Chapter Text
He was not going to fly. That was just not an option, it was never going to be an option, no matter what Sam had to say about safety protocols and how the probability of anything happening was much lower than with, for example, the Impala –
The last argument, he rejected outright. Who would ever dare compare his Baby to one of those metal death traps?
And so, instead of flying to see his brother and sister-in-law for the holidays, he had chosen to take a boat. Ship. Whatever.
Yes, it would take an entire day instead of just a few hours by plane, but that was a sacrifice he was willing to make, and if Sam didn’t appreciate that it was his problem.
So here he was, on a boat/ship/whatever he was supposed to call it, watching the world float by instead of almost having a heart attack, so that was a plus.
Not that this kind of thing was without its – well – he decided to call them adventures for lack of anything else.
They’d barely made it out of the harbor when he heard a commotion break out and, more out of boredom than anything else, decided to see what was going on.
“Now what’s going on?” he demanded as he stepped up to the two quarreling men, since he had learned early on that if one just happened to inject enough authority into one’s voice, people would listen.
In this case, it worked a little too well.
“Oh thank God officer!” the first man exclaimed – rather a scrawny guy, really, and next to nothing when compared to the guy in the suit he had apparently had his quarrel with – “please, you have to protect me.”
“Protect you? From what? I was merely making sure you keep your obligations –“
For some reason, Dean didn’t like the sound of that. “Now, wait a moment – this isn’t really the time for business negotiations”. Certainly anyone who took their business seriously would agree, which meant if the man didn’t – well – that would tell him enough.
He turned to him. Huh. Somewhat older than him, beard, nice suit –
Relax, Dean, this is not the moment for that. And for all that you know, he’s a loan shark. He could just imagine what Sam would have had to say.
“I completely agree, Mr. –“ huh. Someone most definitely did not just jump to conclusions and probably suspected that he had no authority here, but if he gave him his name, that would make it official, so…
“Call me Dean.”
His eyes narrowed, proving that he guessed what he was trying to do, or at least felt certain that Dean didn’t want to give him his name, which was suspicious in itself. “Well, Dean, as you no doubt agree, if one has obligations…”
“Yes, but there are ways to deal with that. Don’t get me wrong, I have no idea what this is about, but – courts, that kind of stuff”. He knew a bit more about it all than he let on, mostly due to Sam and his ramblings, but he wasn’t about to divulge that now, when he still hadn’t fully understood what kind of man was standing in front of him, which was strange in itself because he usually did at first glance. He’d had to learn that, growing up.
The man raised an eyebrow – had probably expected him to back down – but when he didn’t, he simply nodded and moved away.
The scrawny guy looked like he wanted to kiss Dean, so he simply said goodbye and left as well.
Thankfully, that was all the drama that was to be expected on a trip like that.
Now, Dean had probably spent much more time than was advisable looking up flight statistics and how often planes happened to fly into a storm et cetera.
Burt what he had most definitely not researched was how often a boat would sail (well, whatever boats did, these days) right into the same problem and how that might actually be more dangerous than that other option, especially if it happened without warning and one happened to still be on deck.
It was not an exaggeration – it really felt like he blinked and all of a sudden there was a storm throwing the boat around. He stumbled to the nearest wall and tried to grab something, anything, only everything was wet and slippery and –
He got thrown at the railing and at least could get hold of that, but –
He could have sworn there was another figure a few feet away, but with the rain pouring down, he couldn’t even tell if it was a member of the crew or another passenger –
And then a wave came along and dragged him over board.
His last thought before losing consciousness was Sorry for not making it to home, Sammy.