So I'm rocking out to Enter Sandman whenever he rolls in with that black, hardtop '67 Impala of his and a grin. His big whisky-sasquatch of a brother isn't around, and he's got a look in his eye that makes me worried as hell. In the best of possible ways, mind you.
I stand up from underneath the hood of the Nova and wipe the grease off my fingers, looking down at the rag and realizing that it's kinda futile because that rag hasn't seen a clean day in close to a decade. He gets out of the car, slams the door, and saunters over, the mischief barely contained in his eyes.
"What?"
He stops short of the garage entrance and smirks at me, ramming his hands down into those worn out jean pockets. "Aw nuthin." He chuckles, and he's lying, damn him.
"Dean Michael Winchester. WHAT have you got up your sleeve?"
"It's more like what the Impala's got up hers."
I straighten just a little bit, and finish wiping my hands on my jeans, eyes sparking. "What'd you do to her?" I swing out in the light of day, and Dean goes dancing around the driver's side, pops the hood and props it open.
I am non-plussed. Same gorgeous 396 big block-----Dean'd traded the old 409 engine out the last time he'd raided Bobby's salvage yard for parts. Same old guts. Sexy as all hell, I had to say, but…... I cock my head, canting one hip out and leaning underneath the hood. He's still standing there grinning like I should see it right off the bat. And I know, because it's Dean, that whatever's different with this car is right under my fingertips.
Wait. Fingertips. My attention comes back to the engine block, and I reach out, running my fingers across the top. There's etching. Medieval stuff unless I miss my mark, from Roger Bacon's work…… I lean closer, running my hands over the sigilic representations of Mercury, Ophiel…… Dean starts to laugh whenever I jerk up from underneath the hood and gawk at him.
"Dean…."
"Cool as shit, ain't it?"
"You put speed sigils on your engine block."
He grinned like a five year old and I remember again why most women he ran across had a hard time keeping their hands off of him.
"But…but how's that work? I mean, arcana and machines don't necessarily get along….." I remember a few abortive attempts I'd made at a flying bicycle and the scars I still had from where the gears from that ten-speed had melted all over my ankles. Ten year olds, magic, and hot metal didn't mix well.
"Well, the Colt worked, didn't it?" He raises a brow at me.
"Yeah, but that was Samuel the Fuck COLT, Dean, not….."
"Not Dean Fucking Winchester?" he asks again, and I have to laugh, because he's got a point.
"How's the body hold up? Have you run it all the way out yet?" Thinking about it…the Impala was probably a good choice for speed sigils cause it wasn't like to tear apart when you got going too fast….
"Well, it kinda starts rattling whenever we get up to three hundred miles an hour……"
I shake my head, and I'm grinning just like he is because this…this….this……well, it kicks about eight different kinds of ass is what it does. It's sacrilegious and it's a misuse of power and it's breaking all the rules and it's……..oh MAN this is so AWESOME!!!
I'm giggling now, and then Dean jerks his chin toward the garage. "Close up. Come on, let's play with it."
I am scampering like a mouse I'm so excited. The doors rattle down, the closed sign gets flipped around…..just for orneriness I add the 'due to inclement weather' qualification. Dean's laughing as I shrug into my jean coat (with its uber awesome HellBoy and AC/DC patches) and slide into the passenger side of the car. Hot leather smells good, and the radio speakers, however awful they might actually be, sounds like a freakin' Bose.
He starts the car, and the vibration shoots straight up my spine. This is definitely not the Impala of old. That baby had a rumble and a purr, but this…...heh heh heh…..Oh the genius.
As we roll down the main drag of town, Dean's not even touching the pedal it's still going over the 35 mph limit. Sherriff Robespierre (fat man, ineffective, likes his donuts and coffee) looks up from his desk as we rumble by, and I laugh whenever one of his cruisers eases out behind us, and I laugh harder whenever I see who's driving it whenever we stop at the redlight. It's Joey. He's twenty-two, and luvs playing cops and robbers. And being the only mechanic in town, I fight the instinct to wax hysteric whenever I realize which cruiser he's actually driving. It's the chase car. And THAT can mean only one thing.
Dean does his trademark raising of the brow.
"It's a new engine, at any rate," I say. "He might be able to keep up with us until we get out to the Barrens…."
I watch Joey roll down his window and I do the same. "Casey, you an' your friend ain't gonna do any speedin', are ya?"
Dean beats me to it. "Who us, officer?" He pops those big green eyes and I can't help but cackle. "You'll have to forgive my friend here, she's drunk on Impala……oh wait, green light….gotta go!"
He stomps the gas, the Impala screams and we are gone. I see Joey in the rearview scrambling for the gearshift. At the end of Main Street there is one right turn, the road goes straight for another hundred yards, and then you hang a left and you've got twenty miles of straight blacktop that's so clean you could eat off it. Except, of course, for the occasional rabbit baked into the yellow line. We call it the Barrens because there's just nothing out there but that blacktop and hot Wyoming wind.
I can still see Joey in the rearview whenever we hit that stretch, and then Dean lays the hammer down and there's nothing the chase car can do to keep up. The G's have me pressed back in the leather seat, Highway to Hell is blaring, and life on the road never tempted me so much as it does now. Dean's got this casual ease to the way he's catching gears, and we're already kicking around a hundred or so. We are rolling, and my grin feels permanent.
