Ooopsie Daisy

He's Not Riding Shotgun

    The sun would break over an empty scene. The paramedics and concerned clinic workers were long departed, and the parking lot empty, save one car, in the pre-dawn hours. The leaves on the edge of the lot swayed gently, reappearing edged in blue out of the empty haze of night.
    Two brothers were hunched at the edge of the lot. One stared sightless at the other, impossibly still in the darkness; the other stared sightlessly back, even stiller. The stillness of death.
    The blueness crept onward up the sky, revealing it like a silvery thing overhead. Large gaps in the stars became clouds, what had been vast gaping holes in the emptiness of space were knit over, becoming islands in a vast ocean. What had been the emptiness became the whole. The night sky, which pinned down the onlooker, became a deep blue bowl that one could fall into if not careful.
    And still the brothers stayed, locked in place, as the night which had so kindly shrouded them left them visible once more. To the fault of none, as the day had come, and it was time for the night to go.
    There was a flicker of deep pink on the horizon, hinting through the trees. Not a dramatic sunrise, but the earth didn't turn for the beauty of it.
    Or maybe it did. Nonetheless, the sun creeped above the horizon, and morning light trickled across the area, shining on singing birds and waking squirrels and stirring bugs in the grass.
Eventually, it creeped up along the trees to the birds, whose morning songs were coming to an end unnoticed. At the lowest point of the foliage, between the trees and underlying fences and bushes, the sunlight could break through and reach the ground in a strong band. This sunlight creeped along the ground toward the brothers, slowly warming their feet, and then creeping up until finally, they were finally in the light.
    The sunlight hit the eyes of the younger brother, and he came to life with a violent sputter.
Sam choked and blinked at the sudden brightness in his eyes, almost reacting as if some vengeful ghost had attacked in his sleep. But he hadn't been sleeping, and it was just the sun, shining as always.
He went to rub his eyes, but they were raw. He was surprised to find the skin of his face had somehow dried. A sound escaped his lips and he choked on it again, forcing it back down.
Sam rolled his shoulders back, feeling how the night's dew had condensed on his back and cooled all his muscles until they were as cold and stiff as...
Dean's. He returned his gaze to his brother. Dead, somehow, after everything they'd been through?
No. Dean had died before, and he would do it again. Of course he would.
Dean being such a driving and defining force in his life for so long, Sam almost didn't know what to do. No one to talk over him, or point him in the direction to go, just a completely empty parking lot and Sam. And his dead brother.
Sam carefully released Dean's shoulder's from his grip. Stopped looking his brother's bloodied face in the eye. He couldn't break down like this, not when Dean wouldn't. Of course not.
Sam worked his fingers, trying to bring some warmth back into them in the weak, warm morning light. The first order of business would be...  the first order of...
Sam looked down at his hands covered in Dean's blood. Right. The last thing to do would be to bring Dean back. How would he get there? Okay.
First, he needed to stand up. Sam inched backwards out from under the body, his legs aching with pins and needles from the return of bloodflow. Dean's body was so stiff, like it had been sculpted from clay and left to dry. He scuttled backwards as Dean's body collapsed to the pavement. He thought he saw dark mottling on Dean's face.
Sam lifted up Dean's body and saw that blood had pooled in his brother's face- permanently it seemed, red and purple and pale places where the blood had been obstructed. The excess blood left him looking more sickly than before. Sam thought back to corpses he had seen in the past- left out flat, their features had smoothed as they were emptied of blood. But they had left Dean where he laid, and then after Cas -fuck him- had left him to do all the paperwork alone, Sam hadn't had the strength to move him last night and... 
Sam ran a hand over his brother's pale neck and mottled face. They- he would fix this.
He lifted his brother's body in both arms. The corpse was awkward and heavy, the limbs stiffer than any he had ever touched. And cold- so cold. Dean was always so sturdy, it was like winter's blizzards could never touch him.
With great difficulty, Sam lugged the body into the passenger seat of the black 1967 Chevy Impala. With a start, he noticed a fly land on Dean's hand and swatted it away.
Looking around, Sam could see at least 3 bugs flitting through the warming air. How many flies had landed on his body in the night while Sam sat and stared and did nothing, not even noticing?
He drummed his fingers on the hood of the car. It didn't matter now. He would just have to bring Dean back before any maggots sprouted.
With a shudder, Sam got into the driver's seat and hit the ignition.
To drive the dark thoughts from his mind, Sam turned the music on. "Highway to Hell" started blasting from one of Dean's ancient cassettes.
He sat there, feeling mounting anger at the song as it played through the first stanza and hit the chorus. "I'm on the highwayyyyyy to hell," blasted ACDC from the speakers.
"Am I?" hissed Sam, slamming the cassette tape's eject button. He ripped it from the player half-roughly, knowing how irreplaceable they were to the man whose body was in the seat next to him.
Sam's eyes widened and he turned to look at his brother. Empty-eyed, sitting stiffly in a way that made it clear he wasn't sitting, red in the face and clammy-handed.... Dean looked like something out of nightmare, sitting there in the passenger seat.
With a sigh, Sam got out of the car and began the long process of shifting Dean to the back bench of the black 1967 Chevy Impala. When he was finished, Dean lay there, awkwardly face up, with a blanket from the back covering him and a bag of his beloved cassettes as a pillow. 
He looked like he was crudely shrouded there, ready for burial... or just napping. And Sam was determined to wake him up.
Sam got back the the car and started to drive. Where was he going? Dean's last mission... He glanced over at the bottle still in the door. That fool's errand could wait, if it wasn't just nonsense made up by a dying man.
In the trunk, there was a box with most the necessary components. All he had to do is find a dirt crossroads and... did Sam have enough of a soul to trade in the first place?
And why was he assuming Dean was in hell? How could he get him back otherwise?
How could you steal someone out of Heaven?
Would Dean even want to come back? He'd better, he'd been the one who'd  dragged Sam into everything in the first place.
Sam stopped at a stoplight, staring wide eyed at the crossroads. He needed a picture- did he even have a picture of Dean alive?
He couldn't deal with this anymore. Sam turned on the radio and cruised through the stations, catching the tail end of an ad break on a 80s hits channel. He drew in a deep breath and let it out. No more rock. No more brother. It was just Sam and a corpse he didn't know how to save.
And a deadbeat angel he didn't know what to think of.
"Music loud, and women warm," played from the radio. Grateful for the first song not off of Dean's playlist he'd heard in a while, Sam turned it up.
"I've been kicked around since I was born," it continued. It was very familiar, but it had been a while.
That's when it clicked.
"STAYIN' ALIVE? Are you kidding me?" Sam shouted, and ran the red light.