The obeisance of memory

A/N: Thanks for the kind reviews!

It looks like a shiny metal death trap.

He totally doesn't care.

"Dude, that is awesome!"

"Yeah, actually-"

"You have a car!" He opens the door and climbs in the passenger seat, settling in with a great relieved sigh. "Ack, this is - this is friggin' amazing, do you realize how many miles I've had to walk just to get to this crappy town? I think I've got blisters on my blisters."

Scowly gets in from his side, his movements all stilted and jerky as if a very inept puppet master is pulling his strings. "Yeah," he mutters, sounding just on the verge of bitterness, and twists to face the back seat. "It's… wonderful. Christo."

"Gesundheit." Sam leans back into his seat and stares out the windshield, entwining his hands behind his head, enjoying the moment. This is probably the cleanest place he'd been in since, well, ever. Scowly runs a tight ship.

Speaking of which, Sam thinks he should probably find out what the guy's name actually is. It could get a little awkward calling him Scowly to his face.

He turns his head, says, "So hey, I just realized -" and promptly receives water to the face.

He blinks, recovers enough to send a glare at his supposed brother. "What - what the everloving crap, man," he sputters, sitting up and wiping his forehead with a dirty sleeve, "What the heck was that for?"

For a moment, Scowly looks at a loss, silver bottle almost engulfed in his paw of a hand as he just gapes at Sam, but soon enough he recovers and just shrugs innocently. "You're pretty filthy."

It's tempting, really, to get mad, say 'screw you' to Scowly and get out to go his merry wandering way, but those sad, too-earnest eyes must be working a spell on him or something, because he can't seem to rally up anything greater than mild annoyance.

And it's only water, anyway.

"Yeah, and that helped how?" Sam grumbles. He pauses to think, then comments, "Not to mention, dude, you might want to watch out for your car. It'd be a real shame to ruin this leather interior."

It only lasts a second, but strangely enough, that's the first smile he gets out of the guy.

…It looks pretty good.

0000

"So," he says a little while later, once he gets bored counting streetlights. Scowly's not a chatterbox, that's for sure. "You and me. Brothers, huh?"

The guy's humongous hands (because they are, okay, they're freaking fucking huge) tighten on the steering wheel, but his reply is calm and level. "If you're who you say you are."

"Yeah, about that. A name would be nice."

Scowly glances at him briefly.

Sam waits a moment. When nothing comes, he rolls his eyes in exasperation. "Well?"

There's a long pause.

And then, finally, quietly: "Dean."

He repeats it in his head, but nothing clicks, there's no mental cry of bingo or eureka or even yahtzee.

"Ah," he says, feeling stupid. "Is that, uh, yours or mine?"

The large knuckles whiten again, but Scowly's face doesn't betray a thing. "Yours. I'm…" his throat works, "I'm Sam."

Sam - Dean winces inwardly. Talk about awkward, no wonder the guy'd looked so stunned. Add to that the shock of seeing his dead brother walking around – and, yeah, can't blame the guy for being seriously messed up.

At the same time, he can't really bring himself to feel all that much sympathy because who cares? He knows his name. His actual real name. It even sounds real and everything.

And damn, it feels good.

"So," Dean says cheerfully, "we got any family? I mean, I get the feeling we're not exactly the Brady Bunch, here, but is there anyone else? Do I have a family holed up somewhere? Where're our parents at?"

"Everyone's dead," Sam – the real Sam, that is – replies shortly.

And that pretty much kills that conversation.

0000

He falls asleep.

Not polite road-trip etiquette, maybe, but it shouldn't surprise anyone – Dean's kind of had a big day, what with rising from the dead and walking a bajillion miles and all. It's nice and black and quiet wherever he is, and there aren't any dreams; at least, none that he can remember when he wakes up.

...But maybe that's because he's got other things on his mind.

"Ow!"

His companion shoots him a fleeting glance before turning back apathetically to the road. "You okay?"

Dean stares at his wrist, where a scratch is already starting to scab over. "Think I hit my hand on something," he answers, weirded out. First the grave thing, then the sound thing, and now mysterious injuries out of nowhere?

What the hell is going on here?

"You should be more careful."

