Where Are My Keys?
She’s My Rider - Chapter III
Author’s Note: Am I the only one who sees the scenes in their head first and just tries to write it down? That last one reminded me that I forget to go back, take out the blocking, and add the subtext. Maybe it’s the theater kid in me.
So … here’s a little more sub with your text.
There was no way in hell Dean was sleeping with Baby. Nope. No way. That was entirely too weird. He’d seen that show about taboo stuff where the dude fell in love with his hotrod, and he was not going to be that guy. He felt a little guilty for even thinking about it.
A little.
Rowena was right about one thing, though. Baby had power. It had been implied every which way from Sunday, and anyway, she wouldn’t be walking around on two legs <i>looking</i> like that if there wasn’t some serious mojo going on there. He went back through what Rowena said on his way back to the motel. Apparently, Sam and Baby had opted to walk.
She’s as powerful as they come, if she wants to be. But it was up to him? How in the hell did that make any kind of sense?
Then he remembered that Castiel had flipped out on her the first night they brought her home. If he knew what she was, maybe he knew where to find the on-switch that sparked her power up. Whatever her power was.
It was starting to feel futile and his head was starting to hurt. Whether it was from the whiskey or yelling at Baby, he didn’t know.
When he got to the room, it looked like Sam had just been sitting there, waiting to pounce and scold.
“I know,” Dean said before he could start. “I was a dick.”
Sam wasn’t entirely sure what to do with that. He was clearly expecting the angry, stubborn version of his brother to walk through the door. “Uh, yeah. You were. And-”
“I’ve gotta stop treating her like a child,” Dean cut him off. “I get it.”
“Look, I know you’re worried about something happening to her. I’m worried too, but at some point, we’re gonna have to take off the training wheels.” Sam watched his brother pull off his jacket, but he was really watching him grapple with bigger things that had sufficiently worn him out.
“And she’s right,” he said. “She’s been here protecting us this whole time, but she was usually stuck outside when the really bad stuff went down.”
That last bit slowed Dean down on his way to the mini-fridge and once he processed it, it stopped him altogether. He’d never considered that and he should have. Damnit.
“You know she worries about us as much as we worry about her, right? As much as we worry about each other. B had to sit there, every time we got out of the car, and just … hope that we came back.” Sam bounced his brows at his brother, urging him to really think about that.
It hadn’t gone unnoticed by Dean that Baby thought a little too much like he did. He figured that was appropriate, given what she was, and with that in mind he knew Sam was right.
“She’s tired of being on the bench, Dean.”
The weight of Baby’s struggle dropped low in his stomach. He, of all people, should have known better. Idling on the curb while his family got bloody would have driven him batshit crazy.
“ … Son of a bitch.”
“Yeah,” Sam said, but what he really said was, “Now you’re getting it.”
Baby combed through the latest news updates looking for anything that sounded remotely hellhound’ish. So far, things had remained quiet for the evening. Maybe the hounds were full … which meant she had to find something else to keep her from brooding about the way Dean had been acting.
Gabriel had given her a body, but no compass to help her figure out what she was supposed to be doing. She only knew that she had a purpose, she had something to contribute, more than just being a proverbial tank.
Things had gone so well when she first “woke up,” for lack of a better term. The boys put the world back on its axis, Mary was back, she was there … even Castiel couldn’t help but surrender to it, and to the fact that Baby was clearly family.
They started to train her in whatever she didn’t know and she got a tattoo that she was fairly certain half the Midwest would mistake for a pentagram, and her a devil worshiper. The boys started with small hunts for her to cut her teeth on, made sure she knew how to handle herself, before they got back to scouring media the way they always did.
When Lucifer came back, everything changed. The car was locked away in a shipping container that had every kind of ward you could think of on it, and if over-protective had a gear Sam and Dean kicked it up to fifth.
Baby was unaccustomed to being the one who needed protection and she decided immediately that she didn’t like it one bit, but hard as she tried, she couldn’t prove them wrong.
She wanted to tell Dean who he was, to her anyway, but she’d never been able to form cohesive sentences that explained it. There weren’t really words for it, and Baby didn’t think she should tell him that if he died, she would die, or that she was only as limited as he wanted her to be. As far as her existence was concerned, he might as well be the sun.
She surfed through all of the television stations before she gave up and scrolled down to the channels that doubled as radio stations. She chose one that claimed you could “get the blues all day long” to find BB King wailing on Lucille to the tune of “The Thrill is Gone.”
It made her nostalgic. God, she missed proper radio stations.
When the knock came, she knew who it was before she opened the door.
He always apologized.
Baby pulled the door open to reveal a sheepish looking Dean with his hands tucked into his pockets and his shoulders curled, that quickly turned into a normal looking Dean with weirdly perfect, military posture.
She waited, and he finally said, “Can I come in?”
The second Dean left the room, Sam lifted his phone back to his ear. “Cas, are you still there?”
