Paradise by the dashboard light

by RocknRollagirl

Because as long as he stood there, just looking, he could still see the car the way it used to be. ("Everybody loves a Clown" missing scene.)

Hey there:)

After months of staying in the shadows and simply reading all the awesome stories on this side I finally decided to give it a try and post something. I´m pretty new in the supernatural fandom and still stuck in season 2 where the actual watching is concerned, but I have to confess that the internet has spoiled me thoroughly:)

After watching "Everybody loves a Clown" and "Bloodlust" i was kinda puzzled that the Impala was practically trash in the final Scene of "Elac" and whole and shiny again in the opening of the following Episode, without anyone really loosing a word about the fact that Dean seemed determined to destroy it beforehand. I´m aware this has probably been done before, but I still felt tempted to add my own version of the time in between:)

The title was inspired by lyrics from the so called song by the band Meatloaf, and, as you´ve probably already guessed, neither the song nor the show Supernatural belong to me...

Betaed by the the wonderful Wynter Sprite:)

"Though it´s cold and lonely in the deep dark night,

I can see paradise by the dashboard light."

(Meatloaf)

He has worked so long on it now - basically every minute of the last two weeks that hadn´t been occupied with sleeping or forcing down food in order not to worry Bobby and Sam or avoiding conversation with the aforementioned two - but now that it was done, he felt at a loss as to what to do. The Impala stood in the same spot of Bobby's yard it did since it was towed here. The spot she had stood when he first tried to fix her, when he grabbed that metal bar and shattered her trunk lid in a moment of utter despair, irrationally thinking it may be better to destroy the last thing dear to him with his own hands before that, too, was ripped away from him. After the force of the impact made him loose his grip on the bar and he couldn´t summon the strength to pick it up again, he stood there, panting and pretending the drops on his face were just sweat, staring with empty eyes at the car that had endured it all with silent stoicism. The battered and broken form had looked so abandoned, so far from the sanctuary it had been to him all these years, the only constant in his life, that he suddenly couldn't stand seeing it like that for only one second longer. He had grabbed his tools once more, throwing himself fervently back into the work as if he could somehow make the damage he'd inflicted up to her again. He just couldn't bear the thought he'd failed his car, too. Plus, as long as he was busy fixing her, he had no reason to start thinking about the After. The moment he would have to really talk to his brother again, the moment they would have to leave Bobby's to face the world again, alone, this time.

Now the freshly delivered hood shimmered innocently in the late afternoon sun, the car looking just like in the night before the accident –if not better thanks to a fresh varnish - to anyone but Dean. He alone knew that, with the new front door, the small scratch where Sam went a little too close to a garden fence in his first secret driving lesson with Dean in Someplace, Utah, vanished. That the new driver's seat didn't fit perfectly to his Dads shoulders as the old one did, through more than two decades of daily use. That all his tapes were destroyed in the accident. But even though he knew all this, the familiar sight of the Impala made breathing a little more easy than it had been these last few weeks.

So now Dean stood there, staring at the driver's door and couldn't find the courage to open it. To sit where he'd sat so many times, hearing the well known sound of the engine he'd recognize anywhere. Because as long as he stayed here, just looking, he could still see the car the way it used to be. Could imagine his father had just gone to grab the keys before coming back and opening the door with the screeching sound the old hinges always made. The moment he'd get in, this would be gone forever, replaced by the new impressions of this car that was both his Baby and not.

"Hey, Dean, Bobby says dinner is…wow!"

Dean had jumped at the sound of his brother's voice so close to him when he hadn't heard him coming. That happened too often lately. Belatedly, he realized that Sam had gone silent without finishing his sentence, eyes fixed solely on the car. Dean didn't need to see the tension in his shoulders and the lips that were tightly pressed together to know what Sam felt. That was something, maybe the only thing, that hadn't changed, even though he often refused to acknowledge it now. The big brother part of Dean's being knew Sam was in just as much pain as he was in. Hell, he' even said as much in the last real talk they'd had before Dean took on the car. But another part of him, a part he had never really known so far, was just too weary, too lost in his own grief to care. A few months ago he'd have been disgusted with himself for thinking this, but now he even lacked the strength for that.

"She's… beautiful."

