Heaven Is Four Wheels on Two-Lane for yanyann
Title: Heaven Is Four Wheels on Two-Lane
Author: nwhepcat
Recipient: yanyann yanyann
Rating: Teen (language)
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: Takes place pre-series, season 1, season 3 and season 5. Prompt at the end of the story. Also, many thanks to my lovely last-minute betas.
Summary: The Impala went to heaven. That was the thing he clung to. Sam would share his heaven and so would his baby. He always knew she had a soul.
Heaven Is Four Wheels on Two-Lane
Dean remembers the first time he was behind the wheel of the Impala. Not the first time he drove, but the evening his daddy scooped him up and let Dean sit on his lap when they went out for ice cream.
Sam wasn't with them, which seems wrong whenever the memory crops up, but there wasn't even a Sam yet. Dean had already heard about him -- Mom and Dad seemed anxious that Dean would like him, but Dean wasn't sure why. Mom said Sam kicked her sometimes, and weirdly she acted happy about it.
Once he got Dean settled, Dad helped him put his hands on the steering wheel. "Ten and two," he said.
Dean nodded. He could already count to ten. Ten fingers, two hands.
Daddy always drove with five and one, sometimes not even curling his hand around the wheel but using his wrist. But Dean was little and needed all ten fingers. He hung on tight.
Daddy's voice boomed over his head, loud and happy. Dean could feel it vibrating through his body, layered over the rumble of the engine. From this new height he could see the car's hood, shiny and black like tar bubbles on the road. Like the Batmobile. His daddy was Batman and he was Robin, and together they would fight bad guys until everyone was safe. "Right, Daddy?"
The answering laugh enveloped him, tickled through his bones. "Sure, kiddo. But for right now let's just get ice cream."
***
The next time Dean was behind the wheel, he was eleven.
"You can do this," his dad told him. "Just keep your eyes on the road. You'll naturally steer where you're looking. Easy on the gas, easy on the brake. She'll get you where you need to go."
Dean had dreamed of this forever, but it was nothing like he'd expected. His heart hammered as he turned the key, gave her some gas.
"Easy," Dad reminded him, then he coughed wetly. Something dark and oily ran out of his mouth, but Dean knew it was blood.
"Dad--"
"Eyes on the road, son," he reminded Dean.
"Yessir. You'll be okay, Dad. I'll get you there." There was a rumble from Dad's side of the bench seat, just audible over the engine noise. It sounded a little like a chuckle, but it could have been Dad getting ready to cough up his insides.
"I know you will, Dean. You're doing fine."
Dean turned off the lake road onto the main road into town. The closest hospital was on the outskirts; he'd memorized the location on the way to the job, just like Dad had trained him to do.
Don't die don't die don't die. "Are you okay?" Stupid, stupid question. Dad was practically holding his guts inside. "Do you need the heater or something?"
"I'm good. You just concentrate on your job." But he was shivering so hard Dean could hear his teeth clacking.
He had just turned onto the emergency entrance drive when Dad said, "This is good enough."
There was still some distance to go, though, and Dad didn't look like he'd get that far. "But Dad--"
"But nothing," he said sharply, but there was little force behind the words. "Stop the car. You remember what to do." It wasn't a question, because Dad knew he did. Let him out, lean on the horn, then GO. Take care of Sammy.
Dean braked to a stop, easy just like Dad had said.
"You did good," Dad said, stumbling to his feet. Once he let go of the car door and swung it shut, he went down onto one knee. Biting his lip, Dean gave three long blasts on the horn to bring the ER staff running, then smoked the tires heading out of the lot back to their motel.
It was late enough that Dean just wriggled into his spare clothes in the back seat of the Impala, then he went in to check on Sam. Once Dean got him back to sleep, he spent the rest of the night scrubbing the inside of the car, reconditioning the leather. It was all he could do for his dad, for the car that sheltered them. And in the morning Sammy wouldn't have to breathe in the smell of their dad's blood on the way to school.
***
He had a game he liked to play with Sam -- or maybe a better way of saying it was playing at Sam. If Dean had bothered to give it a name, it would've been Look, Sammy! This phrase invariably introduced a line or two of color commentary about the roadkill along the two-lane they traveled. "Look, Sammy! A footstool!" described a racoon-sized animal in full-on rigor mortis, legs pointing skyward. (Occasionally they passed one so big it was an ottoman, a word Dean had learned from their most recent landlady.) "Look, Sammy! Grease stain!" was pretty much the last identifiable stage of roadkill, sometimes accompanied by a flattened scrap of gray, furred "shop rag." "Fresh paint" signified a large smear of red across pavement, with no other sign of its source.
