Song Remains the Same

Chapter 62: Cupid's Stupid

"Love was the most savage monster of all."
- Rick Riordan

Ten Days Later

It was around one in the afternoon and pretty hot outside for mid-May. In the somewhat-forgiving shade of the covered garage adjacent to Bobby Singer's house, the Chevelle sat with its hood yawning widely open. Hair of the Dog played on a classic rock station in the background. Bent over the car engine, Alex wiped her brow with the back of her hand, momentarily pausing the work. Her hair was in a messy ponytail and she wore long-sleeve navy blue coveralls over her regular clothes. Grease and grime smudged her face, clothing, and hands; her fingernails were lined in black. Perspiration wiped away, Alex returned to deftly twisting the torque wrench. The tool produced the familiar clicking sound as she finished installing the last spark plug. She went by feel carefully, waiting for the plug to feel settled and tight but not too tight. One more click... and she was satisfied, pulling the wrench and socket out then sticking the ignition wire back into the shaft above the new spark plug.

Alex rested for a moment, leaning with her hands spread wide to brace against the car. Lazily, she let her eyes wander the car engine. Cylinder head, fuel pressure regulator, intake manifold, intercooler, battery. Below all the top components she could see glimpses of the charge pipe, the valves, the distributor, the timing belt. Engines were pretty cool. All these parts on their own didn't do very much, and if one was out of sync with the others it could mess up the entire function of the car. Harmony. Engines demanded harmony. It was therapeutic to figure engines out: getting them to work, maintaining their functionality. But it also made her miss Dean, of course, to do any kind of engine stuff. She'd learned most of this from Dean after all—Sam definitely wasn't mechanically minded. He had a knack with computers and technology that Dean and Alex for sure didn't have.

Alex refocused and cleaned up the top of the car battery with her rag then shook her head ruefully. Bobby didn't take care of his car well enough, that was for sure, and he was lucky Alex had thought to take a look at it when she had. His spark plugs, for one, had been appallingly corroded. She'd spent all morning out here giving his car a little TLC: tightening loose valve nuts, inspecting the rotor shaft, cleaning the air filter, replacing the spark plugs, changing the oil, replacing some shoddy old wires and coils. Bobby knew how to do all this stuff—he'd been a mechanic by trade before he'd been a hunter after all—but he just didn't seem to like working on cars anymore. Alex however liked it plenty and was happy to do it for him... it was a hobby that was intensely useful and made her feel smart, relaxed even. And she needed to feel relaxed right now.

She was more high-strung than she was letting on, and was it any wonder? With everything that had happened in the past couple weeks, she was a little on the insomniac side, a little on the worried-as-hell side. What a fucking year, huh? Alex shook her head. Mental note: see if I can track down Jamie when I've got a spare few days. She had to be out there somewhere. But her phone was off and she'd seemingly vanished off the map completely. When Alex thought of Jamie, she thought of Jamie's brother and her mood sobered a little. The Glen thing had shaken Alex's life and mind up not once but twice. She shivered a little, remembering Cas burning that asshole to dust. Cas had never seemed so furious or frightening. Glen was definitely, definitely dead. So... why was Alex still having nightmares about it? By it, she meant what had happened. What Glen tried to do. It had impacted her more than she'd acknowledged, maybe even to herself. She had never been one to look at a strange man and feel a shrinking sense of fear before Glen's assault, but now she found herself suddenly cautious and nervous around big, unfamiliar men.

It did help explain why she'd given in so readily to Dean's appeal for her to take the bench for awhile. Her self-preservation made sidelining herself an easier decision than it would have been before—and Sam was scary, no doubt, dangerous even. Even though it still logically felt like the right move to have made for herself, Alex felt bad and guilty knowing that Dean was out there alone with robo-Sam. What if he needed her help? And wouldn't he be lonely, sort of? What if Sam hurt him or didn't have his back?