on Bobby while the Impala continues to fret around Dean, crunching glass bits beneath his boots and making things generally worse by going off on dreamy teenage-girl style tangents about getting married to Dean and whether or not they can have man-car babies together or something.
“Well?” Dean barks, doing his level best to ignore the clingy car. “What’d Bobby say it was? Witches? I’ll bet it was witches. They have no sense of decency. They’d mess with a man’s car.”
Sam sighs. “He says he’ll look into it when he has time. For now, we have to concentrate on the hunt.”
Dean is incredulous. “What? What does he mean when he has time? This is an emergency!” He gestures to the Impala, who is talking about the merits of a spring wedding, even though fall is pretty too.
“The Impala isn’t hurting anyone, Dean,” Sam reminds his brother, though both Winchesters are forced to wince when the helpful car attempts to pick up the broken TV shards from the ground-still waxing poetic about April flowers- and ends up accidentally slamming his head into the dresser in the process. The wood cracks and splinters under the force, and Dean glares accusatorily at Sam, like that had somehow been his fault.
“Sorry! Sorry!” the Impala yelps.
“Er…the Impala isn’t trying to hurt anyone, Dean,” Sam corrects after a beat, patiently. “Meanwhile, something a lot like a troll is eating co-eds at Texas Tech.” He gives his older brother the patented must prioritize the danger list look, and Dean eventually sighs and relents.
“Fine,” the older Winchester snaps, before standing and turning to head to the door, his hand still ensconced deeply in the motel’s cheap plastic ice bucket. “Whatever.”
“Where are you going?” Sam asks in exasperation, at the exact same time the Impala lights up and chirps, “Where are you going?”
“To steal another TV,” Dean answers, which makes Sam sigh and settle back down in front of his laptop, because there’s real work to be done. If Dean committing petty crimes helps him feel better about this then more power to him, or something. Sam belatedly realizes that thoughts like these are what led to the apocalypse in the first place.
Sigh.
In the meantime, the Impala immediately goes towards Dean in an effort to help. “Do you want me to carry the TV for you?” he offers, brushing wood chips absently from his forehead. “I’m pretty strong.”
“No,” Dean,” barks back. “You stand in the corner until I get back. And stay there.” He disappears out the door without another word, leaving Sam alone in the room with a frowning man-car.
After the door slams shut, the Impala turns sad, sad eyes on the remaining Winchester. “He never used to be this shy with me in public.”
Sam blinks, not sure how to answer that. “Uh…well, you know how Dean is with the PDA.”
The Impala sighs, fluttery and content. “Yeah. I guess you’re right. He’ll come around eventually, though. I’ll make sure of that.”
Sam moves his laptop over towards the window a little and feels kind of disturbed.
~~~~~
It is while Dean is picking the lock of the door to one of the vacant rooms down the hall-one handed, he might add- that his phone rings in his pocket, and muttering to himself about timing, Dean attempts to pin the ice bucket to the wall with his hip so that he can use his bruised hand to answer the phone while still working on the lock with his good one. The door clicks unlocked at the exact same moment Dean manages to flip the phone open. He hears a tired, ruffled sounding, “Where are you?” without any semblance of a hello or a how are you to preface it from the other end. It’s good to know that despite all the weird shit that has happened today, Cas is still the weird shit in Dean’s life that invariably stays the same.
“Uh, Rodeo Inn, Lubbock, Texas. Room…” Dean looks up at the now propped-open door, “203.”
Then there’s a familiar gust of wind, the sound of settling feathers, and when Dean blinks again, Castiel is standing nose-to-nose with him, staring back at him from inside the room’s now open doorway. He looks slightly more ruffled than usual.
The angel frowns, still on his phone. “This is not your room.”
Dean snorts at the echo his words create through the line because he is also still on his phone. “Well this is where I am, which is what you asked,” he responds, reasonably.
Castiel silently concedes the point and they both hang up simultaneously, Dean with a slight wince. Castiel notices. “You hurt your hand.”
Dean scowls. “Yeah, well it’s been one of those days. Now move so I can steal the TV.”