“Yes,” came the grumbled reply. “Sam, if these really are Matilda’s hounds and she’s with them? Dean and Baby may very well be the only way to stop them.”
Sam was staring at an artistic representation of Matilda and the Cwn Annwn on his laptop and a knowing worry began to creep up that back of his neck. “Why?”
“Because,” Castiel sighed. “The hounds are to Matilda what B is to Dean. Hounds represented her lineage. She was one of the greatest hunters who ever lived, and it sounds to me like they’ve been released for a reason.”
Sam slowly lifted to his feet and he had a feeling he wouldn’t like the answer when he asked, “What do you mean?”
He heard a scuffle on the other end of the phone and he thought he heard Cas and his mother arguing in reigned in tones before he heard her say, “Give me that.”
“To smoke her out, Sam.” Mary said. “Apparently, it hasn’t gone unnoticed that the Impala hasn’t been on the road in a while.”
“Wait, what?”
“Word’s out that we killed the original vampire, and since almost everyone thinks the colt is gone-”
“They think it has something to do with B,” Sam picked up.
“Sam …” Mary’s voice dropped. “Are we sure it doesn’t?”
He didn’t have much experience with having a mother, but Sam assumed it was normal when that annoyed irritation shot through him, because he was pretty sure it was a feeling only a mother could produce. “Mom-”
“I know what she is,” Mary cut him off.
Castiel said her name with a warning in the background.
Sam didn’t know what to say.
“You and Dean head back to the bunker,” Mary said before she hung up. “I think it’s time for a family meeting.”
Baby sighed the way most girls do at insufferable men and stepped back out of Dean’s way. She really was … so human. It was hard now to imagine that she’d ever been made of metal, hard to remember what it felt like when she was … well, a car. He remembered the sense that he was where he belonged and that, however twisted his world got, he could straighten it out as long as he had the Impala. Only he didn’t see his badass car come to life anymore, because now she was made of tender flesh and breakable bones.
When he turned to look at Baby again, he flipped it all in reverse. He tried to see the years in her, the experiences she must have had, the highs and lows that the Winchesters put her through. He tried … and he failed. She just looked so innocent. So young.
“Seventy-seven,” he said.
She wasn’t expecting that one. “What?”
“I’m 77 years old,” Dean said. “What felt like four months to you when I was gone was forty years for me, so, technically I’m an old man.”
He could see her adding things up in her frown. Gone. <i>Hell.</i> When it clicked, her eyes rounded at him and he felt a little bad for bringing it up.
Dean had the ability to smile without smiling. You could see the muscles twitch with the effort but it was almost like the smile was too heavy.
But the intention was there.
“Now, correct me if I’m wrong,” he said. “But that gives me almost thirty years on you.”
He wondered if this would cause her to see him the way he saw her, like the cover was pretty but the pages were filled with scary things and uncharted territory. “I know I act like some horny, high school dropout half the time, and I know what I look like, but … I don’t feel like what I look like.”
For the first time, maybe ever, she seemed to have no idea what to say to him. “Dean, why are you telling me this?”
“Because.” He took a second to gather his thoughts. “Sam reminded me just now that you’ve been you for a lot longer than you’ve been human … and it hit me that I’ve been doing to you what everyone else did to me ten years ago.”
Dean stepped back and motioned with his hand, up and down her body. “I look at you and I see some young, twenty-something bombshell that for all intents and purposes should be privy to Victoria’s secrets, not a girl that should be elbow-deep in death and violence with me and Sam.”
“But that is where I should be,” Baby said. “It’s where I want to be.”
Dean forced a smile that still didn’t quite make it to his eyes. “I know.”
“So … you’re gonna let me come with you to talk to Crowley?”
Dean stayed quiet for longer than what he knew Baby thought was appropriate. He couldn’t get past the thought that he’d done some damage here and he should have known better. These were words he needed to get right, and for a man that barked more than he talked, it took a little more time.
“Baby, you’re your own woman,” he said. “You don’t need my permission. You don’t need anyone’s permission. Ever. You make your own rules. If anyone tells you otherwise, you point them my way and we’ll have words.”
Silently he cussed at himself when he realized that was a concept she’d never tried to wrap her mind around. You stupid son of a bitch. That was the kind of thing a woman should know. It was the kind of thing that kept pricks like him from taking advantage. Because they would.
Somewhere in the flurry of trying to protect her … he’d steered her wrong.
“What if it’s you that tells me that?”
Damn, she was quick. She played chess while he played checkers.
“I can’t promise you I won’t try to stop you from doing something I think is stupid. But what I think doesn’t matter. If you think you’re right?” Dean shrugged. He already knew she was smarter than he was. “Go with your gut, because you probably are.”
Baby’s features warmed from confusion to gratitude. That was the look he’d been aiming for and it relieved him a little when he got it, selfish as it was, because it meant he was out of the doghouse.
“Besides,” he said. “I hear you’re some cosmic badass so, who am I to get in your way?”
