To the Metal
Annaleise Marie

Summary: Dean Winchester loves cars. The Impala, of course, but also the cars he, Jo, and Ash lift. It's a good system, a comfortable set-up. Then Sam Campbell is thrown into the mix and turns the whole thing upside-down. [non-related Sam and Dean] [warnings: slash, language, violence, graphic sexual situations, illegal activity] [mentions of het pairings]

Chapter One: Copilot

AN: Don't know where it came from, but it was just suddenly there and insistent so here ya go. Hope you enjoy!

X

Dean Winchester loved cars; this had been a well-known fact since he was "knee-high to a bullfrog", as his Uncle Bobby liked to say. His father had owned a '67 Chevy Impala, and some—maybe all—of Dean's favorite memories from his childhood and teen years were centered around that car. Riding in the backseat, then eventually shotgun, as he and his dad traveled America, both desperate to find something after his mother's death, though neither was sure what; fixing her, or even just tuning her up on hot summer days when the loose dirt clung to his jeans and his sweat-soaked skin and Bobby handed him a beer because hell, Dean was old enough, had seen enough; the wheel in a white-knuckled grip under his fingers as he sped down I-29 with Rhonda Hurley's mouth encasing his dick, her hands squeezing his balls just this side of pain.

So yeah, the Impala was his favorite, his baby since he had turned sixteen and his dad had tossed the keys over with a gruff, "Take care of her," before he climbed into the beat-up old truck he had bought off of Bobby. But even though the Impala was his favorite, Dean had a distinct appreciation of every car.

Especially the ones he stole.

X

"Fuck, Ash, I'm fucking telling you, we're fucking fucked here." Dean cut the wheel hard, the back wheels of the Lamborghini Gallardo sending up smoke as they lost traction for only half a beat. The acrid smell of burning rubber barely reached his nostrils before the car recovered itself and shot forth once more, the speedometer needle edging—rocketing, more like—up to 80; quite a feat for the narrow, mildly congested city traffic Dean had found himself in.

It was a rookie mistake. When I-95 approaches Miami, you can go right or left. One side of the highway's split takes you around the city on wide-open smooth asphalt, the other leads you deep into the bellows of the city. And Dean Winchester, in his high of the power of the car, the thrill of the chase, with blue and red lights fading in and out of the rearview mirror with every fluctuation of the beautiful car's speed, had picked the wrong fucking one.

"Man, I don't know why you're so panicked. Mellow," Ash's voice instructed from the other end of the phone in a lazy drawl.

Dean knew it was just the way the other man's voice worked, knew that even as the words lazily left his mouth Ash was pulling up the program he had written for just such occasion, pulling Dean up on the map, hacking his GPS, and forming a plan with that look of intense concentration.

Dean knew all of that, but still— "Goddammit, Ash, get me the fuck out of here."

"Steady…" That stupid relaxed drawl. "Steady…" There was a pregnant pause as the Lamborghini rocketed through three city blocks and Dean let out a desperate sigh of relief that by some grace of god the lights were green and the late-night city traffic was moving and scant. "Now! Right!"

And Dean cut the wheel, his vision blurring with the speed of the turn, and rocketed down the side street as instructed. He had no sooner made the turn than Ash shouted for him to turn left, which he did, resulting in an unnerving vertigo along with an adrenaline dump that, as always, settled itself happily in Dean's crotch.

He shot through four blocks before Ash's next instruction, and now the signs to re-enter I-95 were within eyeshot. He shot up the entry ramp and merged smoothly, cutting through traffic and hopping the steadily-moving lines of cars until he had put a good twenty miles between him and downtown, merging smoothly onto FL-91.

"Alright man," Ash said with a low chuckle. "I'm not seeing any sign of pursuit. Far as I can tell—and that's pretty damned far, y'know—they think you're still in the city. Take it easy."

Dean exhaled a sigh. He was trembling as the last of the adrenaline surged through him, gradually coming down from the high. Fuck, that had to be one of his favorite feelings in the world, the high he got from the heist. Second only to sex. Maybe. They were close, in Dean's mind, those two experiences. Hard to say which he'd pick if both were actually offered up to him to choose from.