Castiel looks vaguely disapproving at Dean’s plans but obliges by not asking any questions and quietly stepping aside. He also wordlessly accepts the ice bucket when Dean shoves it against his chest and lingers thoughtfully by the door so that Dean can do his work in relative peace. This is the kind of behavior that reminds Dean of why he decided to keep this angel in the first place, even though sometimes this angel is pissy and gives him funny looks and asks weird questions. Most of the time, Dean is certain that this angel is the best angel in the world.
“Keep a lookout, will you?” he tells Cas while he gets on his hands and knees beside the dresser to unplug the TV.
“What am I looking out for?” Castiel intones wearily, and Dean doesn’t have to turn around to know that the angel is frowning at his backside in tired confusion.
Dean shakes his head and peers at the mess of dust, cobwebs, and tangled wires behind the dresser. “Never mind,” he tells Cas with surprising patience. “So, what’d you want to tell me?”
A beat. “Tell you?” Castiel repeats.
Dean shrugs. “Yeah, you know. Lately you never call or show up unless there’s some new development or bad shit happening or something. So, what’d you find? Any God signs?” He listens with half an ear as he reaches for the surge protector, which is, of course, conveniently located just out of his reach and has enough dust layers to suggest that it hasn’t been cleaned in several decades. Awesome.
“I found nothing pertaining to my Father,” Castiel answers after a beat, dejectedly. Dean huffs a sigh at that, because he’s pretty sure as shitty as his day has been, Cas’s has probably been worse. “I did however, encounter several of my brothers in the Gobi Desert. It was… unpleasant.”
Dean winces sympathetically. “Yeah, I’ll bet.”
Castiel hesitates for a moment, before speaking again. “I didn’t come because I have news for you,” he admits, sounding the slightest bit sheepish. “Only because I sustained several injuries and require rest for some time, while they mend.”
Dean forgets about the surge protector for a moment and whirls around to look at Cas. “Injured? Where? You need me to do anything?”
Castiel shakes his head. “These are injuries to my wings, which you cannot perceive. They are minor, if irritating, and will heal on their own within days so long as I avoid any more strenuous travelling.” Pause. “I do not need your help with this, but even still, I felt compelled to find you.” He trails off abruptly, fingers tightening slightly on the ice bucket, like he’s confused about that part.
Dean relaxes a little. “Well yeah, Cas,” he says, voice gentle, “no one wants to be hurt and all by themselves. It’s not safe and it sucks.”
Castiel eyes him, relieved that Dean at least, understands this. “I see.”
Dean shakes his head and goes back to work under the dresser; he eventually snags the surge protector and manages to nudge the TV’s power cord within reach of his fully functioning hand. “Well, you’re welcome to chill out here for however long you need, man,” he says plainly, glad he doesn’t have to look the angel in the eye for this because it’s awkward and not manly at all. “Sam and I are hunting a troll,” he adds after a beat. “You can come if you want.” He isn’t sure if that still counts as rest for Cas, but he figures he’ll throw it out there anyway. Troll hunting with friends has to be easier than fighting your own family in lonely Asian deserts, in any case.
Cas lets out a quiet breath from behind him, sounding a mixture of grateful and tired. “Thank you, Dean.”
Dean swallows. “Sure.” Pause. Cough. “So…the Gobi Desert, huh? You think your Dad is into hot places or something?”
A rustle of fabric sounds, what Dean amounts to a trench coat shoulder shrugging. “Not particularly. The Gobi Desert is quite cold.”
“Oh. Well, then, he like cold places, you think?”
“My working theory is that He prefers… isolated places.”
Dean grunts as he threads the unplugged TV wire through the dusty tangle of other wires crammed into the surge protector. “I guess that makes sense. Sounds lonely, though.”
Behind him, Castiel shuffles slightly, shifting his weight to the other foot. Dean, concentrating on untangling this unholy mess of plugs, doesn’t notice.