Dean wasn´t sure if Sam had intended him to hear that; he had barely whispered it without taking his eyes off of the Impala. His brother sounded amazed, touched and full of sorrow at the same time. He sounded small. Dean was reluctant to look over, scared to see this mixture of deeply entrenched grief and sympathy and understanding that had been in Sam's eyes whenever he'd seen him since Dad… the look that made him want to start bawling and throwing punches at the same time because he didn't need his brothers comfort, dammit, because Sam couldn't possibly understand how he felt.

All he saw when he finally looked over now was uncertainty. What this would mean, for them. In a strange, disturbing way, it relieved Dean to see that Sam was, despite all his efforts, just as lost in this as he was. The youngest Winchester had started to move, slowly circling around the Impala, taking in her sight from all angles. The open adoration and awe that lay in the glances he cast Dean upon discovering all the small things he had managed to restore made his cheeks burn and he quickly bent down to pick up his tools.

Beautiful. Kneeling beside the passenger door, seeing the light that announced the nearing sunset reflecting in the black sheets, he found he agreed with Sam. Dad would've liked to see her like this.

The thought came out of nowhere, forming a lump in his throat and making the outlines of his surroundings swim, but before he could even brush it away, he felt a hand on his shoulder. "Dad would've loved this." And the hand was gone, removed voluntarily to avoid being pushed away. When his brother spoke up again his voice sounded almost normal, the emotions contained in his previous sentence carefully kept out "This is amazing, man, how did you do it?" Dean immediately launched himself into an answer, explaining the steps in the fixing process in more detail than necessary. Suspecting Sam didn't really want to know how exactly he fixed the engine, he recognized the question as the lifeline Sam had probably intended it to be, grateful for the possibility to simply talk to his brother again. Even though they had lived in the same place for the last three weeks, they had barely talked, apart from thw occasional murmured 'Good night' and the forced small talk the kept up during meals to keep Bobby from worrying, because every word had rang with echoes of their previous fights.

"I'm dealing with Dad's death, are you?" "What you're doing now, it's too little, too late." "I'm not alright, but neither are you."

Once said, they words couldn't be taken back, and neither brother dared to bring them up again. Sam had tried to clean the air between them a few times, but Dean had always sneaked out, not prepared to face yet another discussion and figuring that the best thing to avoid serious topics was avoiding conversation altogether. Only now, rambling on about replaced door handles and rusty wheel caps he realized how much he had missed talking to Sam. Seeing that lopsided grin he always wore when he was amused by something, his eyes bright with mirth when he teased Dean about the dedication with which he had worked on every so small detail, considering he'd already managed to drop two plates and a coffee cup whilst washing the dishes at Bobby's.

"Yeah, well, what did you think I kept you around for so long?"

"Oh bite me, jerk."

"Be careful what you wish for, bitch."

The words were said without heat, not yet as playful and teasing as they would have been once, but Dean realized it was the first time since…since their father died, that they were spoken at all. Sam seemed to have similar thoughts because his nearly relaxed expression sobered as he met Dean's eyes. "Have you tried to drive already?" And there he was, back at the same problem he started with. Not really trusting his voice all of a sudden, he decided to simply shake his head. Apparently, he didn't have to speak for Sam to hear him, because he saw his brothers eyes soften. Damn this puppy dog look!

"Do you want to?"

He could barely stop himself from shaking his head again. Get it together, Winchester! "Yeah, sure, why not." His hands slid in his pockets and came up empty. "I just have to, um, get the keys."

Sam's hand at his shoulder stopped his turn halfway. His little brother was actually big enough he could easily dangle Dean's set of keys in front of his eyes. "You were looking for these?" Dean raised his eyebrows in pretended annoyance, but before he reached out to snatch them from Sam's grip he noticed the differences. Since the day he turned 16, he'd carried his set of keys for the Impala around with him wherever he went, as if they were his most valuable possession (which they were, if he was being honest). Only now he realized that he hadn't touched nor seen them since the afternoon before the accident a million years and four weeks back, and that he had no idea where they had been this whole time. Not that he had needed them, the car having been a wreck and all, but it was kind of unsettling that he hadn´t even realized he'd missed them until now. Way to keep your head in the game, Dean.

