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It's stupid, but he just wanted the sand gone.
Objectively, every other hurt was worse, but familiarity bred contempt. His shoulders pulled back and forced to take too much of his weight: pretty pedestrian by now. The broken leg he couldn't heal: a constant companion. The sting of too-large needles forced into his neck: a welcome reminder that he was still alive. The bone-deep ache of his grace slowly prying itself away to trickle down the IV: no worse than it had ever been.
But the stupid metal mask didn't do anything to keep the sand out of his eyes, and it stung.
Rewind thirty minutes: inside of his cell, where he was also hanging slumped from chains and putting too much weight on his shoulders. Outside, the War Boys argued. They were mustering for a ride, but one was going to be left behind.
“You'll just crash and waste a bike and fuel,” the leader said. “Earn your honor when you can walk straight.”
“I can! I can do it,” the focus of attention shouted. These War Boys were strange to listen to, never more desperate than when they saw a chance to die. “Just let me take the blood bag. I can- I can strap him to the rig. I'll heal on the ride.”
Blood bag. That meant Castiel. They were going to move him? Maybe-
But of course it wasn't that easy. The spelled manacles were joined by a half-dozen more chains and wards before they even left the cell.
So here he was. First time he'd seen the sky in years and he was strapped to the front of a war rig. He couldn't even appreciate the sunlight; all he could do was squint against the stinging sand and wish his face was covered.
Dean kept driving for another hour after they left the War Boys behind. He could hear the painful crunching of whatever wreck Baby was dragging along with her, but she was still moving forward, and while he normally kept her in better shape than he kept himself, a few scratches were an acceptable price to pay for extra distance between his cargo and the War Boys.
Only when he was confident that he didn't see a single dust plume anywhere on the horizon did he slow the rig to a halt. “Clear for now,” he called into the back. “I'm going to check the damage. Keep an eye on the horizon, but you can stretch your legs and take a drink.”
The concealed hatch tipped up, revealing his tightly-packed cargo of stowaways. He didn't want to intrude on their first tastes of freedom, so he hurriedly unlatched the door and leapt down into the drifting sand.
Damn. They really did have a whole rig traveling with them, tangled up in the hitch. It was the single-runner whose driver had tried to cut them off; well, Baby's windshield held against the gunfire, and then Dean ran him over. He didn't feel particularly bad about it, either. The man had died historic on the fury road, just like all the war boys crowed about.
If he was dead. Dean pulled a pistol as he approached the wreck. War Boys would use their dying breath to finish the ride, no question about it.
A swoop ran through his stomach when he saw a body dangling under the hitch. It wasn't moving, but it obviously wasn’t a War Boy; too much hair.
Right, he'd thought he'd seen someone strapped to the front of one of the rigs when he checked his mirrors. What had that been about? Poor bastard.
Poor bastards aren't threats, so first he leaned down to peer inside the crumpled rig. Plenty of blood, but no body. Well, he'd prefer to be sure of the location of the driver, but it'd do. He turned his attention to where the stupid decorative chains all over the thing were caught on his hitch- wait, did that poor bastard just breathe?
“What the fuck?” Dean muttered to himself, moving to the guy's head. He was mangled, sand and blood covering his whole body, a leg dangling at a nauseating angle. More importantly, the chains that had been dragging an entire rig through the sand were also wrapped around his chest. It was a miracle he hadn't been squeezed in half - literally - how was he breathing?
But he was. His chest moved slowly, so slowly, but it moved.
Fuck. Dean was pretty much at his quota for people to be responsible for. He couldn't spare water for someone who probably wasn't going to last the night anyways.
But he couldn't just leave the man.
“Ok buddy,” he mumbled, to himself more than to the unconscious body. “Let's see about getting you out of here.”
He gently tugged on some of the chains - definitely dragging the weight of the war rig, how the fuck was the man still in one piece - and followed a piece of bloody plastic tubing to the guy's neck. (Again: what?) Well, there's something he could do. He reached forward to grab the needle-
The guy's eyes opened.
Blue, Dean thought for one stupid moment, and then the man was straining forward, snarling and swinging his head with so much force that the metal cage around it tore a scratch in Dean's arm and sent him reeling backwards.
“Whoa, whoa,” he said, holding his hands up and pointing his pistol at the sky. “I'm not gonna hurt you.”
The man ignored him to thrash against his bonds, and Dean was starting to get a prickle on the back of his neck, because he was sure that those chains had been pulled too tight to move, but now they were rattling and jangling as an entire fucking decked-out Humvee was dragged inch by inch through the sand.
Dean had a vampire stuffed in his cargo hold, and he still didn't want to mess with whatever this was.
The guy won himself some slack, but he was still dangling from manacles that were wrapped around Baby's hitch, and apparently the spelled iron could hold him. He stilled, panting, and raised his head to glare at Dean, baring bloody teeth in a snarl.
“Ok, ok. Uh, can you understand me?” It didn't seem to change anything. Fuck, he couldn't just release something this strong, not when he had no idea what it was. He holstered his pistol and slowly started to exchange it for his bolt cutters “I'm gonna-”
Crash, as the guy thrashed hard enough to bring the war rig tipping forward. Dean was about ready to back off and leave him to it when the balance shifted and the whole thing suddenly started rolling. The guy was jerked tightly towards the hitch by the chain around his neck, and his feet were still manacled to the wheels, and Dean was pretty sure he was about to watch someone get their head popped off like a PEZ dispenser. The man scrabbled frantically at the chains around his neck.
Too late to negotiate. Dean vaulted up onto the hitch and brought his bolt cutters to bear on the straining chain. Maybe just freeing the guy would kill him; the whiplash was about to be horrendous.
The chains were definitely spelled, but Dean was human through and through, so they didn't slow him down. The link severed with a deep pop. For a moment that seemed to stretch long and quiet, the chain held. Dean threw himself backwards as the severed link slowly deformed, and hit the ground just before a thunderous crack announced the breaking of the chain. He watched - watched - a broken link fly through the space his head had occupied a moment ago. The rig settled to the ground with a thump, and the man flopped gracelessly to the ground in front of it.