Old SPN ficlet, posted here for the sake of tidiness
I think everybody's already seen this, but I wanted to post my Gen Battle ficlet for the sake of having it here with everything else, where I can find it easily and because I must obey the OCD.
Title: Rust
Author: kalquessa
Fandom: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, character study
Word Count: 703
Characters: Baby and her boys
Season/Spoilers: Futurefic, no specific spoilers
Rating: G
Warnings: I'm not sure which I should warn more for: the fact that this fic involves the end of the world, or the fact that it has a tendency to smile and sigh contentedly from time to time. *shrug* Not bet'd.
Props to feliciakw for inventing the term "Impalapocafic" specially for this fic.
After the world ends, things quiet down a lot. The planet is demon-free (no one really knows for how long, but it's been a while and not a peep out of Hell, so maybe it'll stick) and the severely-diminished population means that even if there are still all kinds of other nasty things out there in the dark, there's just a lot fewer people for them to hassle. After a few years, just about everyone who's still alive is pretty well capable of taking care of themselves, whether you're talking about digging a well or getting out of a Wendigo attack alive. So yeah, it gets kind of quiet, just because not a lot of people need saving anymore.
Which is actually kind of nice.
She hasn't been much of anywhere in years. Sam has drawn up plans for everything from refining their own gasoline to outfitting her for steam power, but nothing's ever come of any of it. The roads get less drivable by the year, and anyway there's nowhere to go. The necessities of daily life have been whittled down to include only what they can get to and bring home by horseback.
She admits to experiencing a horrible feeling of abandonment the first time Dean got on a horse. This was quickly followed by justifiable amusement when he managed to get himself bucked off almost at once. Sam, watching from where he was leaning on her hood, laughed for both of them and murmured that it served the jerk right for cheating on her like that.
But horses are the way to go these days, and back at the beginning, you couldn't be too picky about your animals and whether or not they were willing to help you stay in the saddle or not. So Dean's long since adapted to life on horseback, though he spent a few too-sore-to-move mornings sprawled in her driver's seat, telling her how much better she was than any damn horse, God, how did he end up in a friggin' Eastwood flick? This made her feel somewhat better, as did the fact that a couple years later, he named his favorite dark bay Impala.
So she's been replaced by the grass-eating quadrupeds that her ancestors once made obsolete as a form of transportation, and these days she mostly sits out back of Bobby Singer's crumbling house, collecting dust that Dean obsessively removes with an old t-shirt. The boys will occasionally do some work on her, when one of them's worried or restless, but it's more a way for them to stay occupied than it is anything else. They talk about setting up an algae farm, outfitting her for biodiesel, and getting her back on the road one of these days, possibly with accessories inspired by the Road Warrior mythos. They say that the repair work they do when Bobby's overdue on his return from town is in preparation for the day when they put this plan into action. She's pretty sure this is all grade-A baloney, but she appreciates the thought.
She's discovered that it's really not so bad sitting still and taking it easy. After Ellen and Jo made it to the salvage yard and life settled into something less frantic and more routine, everyone started getting some much-needed rest. She figured that might as well include her. Once Jo started taking long naps in her back seat on nice days, boots hanging out the driver's side window, she decided she could get used to this. She was old before the world ended, but somehow she never thought about what it would be like to retire. Come to find out, she rather likes it.
All due respect to Neil Young, but she's pretty sure now that it's not "better to burn out than it is to rust." She never thought she'd get the chance to find out firsthand but for better or worse, the end of the world provided that chance not only to her, but to her boys as well. Some days that's the part she's most grateful for: the way things are going, it looks like they'll all get to do their rusting together. She could definitely get used to that idea.
Title: Rust
Author: kalquessa
Fandom: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, character study
Word Count: 703
Characters: Baby and her boys
Season/Spoilers: Futurefic, no specific spoilers
Rating: G
Warnings: I'm not sure which I should warn more for: the fact that this fic involves the end of the world, or the fact that it has a tendency to smile and sigh contentedly from time to time. *shrug* Not bet'd.
Props to feliciakw for inventing the term "Impalapocafic" specially for this fic.
After the world ends, things quiet down a lot. The planet is demon-free (no one really knows for how long, but it's been a while and not a peep out of Hell, so maybe it'll stick) and the severely-diminished population means that even if there are still all kinds of other nasty things out there in the dark, there's just a lot fewer people for them to hassle. After a few years, just about everyone who's still alive is pretty well capable of taking care of themselves, whether you're talking about digging a well or getting out of a Wendigo attack alive. So yeah, it gets kind of quiet, just because not a lot of people need saving anymore.
Which is actually kind of nice.
She hasn't been much of anywhere in years. Sam has drawn up plans for everything from refining their own gasoline to outfitting her for steam power, but nothing's ever come of any of it. The roads get less drivable by the year, and anyway there's nowhere to go. The necessities of daily life have been whittled down to include only what they can get to and bring home by horseback.
She admits to experiencing a horrible feeling of abandonment the first time Dean got on a horse. This was quickly followed by justifiable amusement when he managed to get himself bucked off almost at once. Sam, watching from where he was leaning on her hood, laughed for both of them and murmured that it served the jerk right for cheating on her like that.
But horses are the way to go these days, and back at the beginning, you couldn't be too picky about your animals and whether or not they were willing to help you stay in the saddle or not. So Dean's long since adapted to life on horseback, though he spent a few too-sore-to-move mornings sprawled in her driver's seat, telling her how much better she was than any damn horse, God, how did he end up in a friggin' Eastwood flick? This made her feel somewhat better, as did the fact that a couple years later, he named his favorite dark bay Impala.
So she's been replaced by the grass-eating quadrupeds that her ancestors once made obsolete as a form of transportation, and these days she mostly sits out back of Bobby Singer's crumbling house, collecting dust that Dean obsessively removes with an old t-shirt. The boys will occasionally do some work on her, when one of them's worried or restless, but it's more a way for them to stay occupied than it is anything else. They talk about setting up an algae farm, outfitting her for biodiesel, and getting her back on the road one of these days, possibly with accessories inspired by the Road Warrior mythos. They say that the repair work they do when Bobby's overdue on his return from town is in preparation for the day when they put this plan into action. She's pretty sure this is all grade-A baloney, but she appreciates the thought.
She's discovered that it's really not so bad sitting still and taking it easy. After Ellen and Jo made it to the salvage yard and life settled into something less frantic and more routine, everyone started getting some much-needed rest. She figured that might as well include her. Once Jo started taking long naps in her back seat on nice days, boots hanging out the driver's side window, she decided she could get used to this. She was old before the world ended, but somehow she never thought about what it would be like to retire. Come to find out, she rather likes it.
All due respect to Neil Young, but she's pretty sure now that it's not "better to burn out than it is to rust." She never thought she'd get the chance to find out firsthand but for better or worse, the end of the world provided that chance not only to her, but to her boys as well. Some days that's the part she's most grateful for: the way things are going, it looks like they'll all get to do their rusting together. She could definitely get used to that idea.