After a moment, Castiel speaks again. “I have brought you some chocolate,” he says, as if something Dean had just said suddenly reminded him of it. Either that or the angel is being random, which isn’t a stretch either. He has yet to master the art of the relevant segue.
Dean blinks. “Uh…chocolate? Gee, Cas, I didn’t know we were in that place in our relationship already. I don’t have anything for you.” Well, he has some chewing gum in his pocket, but the last time he’d tried to give Cas any the angel had chewed it about four times before swallowing it and declaring the sensation odd and rubbery. So that’s probably a no go.
When Dean sits up, successfully holding the TV plug after disentangling it from all the others, he can see Cas’s reflection watching him in the TV screen; it’s perplexed in a familiar but resigned sort of way as the angel reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small box. “Er, what I mean is,” Dean corrects, repentant, “you don’t have to bring me things, man. What’s the…what’s the occasion?”
Castiel looks right at him through the reflection on the television set. “Before I visited the desert, I was searching for my father at the highest peak of the Swiss Alps,” the angel begins, by way of explanation. “When I descended into the closest town to rest and warm myself again, a woman asked me why I looked so…down.”
“Yeah?”
“I told her I was searching for God. She laughed at me, and said that on occasion, tourists who bought the chocolate at her shop insisted it was truly divine.”
Dean frowns and thinks that somewhere in his mind, he used to believe Swiss chocolatiers had more class than that, or something. Maybe because he could never afford any of that fancy shit. Hershey’s all the way for him and Sam growing up, when they could indulge, or something. He turns to Cas then, while getting to his feet and preparing to pick up the TV. “So… you bought chocolate from her hoping you’d find God there?” he concludes, after a beat.
“Yes.” Castiel sounds so earnest about it Dean doesn’t have the heart to laugh, even though the story is kind of hilarious when you think about it.
“And?”
“It was…sweet.” Castiel’s frown deepens then, and eyes the box like it has greatly disappointed him as he turns it around in his hands. “But it had no essence of the divine in it. I did not enjoy the taste, but I thought you might.” Pause. “You are always telling me not to waste good food.”
Dean supposes that is true, even as he mourns Castiel’s lack of taste for not enjoying the awesomeness that is chocolate. Though at the same time, this clearly means more chocolate for Dean, which is a-okay in his book.
Dean finally manages to wrap up the TV cord around the screen and prepares to make off with the set. He winces a little when he lifts it though, because his bruised hand immediately protests the extra workload. “ Ow. Goddam…”
His muttering is cut off before he can finish, the weight of the TV gone as Castiel wordlessly takes it from him and pushes the small box of candy into Dean’s hands instead. It has been opened and looks pretty battered around the edges, probably from a combination of all the high-velocity hurling from one corner of the globe to another and the epic sounding angel fights it had been subjected to in the desert while sitting in the pocket of Cas’s ridiculous trench coat. Dean can see that it had come with a neatly tied ribbon once as well, but that said ribbon has been untied and then retied again, in the same haphazard way Dean imagines Castiel would knot his own tie if he ever deigned to try.
Dean looks at the box, amused and vaguely touched that even amidst Castiel’s search and Castiel’s battles, the angel still deigns to remember all the little things Dean says to him. “Thanks, Cas.”
Castiel wordlessly pushes the ice bucket back into Dean’s hands as well, before asking, “Which room is yours?”
“207,” Dean replies, and hastily adds, “It’s like two doors down man, we can walk,” so Cas doesn’t decide to zap them in on the Angel Express.
Castiel just looks at Dean, and then the stolen TV set in his arms. Dean grins at the face the angel makes at being made an accomplice in this petty crime because it’s the same kind of face Sam makes when he’s doing his wet cat impression. For the first time today, there’s actually something for Dean to smile about. “We’ll be real sneaky,” Dean assures him, and steers the angel out the door with a nudge of his shoulder. “Try to look inconspicuous.”
They stroll down the hallway like that together, Dean curious and shifting the ice bucket under his arm so he can pull on the ribbon of the chocolate box with his teeth.
Castiel calmly marches them back through the unlocked door to room 207.
