SPN Fic - The Wind Remembers Their Names - Part 1/3
Title: The Wind Remembers Their Names
Rating: PG-13 for language
Word Count: 10,677
Characters/Pairing: Sam and Dean, gen, no pairing
Disclaimer: All the witty disclaimers are already taken. Sam and Dean belong to Kripke & Co., not me.
Summary: Sam and Dean investigate a series of mysterious hypothermia deaths in small-town South Dakota. Set after "Jus in Bello."
A/N: Written for egorstandish for the spn_thur_nights Fic Exchange. This may not be exactly what you’re looking for, but it’s an idea that has haunted me for a long time - I hope you enjoy it. (You asked for PG, and I really, really tried, but these boys were very determined to cuss a bit. I managed to only drop two f-bombs, though, which is some kind of record for me.)
I’ve never been to South Dakota. While the towns mentioned are real, the details are filled in from my imagination, and I’ve fudged a bit on county lines. I apologize for any inadvertent travesties. If anyone happens to notice errors - typos or factual - please let me know!
Thanks to my beta/partner-in-crime/enabler, laurie_bug.
Title taken from a line in the final poem of Ted Kooser’s The Blizzard Voices.
--
Flat cornfields, big sky. The 1967 Impala crossed into South Dakota on a gray January day, sleek black dulled by salt and dust, the only car in sight on the two lane blacktop.
Dean Winchester jerked awake in the passenger seat. His head thunked against the window. He sat up, swiped the sleeve of his jacket across his mouth. NPR played low on the radio. “Huh,” Dean said. “Didn’t know there were liberals in South Dakota.”
Sam Winchester shot his brother a glance. “I’m pretty sure there are at least four.”
Dean rubbed at the crick in his neck. “How far?”
“ ’Bout an hour to Freeman, then maybe forty minutes to Yankton. We can find a room, grab some dinner. Get started in the morning.”
Dean grunted agreement. “Sounds good.” He shifted, searching for a comfortable position. Every joint in his body ached, and the throb had started back up in his shoulder. If it got much worse, he’d have to hit the good drugs again. Just as well they’d be stopping soon - that stuff knocked his ass out every time.
Sam turned the radio down another notch, leaving the droning commentary barely audible. “What else did Bobby say about these deaths?”
“Not much. Winters get so rough around here, hypothermia deaths wouldn’t be that unusual. Guess it was the last one that tipped him off.”
“Right,” Sam said. “That would be the extremely localized blizzard - ”
“ - On a seventy-degree day. Exactly.”
“He have any idea what we might be dealing with?”
“Didn’t say.” Dean shifted again, ignored the spike of pain in his shoulder. “Freak storms, though - could be demonic.”
“Hope not.” Sam’s tone was too even, his eyes fixed to the road. Probably meant Dean hadn’t done a very good job keeping the wince out of his voice.
A few quiet miles passed, the radio’s murmur backed by the tires’ hum, the Impala’s throaty roar. Sam’s eyes flicked back toward Dean. “Why don’t you get some more sleep,” he said. “I’ll wake you when we get there.”
Dean nodded. Leaned against the door once more, the window glass cool against his forehead. Outside, light snow fell on the stubbled fields. The miles blurred past. His eyes slipped shut.
--
Snow eddied in white swirls along the streets of Freeman. Sam and Dean hit downtown just after morning rush hour, or what passed for rush hour in a town so small.
The anchor of Main Street was a little corner diner. Old-fashioned drop-shadow lettering on the plate-glass window identified it as Freeman Homestyle Restaurant. Seemed as good a place as any to start.
Dean circled the block, burbling exhaust bouncing back off walls of plowed snow that lined the curbs. He found a spot off the street in a small paved lot behind a barbershop. The Impala’s heater didn’t do much besides blow around lukewarm air, but the cold wind that blasted him when he opened the door made him want to crawl back inside. He huddled down into his jacket, cursed the ache that settled in his bones.
There was no way to work this place without drawing attention. With a population of just over thirteen hundred and a downtown that covered maybe three blocks, strangers were bound to be noticed.
No suits this time. Today the Winchesters were playing climatologists, dressed neat but casual, the practical wear of academics in the field. The role of eccentric storm chasers would help explain bizarre questions as well as the bruises still fading to green on Dean’s face.
Sam fell into step beside him as they navigated the icy sidewalks toward the diner. “Bobby e-mailed me some files last night.”
And how embarrassing was that - Sam had to fill him in because he’d been out cold by nine o’clock. Fell asleep watching Modern Marvels, the history of dirt or some shit.
Sam went on, “Looks like there’ve been at least fourteen of these micro-blizzards in the area. The earliest he found was 1904. Small-town papers didn’t always spell everything out, since most of their readers would have already known what happened, so there’s a lot of reading between the lines, and there may be even more incidents buried in the accounts.”
“Or never even reported.”
“Right.” Sam paused to blow hot breath into his cupped hands. “Sometimes there were fatalities, sometimes not. A few of the reports mentioned livestock deaths - one storm froze over two dozen cows.”
“So we’re dealing with the ghost of Bessie. Great.” Dean shot Sam a grin and reached for the diner’s door.
Jangling sleigh bells announced their presence. Every head in the joint swiveled or raised, frank gazes appraising the newcomers.
You had to love small towns.
A few old-timers sat in booths or at the counter, newspapers folded precisely according to lifelong habits, steaming cups of coffee close at hand. One waitress cleared a booth in the back; another wiped the counter with a rag.
Sam and Dean took seats at the end of the counter, Dean with his back to the wall. Sam watched his brother slide onto the stool with a slight hitch in his hip, his left arm held close to his body.
