Fic: Highway Blues

[briarwood]

Title: Highway Blues
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: Mature
Genre: Gen, Vignette
Warnings: None.
Summary: Topping 130 on the highway with dawn lightening the sky ahead of her and a job well done at her back is the best feeling in the world. Better than the adrenaline rush of a hunt. Better than sex.
Note 1: Inspired by the spn_xx gen flashfic challenge, prompt #13.
Note 2: Naomi is an original character in the SPN 'verse who will appear in a future long story of mine if it ever gets written. This is one of her earliest encounters with the Winchesters. A previous fic about Naomi is here but it's not necessary to read that first.
Note 3: Since I don't drive, I know nothing about motor mechanics. It probably shows. Please feel free to correct my mistakes :-)

Also posted on AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/5894

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HIGHWAY BLUES

The first time Naomi rode a motorcycle, she was 14. It was Danny Marco's chopper and she got into serious trouble for riding with a boy and everyone at school said she was a slut. But it was so worth it just for those twenty minutes with the roar of the engine in her ears and the wind billowing her shirt and stealing her breath. She endured Aunt Veronica's anger and as soon as she wasn't grounded any more she started saving for a chopper of her own.

Now she rides her Harley from state to state and on the long, empty roads she can indulge her speed addiction to her heart's content. Topping 130 on the highway with dawn lightening the sky ahead of her and a job well done at her back is the best feeling in the world. Better than the adrenaline rush of a hunt. Better than sex.

That's why she almost didn't stop when she saw the Winchester boys' Impala at the side of the road, with hood open and thick smoke rising from it. She didn't see Dean or Sam at first, so she slowed down, a little worried. They wouldn't have abandoned the car...would they?

As Naomi came closer, she saw Sam leaning over the engine block, waving one big hand in a vain attempt to thin out the smoke. There was no sign of Dean. She braked, the Harley sliding smoothly to a halt beside the car, and flipped up the visor of her helmet.

"Hello, sailor!"

Sam looked up, pushed his hair back from his face and smudged oil across his forehead. "Nice wheels," he said, with an odd smile.

Naomi pulled the helmet off, shaking out her hair. "Need some help?" she offered cheerfully.

Sam's smile became more confident when he recognised her. "Got any water on you?" he asked. "I think that's the problem."

Naomi laughed. "Yeah, I'd say that's the problem." She had water. But judging from the amount of smoke coming out from under the hood, a little water would not be much help to him. "If you've run her dry, you're gonna need a tow."

Sam grimaced. "Dean will freaking kill me!"

She opened her pack and pulled out a bottle of water. Regular water, not holy, but it seemed odd that Sam didn't have holy water in the trunk. Or maybe he did and he hadn't thought of using that for the car. Naomi tossed the water to him and he caught the bottle deftly. She had a sudden vision of him trying to open the radiator while it was still steaming. Bad idea. Really bad idea.

"You need to wait for it to cool down before you touch the radiator cap. Trust me."

He glared at her. "I'm not that bad a mechanic," he protested. He opened the bottle and took a drink. She wondered if he meant to do that all along or if he was covering up his mistake.

She smiled, approaching the car, and Sam. "Seriously, Sam. I can give you a ride to the next town if you like."

He looked at the car, uncharacteristically hesitant, and suddenly she realised what his problem was. He couldn't just call a random garage for a tow: the arsenal the brothers kept in the trunk would be discovered. The guns might not be questioned in this state, but the rest of it could raise suspicions...in short, it would be trouble. But what other choice did he have?

"Uh...it's okay. I think I'll just..."

"Call Dean and let him hunt you down?" she suggested with a grin.

Sam winced. "If it's just the radiator, I only need to wait for it to cool."

"Want some company?" she offered.

They ended up in the back seat of the Impala. Naomi sat behind the drivers' seat, her legs crossed "Indian-style" with the door beside her open to let the air circulate. Sam was half-turned away from her, his long legs stretched out of the other door, watching the road as they chatted. He explained that Dean wanted to spend some time with a friend and had allowed Sam to borrow the Impala for a research trip. Naomi assumed this meant some girl had managed to hold Dean's attention for more than one night - which was actually kind of a miracle.

Sam was supposed to pick Dean up in two days. Naomi didn't think he would make it. She was pretty sure he'd never get to borrow the car again either way.

"What about you?" Sam asked. "On your way to a hunt?"

"No, I'm on my way home from one. Ghouls."

He looked impressed. "Ghouls? Really? They're pretty rare."

"It's not as neat as it sounds. I was just cleaning up someone else's mess." She peered out through the windshield. "I think the engine's stopped smoking."

Sam nodded. "So. You know anything about fixing cars?"

Sam sounded so worried Naomi wished she could say yes. Instead she shrugged. "I know bikes and boats," she told him honestly. "Cars, I don't know."

"Yeah. Me, either," Sam confessed. He hauled himself out of the seat and walked around to the front of the car.

Naomi followed him. "Look," she said, taking pity on him, "I do know one thing."

Sam reached for the radiator cap, touched it gingerly to test the temperature and evidently decided it was cool enough because he got a good grip and twisted it open.

"The cooling system for an engine is supposed to be sealed," Naomi explained. "So if it dried out completely, you must have a leak."

Sam looked at her as if it was somehow her fault. He held out a hand for the water bottle.

Naomi gave it to him. "What I mean is..." she indicated the Impala's exposed engine, "a refill might not get you very far. We need to find the leak and plug it if we can." She knelt in the dusty ground. "It'll be fine. Just pour the water very slowly and I'll watch underneath." She bent lower but still couldn't see properly so she gave up and lay down on the ground where she could clearly see beneath the Impala. There was no evidence of water in the dust, which told her Sam really had run the engine dry. Idiot.

It was almost a relief when she saw the water begin to drip down. "Sam, that's it," she called. "Can you find the leak from up there?"

It didn't take him long to find it, and they managed a temporary repair with the tools from the trunk. Sam was a better mechanic than he thought he was, Naomi decided, watching his fingers run across the newly-sealed tube as he tested the seal.

Satisfied, Sam screwed the radiator cap back into place and closed the hood. "Thanks for the help, Naomi."

She shrugged, lifting her helmet off the back of her Harley. "Anytime. But you know you can't..."

"It'll get me where I need to go. I'll let Dean know I'll be late and..." he grinned suddenly, "can I call you if I need to go on the run?"

She laughed. "Dude, do you really want to owe me that big a favour?"

He looked, not at her, but at her bike. "I could handle it," he asserted. As flirtation, it was pretty mild, but Naomi found herself meeting his eyes in a new way. Just wondering.

She put the helmet on and winked at him before snapping the visor down. "Call me," she suggested and gunned her engine loudly.

Moments later she was zooming down the highway with Sam Winchester eating her dust. By the time she reached the next town, she could no longer see the Impala in her mirrors. Topping 130 on the highway with a job well done at her back was the best feeling in the world. Better than the adrenaline rush of a hunt. Better than sex.

Which was just as well, because she knew Sam wouldn't call her for that.