~~~~~
Back in the room, Sam looks up from his computer screen at the sound of the door opening and promptly screams in righteous indignation at the tableau Dean and Cas make, standing there with a stolen TV in the angel’s arms. “Dean, are you making an angel steal a television for you?!” he demands, all scandalized, like Dean hasn’t made Cas do worse already. Then he pauses and looks at the open chocolate box Dean is holding, and gets even more butthurt, somehow. “And he brought you chocolate?”
“And none for you, man.” Dean grins around a truffle that really is pretty fucking divine from what he can tell. But then the moment of gloating is ruined by the sound of awkward shifting from the far corner of the room, clearly timed to remind Dean that today has been a shit day and that his car is still a dude. Which is stupid, because everyone knows that all cars are girls. What the fuck .
In the meantime, the Impala and Cas have spotted each other and are doing some weird mind-meld from across the room with one another- either that or death-glaring at each other- and Dean hastily puts the ice bucket down on the dresser top and moves between them in case Cas decides to get his smite on, or something. The last thing this room needs is two super-powered beings breaking the gross Texas-themed décor.
What follows is a tense minute of scrutiny on both of said super-powered beings’ parts.
Which makes Dean wonder if he should introduce them to clear the air, or something. Cas probably thinks the Impala is some sort of evil monster (which, Dean supposes, might be the case, but even still, he’d prefer for his car to not get smited…smoted? Smote? Whatever, you get the point).
Then he thinks his life is fucking ridiculous, because he’s about to introduce his angel to his car. Not to mention, he still has a stupid goddamn troll hunt to deal with amidst the oncoming apocalypse. God, his life.
Though on the plus side, it turns out that he doesn’t have to introduce anyone to anything after all.
“Castiel,” the Impala says eventually, and wraps his new human tongue around the word like it tastes bad in his mouth. “What are you doing here?”
“Impala,” Castiel acknowledges blankly, with a head tilt of grave concern in the car’s direction, kind of like the one he’d given Sam when they’d first met because Sam is an abomination or whatever. “I am helping Dean.”
The Impala huffs. “He doesn’t need your help; he has me now.”
Cas almost smirks. “I don’t imagine that he finds your new form to be more helpful than your first.”
Dean stares between the two of them. Sam is probably staring too, from somewhere behind his laptop screen. “Uh…so you two know each other already then?” Dean manages, only half joking.
Both beings turn to him and say, “Of course,” at the exact same time, except Cas says it like Dean is a deficient three-year-old while the Impala says it like he’s a Greek God. Both are equally unappreciated and not cool for a completely different set of reasons.
Dean eats another piece of chocolate while Castiel sets down the TV on the table right in front of Sam-Sam makes this hilariously put-out face that clearly wants to know when he got lost in the shuffle here-before the angel turns back to Dean.
“Your car has taken human form,” he says after a beat, like he’s not quite sure how to break the news to Dean and is doing his best to be sympathetic even though it’s still kind of out of his bounds. Dean looks at him with that are you kidding me thing he does with his eyebrows, which Sam is really good at reading but that Castiel still gets confused with Dean’s god I’m sexy face.
And from the strange expression Cas is giving him, Dean is going to go right ahead and conclude that Cas picked the wrong one of those two options. Again.
“We uh, we noticed, Cas. On account of walking here with him,” he says, frowning. He pops another chocolate in his mouth because so far, they are the only thing good about today. Plus, a man needs to be properly fueled when troll hunting. Which they still have to do.
The Impala watches him eat his chocolate and looks strangely anxious. “Did Castiel bring you those, Dean?” he asks. “I could bring you better ones. Bigger ones. Like the size of my love.”
Castiel doesn’t seem impressed by the offer. “I don’t understand what size has to do with it.” Pause. “Those are handmade from Switzerland,” he adds, and then looks like he doesn’t quite understand why he felt the need to say that last part either.
Sam sighs from where he is now hidden behind their stolen TV. “Uh, question, Cas, I mean. If you don’t mind.”