This game lasted one whole summer. Sammy bitched and moaned in the back seat like the eight-year-old princess he was, but Dad didn't put a stop to Dean's game until "Look, Sammy! Meat counter!" as they came on a scattered collection of wholly unidentifiable animal parts. Which, thanks to unfortunate timing after a lunch of diner sloppy Joes, made for something even more disgusting in the back seat. Dad pulled over and let Sammy lie under a tree while Dean got a drill instructor-style ass-chewing as he cleaned off the back seat. By the time Dad concluded with "this better be the end of this goddamn nonsense," Dean was completely on board with that, since he was feeling a little pukey himself.
"Sorry," he said to Sammy once Sam was a little less green and on his feet. "I won't do it again." Dean directed the words to Sam, but he made sure he had his hand on the warm skin of the Impala as he said it.
***
Sam was out like a light, head lolled against the passenger window. Dean couldn't get over it, having him back in the car like the last four years had never happened. Except there was no pretending that was the case -- it seemed like Sammy had sprouted another six inches since Dean had last seen him.
Not just taller. Last time Dean had seen him (and the less said about that the better) Sam was all sharp elbows and knees, articulated broomsticks in WalMart shirts and Goodwill jeans. He'd filled out since then, but still had a trace of gawkiness left about him.
And shit, the lawyer thing. Willingly signing up for four more years of college was alien enough to Dean, but lawyering --
Well, Dean had to give his brother one thing: arguing was Sam's superpower. Maybe it made sense that he'd want to make a career of it.
But now that he was back doing what he was meant to -- and Dean knew in his heart that this was what he and his brother were made for -- maybe Sam would see that this was his life and stop flirting with others. Maybe he'd realize that his desire for Normal guaranteed he'd be living at fifty percent of his potential. It was hard to imagine Sam settling for that, once he realized.
Maybe it would hit him that being with family again filled a hole he hadn't recognized was there, and he'd see that his place in the world was right there riding shotgun with Dean.
Patting the steering wheel, Dean whispered, "Feels right, doesn't it, baby?" It was probably his imagination that he felt a little extra throb in her engine.
Not ten minutes later, Sam drew in a deep breath and let it out as he roused himself from sleep. Rubbing at his neck, he said, "Feels weird."
"What's that?"
"Being in Dad's old car again."
Stung, Dean dredged up a smirk. "That's just because you're not used to the front seat."
Sam chuckled, then said, "It's like being dropped into another lifetime."
"Yeah, well. Don't worry, you'll be back in your real life soon enough." He rammed the Allman Brothers tape into the deck, cranking "One Way Out" to maximum volume as he pushed the Impala up to speed.
***
"Why is she a she, Daddy?"
Dean remembers this from the ice cream outing, and the rough friction of Dad's hand ruffling his hair. It made him feel the same way sunshine on his scalp did.
"Dunno, kiddo. Dunno."
***
They ran into the storm halfway between Bobby's and Wall. One of those storms that blackens an already dark sky, blotting out starshine like the demons they'd seen boiling out of the Hell Gate.
"We're in for a light show, looks like," Dean said.
"Which one should we go for?" Sam asked. "The Pink Floyd or the Led Zep?"
"How about just the storm?" He felt Sam's sharp gaze shift from the deep dark outside to him. Lifting a shoulder in a lazy shrug, he said, "Some things don't need a soundtrack."
And then it hit -- or more accurately, they drove into it -- as sudden and violent as the gush of water from a car wash hose. Lightning forked across the sky, jagged and far-reaching. The Impala hydroplaned on a slight downhill slope, and he eased off on the gas. Better hustle some pool and get new radials on her before I -- before. He pulled into the first rest stop they found and parked, cutting the engine to get the full effect of lightning and thunder.
He loved it, thrilling and terrifying all at once. In the elements but not wholly exposed, sheltered by the Impala.
The storm swallowed them up, sending skewers of light sizzling down on all sides, both distant and close enough to flash in perfect timing with the thunder. At one point the storm was so heavy it was impossible to tell which peal of thunder went with which flash.
"Raining wampus cats and hellhounds," Dean wisecracked, but he saw from Sam's face it was a crap joke.
***
The Impala went to heaven.
Out of the whole sorry heaven experience (at least that was Dean's view -- Sam, with his first girlfriend and his temporary dog, maybe sees it differently), that was the thing he clung to. Sam would share his heaven (at least when he could be bothered to stay) and so would his baby.
Deep down, he'd always known she had a soul.
***
Heaven -- or maybe Zachariah -- did something to his memories.
They were fuller now, more detailed. Sharper, in more ways than one.
Mom's voice cut like glass: "John, stop it."
Dad was all over her, leaning against her back, his arms wrapped around her, his big hands moving over her enormous belly. "You know you love it." Normally that was true, Dean thought, but now she liked being kicked and didn't like being hugged.
"Not when you're -- not when it's this hot." It was only April, but the whole week had been swimming pool weather. No matter how many times Dean asked, the answer was the local pool wouldn't be open for weeks.
"Not as hot as my little mama."
"I mean it," she said in her Warning Voice. She twisted out of his arms, causing him to stutter-step backwards. "Go down the street and get Dean some ice cream or something. I'm going to take a nap." Without another word, she went upstairs.
