Night Drive

[mellaithwen]

Title: Night Drive
Chapters: One-shot
Rating: PG-13, Gen
Word Count: 1, 207
Summary: Dean prefers the night time drive...

Written for 15minuteficlets

Empty roads, contrast to the full skies, clouds reaching, and spanning across great distances, letting drizzle to decorate the way, forcing the window-wipers to swish across the window, lest the water block his way. There was something more romantic about driving through the night. Silence carrying, the windows wound down, a soft breeze playing through his hair, and air fogging in front of him as he breathed out deeply. The Impala’s wheels gliding across slick surfaces, as the rain fell down onto the middle-states of America. The dreary weather appeared to be following them.

 

Or it was that time of year, whatever.

 

He didn’t know where they were anymore. No sign posts, no distinguishing features, and he had given up on calculating the miles when he noticed how distracted it made him. Not the best of things when driving. He longed for Boretown, if only it meant no getting thrown into walls by pissed off spirits, demons, poltergeists and the like. Boretown meant sitting at a diner, and talking to his brother, Boretown meant sleep, and home-made-pie. Boretown meant safety for both he, and Sam.

 

But no, their location was Nowheresville, their destination was somewhere similar no doubt, with the added joy of something un-natural, he knew.

 

Driving at night, alone, but not really, was something he was used to, after all, one of the main reasons the Impala was his at all, was to ensure easier transition when he and his father went on separate jobs. Dean more than capable, and John preferring to attack hunts head on, without the nagging of a child tagging along, no matter how old, or mature, or submissive said child was.

 

The car seemed to purr more in its element, engine gliding more so as the black car was camouflaged by the dark night around them. No streetlamps, nothing but the rays from the headlights, and they only went so far.

 

Besides the Impala’s gleeful sounds, the only other noise was a growling in the backseat. Nothing worthy of consecrated iron rounds, or a good few pellets of rock-salt, oh no, just poking. Incessant poking whenever the road straightened out enough for him to reach back and jab his brother in the ribs. The growling turned to lower snores for a little while then.

 

Before morphing back into the growling.

 

“Damn it, Sam!” Dean cried, slamming his palms into the Impala’s wheel, regretting it when the grooves hit him a little harder than intended, and he gripped them rather than stop the car and kick the holy crap out of his brother.

 

Normally, he would be more than happy to let Sam sleep in the backseat, to see him sleep at all was a god send, but it was Dean who had been driving for nearly twenty-four hours, and granted, the gallons of coffee he had near-drowned in at their last stop was working wonders for keeping him awake, Sam’s methodical adenoids would lull him to sleep if he wasn’t careful.

 

He had long since given up on pumping the stereo with the loudest music he could reach from under the passenger side seat, but even that hadn’t been enough to wake up sleeping beauty, who had resorted to sleeping in the back to avoid any more pranks involving spoons where his brother was concerned. The only reason the Impala was practically freezing was because in his boredom Dean had hoped that the draft might wake Sam. Instead, he just sat, freezing, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to turn on the heating.

 

Damn him.

 

Dean thought to himself, his only amusement squashed beneath Sam’s temperament and blatant disregard of humour when directed at him, because of him. There wasn’t a hotel for miles, he had already checked, not to mention the barren landscape that seemed to have no end in sight.

 

Nothing in sight. No trees, slightly disconcerting, no other cars, but it was 3am. No dead things by the side of the road. But when Dean took stock, he realised that that wasn’t strictly true.

 

If he was truly honest, he would know that he felt her, before he saw her. The hairs on the back of his neck standing up on end for no apparent reason, and with the radio turned off as it was; there was no white noise to warn him. Not that he needed it. Dean Winchester may have enjoyed ladies’ company, but he did, draw the line at dormi-spiritusiphilia. Try saying that when you’re pissed. He and his father had come up with it, a joint effort after a ridiculous debate that necrophilia only really applied when there was a body. A dead one of course.

 

“Of corpse.”

 

“Okay, bad joke, Dad, really bad joke.”

 

They had chosen one in Latin, for the sole fact that fucking-spirits-iphilia didn’t have the same ring to it, and it attracted more attention if ever it was said in public. There was no way from his position in the driving seat to truly discern as a spirit, nothing really could until you got up close. Unless you had special gifts, and Dean turned back to look at Sam, now sleeping more soundly, as though expecting him to bolt awake and profess of the danger.

 

That was the point, especially when a spirit’s unfinished business required a victim of some kind. How would they pick them, lure them in, if their skin was hanging off, and they were dripping ectoplasm? Or if their clothes still held the stains of the blood splatter.

 

Some did, some ghouls preferred their victims to see the splotches of red before their own was added to the gruesome painting across the phantom barber’s clothes, or the echoed-illusion of a serial killer long since dead, but oh-still killing.

 

She was standing, but he wouldn’t put it past her if she was floating a little high above the ground, the long grass and weeds hid her feet, and she did seem a little tall.

 

He didn’t even slow the car down, didn’t give her the chance, and as soon as he began driving away, putting much of the distance, and digging up asphalt with squealing wheels, she flickered, as though angry, the illusion of her being alive, human, coming in and out of focus, her true appearance blending in with the one she allowed the mortals to see. Her hair billowed too much, her dress was too soft, too luminescent when there was no real source of light, the moon hidden behind dark booming clouds.

 

She was reeking of the supernatural, or maybe Dean was just a little more tired than he was letting on. Spirit-girl by the side of the road, or mind reeling from fatigue? He couldn’t tell which, after all, both were far too common for his liking.

 

Sam stirred in the back, and before he had even had the chance to sit up, Dean had brought the car to a halt, opened the backseat, dragged his brother’s lanky body out, and pointed to the driver’s side.

 

“Your turn,” He said simply, falling back into the familiar upholstery and letting sleep win, for now. Sam still growled, but it was the kind much easier to drown out when Dean closed his eyes. 

-Fin

Word was 'fatigue'