Sam had vaguely been watching the passing street signs as the Impala continued to fly down the highway (at a relatively safe speed, with an angel being the wheel and an injured Winchester in the passenger seat, mind you). He managed to catch half an hour of sleep here or there, but Cas kept them driving through the night, only stopping a few times for breaks and snacks.
After each passing hour, Sam's chest was definitely starting to hurt more, however. He just needed rest and to de-stress and take his meds and know that Dean was alright. But stopping for a motel would mean losing a few valuable hours to getting to Dean as soon as possible. Sam re-situated himself every time the pain started creeping up again, assured Cas that he was alright, and went back to watching the world pass by. It was easier than thinking about what may be happening on the other side of the country, after all.
Though, without the blaring rock music, something seemed off. Cas didn't dare to touch Dean's coveted tape deck, and after an hour or so of lame radio music, the Impala had once again become quiet. It was just another reminder of the reason why they were in the Impala in the first place.
As soon as the sun started cresting over the horizon, Sam had woken up from another short reprieve to find that the car was parked. He blinked his eyes a few times to focus them, and upon further looking, found no Cas in the car with him and said car in the parking lot of a motel.
It only took another moment of looking around, confused, for Cas to come back and drop a key onto the dashboard.
"No, Cas, c'mon, we need to keep driving," Sam protested, although a bit weaker than he intended. The stop wasn't for Cas, after all.
Cas didn't reply, and instead turned the car back on and began driving towards the other side of the small complex.
"Cas-" he started again.
"No," was the simple, unmoving argument back as Cas didn't take his eyes off the road. "Dean told me to take care of you, which is what I intend to do. You're obviously in pain, you're too tired and worried to mask it, you need rest."
The car was silent for another few moments until Cas pulled into a spot in front of a few of the rooms, turned off the car, and paused before he looked to Sam. "It will do Dean no good other than to worry him if you show up at the hospital in pain and sleep deprived."
Sam had to admit Cas at least had a point there. Assuming Dean was even at the hospital; they had elected to turn off the news until they stopped for breaks, but the signal wasn't always the best. Hopefully the motel would at least have something.
He thought it over for another minute before he slowly nodded. It would do neither of them any good to sit and argue over it. "Yeah, you've got a point," Sam said quietly.
"Just a few hours, we can leave at dusk, and should make it to New York sometime tomorrow, we're making good time," Cas continued, as if to assure Sam just a bit more.
"Sounds good," Sam nodded again. "I just-I don't want-Dean hates hospitals," he eventually ended on, trying for a bit of a smirk that eventually fell flat.
Cas seemed to understand what he was getting at and nodded back. "From my experience, I can't see why someone would like being in one," he agreed. "He's probably there already, resting, as you should be," Cas reminded. He toyed with the car keys a bit in his hand before he grabbed the motel key, got out of the car, and headed around to the trunk.
"Probably," Sam repeated quietly, and shook his head. Dean had to be, he had to be. He was probably all doped up on painkillers and sleeping or trying to sign himself out and get a phone or helping with the rescue efforts himself. Sam preferred the second of third option to the first, even though Dean on painkillers made for some fun stories later.
Sam soon followed Cas, although it took him a bit longer, out of the car and into the waiting motel room.
"Thanks," Sam added quietly, with a hint of a smile on his face that stuck around for a bit longer. He wouldn't have gotten a quarter of this far without Cas, that was certain.
"It is no problem, we'll get him back," the angel assured Sam again before he put the duffel down on the little kitchenette table. "I can put up the salt lines, though I doubt they'll be needed, you should get some rest."
Sam looked back and forth between the bed closest to the door, which would probably remain empty, and the duffel on the table. "Yeah," he nodded again and made his way over to the duffel to grab his medication.
Though he doubted he'd be able to sleep much with his thoughts running rampant through his head, it couldn't hurt to at least lie down. Meds, water, bed, drive, Dean, and get food somewhere in there. He had a mental list, so only five things to do before they got to Dean. That wouldn't be so bad, would it?
Dean was sure he was getting closer to the boat. Or at least, he should have been. The waves and his splitting skull and the fact that his body didn't exactly want to move weren't helping the situation any. He just had to get to the boat…how far was it?
"Here!" he tried again, and raised a numb arm above the water. The searchlights were spinning around looking for people. As Dean watched, they would sometimes stay on one figure for a few moments and there would either be some sort of movement or the lights would go back to searching. He knew that it meant when the lights went back, and he didn't want the same fate to happen to him.
Gradually, the ship got closer, but with every passing moment, it was if his life was literally leeching out into the water around him. Everything was just cold and was moving too much and…and…
He raised another arm above the water, grateful he had a life vest on so that he could do so.
"H'y," Dean tried again, and coughed some of the water away from his face, which did not help at all. Were his ribs hurt too? Did he hurt his ribs? He honestly had no idea.
The lights kept spinning and Dean kept his arm up, until, magically, one seemed to stop on him. And damn the sudden influx of light hurt. It hurt a lot, so much so that he had to turn his head away. With eyes squeezed shut, Dean kept his arm raised and waved it back and forth a bit, hoping that it wasn't just dumb luck and that a person on the boat actually saw him.
