They stop for the night in a shitty little motel off the 10.
They’ve pulled over twice now, every ninety minutes as instructed, but Eddie can feel the exhaustion pulling at his limbs and at his eyelids and doesn’t want to risk another crash in this shitty little car that, frankly, he isn’t entirely positive has airbags. The streetlights and headlights aren’t helping his own concussion, either, and on top of that, they’re still six hours out, and the storm they’d tried to avoid initially had swung South directly into their path. Eddie doesn't want to risk it.
Buck is passed out in the passenger seat, breath rattling but steady. Eddie wakes him as gently as he can; he knows Buck’s sleep hasn’t been restful and they’re both exhausted and jumpy; waking him up at the wrong moment could extrapolate either of their injuries depending on how violently Buck wakes up. But he's not letting Buck out of his sight again for a second. Not, at least, for the next week. Minimum.
Eddie fumbles for their bags while Buck levers himself from the car. Eddie hisses as the weight pulls at the ache in his shoulder.
“Give me one,” Buck demands, bracing himself against the side of the car, his other hand outstretched and trembling from the angle. “Your shoulder—”
“Is fine,” Eddie answers, gritting his teeth and tightening his grip on the bags. He can handle it, really. It’s not that far. He can feel Buck’s gaze burning into the side of his head, but he ignores it. Tries to, anyway.
“It’s fine enough,” he concedes. “Get a move on, Buckley.”
Eddie herds him through the front door. Ideally he would have aimed for something with a little more security maybe, after the days they’ve had, maybe a little less off the beaten path, but this is what’s available, so this will have to do. He marches towards the desk, door bell jingling behind them.
“One room,” Eddie requests when they reach the desk before the clerk can even open her mouth. Buck startles at his side.
“Eddie—”
“One,” he insists at her questioning eyebrow and once over. We don't see a lot of your kind around here is all. “Please,” he adds, nice as he can manage, suddenly wondering if she sees what the people four hours behind them saw in them. If she sees what Eddie refuses to look at or entertain, because there’s nothing to look at, and Buck—well. Buck won't talk about any of it.
“One room. One night,” he pleads. “We just need a few hours of rest.”
“We only have one room left,” she warns. Buck’s hand finds the crook of his elbow and squeezes.
“Eddie—”
“We'll take it.”
She takes his card and passes over the key without another comment, and points them down the hall to their room.
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