Baby's Nightmare, Part 1

Baby's Nightmare, Part 1

A Supernatural story by Mich @raiahome

You've read Mich's Tales from Baby... now check out her third #SPNWishList masterpiece! Mich  wanted to share the untold story of how Baby dealt with Demon Dean in Season 10. You'll need to check your fluids after this one. As I've said many times, no one speaks for this cranky old steel broad like Mich does. Enjoy, and stay tuned for Part 2! -- Jennie

Did you know cars can have nightmares?

I didn’t.

Not until it happened to me.

It started when Sam carried Dean’s bleeding, lifeless body out of a warehouse and laid him gently in my back seat. For most people, that would be enough to cause nightmares, but I’m a Winchester. Hell, we’ve all died and come back, some more than others, so I knew that wasn’t the end. Bloody bodies don’t faze me much.

So, as you may imagine, I wasn’t really surprised when, later that night, Dean walked into the garage and jumped in my driver’s seat. What did surprise me was who settled into the passenger seat next to him.

Crowley.

It wasn’t the first time that puffed-up limey bastard had stunk up my interior.

I don’t like it. I don’t like him.

Dean, however, seemed pretty comfortable with the King of Hell in Sammy’s seat, so I didn’t think much about it.

The first sign that there was something wrong -- something very, very wrong -- was when my sweet boy drove me out through the secret tunnel. No matter how much of a hurry he was in, he was always slow and careful maneuvering me out of the tight fit. This time he just hit the gas, only slowing down when he scraped the wall with my left rear panel. Normally, he would apologize for even coming close to damaging me. This time? Nothing.

I wasn’t the only one to notice.

“Take it easy there, Dean. Don’t want to paint the walls with her,” Crowley mocked.

Dean just shrugged. “It’s just a car.”

Just a car? Just a car?! What the Hell -- and I meant that literally, considering who was riding shotgun -- what the Hell was going on?

“So,” Crowley asked with a quirk of his eyebrow, “where are we off to?”

Dean ignored him until he hit the highway, heading north and west. “You said we were going to howl at the moon. So let’s howl.”

Crowley chuckled. “Sounds like a plan. Sounds like a plan Moose would never go for.”

Faster than I could see, Dean whipped out the ugliest weapon I’ve ever seen, one I recognized, the First Blade, and had it at the demon’s throat. “Don’t ever mention Sam again! You understand me?” he snarled.

Crowley raised his hands placatingly and, with a nervous laugh and a calculating look in his eyes, answered, “Don’t even know the gent. Won’t breathe his name.”

And that’s when I noticed Dean's eyes. They were black as the deepest pits of hell. No mercy, no compassion could be seen in those depths. Gone were the bright green orbs that could pierce someone’s soul like ice when angry or soften with unspoken emotion when his walls were lowered. I knew what black eyes meant.

This was bad. Very bad.

At first, I assumed he had been possessed. That some twisted piece of hellspawn had decided to take up squatter’s rights in my boy’s body. But Crowley kept calling him Dean and I reluctantly had to accept it was really him somewhere inside that cold, uncaring body behind my wheel. The realization was like a dagger to my heart.

As I continued listening to their conversation, the cause of this catastrophe became clear. The brand on Dean’s arm.

Son of a bitch.

The tension in my interior was so thick I could almost see it in the air. It was there in the stranglehold Dean had on my wheel, and in the way Crowley kept glancing warily at the hunk of bone lying between them, nestled against Dean’s thigh. I tried to pay attention to the questions Dean barked at the King of Hell and the answers Crowley gave in a patently false, calm voice.

Cain and Abel.

The Mark.

It wasn’t until I heard them discussing that Dean Winchester was now a Knight of Hell that the ongoing shocks turned into numbing fear. It felt like repeated hammer blows to my chassis. Like the time Dean had beaten in my trunk lid with a crowbar in an effort to relieve his pain at the death of John. Only this time the pain was all mine.

The newly demonized Winchester didn’t seem to feel anything at all. His eyes were no longer ebony pits, but they were just as empty. They were that familiar green again, but flat and hollow. I couldn’t bear to look at them. I had thought it would break me when they reflected the despair of memories of Hell, the anguish of losing Sam or the hopelessness of yet another apocalypse looming before him, but this was so much worse.

There was finally a long silence as the road continued to spin out beneath my tires. I felt nothing, too overwhelmed to pay much attention to where we were going.

After what seemed like hours, Crowley spoke again.

“How long are we gonna keep driving, mate?”

“As long as it takes!” Dean snapped.

“Takes to what?” Crowley asked curiously.

“To put enough distance between me and…” Dean paused before going on. “Between me and the bunker,” he finished decisively.

Crowley nervously ran a hand down to straighten his already straight tie as a flash of understanding flickered across his face. But he said nothing.

Sam.

Dean meant enough distance between him and Sam.

In the flood of information and fear I’d been drowning in, I’d forgotten about Sam!

