Disclaimer: I own nothing Supernatural. And I drive an Omni.
Summary: Any car becomes a member of the family... A series of small scenes involving the Winchester family vehicle.
Extended Summary: Any car becomes a member of the family... A series of small scenes involving the Winchester family vehicle. Basically a bunch of drabbles and vignettes strung together on a vague viewpoint. Absolutely guarunteed there are NO 'Herbie' moments, because they don't belong.
A/N: Possibly AU in spots, for taking grand and general liberties with the unknown detail bits of Winchester family history, though some is sourced from the WB site's flash pages (cool stuff there!). Also, I've got the car being a standard, and I suspect it isn't, even though it feels like it should be. This one's rushed; I wanted to get out before the season 1 finale airs. Not beta'd, probably utter crap, apologies in advance. Mostly past up through to where the series begins. OneShot, Complete, Safe for all ages I think.
Anyways, please, please review and tell me where I went wrong.
Miles, Time, Music, Tears and Blood
by CaffieneKitty
Shop class is the last place for miracles.
"My God, John Winchester, where did you get that hunk of junk?"
John, deep under the hood, scrapes his knuckles against the manifold fumbling after a suddenly dropped nut. "Uh. Hi Mary. Just my final project." He subtly grabs a shop rag and clenches it over his knuckles to stop the bleeding, turns around. "Whaddaya think?"
Mary looks at the car and the teenager. "Looks like a lot of work."
He grins at her. "Some things are worth a lot of work."
"Hm," she says in consideration. "Maybe." Smiling, she walks off to class.
John ignores the hoots of his classmates and bends back under the hood, absently wiping a drop of blood from the engine.
o-o
Music soft, courting in moonlight. A marriage, no shoes tied to the bumper thank you. A happy rush to the hospital. Another. But not another. Not ever again. Reflected flames flicker in the front windshield as the reduced Winchester family huddles on the hood. Tears fall. Tears land.
o-o
John secures the boys in the back seat, both still sleeping. Doesn't even glance back at Mike and Kate's house, that sheltered them after... After.
He's left a note on Mike's kitchen table he thinks will pass as legal for the transfer of ownership of their garage into Mike's name, but John doesn't really care. He doesn't have time for anything more.
All the things he has left in this world are in this car now; a bag of scrounged clothing, two small sleeping boys and a pounding need for vengeance. Dean lolls to the side, arm slung across the third-hand baby seat full of Sam, hair in his face again, nose twitching. John brushes the hair away and gently closes the door, gets behind the wheel. Through the windshield, the street glitters fiercely with Christmas.
A breath like the gasp of a drowning man, quickly lost in the engine growl, and John pulls away into the night.
o-o
Time, and miles. More miles than time. New faces in the windows: "Hi, I heard you know/you've seen/I'm looking for/you've got a/can you help?" Motel parking lots. Library parking lots. A month on a farm in Fresno. Three weeks in Lincoln. Guns, knives, lessons and lore.
o-o
John stands in front of his car, feeling only vaugely like a fool, but a determined fool. Notebook in one hand, bag of... well, he could look it up in his notes, but really, he'd rather get this done before he has a rare attack of rationality. He has to try it out on something first, so why not the vehicle he and his boys are spending half their lives in.
He intones words in a long-dead language, focussed on not stumbling over the phoenetics, methodically throwing very specific dust on his car. At the end, he frowns, nods and closes the book. Looks at the dust, dulling what's left of the shine in the paint, trickling down the windows in beach-sand cirrus drifts.
John stands with his head tilted to the side for a moment, watching the sifting dust. Shakes his head. "I'll wash it off tomorrow. Promise." Walks away, leaving the dust to settle.
o-o
Miles. Gunpowder, soot, blood and incomprehensible ick. Nights spent sleeping at the roadside when hotels are elusive, air warm and moist like the cave of three hibernating bears. The odometer rolls over, again. Boys grow and change positions.
o-o
"Keep pressure on it!" Dean shouts, eyes white-wide above the steering wheel on the unlit dirt road.
"I know, I know! Just drive!" A dark pothole ambushes them and the jolt slides John's battered frame half off the back seat. Sammy hangs on to his father's arm, a reddened shirt pressed to the wound. "And try not to hit all the bumps!"
"Yeah, right." Gears grinding, a pedal not quite far enough down. Dean scoots forward in the seat. He knows the mechanics of a standard transmission, and he drove a tractor on Hayden's farm when they buried another weapons cache, but his legs aren't a match for his knowledge yet.
"It wasn't supposed to be there, Dad said it wouldn't be there! He said it'd be sleeping off it's last kill!"
"Ma-" another jounce, "Maybe Dad's just wrong sometimes, Dean!"
"Shut up! You're lucky he's out cold."
"The bleeding isn't slowing down, Dean!" Sam lets the sodden shirt drop and scrabbles under the back seat for the first aid kit and the rubber tubing.
A weave to the side, catching a bumper on the low dirt berm that marks the edge of the road. Dean shouts back. "Tourniquet!"
"I know, I'm on it! I'm not an idiot!"
"Come on, come on..." Dean mutters, torturing the transmission into a higher gear, racing towards the glimmer of light that means civilization. Blood trickles down John's arm, rolls slickly off fingers, splashes into the back seat carpet.
o-o
Years pass and distances grow, inside the car as well as out. Conversations that aren't happening are replaced by music in the rolling silence.
o-o
Rain sheets down the windshield, and silent angry tears fall in the darkness of the back seat. Sam wipes a sleeve across his eyes when the front passenger door opens. Dean hands a can of soda into the back seat wordlessly.
"Don't tell me he's right, Dean," Sam says after the door closes and the cans open.
"Okay, I won't." The soft fizzing of soda is a light treble to the bass of rain on the roof.
The empty driver's seat shakes as Sam kicks it from behind. "Nobody lives like this, Dean. Just us."
"...yeah? So?" The driver's seat shakes again, hit from behind. "You know if you get mud on the back of Dad's seat, he'll kick your ass."
"So what? There's been worse stuff there before." Kick. "One of these days, I'm leaving. I'm going away, somewhere where no one knows about or believes in any of this crap and I'll never come back. I hate him."
"Don't say that."
"Why not? It's true." Kicks the seat again. "I hate him. And I hate the way you get when you're around him. It's like part of you dissapears and there's a friggin robot there instead." Kick. "Why do you always do what he says?"
"Because, he's dad. And he is right."
Sam snorts. "Yeah, sure. Maybe one of these days I'll be right for a change and he'll drop dead of shock."
Thick silence fills the car. "You know, Sammy, sometimes you're a real little jerk." The passenger door opens. "Come back in when you're done power-sulking." Dean exits the car, leaving the soda on the dashboard and the angry teen in the back seat alone.
"Whatever." Kick.
o-o
Time passes and the music isn't enough to block the shouting. One leaves, another disappears and one is left alone. The music is the loudest then, to crowd out the lurking fears and to fill the empty car where a family used to be, on the long race west to California.
(end)