He settled into his seat. He had nearly nineteen hundred miles to cover before he reached the Roadhouse. Long stretches of time spent on the 91, 75, 24, 70…

I-70 would take him straight through Lawrence. He let his mind wander to the idea of stopping in, just for a minute, just for an hour… But just as quickly, he tossed the idea. Didn't have time, didn't have even a minute, an hour. He was driving a lifted car worth two hundred and sixty thousand. He couldn't be stopping and risking it, after all of the planning and prep for the heist, just for…

Just for what, exactly?

He pushed the thought from his mind. Didn't matter, he told himself. Didn't matter, didn't have time.

So he hit 75, and 24, and he didn't stop on 70, or 29, or 80. He edged the car to recklessly fast speeds as he blared through Kansas—get through fast, like ripping off a bandaid—his hawk-like eyes peeled for cops.

He finally arrived at the Roadhouse and was no sooner out of the car than Jo and Ash were coming out of the door, a folded up car cover under Jo's arm. In a second they had the car obscured—it would only be there a few hours, anyway, before their partners lifted it in turn, ready to flip it. They did quick work, the job done, cut and dry, within three days. Dean wasn't sure how, but he didn't really care, either. He wasn't the brains of the operation; hell, even Ash, with his admittedly abbreviated MIT education, wasn't the brains. Comparatively, the Roadhouse crew was pretty low-down in the racquet. But Dean got paid—and well—to drive powerful, expensive cars like a bat out of hell, and that was all he needed to know.

The three of them made their way into the Roadhouse, empty in the early hour, and Dean took a seat at the bar, all of his energy sapped now that the job was over. He fumbled in the pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. No smoking in the cars he stole, but fuck if a cigarette after a heist was only trumped by a cigarette after a really good fuck. As he lit up, Jo set up a row of shot glasses and splashed in generous servings of Jack. The three of them each reached for one and tossed it back, teeth set against the initial burn.

Ash let out a slow whoop. "Alright then. Job well done." His eyes cut to Dean, amusement lifting up the corners of his mouth. "Well, except for that freakout of yours. What was that?"

"Fuck you, Ash. You try suddenly being in downtown Miami with police hot on your ass after lifting a Lambo." Dean's words were short, clipped, but the tell-tale signs of amusement glittered in his eyes and Ash just scoffed.

"Whatever, man. Pulled your ass out of the fire." He tossed back another shot. "You're welcome, by the way."

Jo rolled her eyes and slid a Pabst across the bar to Ash before filling up a rocks glass with whisky for Dean and then hoisting herself up to sit on the bar. Ash's arm automatically snaked around her hips to rest his hand on her thigh as he leaned against the bar, and Dean marveled at what a weird, but perfect, couple they had turned out to be.

It hadn't always been like this, their group dynamic. Back in the day Ash had still been mission control, sure, but Jo had been Dean's partner when she was eighteen and he was twenty. She rode shotgun, and yeah she saved Dean's ass a few times with her quick thinking and biting charm. They had been pulled over once, actually forced to stop, and Dean had no idea, no clear memory how she did it—although that was probably because he had been focused entirely on not blowing his load in his pants like a preteen in front of her—but she got them out of it, convinced the cops to let them drive merrily away in the stolen car, without even running the plates.

"Might not have freaked out if I still had a copilot." Dean grinned wickedly at her.

"Might not have made it out of Miami if I were there distracting you," Jo returned dryly.

"Touché."

"Well I don't know about you kids, but I'm getting uncomfortable with this whole stroll down sexual memory lane." Ash slammed back the rest of his beer.