“I’m sorry, Sam. I only bought the one box, and I thought Dean would share,” Castiel admits, while Dean gives him a dirty look.
Sam becomes vaguely bemused at that. “No, not about the chocolate, though if Dean wasn’t a giant ass he’d give me some. But he is, so, you know, nothing we can do about that.” Sam stands and gestures to the corner instead, where the Impala is supposed to stay until Dean says it can leave. “Why aren’t you surprised the car is uh…alive?”
Dean just eats the last chocolate in front of Sam and waves the empty box in his brother’s face because Sam’s angel doesn’t bring him chocolates because he doesn’t have one.
Meanwhile, Castiel blinks at Sam’s question in a way that Dean thinks is Cas’s this is why I don’t bring you things, stupid Sam face. “Your car has been alive for longer than either you or Dean has, Sam,” the angel says out loud, patiently. “I don’t see why I should be surprised to find it still alive.”
Dean promptly chokes on his chocolate.
“Uh, what?” Sam says, a little more eloquently, while the Impala panics and asks Dean if he wants water, or a ride to the ER, or mouth to mouth resuscitation.
Castiel, apparently way less concerned about Dean’s obstructed airway than the car is, calmly stands and watches Dean while the Impala crashes into the bathroom to get him a cup of water.
“And you didn’t think to tell us that my car is alive?!” Dean manages a minute later, after he’s taken a sip of water and made the Impala go stand in the corner again, before he breaks any more stuff. Those crashes he’d heard coming from the bathroom just now hadn’t sounded promising.
“I didn’t want to bring it up,” the angel admits, after a long, slightly sheepish pause. “Seeing that my relationship with your vehicle is…contentious at best. I felt it would have been awkward to put you in the middle of that.”
Dean and Sam stare at each other. Sam does a few opening-and-closings of his mouth for a second, but no words come out.
Dean kind of gets where his brother is coming from with that, but he has way too much dignity to do a fish impression. So he holds a hand to his head and says, “My car is alive. It has been for more than thirty years, and you didn’t want to tell me this because you and the car don’t get along?”
Castiel frowns, like he has no idea why Dean is taking that aggravated tone with him. “Yes,” the angel answers, slightly ruffled. “Also, after weighing the pros and cons, it seemed entirely pointless to bring my grievances to you.”
“Yeah, since Dean obviously can’t fix what an enormous, homewrecking dick you are,” the Impala chimes in, arms crossed.
Castiel glares at him. “I could crush you where you stand if I desired to,” he reminds the former vehicle, a low rumbly edge in his voice.
The Impala is not impressed. “But you won’t, because Dean loves me best.”
Castiel’s jaw twitches. The Impala looks triumphant.
Dean groans. “I can’t believe my fucking life sometimes,” he mutters.
In the meantime, Sam has finally regained his faculties. Or what is left of them. “Waitaminute!” he huffs, throwing his hands out on either side of him. “Can we please rewind to the part about the car being alive in the first place? What does that even mean, Cas? Is it cursed?”
Cas sighs and takes a seat on the edge of the bed closest to the table. He tilts his head slightly, in a way that means he’s thinking very carefully about how to simplify this upcoming explanation so that it doesn’t make the puny humans’ heads explode. “I believe the closest human term for this phenomenon on earth is tsukumogami,” he says, which makes about as much sense to Dean as putting dogs in sweaters (which is to say, none). For some reason Sam thinks it’s adorable though.
Speaking of Sam, he is now nerdgasming from the coffee table, which just figures. “Really? Really?” Sam delights, looking at the sulking Impala with a newfound appreciation. “It’s… the spirit of the car?”
Dean feels compelled to sit down at that moment as well, and nudges Cas over on the mattress a bit so he can. “What the hell is a wookiemygummy?” he demands, flat out.
“Tsukumogami,” Sam corrects, like a bitch. “It’s the living spirit in all things, Dean. I mean, it’s kind of a…Shinto idea, mostly, with some other influences clearly, but what it basically says is that everything has a spirit, even small, everyday objects.”