By some miracle, it seemed, the light got even brighter. So…either he was dying or someone had seen him, and Dean was really hoping the latter.
He couldn't discern the words, but there was obviously some shouting going on, and it seemed to be getting closer. Dean lowered his arm gradually, letting it thunk back into the icy water. He didn't move any more, he just sat there, bobbing up and down as the voices got closer.
He had definitely been seen, and if his head wasn't killing him so much, he'd laugh out of sheer freaking gratitude.
It took another few moments for the boat to reach him. Or…he thought moments, it could have been minutes, he wasn't really sure. But he didn't dare open his eyes again, for the light was too bright against the dark waves he had gotten used to.
The shouting kept getting closer until it was right on top of him, and then there were hands scrambling to get him up onto the boat. A few latched onto his life vest and heaved, with Dean letting out a fairly loud groan as they did so.
And then…the undulating stopped. There was semi-solid ground under him as he flopped (which was probably a nicer term than what actually happened) onto the deck and looked, a bit dazed, at the people around him.
"-you hear me? Sir?"
Dean caught the last bit of the sentence and he blinked his eyes, trying to focus more on the man in front of him, who was very loudly asking him something. It seemed loud, anyways.
He nodded his head in the slightest bit, which he immediately deemed afterwards to be a bad call, as a sudden wave of dizziness had him tilting to the side.
"Okay, okay, easy there," the first part was directed to him. "Get him propped up on the side, we need to get the vest and jacket off, grab a blanket and a wrap for his head, it doesn't look good," was said to the rest of the people milling around him. What Dean heard was more chopped up, but he got the gist.
How badly was his head hurt? Before he could contemplate it more, he was gently slid to rest against the side of the boat, or a chair, or something hard and stable.
"Gonna get you out of all this wet gear, how does that sound?"
Dean couldn't tell if it was a rhetorical question or not, so he closed his eyes again.
"Hey, sound good yes or no, we need to keep you awake," the man prompted again, and tapped Dean a bit on the shoulder as he went about removing his life vest and outer jacket, both of which were thoroughly soaked.
Someone came rushing back over with a blanket, which was quickly wrapped around his shoulders, and a few 'thanks' followed before the other person left.
"Okay, sir, you gotta name, some ID on you?"
ID? Not on him, no, it was back in his bag in the…plane, yeah, he wasn't getting any of that back.
"D," was all he managed to get out through his chattering teeth as he wrung his hands together. When the hell did it get so cold and hard to move?
"Alright, D, can you tell me what happened?"
Dean really wasn't in favor of the questions, but he was less in favor of the sudden pressure on his head as the man pressed a bandage to it. That alone had his eyes opening wide as he gasped, some of the numbness from the water wearing off with the pain.
"Sorry, gotta stop the bleeding," the man apologized quietly, obviously focused on working while he waited for Dean's answer.
"Crash," he muttered.
"Okay, good. Do you know what date it is?"
There was more pressure on his head, which again had him nearly tipping over as the man fastened the bandage around his wound.
What had he asked? Date? It was…cold. So a cold month, it was…why was this so hard?
"D?" the man prompted again. When Dean didn't answer, he pulled out a flashlight. "Gonna pass this over your eyes, see how it feels, okay?"
Dean didn't exactly have a choice in the matter, so he kept his eyes open as best he could, but ended up shutting them immediately as the light passed over them.
"Hurts, huh?"
Damn right it hurt. But Dean couldn't exactly express that given how tense and tight everything was, so he let out a low 'mhm'.
The man put his flashlight away and tugged someone else over, at which point Dean kept his eyes closed.
"Hypothermia…hour and a half in the water minimum…head gash…concussion probably, he needs to get this checked out."
From the gist of it, his prognosis didn't sound good.
"Got about fifteen minutes before another boat gets here, you hang on that long and we'll be back in town before you know it, get you some hot chocolate, you like that? I'm gonna grab a cup of hot water, don't you go anywhere."
At some point before that was said, the other person had vanished. But this man, he was trying to keep him up and talking or lucid or something. It reminded him of how someone else usually got…he probably wouldn't be too happy if Dean passed out.
Well, that was too bad for him then. Dean listed sideways, happy to find that there was something to prop his aching head up on before he curled his legs in tighter and got the blanket more snug around his shaking form.
It was only then that he noticed the hushed voices and cries of those around him. How many were on the boat? How many were still in the water?
How long did the guy say they had to stay out for? Fifty minutes? No, no, no, that wouldn't be good.
Before the man could get back with whatever he had gone off to grab, the numbness in his body and pain in his head and overall shaking and tiredness and a whole list of other things had Dean slowly losing track of why it was important to stay conscious.
Again, sorry about the long wait, I've been super sick these past few weeks :/ but we're moving right along! Dean's portion was supposed to be a bit jumbled and confused, we'll get to the why later, I just hope it came through alright. Fingers crossed there may be an update this coming week, we'll see. Thank you all so, so much for your support, I can't tell you how much it means. Feel free to drop a review about the story or how you're finding season 13 so far ;)
shigui: Capturing spirits in a nondemonic and pleasant (almost) sort of way is what I've been going for, thanks so much :)