Dean and Jo chuckled. Ash was full of shit—it had never once occurred to him to actually be bothered by any references to Dean and Jo's history. Cause yeah, a handful of times—okay, a lot of times—back when Jo was riding shotgun with Dean, they had fucked, high on the heist, on the power. They had even flirted with the idea of trying to go from pleasenowneedyouharderfasternow to loveyoumakelovetomemineonlymine, but yeah, neither of them could quite bring themselves to do it. And then Jo had fallen for Ash, and they had that mineonlymine thing going on, and Dean even asked Jo once why she had been with him when it was so glaringly obvious when she found Ash that she had been craving, needing that sort of thing all along. And Jo fixed him with that heavy stare, that knowing smile playing on her lips, and she leaned close and whispered that, "Sometimes, Dean, you just need, really need, the feeling of something powerful under you."

And yeah, Dean could get that. He could totally get that. Maybe not with sex as much, because he liked soft and curves and pliant wet where he was the something powerful, but yeah, he got it. Because that was what he loved most about the heist, what had him creaming his pants a few times in the first moments of the getaway, what had him pulling over on dusty back roads to pull Jo into his lap and fuck up into her hard in the first place, feel her soaking the opening of his jeans and underwear that he couldn't be bothered to pull all the way off as she came on his dick and he spilled into her, his vision whiting out. It was that power, that high, that drove it really, that got him off.

So yeah, the point was, that what he and Jo had had, that limited, desperate, flash-in-the-pan physical thing, wasn't comparable to the unfathomable force that was Ash and Jo. And Dean knew that. And Ash knew that. So Dean and Ash were always good, at ease around each other. Simple as that.

Ash cracked open a second beer, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully at Dean. "You may be right, though. About the copilot thing."

Dean chuckled and pulled an ashtray towards him. "You got another one of her squirreled away somewhere? Cause gotta tell you, Ash, I'm not up for the tension from all sides that would come from Jo riding with me again."

"Nah but there's this kid. Highly recommended by Pamela. Wants you to take him under your wing." Ash shrugged as though this were the most reasonable request anyone had ever made. Of course, Pamela was their boss. Like, the big scary sort of boss. If there was anyone in the operation that Pamela answered to, Dean didn't know who.

But still, saddling Dean with a kid… Speaking of. "What do you mean by kid, man? Cause really, all you need to add to grand theft auto if we get busted is kidnapping and transporting a minor over state lines." It was one of the reasons that Dean wouldn't let Jo enter the game until she was eighteen, despite her dad being in it. Her family may be no stranger to the risk, to the business, but Dean didn't need added risk.

Oh, and statutory rape. There was that. But Ash had distinctly said he, so that wasn't so much of a worry.

"Nineteen," Ash answered and rolled his eyes when Dean groaned. "Not that young, man. And apparently he's a smart little shit. Like, full-ride to an ivy school smart."

Dean snorted. "Yeah? So why isn't he there, living a perfect little college boy life? Why does he want in on this circuit?"

"Dunno man; not my place to ask." Yeah, Ash may say that, but the fact was that he didn't have a flying fuck to give about the why of it. Pamela had handed down an order, and like it or not, it was gonna happen. "Anyway, kid's name is Sam Campbell. He should be arriving some time this evening. Lifting the Aston Martin in two days; Pamela wants you guys to get a feel for each other before setting out."

"Great," Dean muttered. He just knew this kid was going to be a liability, which in their line of work was, at the very least, a giant pain in the ass. Besides, Dean was twenty-three. He wasn't sure he had the patience to haul some teenager (legally an adult or not) across America and back in high-stakes heists. Especially one who was completely green. At least Jo had been brought up in the life.

He tried to imagine Sam Campbell, tried to see how he could spin a kid like that to be an asset. He imagined a short, nerdy guy. Probably glasses and messy hair. Gangly, like he hadn't quite gotten used to his body after his last—probably recent—growth spurt. Bookish. Weak.

How the hell was he going to work with that?

X

Sam Campbell arrived at eight that evening, on the dot—exactly the time Google Maps had told Dean he would be arriving given the time Ash said he set out from Palo Alto. Of course, that meant that he had likely travelled the speed limit the whole way. So the kid wasn't a wheel man. That was fine, Dean supposed, because the odds of him relinquishing the high of the getaway to anyone was slim-to-none, but it was still somehow discouraging. How could some nineteen year old kid who drove the speed limit in a—Dean looked out the window as the kid unloaded his stuff—in a freaking Volvo compete in this game? Fuck, he was so fucked.