Dad looked at Dean, giving a big shrug, his hands spread wide. "You heard her, sport. Ice cream run." He swung Dean up when they got close to the car, settling him onto his lap once they were in. Though he was still dressed for his job, his grease-streaked skin damp with sweat, he smelled like Saturday afternoons.
"Ten and two, Deano," he said as he positioned Dean's small hands on the wheel. His voice was loud and happy. That was like Saturday afternoons too; Dad was always happiest then.
Once Dad started the engine, Dean could feel it rumbling around him and through him. Though Dean thought they were going to the corner store two blocks away, Dad kept going and took them across town, announcing "left" or "right" just before they came to a turn, but still steering the car himself. Except for once, on a straight road with no other cars, when Dad said, "All right, kiddo, I'm gonna let you have the wheel. All you've gotta do is keep her going straight."
He didn't even give Dean time to respond, just lifted his guiding hand from the wheel. Dean tightened his small hands around leather covered wheel.
"That's it, Deano. You're doing great."
It was the most thrilling and terrifying thing Dean had ever done, even before Dad started increasing their speed. The heat was still ferocious, rising in invisible yet visible ripples off the black skin of the car and the road, but wind of the Impala's movement moved through Dean's hair and cooled the damp patch on his t-shirt. Dad took over again when they had to turn into the Dairy Queen lot.
Over ice cream cones (bigger than Mom had ever let him have, chocolate dipped and covered in sprinkles besides), Dean asked, "Why is she a she, Daddy?"
"Who's that?"
"The car."
"Dunno, kiddo. Dunno." He reached out and ruffled Dean's hair, his own fingers just a bit sticky from his swiftly-melting cone. "Makes no sense to me -- at least a car will do what you want it to."
When they were finished, Dad took him to the store you could drive your car through to get more beer, just to make Dean's time behind the wheel longer. Dad did all the steering on the way back, which was okay with Dean. The heat and the ice cream made him sleepy. He thought about crawling onto the big bed with Mom and napping beside her.
Mom was definitely not napping when they got back. The front door banged open as soon as they pulled up in front of the house. Dean waved at her, delighted that she'd seen him at the wheel of the car. But she stormed across the front yard like she was mad.
"I didn't really drive," Dean told her when she yanked the door open. He'd never had his foot on the gas, so he thought that was true.
"Go upstairs, Dean. It's naptime." But sleepy was the last thing he was right then.
"Mary, don't start."
"John Eric Winchester, if anyone started anything, it's you. You know damn well I meant for you to walk Dean down to the corner and back. You had no business behind the wheel of that car, and to plop your child right on your lap --"
"It was fine, Mary. We're fine."
"We're fine," Dean echoed, but that just made Mom notice he hadn't done as she told him. Abruptly she took him by the arm and marched him into the house.
She followed him up to his room and made sure he climbed into bed, but it was nothing like tucking him in. He didn't even get a kiss.
Then the yelling started up again, inside the house this time, and by the time the voices stopped, Dean heard the scrape and slam of dresser drawers and then more distant noises in the bathroom (medicine chest, closet door), stairs, door.
Impala.
Silence.
Thanks for the memory, Zach, you asshole.
***
Since heaven, Sam kept lapsing into long silences. Though he hadn't thought so at the time, Dean began to wonder if he himself had gotten the best of that deal. All he had was his lousiest memories confirmed -- and okay, knowing they were some of Sam's best really was a jolt, but still -- and the image of Zachariah macking on his mom, which was a lie. But Sam had learned truths Dean had protected him from for decades, and Cas had found out he had the ultimate deadbeat dad. And just because Dean was totally cynical about that shit now didn't mean he couldn't remember how painful it was to be hit in the face with that knowledge.
It took Sam long enough to say something, but that was just Sam's big brain. The more troubling the thought, the longer it took to visit every wrinkle in his ginormous frontal lobe. Eventually it made the rounds and whatever was bugging him dropped out of his mouth like a gumball from one of those clear Plexiglas machines with the long, curving ramps.
"You never said anything," Sam finally offered.
"About what?" Dean responded absently, because by this time he was mentally cursing the weathered and unreadable street marker signs he'd encountered at the last three rural crossroads, and wondering if crossroads demons found them annoying as fuck or actually preferred them.
"Mom and Dad. The fights, I mean."
Dean lifted a shoulder and let it fall. "What would be the point? You already knew Dad could be a pain in the ass to live with. You didn't have any memories of Mom, so if you had some illusions why should I tear them down?"
"But that wouldn't be the point. It's just -- dammit, Dean, you carry so fucking much. I'm not a kid anymore, you could let me bear some of the weight."
"Look, it's not even like I spent my whole life secretly moaning about Mom and Dad's married life and deliberately keeping it from you. I was four when she died. I just drank Dad's 'Everything was perfect' Kool-Aid for so long I never even remembered that stuff."
He could feel Sam's gaze laser in on him. "But now you do."
