With and Without (Destiel)

Chapter 5: Don't Play 'Heat of the Moment" aka I Really Am Screwed

        As soon as Dean turned the engine on, “Eye of the Tiger” came on at full blast, causing Sam to jump in surprise and bang his head on the Impala’s ceiling.

         “What the hell, Dean?” Sam shouted, covering his ears.

        "What do you expect me to say, Sammy? It’d be an insult to this song if it wasn’t on full volume.” Dean shouted back before Sam turned to volume off. Usually, when his younger brother was making a face as if he was going to murder both the Survivor tape and the Impala as well as Dean, Dean would hardly be able to contain his grin at how ridiculous Sam looked (his face was somewhere in between a I-can't-get-my-stupid-hair-out-of-my-face and over concentrated frown that was nowhere near dangerous looking). Today, he found, it was much easier.

        “Not at the expense of my eardrums,” Sam muttered, with a roll of his eyes. “And don’t you dare say anything about me shutting my cake-hole. Come to think of it, why do you say cake-hole? Why not pie-hole? I mean, you love pie to the point that I think you’re secretly having an affair with it.” Sam continued, cutting off an objectionable Dean.

         “Hey, pie is the best thing to have ever happened to this world.” Dean argued defensively. “And I say cake-hole because, well, just cause!”

        Sam pulled another bitchface at Dean's fantastic logic and slouched back in his seat. He didn’t dare put his feet up on the dashboard. Sam shuddered, remembering the time he was stupid enough to try it and how Dean had gone berserk over Sam’s ‘mistreatment’ of his precious car. Like, seriously Dean needed to speak to a therapist about his clinginess to the Impala.

        Dean pulled the Impala out of the driveway, loving the feel of the steering wheel under his palms, loving the smooth, leathery texture of the interior of the car, loving how it glided down the street with ease–

        “Hey, Dean, it looks like you need gas.” Sam offered.

        Dean looked at the gas gauge. Okay, that was one thing he did not love about his car. “I still love you, Baby, though.” He murmured.

        “Uh, Dean? You want some alone time?”

        “Shut up Sammy.”

        When they arrived at Sam’s high school, Sam stepped out with his long legs – how was it that he could be that tall – and gave a quick wave of goodbye to Dean. Dean grinned back at his younger brother, and then felt the smile slip off of his face as he drove away.

        Dean arrived at the garage a half an hour later. It wasn't a very neat palce, at the field outside that was the front yard was littered with cars of all different makes and models, many several decades old.

        He was late to his job, he knew, but he also knew that Bobby was out of town so he couldn’t give him hell for it. Bobby was a great guy, and Dean loved him as if he was an Uncle of some sort. Of course, that didn’t mean he couldn’t beat Dean’s ass. Or, Dean reasoned, refuse to pay him. Though he thought Bobby would be more inclined to do the first one.

        Dean thought of his boss (as if he ever called him that), a fond half-smile forming on his face that disappeared as soon as it had come. Dismissing the behavior he knew wasn’t like him (and dismissing the further thought that he wasn’t sure when the last time was that he had actually been himself), Dean set to work, taking out the toolbox and opening the hood of some old, run-down car. His job was to fix up the cars well enough that they would sell, and it was an easy, if sometimes boring job, but it had paid. It had paid for the last six years; it had been his summer job in his last two years of high school and his full-time job since he had had to stick around and help out somehow.

        For several hours Dean worked, the only sound the creaking of the rusty tools and the occasional slam of a car’s hood, the only smell oil, along with Dean’s sweat. He stopped a few times while he worked, to retrieve a beer from the kitchen inside or steal some other food from Bobby’s garage. After his pseudo lunch, Dean turned from working on the hoods to examining the machinery on the underside of the cars, rolling underneath them on a creeper.

        When Dean got under the car - it was a nice car, a 1969 Pontiac Firebird, though nowhere near as awesome as Dean's Chevy - he breathed in deeply. The smell of a car was odd – a mixture of dirty metal and rust and gasoline – but strangely soothing to Dean. He looked up and began to attack it with a wrench, sometimes muttering apologies to the car because it reminded him of his own Impala.

        Halfway through, Dean gave it a rest, relaxing underneath the car. He found himself looking up at the extremely heavy vehicle practically on top of him, and wondered what would happen if the car suddenly collapsed in on him. How would all of that weight feel, before his body was finally crushed? The curiosity scratched at him, until he realized what he had been thinking of. Slightly scared, although Dean would not admit it had someone been there, Dean extracted himself from beneath the car and retreated to Bobby’s bathroom.

        And there Dean stood, once again in front of the mirror, just as he had done earlier. With the same emptiness inside of him and the same dead look in his eyes. “Look at yourself,” he whispered to his reflection, the ache inside of him growing as he formed the words. “Look at the shit you’ve turned into.”

        And he looked at himself with so much blame and hatred that Dean couldn’t exactly pin on something in particular, but he knew it was valid, all of it. And he couldn’t place a finger on what was going on with him, not quite yet.

        The sound of Dean’s cell phone ringing resonated through the air, startling Dean out of his brooding thoughts. He flipped it open without hesitation.

         “Hey, Sammy. Do you need me to pick you up from the library or -”

        “This isn’t Sam, ya idjit.” Came the response.

        “Oh, hey, Bobby. How’s the vacation?”

        “Well, Rufus ain’t exactly tea and cookies, but he's got a nice place to crash, I'll give him that.” In the background, Dean heard a crash, and then: “Balls!”

        Dean chuckled a little. “I’m mostly done for today, just got one car left.”

        “Gettin’ slow, are we?” Dean made a face at the phone. “So, Dean, I was just checking in. Don’t blow up the place while I’m gone.”

        “See you around, Bobby.”

        Dean hung up. And then sighed.

        He should probably go finish fixing the car.