Apparently he was still alive, thank God, but did he know everything that was happening? I had no doubt that the younger Winchester would do everything in his power and beyond to save his brother. I only hoped it would be enough, and soon. Still, it was a lifeline in my ocean of pain. A very thin lifeline, but one I knew was strong and sure, and I grabbed on to it with all my might.

With a snarl of irritation, Dean slammed in a cassette and cranked up the volume, whether to silence the King of Hell or the voices in his own head I couldn’t tell. Maybe both.

Never had AC/DC felt so wrong nor so prophetic as “Highway to Hell” blasted out of my speakers. I saw a satisfied smirk twist Crowley’s lips. Dean, however, had no reaction. His head didn’t bob to the beat, his fingers didn’t drum out the rhythm on my steering wheel. He just stared straight ahead, empty eyes on an empty road.

The sun had risen and was heading back down, and we had crossed two state lines before Dean slowed and pulled into some decrepit-looking roadhouse in the middle of nowhere. We came to a halt and he turned off my engine. He just sat for a moment, not making a move. Crowley eyed him with a hesitant look that seemed vaguely familiar, and waited. Dean opened his door at last and, without looking at his passenger, said, “Are you coming, or what?,” in a listless voice.

It wasn’t until Crowley responded with a tight smile as his eyes lit with pleasure that I recognized the look I’d seen before. It was loneliness and fear of rejection! I’d seen it countless times before when my boys had hit a rough spot in their relationship.

Each of them, at one time or another, had feared their brother would abandon them. Had feared that things had gone so wrong between them that the years of love, brotherhood and having each other’s backs would finally not be enough to hold the only family they had left together. That one of them would walk out on the other for good. Several times it seemed like that had happened, but they always found their way back to each other.

Was that what this was really all about? The mighty King of Hell was lonesome and looking for a buddy? None of his shallow little demon minions were good enough playmates? How dare he think he could commandeer Dean! How dare he think that all the history, the sacrificing, all the love and care between the brothers could suddenly be his? How dare he think he could replace Sam? I would have laughed if the idea wasn’t so pathetic.

In the next few weeks, as we went from town to town and dive to dive, I watched as Dean seemed to relax into his new role as a Knight of Hell. He stood taller, moved easier and didn’t seem to have a care in the world. He slipped unrepentantly into a warped, perverted friendship with Crowley that made me sick. God knows I had longed for my boys to be free of the weight of the world. To be happy and carefree. But this wasn’t carefree, it was not caring anymore, about anything. And that was very different.

I didn’t feel like laughing any more.

As the days passed, I noticed more changes in Dean’s behavior, both large and small. For example, he started eating less and drinking more, and on the increasingly rare occasion he did eat, there was no joy in it. No closing his eyes to savor it and no inappropriate moans of delight. It was like he was just going through the motions. And, most telling, there was no more pie.

Then there were the things that made my skin crawl. Bringing some girl out to my back seat was nothing new, but gone was the tender, considerate lover Dean had been. He just seemed to take what he wanted, with no concern for his partner.

And there was his laugh. Yes, he still laughed, but there was no lightness to it, none of the depth that made his eyes crinkle and infected everyone around him and brought smiles to their faces. It was an ugly, mean laugh that gave a cruel twist to his lips and sent a nervous chill down the backs of anyone who heard it.

But the most horrific new habit he had picked up was taking the First Blade, which never left his side now, and just slicing his hand with it. Then, as the blood began to well, his eyes would flick to black and the slash would mend, the blood disappear. He seemed to treat it like his own personal parlor trick, but there was no amusement in it for him. He never smiled or even frowned. Didn’t show any pain or relief. He just stared dispassionately at it in a way that made my oil run cold.

I’ll be honest with you, in those last weeks there were many times when I considered just giving up. My spark plugs were misfiring, my timing was off… I could just stop trying. Every discarded whiskey bottle and casually tossed wrapper was like a blow to my body, leaving me bruised and broken. Every layer of dust and dirt that went unnoticed and unlamented smothered my spirit a tiny bit more until the once-burning flame was little more than a guttering ember starved for oxygen.

I was no longer his home, his Baby. I no longer was a place of comfort or a source of pride. I was just a thing, and when I stopped being convenient or useful… well, somehow I knew if I refused to start, Dean would just leave me. The knowledge hurt more than any crash I had ever been in.

But I never did it! I never gave up! I just couldn’t! Dean had never given up on me all those times I was so torn up it was hard to recognize the badass beauty I had been. When I was so mangled and crushed that most people would have left me for scrap, Dean never did. He stayed with me. He worked on me with loving expertise and devotion until I was shiny, whole and purring like a tiger. So I wouldn’t give up on him.

And there was one thing keeping me afloat. One thing I could cling to during those dark days. One thing that kept me fighting on when I didn’t think I had anything left.

Sam.

Read Part 2 here.