Apparently, Sam had a better idea of where the keys have been. By the looks of it, he replaced the rusty key-ring with a new one and attached a snap-hook to it. And there was a key-ring pendant, a small stripe of dark leather that had `Dean' stitched on it with a silver colored thread. Just `Dean', no last name, because Dad had drilled into them since they were old enough to write that their real name should appear on as little paper (or motel wallpaper or any other material little Sammy used for his first tries at the ABC) as possible and Dean was glad Sam hadn´t went for any of the thousands of aliases they had used over the years. Apparently he had found that `Dean' was enough.

The same Sam who was now looking at him with a mixture of hope, something Dean might have called fondness -if he used words like that- and uncertainty. Uncertainty, which grew with every second Dean stood there silently staring at his new key set.

A nervous Sam was always a rambling Sam. "You know, I just thought it was more practical like this, to, you know, hook it in your belt or something. It's nearly impossible to lose them, then. Not that you've ever lost the keys, but, better safe than sorry, right?" he ventured, the hand that had held the keys in front of Dean's eyes slowly sinking down. "And about the name tag, Bobby had so much of this thread left and the color matched the leather well, and I just thought you might like it…" His voice trailed off, eyes now on the ground. "Yeah well, I think you can change it back pretty easily…"

"No, don't" Dean reached out and took the keys in his hand, thumb trailing over the embroidery. At any other time he might have called his brother an old lady and teased him for his household skills, but first, he knew that Sam learned the art of stitching at the age of thirteen, when he first had to patch up his injuried family after a hunt gone wrong, and second, he really was grateful. "It looks cool, thank you, man." He felt his lips form the first real smile in over a month, and even though he was a little out of practice, it somehow felt right. Even more so when it was answered by a real smile from his brother, the whole dimples–and-teeth-showing, lighting-his-face-up-to-his-eyes-deal.

Then, feeling his chick flick moment warning system going off, he gave Sam a not-so-gentle pat on the back to restore the balance of the universe and opened the driver´s door.

Sam took a step back as if to give him some space, and Dean quickly dropped in the seat before he lost his courage once more. He kept his eyes fixed on the steering wheel when he turned the key in the ignition, scared to look over to the empty passenger side. The engine came to live, humming steadily and soothingly like it used to, the front lights casting dancing shadows over the junkyard in the early evening. Maybe it was the well known feeling of the wheel in his hands, maybe the smell of the car itself, maybe the sound of the engine, but suddenly he felt like he was suffocating, drowning in the memories that were tied to this place. Hearing his Dad's voice giving him his first driving instructions, Moody Blues´ Nights in white satin lulling him to sleep during endless nights spent on the highway, five year old Sammy´s voice trying to form sentences from the letters of license plates and then the crash. The sound of two tons of metal connecting at full speed with the Impalas side, the groans that bended the frame, the shattering windows, the screams.

"Everything alright?" Sam's voice broke through the fog, if only barely. He returned to the junkyard, felt the salty drops on his face and was briefly glad that it was so dark already, that Sam could pretend he didn´t see him cry.

He tried to loosen his death grip on the steering wheel and take a deep breath. For a moment, he wasn't sure if Sam's question had regarded the car or him, but the shaky "Yeah, everything is good," he managed could probably tell Sam everything he wanted to know.

"Okay then," he murmured to himself before he put the car into drive. The headlights followed his brother's silhouette in the fast falling darkness as they slowly made their way over to the entrance. Stopping under the sign, Sam turned around and waited for his brother, who had used the short drive to wipe his eyes and search for his composure with little success. When Dean reached him, he bent down so he was on eye level with the window. "Take your time, I'm sure Bobby won't mind." His brother was about to turn around and leave Dean to the shadows and voices and darkness when he felt his arm reach out and grab Sam's jacket. "Drive with me?"

The words had left his lips before he could really think about it and now they hung in the air between them, the silence loud enough to make each of them hear what hasn't been said aloud.

I´m scared. I need you. Don´t leave me.

It was dark enough that Dean could pretend he didn't see the single tear rolling down his brother's face when he said, "Yeah, sure, why not."

I am scared as well. I need you too. You are not alone in this.

The passenger door creaked and Sam stuffed his lanky frame in the car, sitting next to Dean just like he had the whole last year. And so often before. Hearing his brother breathing next to him silenced the voices and made the screams stop for the time being; seeing his face illuminated by the dashboard light made the darkness seem less frightening. "Alright, then?" You don´t have to do this, but if you want to, I´m ready.

"Yeah," Dean replied. "Let´s go".