Dean gives his brother his blankest look. Sam sighs in exasperation. “Basically, the belief behind a tsukumogami is that sometimes, when a certain item or object has a purpose, and is used for that purpose with reverence and love by the people who it belongs to for many years, that object will develop its own…awareness. Or, become alive, I guess, depending on your definition of the word.”
Sam pauses then, to make a face at Dean when he plays his own words back to himself. “I knew you loved that car way too much.”
“And I love Dean back!” The Impala choruses obediently from the corner, though he is still glaring something fierce at Castiel while the angel sits comfortably next to Dean on the motel’s outlandish desert-printed bedspread. “And we’re going to get married and live happily ever after, because now we can. In some states.”
Dean is way too boggled by this new turn of events to remember to tell the car to shut up. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, so there are a billion potential spirits out there made of stuff we use, and no one decided to tell us about this? How do we kill them?!”
“They are not dangerous,” Castiel explains. “And they are not known for taking human form, or manifesting on this plane of existence at all, from what I have observed. A tsukumogami object also takes at least a hundred years to come into full awareness.” Pause. “Your case is obviously…unique.”
“When the fuck is it not,” Dean mutters, while the Impala shuffles forlornly in the corner.
“We should discover what has caused this and undo it quickly,” Castiel surmises. The Impala sputters.
“Of course you would say that!” The car rails, arms crossed and glowering at the angel. “Why can’t you accept our love?! Just because you don’t like me doesn’t give you the right to take away Dean’s best shot at happiness, Castiel.”
Dean twitches. “Look, buddy. There is no love between you and me,” he insists, because the Impala sounds like a man-ified version of Becky only as a Dean girl or whatever. Either way it’s creepy. “You and I are love-free. We’re not getting married or having little Bionic Man babies. Got it?”
The Impala’s anger at Castiel turns to utter heartbreak at Dean’s words. “D-Dean?” He stammers. “But you always say that I’m your baby and that you love me more than anyone else.”
The dude looks like he’s going to cry.
And Sam does not help. “It is true, man. You do say that,” he confirms.
Dean sputters. “Look, you are my car. I am not marrying my car.”
The Impala takes a step towards him and vibrates in place, like it’s taking all his willpower to not just zoom over and wrap Dean up in his arms. “But I’m not a car now. I was given this form so that I could make you happy. I’m your reward!” Pause. “I know you never think you deserve anything good, but you do. And I’ll be good to you, at least as good to you as you always are to me.”
Dean looks at Cas for help on this one because Sam is obviously not up to offering any.
Castiel blinks. “I agree that you deserve good things, Dean.”
“And you shouldn’t be such a jerk,” Sam adds, clearly sympathetic to the Impala’s plight.
Dean decides that his angel is now about as helpful as his brother, which is to say not at all. Dean sighs and stands, putting up his hands placatingly while the Impala looks all fiery-eyed and righteous with conviction over just how much Dean deserves good things. “Look, man, it’s… uh, it’s flattering that you feel that strongly about me, but I really can’t accept your feelings, okay.” God, Dean feels like he’s in middle school or something. “I mean, there are too many things going on right now, and I’m focused on other stuff and other people and that whole apocalypse thing. Plus you’re a car.”
The Impala stops. “Other…people?” he manages, and Dean just figures that’s the phrase the guy zeroes in on. “Like… you love other people?”
Dean blinks. “What now?” He’s not sure how the car got from here to there, but he’s pretty sure it’s not his fault. He hopes.
The Impala frowns, not noticing Dean’s boggled expression as the former car goes all thoughtful and disappointed. “But the only people I ever see you with are Sam and Bobby and…” the car trails off abruptly, turning disbelieving eyes on Castiel. “Castiel?!” He demands hotly, “You’re in love with Castiel?! I knew he loved you, but I thought there was no way that was going to be requited. When? How?”
Dean is not sure how to answer any of that. Or maybe incapable, because he’s finally echoing Sammy on that whole impression-of-a-fish thing his brother had going for him a little while ago.
Cas looks on curiously, like he gets accused of loving Dean all the time.