Real helpful, Sam. He gives his best glare, but Sam doesn't seem to notice or care. He settles for a mumbled fuck you, thinks for a bit and then adds a Sammy just for kicks.

"It's Sam," his maybe-brother says flatly, sounding dangerous and distinctly un-brotherly.

"Whatever," he says back, too annoyed to be intimidated.

Still, he makes a mental note. Sam, not Sammy.

0000

Barely ten minutes pass then before Dean gets seriously thirsty. Not as in hmm-I-could-go-for-a-soda thirsty, but the full out my-tongue-is-sandpaper-and-I-need-water-to-live sensation of dehydration, which in hindsight, might have been prevented by ordering more water instead of just more orders of dessert.

He debates for a few more minutes whether or not to chance it, but finally decides that being sca-wary of Sam's seven feet of muscle is not really a good reason to suffer, especially considering that killing Dean would involve taking his hands off the wheel and Sam's been a pretty law-abiding driver so far, aside from the speeding. "Hey," he says, trying for casual, "where'd you put that water bottle?"

Sam shoots him an unreadable look. "There's one behind your seat," he answers, somewhat curtly.

He crinkles his forehead. "What happened to that other one you had? You know, the one you watered me with?"

Sam opens his mouth as if to answer, but then closes it just as quickly. His shoulders lift in a shrug.

Muttering under his breath, Dean snaps open his seatbelt and dives his upper body between the seats trying to find the goddamn thing. When his hands finally wrap around round plastic, he straightens, twists off the cap and takes a pull, gulping down what must be half of its contents in a single swallow, not bothering to be delicate or quiet about it because seriously, the guy's pissy act is starting to get on his nerves. He gets that seeing a dead brother can come as a surprise, he really does, but would it actually kill the giant ass to be friendly?

He's not sure what he'd been aiming for, but as they stop for a red light Sam proves that he can, in fact, acknowledge Dean's existence, and does so by staring his eyes out.

…Which, okay. Creepy.

Whatever. Deciding to give His Royal Bitchiness a taste of his own medicine, Dean pointedly ignores the intense sorta-green glower and continues to drink obnoxiously loud. When he finishes, he wipes his mouth with a sleeve, and only then does he return Sam's scrutiny.

"You mind?" he asks with a raised eyebrow.

"Your… hands," the other man says haltingly, and it's only when Dean follows his gaze that he realizes that Sam had been looking at them all along.

He glances at the hand holding the bottle and frowns, not understanding where Sam's coming from. He's pretty sure he has all five digits, but he wiggles them all to make sure. "What about them?"

"They're…" Mister can't-give-a-straight-answer falters uncertainly, almost sounding amazed.

Dean follows his gaze again, and suddenly realizes what's going on. His fingernails have collected dirt and blood, his knuckles are torn to the bone, and his hands still look more brown than not.

He blinks incredulously. This has to be a joke.

...The OCD asshole is actually mad at him for getting his precious car dirty.

"Sorry if I'm not manicured enough for you, princess," he bites out angrily, because he's had a long day and he's had it with Sam. "Digging through six feet of dirt ain't exactly easy, all right?"

"I…" Sam seems to be finding it hard to speak. "I guess so," he says quietly, and when he looks back to the road, there's a wrinkle between his eyebrows that hadn't been there before.

0000

Two hours later, Sam still doesn't seem to be planning on stopping for anything but a gas station anytime soon. Dean shifts in his seat for a while before finally abandoning his sorry attempt at giving Sam the silent treatment. "Dude, the guy live in Canada or something? Where the heck are you driving us?"

"South Dakota."

He whistles as his mind somehow informs him just how long it takes to get there from Indiana. He has no idea if any of that's true, but he figures it can't be too off. "Must be a pretty good friend you got there, if you're gonna drive us all that way."

"Yeah," Sam answers tightly, not elaborating.

"Think he can…" he trails off, unsure how to finish – what, help Dean with his not-dead problem? Jeeze, he doesn't even have a clue what they're aiming for, here.

Sam pulls a shoulder in another wordless shrug.

…Dean's really starting to get tired of those.

0000

Another hour passes.

It might be just Dean, but the silence in the car feels kind of awkward. Awkward in ways even Radiohead can't cover for. Ways especially Radiohead can't cover for.