For a moment Dean considered minimizing it, but he finally gave a curt nod. "Heaven: the gift that keeps on giving."
"Yeah," Sam said. "Listen, I'm sorry my stops on the heaven road all seemed to be about cutting ties with you and Dad. I just --"
"I know, Sammy," Dean said wearily. "You wanted normal. Dad wouldn't give it to us, and I was marching in lockstep. Though seriously, dude, the smell of damp dog and Funyon farts in a one-room shack -- not most people's idea of normal."
Dean caught the flicker of a rueful grin at the corner of Sam's mouth, a silent acknowledgment of the acceptance of his apology hidden in a layer of mockery.
They left it at that, both content to let the miles spool out beneath the Impala's tires, black on black on black. Dean fed Deep Purple's "In Rock" into the stereo and blasted the volume. Hot air streamed into the windows, occasionally perfumed with the ripe smell of meadow muffins -- once so bad that Dean cranked up his window and blurted, "Fuck! That smells like I shit in the car."
Sam hastily rolled his own window up. "Dude. Pig shit." He had the same spoiled-milk face that he used to have when he was five, which made Dean snort.
"Trust you to be the barnyard stank expert."
When they were about ten minutes past the pig farm, windows back down, Sam abruptly pitched forward from his slouch. "Dean. Make a right here."
The urgency in his voice made Dean jerk the wheel, slewing the car in the gravel at the edges of the intersection. "What?"
"There's a farm stand up ahead. Just follow the signs."
Dean straightened the car on the road Sam had pointed out, but left it idling in the lane. "Farm stand?" These words collided in his head like random concepts. "What the hell do we need with a farm stand?"
"Peaches."
"Seriously, dude? Peaches?"
"Foot. Gas. C'mon."
Though he heaved a sigh, Dean was happy enough to comply. With the shit they had stacked up against them, if there was some small thing that would turn Sammy's crank, Dean would do more than follow "Chin-drippin' Peaches" signs a quarter mile to indulge a whim.
As Sam conducted business with the gangly teenaged boy in the ramshackle stand, Dean ran a rag over the Impala's skin where the dirt of the gravel driveway had settled. When he looked up from where he'd bent to pick a piece of gravel from a tire tread, Sam was standing at the passenger door.
"Got your peach?"
In response, Sam lifted a paper bag about to brim over with peaches.
"You plan to eat all those, I guess we're not going to be leaving the hotel room for a couple of days." Dean got into the Impala. "In fact, maybe you need to get your own room."
Settling the bag between his feet, Sam said, "They're for both of us."
"Yeah, but I don't like peaches."
"You don't like peach pie. I bet you haven't had a raw peach in two and a half decades."
Dean snorted. "Like there's a difference."
"There's a big difference." Reaching into the bag, he palmed one and offered it to Dean.
"No thanks. And don't even think about eating it here. There will be no goddamn chin-drippin' in my baby."
By the time they found their way to a motel, the smell from Sam's bag of peaches had wafted up to Dean, sending him half out of his mind. His stomach seemed to agree, yowling demands every thirty seconds or so.
It was his turn to take care of registering. When he came out of the motel office, Sam was leaning against the Impala's trunk, face planted into a half-eaten peach. Juice ran between his fingers, down the back of his hand and past his wrist, and his eyes were closed in utter bliss. The sight rocketed Dean back to their childhood, how completely into something Sam could be -- comic books, chocolate milk, putting on a clean t-shirt straight from the Laundromat. Dean's breath caught in his chest at how young Sammy looked when he let himself be transported by something simple. Why the hell couldn't heaven give them both more of this?
Dean saw the spell of the moment drifting away like mist. "Dude. You have no idea how obscene that looks."
"Shut up and eat one." Sam underhanded a peach toward him.
Dean hefted it, savoring its weight and density, sketching his thumb over the barest hint of fuzz along its curve. He wondered if he could follow Sam's lead and give himself up wholly. He doubted it. Dad had taught him the briefest moment of inattention could bring on disaster.
"You're so thinking about breasts right now."
He shot Sam a look. "I'm always thinking about breasts."
"Stop being a chickenshit and eat."
Tentatively, he brought the dimple of the stem end toward his nose and took in the scent. Its perfume banishing all hesitation, Dean sank his teeth into the warm, yielding flesh of the peach. Sweet juice gushed into his mouth and dribbled onto his chin, prompting a tiny noise of pleasure to escape Dean's throat.
"I'm guessing you like that," Sam said, his voice thick with amusement.
Dean didn't answer, just made the filthiest sound he could possibly make from just having a bite of fruit.
Laughing softly, Sam skipped his peach pit across the parking lot gravel and bent down to take another peach from the bag balanced on the Impala's bumper.
***The End***
Prompt: Nights spent in the Impala. Sharing a meal in the front seat, sleeping in the back seat, looking at the stars, cuddling under a blanket for warmth as a storm rages outside the windows, the singing, the fighting, the crying... As scenic and descriptive as you can make it.