Sam just looks like he is starting to get impatient with all this exciting talk about his brother’s love life and the fact that Dean obviously needs to learn his lesson about kissing the hood of his car in the future, and talking to it in a voice that cheap phone sex operators probably use to lure overweight businessmen into long, expensive conversations with.
“Yes,” Sam cuts in abruptly, while Dean is still reeling from all the oh my god sensations of being accused of being an item with Cas. “Dean and Cas are a thing. They’ve been this… thing… for a long time now and you wouldn’t want to hurt Dean by pressuring him into another relationship when he’s obviously already in a…thing, do you?”
Dean stares at Sam like he thinks his brother has gone evil again. Castiel has his brow furrowed and his lips pursed like he’s trying to figure out if what Sam means by a thing and a relationship is what he thinks Sam means.
Sam, Dean thinks, is using vague terms on purpose because he is totally being a sneaky lawyer about this.
Silence.
And then Sam clears his throat and nods at Dean while giving Dean a look; he gestures vaguely to the Impala and then gives Dean a second, more urgent look.
“Right!” Dean finds himself chiming in, almost by instinct. He and Sam have run so many cons together that it’s second nature to just go with whatever the other sets up for them now, regardless of how insane it might be. United Winchester front, or something. “Cas and I are a…thing.” Pause. “Together. Cas and I are together, so you know, I can’t be with you. Or anything. Because you know I’m not a cheater, right?”
Cas turns his frown on Dean now, because while it is true that they are together in this same room, he’s not sure if together in this context means what Dean is insinuating it means. He hates it when the Winchesters are vague, but then again, they’ve accused him of doing the same thing, so he supposes there is that.
In the meantime, Dean gives Cas a look a lot like the one Sam had given Dean a moment ago. From previous experience (a moment ago), Cas implicitly understands that he is supposed to stand up and agree with Dean in a fervent and vague manner. That is apparently the goal of this strange exercise.
So he stands and says, “Yes. We are…a thing. Together.”
Sam and Dean look relieved, so Castiel supposes he has performed correctly.
Then Dean, swelling with confidence, does something odd.
He grabs Castiel’s hand in his and twines their fingers together.
Castiel isn’t sure if he’s supposed to respond in like, but seeing as to how it had worked a moment ago, he reaches out and grabs Sam’s hand and threads their fingers together too.
The Impala looks at the three of them in confusion.
Dean grits his teeth, but forces a smile. “Right. So that’s us. One big happy family.”
Sam not-so-subtly pulls his hand out of Cas’s. “Right! So, uh…now that that’s all cleared up…can we please focus on this troll hunt? You know, the one where people are dying?”
All eyes are on the confounded Impala, waiting for his reaction.
The car eventually sighs. “I think I get it,” he says, after a moment.
Dean-hand still intertwined with Cas’s- looks hopeful.
But then the Impala stands up straighter. “Clearly, I’ve been given human form to stop Dean from making a horrible mistake.” His eyes are on Castiel when he says the last two words, and they’re dripping with barely concealed disdain.
Castiel frowns, because he’s pretty sure he understands what the Impala is suggesting. It, somehow, is much clearer about things than either of the brothers despite only very recently being given the gift of speech.
Dean frowns too, for different reasons entirely, most of which involve not liking his car’s tone at all. “What are you saying, exactly?” He demands, and is strangely defensive on Castiel’s behalf. He never knew his car could be such a bitch, for all that it’s apparently a dude.
But the Impala looks at Dean and just smiles, warm and loving and as affectionate as ever. “What I’m saying is, I’m going to make you realize that you belong with me, Dean. Then you can break up with Castiel, and we can be happy together like we’re meant to be.”
Dean gapes.
Sam shrugs-hey, he’d tried - and points to the laptop screen. “Can we concentrate on the troll?” he reminds them. “It isn’t going to stop killing people while the universe tries to sort out Dean’s love life.”
Dean glares at Sam, because clearly his plan had been stupid and isn’t working since the Impala is a little bit psycho for Dean. Sam just raises his eyebrows and glances at Dean’s hand, which is still tangled resolutely with Cas’s.
