Notes: Pre-pilot, gen. A sort of love song to the Impala, by way of John. Thanks as always to freedomfry for declaring it fit for human consumption.
The Impala was Mary's, passed on to her by her older brother when he left for 'Nam, and held onto by her when he didn't come back. John bundles Sam and Dean into the wide backseat when it's all that's left of the home she'd made for them and the low black roof cuts off his view of her burning, burning and bleeding above him.
He drives away because there's nowhere else to go and nowhere's safe to stay.
Gas pedal firm beneath his foot; the Impala's basso rumble carries him forward over streaming blacktop, always forward because there's no going back; sometimes away from his boys, sometimes towards, thick leather holding him upright when his blood is soaking through his shirts.
When the boys are older he can turn his head from the driver's seat and see Mary's eyes in Dean's face, and in the rearview mirror too much of his own stubborn self in the set of Sam's jaw. Dean raids the glove compartment for John's CCR tapes and Mary's Zepplin, adding later his own Metallica to the collection, and Sam's long legs rub worn spots on the back of the front seat.
Dean picks up his first shotgun when he's eight, bleeds into the upholstery when he's ten, and until the day Sam leaves them, never stops carrying his little brother out of the fire, every day of his life. John knows deep in his bones that someday it'll be Dean behind the wheel, trunk full of weapons and gleaming metal body the only things holding off the nightmares. He hopes it's no day soon, but he knows better than to trust to hope.
He has his own nightmares about Sammy burning up on a ceiling somewhere, Sammy taken from a goddamned defenseless dorm room on the far end of the country. Gold on his hand and the Impala, that's all he has left of Mary -- that and two grown sons he doesn't know how to protect anymore. There's bad signs in the air, and old puzzle pieces starting to hint at a real ugly picture.
When it comes down to it, he'll press his keys into Dean's hand, watch him square his shoulders straight and tall for the first time in weeks and see a glint in his eye that's been gone since he stopped dialing 650 phone numbers. He'll give Dean his keys and point him at drownings in Devil's Lake, hauntings in Bucks County, and mass zombie outbreaks in the ruins of New Orleans because there's work to be done. Work enough for both of them, and if Dean's on the move he's not a target. If he's on the move he won't be there when John starts putting the ugly puzzle pieces together and maybe starts drawing the attention of things he doesn't want anywhere near his sons.
He'll turn Dean loose in the world because eventually all his roads lead back to Sam. Sam won't let John protect him anymore, but he can't stop Dean.
John's carved a bloody road in the world and can't see an end in sight yet, but he'll watch Dean drive away in Mary's car, trusting to silver and salt, steel and blood, the Winchester way.
He'll go to work and he'll watch him drive away, but not out of sight, because he likes to think he'll see his sons again.