Author: nwhepcat
Recipient: yanyann yanyann
Rating: Teen (language)
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: Takes place pre-series, season 1, season 3 and season 5. Prompt at the end of the story. Also, many thanks to my lovely last-minute betas.
Summary: The Impala went to heaven. That was the thing he clung to. Sam would share his heaven and so would his baby. He always knew she had a soul.
Heaven Is Four Wheels on Two-Lane
Dean remembers the first time he was behind the wheel of the Impala. Not the first time he drove, but the evening his daddy scooped him up and let Dean sit on his lap when they went out for ice cream.
Sam wasn't with them, which seems wrong whenever the memory crops up, but there wasn't even a Sam yet. Dean had already heard about him -- Mom and Dad seemed anxious that Dean would like him, but Dean wasn't sure why. Mom said Sam kicked her sometimes, and weirdly she acted happy about it.
Once he got Dean settled, Dad helped him put his hands on the steering wheel. "Ten and two," he said.
Dean nodded. He could already count to ten. Ten fingers, two hands.
Daddy always drove with five and one, sometimes not even curling his hand around the wheel but using his wrist. But Dean was little and needed all ten fingers. He hung on tight.
Daddy's voice boomed over his head, loud and happy. Dean could feel it vibrating through his body, layered over the rumble of the engine. From this new height he could see the car's hood, shiny and black like tar bubbles on the road. Like the Batmobile. His daddy was Batman and he was Robin, and together they would fight bad guys until everyone was safe. "Right, Daddy?"
The answering laugh enveloped him, tickled through his bones. "Sure, kiddo. But for right now let's just get ice cream."
***
The next time Dean was behind the wheel, he was eleven.
"You can do this," his dad told him. "Just keep your eyes on the road. You'll naturally steer where you're looking. Easy on the gas, easy on the brake. She'll get you where you need to go."
Dean had dreamed of this forever, but it was nothing like he'd expected. His heart hammered as he turned the key, gave her some gas.
"Easy," Dad reminded him, then he coughed wetly. Something dark and oily ran out of his mouth, but Dean knew it was blood.
"Dad--"
"Eyes on the road, son," he reminded Dean.
"Yessir. You'll be okay, Dad. I'll get you there." There was a rumble from Dad's side of the bench seat, just audible over the engine noise. It sounded a little like a chuckle, but it could have been Dad getting ready to cough up his insides.
"I know you will, Dean. You're doing fine."
Dean turned off the lake road onto the main road into town. The closest hospital was on the outskirts; he'd memorized the location on the way to the job, just like Dad had trained him to do.
Don't die don't die don't die. "Are you okay?" Stupid, stupid question. Dad was practically holding his guts inside. "Do you need the heater or something?"
"I'm good. You just concentrate on your job." But he was shivering so hard Dean could hear his teeth clacking.
He had just turned onto the emergency entrance drive when Dad said, "This is good enough."
There was still some distance to go, though, and Dad didn't look like he'd get that far. "But Dad--"
"But nothing," he said sharply, but there was little force behind the words. "Stop the car. You remember what to do." It wasn't a question, because Dad knew he did. Let him out, lean on the horn, then GO. Take care of Sammy.
Dean braked to a stop, easy just like Dad had said.
"You did good," Dad said, stumbling to his feet. Once he let go of the car door and swung it shut, he went down onto one knee. Biting his lip, Dean gave three long blasts on the horn to bring the ER staff running, then smoked the tires heading out of the lot back to their motel.
It was late enough that Dean just wriggled into his spare clothes in the back seat of the Impala, then he went in to check on Sam. Once Dean got him back to sleep, he spent the rest of the night scrubbing the inside of the car, reconditioning the leather. It was all he could do for his dad, for the car that sheltered them. And in the morning Sammy wouldn't have to breathe in the smell of their dad's blood on the way to school.
***
He had a game he liked to play with Sam -- or maybe a better way of saying it was playing at Sam. If Dean had bothered to give it a name, it would've been Look, Sammy! This phrase invariably introduced a line or two of color commentary about the roadkill along the two-lane they traveled. "Look, Sammy! A footstool!" described a racoon-sized animal in full-on rigor mortis, legs pointing skyward. (Occasionally they passed one so big it was an ottoman, a word Dean had learned from their most recent landlady.) "Look, Sammy! Grease stain!" was pretty much the last identifiable stage of roadkill, sometimes accompanied by a flattened scrap of gray, furred "shop rag." "Fresh paint" signified a large smear of red across pavement, with no other sign of its source.
This game lasted one whole summer. Sammy bitched and moaned in the back seat like the eight-year-old princess he was, but Dad didn't put a stop to Dean's game until "Look, Sammy! Meat counter!" as they came on a scattered collection of wholly unidentifiable animal parts. Which, thanks to unfortunate timing after a lunch of diner sloppy Joes, made for something even more disgusting in the back seat. Dad pulled over and let Sammy lie under a tree while Dean got a drill instructor-style ass-chewing as he cleaned off the back seat. By the time Dad concluded with "this better be the end of this goddamn nonsense," Dean was completely on board with that, since he was feeling a little pukey himself.