Dean hastily releases the angel. “Okay, right. Work,” he declares, glancing pointedly at the Impala. “If you’re my ba…car… then you know that the job always comes first.”
The Impala looks at Dean with unbounded fondness. “Of course! I’d never stand in the way of your work, Dean. Or tell you how to do it, or make it more difficult for you, or lie to you or use it against you, or trick you about it in any way. I’ve seen how that hurts you before,” he says sweetly, with another one of those pointed looks at Castiel.
Castiel narrows his eyes and silently glowers back. Sam thinks he’s got a pretty convincing handle on the Winchester Menace. Must be from being on the receiving end of it so many times.
“Jesus Christ,” Dean mutters, and gestures to Sam in a resigned sort of huff. “Okay, so troll. We are talking about the troll now and nothing else. Got it?”
Sam nods and turns the laptop towards his brother so Dean can see. “So uh, from the articles and the police reports Bobby’s sent me, it looks like so far, it’s been five girls, five weeks. They always disappear from either a frat party or from one of the local bars near Tech’s campus. We’ve got one witness who says she swears she saw her friend being abducted by a ten foot tall man with hideous facial disfigurements and awful breath. When she tried to fight him off to save her friend, he flung her into a wall. She broke her leg and her collarbone.”
Dean winces. “And the cops?”
“Say her BAC was way too high to consider her testimony completely reliable. They are investigating some of the frat houses though.”
“Her testimony sounds pretty accurate to me,” Dean mutters, and sits down again. “A fucking troll. Great. I hate looking for tunnels.”
“I can help with the troll!” the Impala offers. “I can definitely help with the troll. Because I’m still useful even though I’m not as strong as I used to be.” Pause. “Unlike some people.”
Castiel turns the Winchester Menace up to twelve without even trying to.
Dean ignores the pissy angel and instinctively balks at the notion of taking his car on a hunt as backup. Sam, still determined not to be helpful, just looks thoughtful at the proposition. “You know, he kind of has a point, Dean. We could use him.”
Dean can’t believe this. “No, Sam. He’s not human!”
“Neither is Cas,” Sam points out. Cas eyes both brothers dubiously, but the Menace subsides when he does, which is probably a good sign.
Sam just keeps looking at Dean. “And the Impala is pretty strong. Which would probably help against trolls. Which are also not human, and also really strong.”
“I’m fast too,” the Impala reminds them.
“He’s fast too,” Sam echoes, still looking expectantly at Dean.
Dean is resolute. “Sam.”
Sam is just as resolute. “Dean.”
There is some staring after that. That possibly evolves into a telling look from Sam, one that obviously means, we need all the muscle we can get for this one, and he might keep one of us from getting hurt like that girl did. Maybe even me.
Sam is a sneaky, sneaky bastard.
Which is why, eventually, Sam wins.
“Fine,” Dean sighs after he loses the staring contest because his little brother plays some dirty fucking pool when he wants to. Dean turns and glances sternly at the Impala. “But you do everything I say. And no being creepy in public, man.”
“Of course!” The Impala looks so stupidly grateful to be of service that Dean finds himself kind of uncomfortable looking the former car in his big, blue eyes. So Dean does the natural Dean thing; he averts his gaze quickly.
Except he averts right into the slightly disapproving big blue eyes of an angel. “Shut up,” Dean tells Cas, before he can speak.
Castiel sighs but obligingly doesn’t say anything because he’s awesome, while Sam gloats to himself at the table and suggests that they go interview the injured witness tomorrow at the hospital after breakfast.
And so, Dean’s shitty day finally ends fifteen minutes before midnight, with Dean reluctantly agreeing to take his falling angel, his suddenly humanoid car, and his once-upon-a-time demon blood enhanced little brother out in the morning for a good old fashioned troll hunt. It almost sounds like a joke, when he thinks about it. An angel, a robot, and an abomination walk into an underground bar.
Dean has a feeling that this particular punchline is going to suck though.
NEXT