He fidgets in his seat as Sam glowers ahead at the road, feeling distinctly uncomfortable.

In the end, he decides to just come out with it. Clear the air and all.

"By the way. Sam." The name glides off his tongue like he's already said it a million times, and for the first time it crosses his mind that maybe he has. "I just… I want to say thanks."

Dean can practically feel the puzzlement radiate from the other man. "What for?" Sam asks, for once not sounding cold or surly or murderous.

"Well, uh." Why does his face feels like it's burning? He clears his throat. "You didn't have to do this. Putting up with me and crap. I mean, you don't even know if I'm really your brother, and even if I was, I'm guessing I wasn't exactly one of your top five people to be stuck in a car with, so uh… yeah. Thanks. I appreciate it."

He steals a glance at Sam – his brother, damn – but if anything, the guy looks upset.

Oh, what now?

"Why –" Sam swallows, stares ahead. "What makes you think we didn't get along?"

Dean shrugs (ha, see, I can do that too). "Well for one," he starts, counting off on his fingers, "you didn't look too happy to see me alive and kicking. Still don't, actually. Then there's me being buried in the middle of nowhere, not exactly wearing my Sunday best, in what must be – no offense, dude – what is probably the shittiest grave in the history of graves. I mean come on, man, I didn't even get a headstone with my name on it – which would have been really helpful, by the way – let alone some corny lines about how I was an awesome brother and all. So yeah, doesn't exactly take a genius to connect the dots."

"It wasn't… it wasn't like that," the other man whispers after a moment, with obvious effort. "It wasn't supposed to be permanent. Just… just for a while, until…"

He can't help but feel bad – like, he isn't about to lie (his grave was crappy), but it hadn't been his intention to make Sam feel guilty. Not to mention that it probably isn't very polite (or tactful for that matter) to come back from the dead and complain about his funeral arrangements. That's more vengeful ghost territory, and his butt's way too uncomfortably numb to be anything like incorporeal.

"Look, don't worry about it. So we weren't the Brady Bunch, big fucking deal. I'm sure you had more important things to take care of, plus it's not like there's any point wasting money on dead people anyway." He lets out a breath, lounges back on his seat in an attempt to get comfortable. "All I'm saying is that I appreciate what you're doing here, that's all. Most people would probably freak out or pick up a gun if they saw a zombie ordering apple pie, not take it out for a drive."

"Dean –" Sam says thickly, but that's it, that's all he says. All of a sudden, Dean's grouchy companion is staring at the road as if trying to set it on fire, and somehow at the same time also manages to look all of eight years old. There's barely a foot between them, but for all intents and purposes, Sam might as well be a million miles away.

Dean doesn't really get what's happening, if the guy just can't take a thank you or if there's some other issue at work here, but he decides to see it as a good thing that Sam's so focused on the road, seeing as how Sam's also the one driving. Dean doesn't really care to have his life end in a car accident less than twenty-four hours after it's begun - but then again, that'd be ironic, and his life so far has all the makings of a big cosmic joke.

Still, it would kind of suck to have Sam dragged down with him. When he's not being a giant huffy ass, Dean thinks he might even like the guy.

0000

The world's pretty.

They pass by cows and pastures and lakes, and Dean just eats it all up, watching with wide eyes as the blue sky turns bluer and the sun dives across to the horizon as if racing with the clouds. Again he muses on what a decidedly odd circumstance this non-memory deal is, because while he knows what night is and can, in theory anyway, tell apart stalks of corn and wheat, it feels as if he's never seen anything before, as if each experience is the very first. It's kind of a cool feeling, in a way, to appreciate the world like a kid probably does, to know what things are supposed to be like, but then again, not really.

…It's also a little lonely.

"You're not a zombie, you know," Sam says abruptly, gaze still fixed on the road.

It takes a second to process that Sam is talking to him.

"Oh, I know," he replies airily. "This face is way too pretty to be undead."

Sam doesn't answer, but there's a little curve to his lips that could almost be considered a smile, and his green - hazel? - eyes crinkle with real amusement. Dean would have said something about it, but for some reason he doesn't and instead just grins out the window.

The silence between them is suddenly much more comfortable, after that.