"Sorry," he said to Sammy once Sam was a little less green and on his feet. "I won't do it again." Dean directed the words to Sam, but he made sure he had his hand on the warm skin of the Impala as he said it.
***
Sam was out like a light, head lolled against the passenger window. Dean couldn't get over it, having him back in the car like the last four years had never happened. Except there was no pretending that was the case -- it seemed like Sammy had sprouted another six inches since Dean had last seen him.
Not just taller. Last time Dean had seen him (and the less said about that the better) Sam was all sharp elbows and knees, articulated broomsticks in WalMart shirts and Goodwill jeans. He'd filled out since then, but still had a trace of gawkiness left about him.
And shit, the lawyer thing. Willingly signing up for four more years of college was alien enough to Dean, but lawyering --
Well, Dean had to give his brother one thing: arguing was Sam's superpower. Maybe it made sense that he'd want to make a career of it.
But now that he was back doing what he was meant to -- and Dean knew in his heart that this was what he and his brother were made for -- maybe Sam would see that this was his life and stop flirting with others. Maybe he'd realize that his desire for Normal guaranteed he'd be living at fifty percent of his potential. It was hard to imagine Sam settling for that, once he realized.
Maybe it would hit him that being with family again filled a hole he hadn't recognized was there, and he'd see that his place in the world was right there riding shotgun with Dean.
Patting the steering wheel, Dean whispered, "Feels right, doesn't it, baby?" It was probably his imagination that he felt a little extra throb in her engine.
Not ten minutes later, Sam drew in a deep breath and let it out as he roused himself from sleep. Rubbing at his neck, he said, "Feels weird."
"What's that?"
"Being in Dad's old car again."
Stung, Dean dredged up a smirk. "That's just because you're not used to the front seat."
Sam chuckled, then said, "It's like being dropped into another lifetime."
"Yeah, well. Don't worry, you'll be back in your real life soon enough." He rammed the Allman Brothers tape into the deck, cranking "One Way Out" to maximum volume as he pushed the Impala up to speed.
***
"Why is she a she, Daddy?"
Dean remembers this from the ice cream outing, and the rough friction of Dad's hand ruffling his hair. It made him feel the same way sunshine on his scalp did.
"Dunno, kiddo. Dunno."
***
They ran into the storm halfway between Bobby's and Wall. One of those storms that blackens an already dark sky, blotting out starshine like the demons they'd seen boiling out of the Hell Gate.
"We're in for a light show, looks like," Dean said.
"Which one should we go for?" Sam asked. "The Pink Floyd or the Led Zep?"
"How about just the storm?" He felt Sam's sharp gaze shift from the deep dark outside to him. Lifting a shoulder in a lazy shrug, he said, "Some things don't need a soundtrack."
And then it hit -- or more accurately, they drove into it -- as sudden and violent as the gush of water from a car wash hose. Lightning forked across the sky, jagged and far-reaching. The Impala hydroplaned on a slight downhill slope, and he eased off on the gas. Better hustle some pool and get new radials on her before I -- before. He pulled into the first rest stop they found and parked, cutting the engine to get the full effect of lightning and thunder.
He loved it, thrilling and terrifying all at once. In the elements but not wholly exposed, sheltered by the Impala.
The storm swallowed them up, sending skewers of light sizzling down on all sides, both distant and close enough to flash in perfect timing with the thunder. At one point the storm was so heavy it was impossible to tell which peal of thunder went with which flash.
"Raining wampus cats and hellhounds," Dean wisecracked, but he saw from Sam's face it was a crap joke.
***
The Impala went to heaven.
Out of the whole sorry heaven experience (at least that was Dean's view -- Sam, with his first girlfriend and his temporary dog, maybe sees it differently), that was the thing he clung to. Sam would share his heaven (at least when he could be bothered to stay) and so would his baby.
Deep down, he'd always known she had a soul.
***
Heaven -- or maybe Zachariah -- did something to his memories.
They were fuller now, more detailed. Sharper, in more ways than one.
Mom's voice cut like glass: "John, stop it."
Dad was all over her, leaning against her back, his arms wrapped around her, his big hands moving over her enormous belly. "You know you love it." Normally that was true, Dean thought, but now she liked being kicked and didn't like being hugged.
"Not when you're -- not when it's this hot." It was only April, but the whole week had been swimming pool weather. No matter how many times Dean asked, the answer was the local pool wouldn't be open for weeks.
"Not as hot as my little mama."
"I mean it," she said in her Warning Voice. She twisted out of his arms, causing him to stutter-step backwards. "Go down the street and get Dean some ice cream or something. I'm going to take a nap." Without another word, she went upstairs.