So he settled his surly ass back on his barstool, lit another cigarette, and bullshitted with Ellen while he waited for the kid to make his way inside. Anything to distract him from the impending doom of this forced partnership. Ellen twisted her lips knowingly when the door opened and Dean dropped his head at the sound, shooting him a look that said play nice.

What she said out loud, however, was a simple, "Remember your first game."

Which didn't help, because Dean's first lift had gone off without a hitch. Well, without much of a hitch. So the Porsche had wound up in the San Francisco Bay. He had gotten away, the car had been fished out, insurance had paid to repair it lickety-split, and a week later Dean stole it again. And okay, the 918 Spyder was nearly a million dollar car and Pamela had reduced his ten percent by half in her displeasure at the slight hiccup in plans. He had still gotten it in the end, hadn't he?

But he smiled at Ellen, nodded subtly, and turned to face the newbie, his shoulders set as though bracing himself for a physical blow. Which was good, because Sam Campbell took Dean by such surprise that you could've knocked him over with a feather.

The kid—because Christ, did he definitely look young—wasn't at all what Dean had been expecting. For one, he was tall; taller than Dean, for sure. Second, he wasn't scrawny. Sam was all lean muscle, stretched taught over a wide frame, resulting in a look of eternally being on-edge, ready. His brown hair curled gently around his ears, longer than Dean usually approved of in the category of "neat and respectable haircuts for men", but tidy enough. His sharp facial features and serious, big eyes gave him an instantly brooding look. Those eyes swung around the bar, assessing the occupants—Friday night at the Roadhouse, there were plenty to choose from—before landing on Dean, an eyebrow quirking questioningly.

Dean kept his face impassive, waiting to see what the kid would do. Sam's eyes were calculating, probably weighing what he had heard about Dean against the man himself, trying to decide if they matched. And Dean had never, until that moment, wondered what people imagined when they heard of him, but now his idea of Sam versus the reality of Sam had him curious. Because logically, Dean had to admit that the idea of him probably didn't add up to the reality—barely six feet tall, bow-legged, blonde, with eternally fucked-out lips and green eyes. Yeah, there was something almost pretty about Dean; just masculine enough to avoid being girly, but not so much so that he was threatening. It had worked in his favor a few times.

So now he watched Sam out of the corner of his eye, chatted idly with Ellen, tried not to look like he was expecting the kid, and waited to see if Sam would zero in on him as the guy he's supposed to work with from here on or if he would guess someone else.

But Sam didn't disappoint. He was too hesitant to have actually been given a description of Dean, but still somehow picked him out. He lumbered over to Dean—and okay, maybe Dean had called it on the whole not-yet-adjusted-to-his-body thing, because the kid moved with no grace at all—and awkwardly shifted his bag on his shoulder.

"Mr. Winchester?" Sam's voice was hesitant. And Dean, so help him, was so caught off-guard by someone only four years younger than him addressing him that way that he burst out laughing. There was something surreal in the address, and it hit Dean way deep down.

It took him a minute to regain control of himself, and when he did he nodded. "Yeah… Just Dean is fine." He extended his hand to Sam and shook it, grudgingly giving the kid credit for a strong grip. It was just as well. Dean didn't trust guys with a weak handshake as far as he could throw them. "Sam Campbell, then." Courtesy dictated that he add on a, "Good to meet you," but he couldn't force it out because truthfully, it wasn't. There was no venom in that assessment, just simple fact, and the kid had to know that a seasoned professional in the game being saddled with a newbie was inconvenient. So Dean kept his mouth shut and Sam took the bar stool next to him.

"Anything to drink, Sam?" Ellen asked.

"Water, please."

Dean nearly snorted with exasperation. Of course. Kid wasn't old enough to drink. Good grief. He suddenly felt like the difference in their ages was much greater than four years.

God, this was going to be a giant pain-in-the-ass of a mess.

X

AN: So... Thoughts? I'd love to hear from you guys. :D