Title: Deus Ex Machina
Author: moveablehistory
Rating: PG
Pairing: mild implied Sam/Dean
Summary: Spoilers for the pilot and The Journey Home; warnings for very mild implied Sam/Dean that you could really just ignore if you want. I wrote this after considering the prominence of the Impala in both the show and in the fic, and I noted that I hadn't read any Metallicar POV. I sought to rectify the situation immediately.

***

The car doesn't know or understand very much at all. In fact, it shouldn't have been able to know or understand anything, but it woke up one day without knowing how and now it's slowly picking things up; learning things, feeling things, whatever.

It knows that it is a car (a "1967 Chevrolet Impala" althought it's not certain whether that is important or not) and this is the first step in being sentient, although the car does not know that. In fact, the car will never likely know what sentient means, but you can't miss what you don't know and so the car doesn't mourn (doesn't know how), it just accepts.

It knows it's being driven. The car doesn't know what driven means, but it thinks that driven (drivening? it wonders) = moving, and it's pretty much right. It knows it has wheels, and brakes, and windows, and a john part, and later it has a dean part, and it can vaguely remember a mary part but it's not sure if that was just a test or not. It knows it has a sam part, although it doesn't know if the sam part was broken or if they just couldn't get a replacement in from somewhere so the john and dean parts somehow managed without. It doesn't like managing without.

It knows that it had a lot of things in it that must be special somehow. It doesn't know what 'holy water' or 'crossbow' or 'rock salt loaded sawed off shotgun' all mean but it thinks they are specialty attachments for the john and dean parts. It knows that the john and dean parts sometimes need to repairs so they stop driving (drivening? it still wonders) at a 'bar' or a 'service station' and fix themselves. It's not sure how those parts manage, since it always needs someone else to do the repairs.

It knows when they find a replacement for the sam part (although it's not sure that it's a proper replacement, it feels just as broken as before) and it thinks it might have accidentally thrown that john part, but oh well. It likes the configuration better anyways. (oh look! it thinks. I felt something!)

It knows it likes the music (oh, feeling again! but what's music?) from around the time it was made, maybe the music from a while after, but not the music they have now. At least, not so much. It's starting to remember names like Black Dog and Back in Black and Road to Nowhere and cakehole, although it's not certain what they all mean exactly. It thinks they are part numbers, or maybe labels or dates like it sometimes notices on itself.

It knows that the dean part and the sam part are supposed to fit together somehow, but it seems like some alignment must be off, or maybe the metal's been stripped, or maybe there's a crack somewhere, but it knows that those parts must just be missing some important (mechanical or something like that it thinks) pieces and when those pieces are recovered, they will stop somewhere (like a 'motel' or maybe a 'bed and breakfast' - its favorite because it might not get rained or sunshined on).

It knows that when they get their pieces shipped in, they will reassemble back together the way they were built.

***

Next story in series - Beside the Machinery, This.