Her tone almost sounded sorry for him when she said, “You’re the reason I am who I am. You’re the only person that could get in my way.”
That part, he definitely knew. That responsibility had been waking him up at night. “Well, I’m stepping off the asphalt. Highway’s yours.”
One of those silent conversations passed between them again, an unspoken understanding of what and how they’d decided things were going to be.
Afterwards, a small but subtly victorious smile lifted Baby’s features. “You can ride shotgun.”
Dean grinned the cheshire-cat grin of a man that knew he was still full of surprises. “Sweetheart, if you think I’m gonna shut my cakehole? Believe me. That dog won’t hunt.”
He’d intended to shut the door behind him, but he turned right into Sam’s wide, worried eyes. “We’ve gotta go.”
Somewhere in hell, Crowley was slouched down in a miserably uncomfortable throne wondering why he hadn’t changed it out with something softer, and staring off into nowhere tonguing the self-loathing that kept him going.
He’d forgotten Lucifer was there until he heard the mutt’s chains rattle when he shifted positions. “I hear you finally found out about the car,” he said.
Crowley tried to fight the curiosity that begged him to look up at the devil. It irritated him that Lucifer had caught his attention. But what if he knew something? He finally lifted his gaze with a slant that said, ‘This had better be good.’
Lucifer smiled like he was happy to see him and they’d just sat down to afternoon tea. “I hear they haven’t seen her on the road in a while.”
“What’s it to you?”
“Given I’ve been fighting against her for the souls of mankind for millennia?” The devil shrugged like it wasn’t that big of a deal. “Call it nostalgia.”
“Come again?”
“You think the Winchesters are the first real heroes I’ve seen rise and fall over the ages? They all come with one of her. Matilda had her hounds, Arthur had Excalibur, the Winchesters have a 1967 Chevrolet Impala,” he chuckled. “Times they are a’changing.”
“Oh yeah? Then, tell me, who was the last great hero you saw fall?”
“Adolf Hitler.”
Crowley rolled his eyes, “You realize he has a special place here …”
“What? You didn’t know Hitler was a hunter before he was a dictator? Funny how they always leave that part out.”
Something in Crowley bristled briefly, then, very calmly, he lifted to his feet and idled over to where Lucifer was sitting on the floor, moving in close so that when he hiked up the knees of his slacks and squatted down, he was leaning over the angel who’d fallen the furthest. Crowley’s fingers twitched up in the direction of Lucifer’s throat and the devil grunted. “You’re trying my patience, mutt,” he said while Lucifer’s face turned red. “Get to the point.”
When he pushed to his feet, Lucifer gasped and started sucking down air, released from the king’s Vador grip. “Fine!” Lucifer coughed. “Jeez, talk about work-related stress.” He rubbed at his neck and spoke like the information had been pried out of him against his will. Crowley knew it wasn’t.
“Before the swastika was a Nazi thing, it was like her, it was a totem. The only thing left of the line because the surnames had changed over the years. Adolf didn’t know that, the poor schmuck was an artist, so he just thought it was something he’d always been inspired by. He had no idea who he was. What IT was. After the war, he was just a decorated soldier turned drifter who’d learned a thing or two and hunted monsters.”
“I’ve heard the poor-me artist to Sieg Heil, thanks,” Crowley said. “This had better be going somewhere.”
“The Thule Society. You’ve heard of them …”
“Of course,” Crowley said.
“Well, they worked with a guy named Dietrich Eckart back in the day, and he knew exactly who Adolf was. All it took was a little mentoring … a little push in the right direction. Turn him away from the truth of what he could be, use his despair over the plight of his people to convince him all the evils, supernatural or otherwise, come from one enemy.” Lucifer shrugged with his chin as if it were simple. “Hero that he was, Adolf jumps in with both feet and designs the banner for the National Socialist German Worker’s Party using his own personal sigil. People start waving that thing in the streets and the more they wave it, the more Hitler talks, and the more Hitler talks, the further the swastika goes and, before you know it?” Lucifer clapped his hands like his favorite team just scored a touchdown. “Global domination, baby!”
“Let me guess,” Crowley said. “You were Eckart?”
“Oh no, that was all Azazel,” Lucifer said as if he’d never take someone else’s credit. “Say what you will, but that guy knows how to pick ‘em.”
Crowley stared through a barred window, turning these new insights over in his head. “So you let out the one beastie you thought had a chance of catching her, is that it? You think she’s the key to regaining your kingdom?” Crowley turned back on him, looking at Lucifer like he was so … predictable. “It won’t work. You must have learned by now that the one, surefire way to reap the wrath of the Winchesters is to go after one of their women. Those boys will scorch and salt the earth planet-wide before they let anyone get their hands on that girl.”
Lucifer smiled the smile of a demon that still knew he had cards up his sleeve and said, “I guess we’ll see, won’t we?” Just before Crowley twitched his hand and his vertebrae cracked and his eyes were staring behind him.