Dad looked at Dean, giving a big shrug, his hands spread wide. "You heard her, sport. Ice cream run." He swung Dean up when they got close to the car, settling him onto his lap once they were in. Though he was still dressed for his job, his grease-streaked skin damp with sweat, he smelled like Saturday afternoons.
"Ten and two, Deano," he said as he positioned Dean's small hands on the wheel. His voice was loud and happy. That was like Saturday afternoons too; Dad was always happiest then.
Once Dad started the engine, Dean could feel it rumbling around him and through him. Though Dean thought they were going to the corner store two blocks away, Dad kept going and took them across town, announcing "left" or "right" just before they came to a turn, but still steering the car himself. Except for once, on a straight road with no other cars, when Dad said, "All right, kiddo, I'm gonna let you have the wheel. All you've gotta do is keep her going straight."
He didn't even give Dean time to respond, just lifted his guiding hand from the wheel. Dean tightened his small hands around leather covered wheel.
"That's it, Deano. You're doing great."
It was the most thrilling and terrifying thing Dean had ever done, even before Dad started increasing their speed. The heat was still ferocious, rising in invisible yet visible ripples off the black skin of the car and the road, but wind of the Impala's movement moved through Dean's hair and cooled the damp patch on his t-shirt. Dad took over again when they had to turn into the Dairy Queen lot.
Over ice cream cones (bigger than Mom had ever let him have, chocolate dipped and covered in sprinkles besides), Dean asked, "Why is she a she, Daddy?"
"Who's that?"
"The car."
"Dunno, kiddo. Dunno." He reached out and ruffled Dean's hair, his own fingers just a bit sticky from his swiftly-melting cone. "Makes no sense to me -- at least a car will do what you want it to."
When they were finished, Dad took him to the store you could drive your car through to get more beer, just to make Dean's time behind the wheel longer. Dad did all the steering on the way back, which was okay with Dean. The heat and the ice cream made him sleepy. He thought about crawling onto the big bed with Mom and napping beside her.
Mom was definitely not napping when they got back. The front door banged open as soon as they pulled up in front of the house. Dean waved at her, delighted that she'd seen him at the wheel of the car. But she stormed across the front yard like she was mad.
"I didn't really drive," Dean told her when she yanked the door open. He'd never had his foot on the gas, so he thought that was true.
"Go upstairs, Dean. It's naptime." But sleepy was the last thing he was right then.
"Mary, don't start."
"John Eric Winchester, if anyone started anything, it's you. You know damn well I meant for you to walk Dean down to the corner and back. You had no business behind the wheel of that car, and to plop your child right on your lap --"
"It was fine, Mary. We're fine."
"We're fine," Dean echoed, but that just made Mom notice he hadn't done as she told him. Abruptly she took him by the arm and marched him into the house.
She followed him up to his room and made sure he climbed into bed, but it was nothing like tucking him in. He didn't even get a kiss.
Then the yelling started up again, inside the house this time, and by the time the voices stopped, Dean heard the scrape and slam of dresser drawers and then more distant noises in the bathroom (medicine chest, closet door), stairs, door.
Impala.
Silence.
Thanks for the memory, Zach, you asshole.
***
Since heaven, Sam kept lapsing into long silences. Though he hadn't thought so at the time, Dean began to wonder if he himself had gotten the best of that deal. All he had was his lousiest memories confirmed -- and okay, knowing they were some of Sam's best really was a jolt, but still -- and the image of Zachariah macking on his mom, which was a lie. But Sam had learned truths Dean had protected him from for decades, and Cas had found out he had the ultimate deadbeat dad. And just because Dean was totally cynical about that shit now didn't mean he couldn't remember how painful it was to be hit in the face with that knowledge.
It took Sam long enough to say something, but that was just Sam's big brain. The more troubling the thought, the longer it took to visit every wrinkle in his ginormous frontal lobe. Eventually it made the rounds and whatever was bugging him dropped out of his mouth like a gumball from one of those clear Plexiglas machines with the long, curving ramps.
"You never said anything," Sam finally offered.
"About what?" Dean responded absently, because by this time he was mentally cursing the weathered and unreadable street marker signs he'd encountered at the last three rural crossroads, and wondering if crossroads demons found them annoying as fuck or actually preferred them.
"Mom and Dad. The fights, I mean."
Dean lifted a shoulder and let it fall. "What would be the point? You already knew Dad could be a pain in the ass to live with. You didn't have any memories of Mom, so if you had some illusions why should I tear them down?"
"But that wouldn't be the point. It's just -- dammit, Dean, you carry so fucking much. I'm not a kid anymore, you could let me bear some of the weight."
"Look, it's not even like I spent my whole life secretly moaning about Mom and Dad's married life and deliberately keeping it from you. I was four when she died. I just drank Dad's 'Everything was perfect' Kool-Aid for so long I never even remembered that stuff."
He could feel Sam's gaze laser in on him. "But now you do."
For a moment Dean considered minimizing it, but he finally gave a curt nod. "Heaven: the gift that keeps on giving."
"Yeah," Sam said. "Listen, I'm sorry my stops on the heaven road all seemed to be about cutting ties with you and Dad. I just --"
"I know, Sammy," Dean said wearily. "You wanted normal. Dad wouldn't give it to us, and I was marching in lockstep. Though seriously, dude, the smell of damp dog and Funyon farts in a one-room shack -- not most people's idea of normal."
Dean caught the flicker of a rueful grin at the corner of Sam's mouth, a silent acknowledgment of the acceptance of his apology hidden in a layer of mockery.
They left it at that, both content to let the miles spool out beneath the Impala's tires, black on black on black. Dean fed Deep Purple's "In Rock" into the stereo and blasted the volume. Hot air streamed into the windows, occasionally perfumed with the ripe smell of meadow muffins -- once so bad that Dean cranked up his window and blurted, "Fuck! That smells like I shit in the car."
Sam hastily rolled his own window up. "Dude. Pig shit." He had the same spoiled-milk face that he used to have when he was five, which made Dean snort.
"Trust you to be the barnyard stank expert."
When they were about ten minutes past the pig farm, windows back down, Sam abruptly pitched forward from his slouch. "Dean. Make a right here."
The urgency in his voice made Dean jerk the wheel, slewing the car in the gravel at the edges of the intersection. "What?"
"There's a farm stand up ahead. Just follow the signs."
Dean straightened the car on the road Sam had pointed out, but left it idling in the lane. "Farm stand?" These words collided in his head like random concepts. "What the hell do we need with a farm stand?"
"Peaches."
"Seriously, dude? Peaches?"
"Foot. Gas. C'mon."
Though he heaved a sigh, Dean was happy enough to comply. With the shit they had stacked up against them, if there was some small thing that would turn Sammy's crank, Dean would do more than follow "Chin-drippin' Peaches" signs a quarter mile to indulge a whim.
As Sam conducted business with the gangly teenaged boy in the ramshackle stand, Dean ran a rag over the Impala's skin where the dirt of the gravel driveway had settled. When he looked up from where he'd bent to pick a piece of gravel from a tire tread, Sam was standing at the passenger door.
"Got your peach?"
In response, Sam lifted a paper bag about to brim over with peaches.
"You plan to eat all those, I guess we're not going to be leaving the hotel room for a couple of days." Dean got into the Impala. "In fact, maybe you need to get your own room."
Settling the bag between his feet, Sam said, "They're for both of us."
"Yeah, but I don't like peaches."
"You don't like peach pie. I bet you haven't had a raw peach in two and a half decades."
Dean snorted. "Like there's a difference."
"There's a big difference." Reaching into the bag, he palmed one and offered it to Dean.
"No thanks. And don't even think about eating it here. There will be no goddamn chin-drippin' in my baby."
By the time they found their way to a motel, the smell from Sam's bag of peaches had wafted up to Dean, sending him half out of his mind. His stomach seemed to agree, yowling demands every thirty seconds or so.
It was his turn to take care of registering. When he came out of the motel office, Sam was leaning against the Impala's trunk, face planted into a half-eaten peach. Juice ran between his fingers, down the back of his hand and past his wrist, and his eyes were closed in utter bliss. The sight rocketed Dean back to their childhood, how completely into something Sam could be -- comic books, chocolate milk, putting on a clean t-shirt straight from the Laundromat. Dean's breath caught in his chest at how young Sammy looked when he let himself be transported by something simple. Why the hell couldn't heaven give them both more of this?
Dean saw the spell of the moment drifting away like mist. "Dude. You have no idea how obscene that looks."
"Shut up and eat one." Sam underhanded a peach toward him.
Dean hefted it, savoring its weight and density, sketching his thumb over the barest hint of fuzz along its curve. He wondered if he could follow Sam's lead and give himself up wholly. He doubted it. Dad had taught him the briefest moment of inattention could bring on disaster.
"You're so thinking about breasts right now."
He shot Sam a look. "I'm always thinking about breasts."
"Stop being a chickenshit and eat."
Tentatively, he brought the dimple of the stem end toward his nose and took in the scent. Its perfume banishing all hesitation, Dean sank his teeth into the warm, yielding flesh of the peach. Sweet juice gushed into his mouth and dribbled onto his chin, prompting a tiny noise of pleasure to escape Dean's throat.
"I'm guessing you like that," Sam said, his voice thick with amusement.
Dean didn't answer, just made the filthiest sound he could possibly make from just having a bite of fruit.
Laughing softly, Sam skipped his peach pit across the parking lot gravel and bent down to take another peach from the bag balanced on the Impala's bumper.
***The End***
Prompt: Nights spent in the Impala. Sharing a meal in the front seat, sleeping in the back seat, looking at the stars, cuddling under a blanket for warmth as a storm rages outside the windows, the singing, the fighting, the crying... As scenic and descriptive as you can make it.