The woman behind the counter headed their way, pencil tucked behind her ear. “Help you boys?” Smoke-roughened voice, wry half-smile.
Sam put on his best shy grin, the bashful farmboy special that went just right with his plaid flannel shirt and Carhartt jacket. “Coffee to start, please,” he said.
She set two heavy white mugs in front of them, filled each with an expert hand. “Passing through?” she asked.
“Actually, we’re here doing some research.” Sam busied his hands with two sugar packets, tearing both open at once. Dean’s coffee was already half gone, pure black. “I’m Sam, this is Dean,” he went on. “We’re climatologists with Ohio State University. We heard about these freak blizzards you’ve been having, wanted to see if we could figure out what conditions are causing them.”
The waitress - Pamela, according to her nametag - folded her arms across her chest but kept the little smile. “I don’t know what more you can find out. Weather can be pretty extreme out here. Always has been, always will be.”
“We’re looking for personal accounts to go with our collected data. Instruments don’t always tell the whole story.”
“Well, if it’s stories you want, you should talk to Russ.”
One of the old men perked up, wizened face under a black Chessie cap, yellow lettering and cat silhouette. Nicotine-stained fingers wrapped around a steaming mug. A barked laugh shook his jowls. “You boys come to the right place, it’s weather you’re looking for.” Voice deep, thick with catarrh. “I’m eighty-six years old, lived here all my life. Seen blizzards, floods, tornadoes, baseball-sized hail, you name it. Now what is it you want to know?”
Old-timers were Dean’s department. He finished his coffee in one slug and leaned forward. “Hell, Russ,” he said. “We grew up in Kansas, we know as well as the next guy how quick things can change out here. But you all seem to be getting more than your fair share of these weird blizzards. We’re thinking there may be some sort of microclimate affecting things - physical features that can cause a storm to stay in one place, or to suddenly dissipate once it leaves the area.”
Sam wasn’t sure if Dean knew what he was talking about or had just watched too much Weather Channel. Either way, it sounded impressive.
“Could well be.” Russ shrugged, slurped from his mug. “Storms do seem to form east of town, when you’d expect ’em to come from the west.”
“What’s out that way? Any big hills? Lakes or rivers? Large buildings or manmade structures?”
“Not much. Some small farms. Couple’a cricks, but mostly fields. Used to be homesteads, but most of that land, I don’t believe anyone’s worked in years.”
Sam unfolded a map of the area he’d printed from Google; the town was so small, it was the best view they could find. “Would you mind showing us where some of these storms have taken place?”
Russ produced a pair of glasses from a shirt pocket, perched them on the end of his nose. “Well, this is where the Heitzman girl died last week.” He pointed a thick finger at a spot on the map. “Year ago, Marty Torbor got stuck on the road right here.” Another point. “They had to dig his car out ’fore they could open the doors, but the rest of town only got a few inches.”
Soon, Pamela delivered heaping plates, and Sam did his best to jot some notes while wolfing down his utterly unhealthy but absolutely delicious breakfast special: a massive omelet, hashbrowns, and bacon. He noted with relief Dean cleared most of his plate - between that and the coffee, he was starting to look a little more alert, losing that Vicodin haze.
The other old men had drifted closer and now jumped into the conversation. Soon, they had marked at least a dozen spots on the map, some from recent events, easily verifiable, some from stories passed down through the years. All, however, were concentrated within a ten- to fifteen-mile radius.
Not a bad starting point. And with the small-town grapevine in full effect, maybe some of the locals would be more inclined to open up to the big-time university storm chasers.
Hell, Sam thought, if nothing else, at least Pamela knew how to keep a coffee cup bottomless on a cold winter’s day.
--
The woman sitting across the table looked more fierce than recently bereaved: blond hair pulled back in a tight braid, mouth set in a hard line. “We know the way weather can change around here,” Karen Heitzman told the Winchesters. “We’re not city slickers. Our family has been here since this was Dakota Territory.”
Karen and Joseph Heitzman owned a five-acre farm a few miles out of town, a family operation that grew organic vegetables and raised alpacas, chickens, and a few goats. Their youngest daughter, Jordan, would have turned twelve in another month. She’d died less than a mile from home, on her family’s own land, frozen as though she’d spent the night outside when she’d only been alone for half an hour.
Mrs. Heitzman had welcomed the already famous climatologists, plying them with fresh-baked pumpkin bread and blueberry muffins. They sat at the big butcher-block table in the kitchen, sipping rich coffee that made Dean’s eyelids flutter in pleasure. Outside, snow fell in leisurely flakes, piled at the corners of the windows.
“Jordan knew what to do - keep an eye on the sky, find shelter if she could, and stay there. If she couldn’t, she knew to stay close to the ground, where the visibility is better.”
Sam did his sympathetic frown. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Heitzman. I can’t imagine what you must be going through.”
She picked at a fingernail, scraping away chipped pink polish. “You just never expect to bury one of your children.”
“You said your other daughter was with Jordan just before the storm?”
“Yes, Brenna. It was her turn to round up the animals before dinner, so she came in a bit early.”
“Do you think we could talk to her?” Sam asked. “Just a few questions?”
Brenna turned out to be a gangly thirteen-year-old with pale blond hair and nails bitten down to the quick. She sat at the table next to her mother, wrapping the headphone cord around her iPod, watching Sam and Dean with too-big gray eyes.
“Your mom said you were with Jordan just a few minutes before the storm,” Dean said. “Can you tell us about that afternoon?”
Brenna gave a little shrug, stared down at her hands. “It was a nice day, you know? First warm day in weeks. So we were playing out at the haunted house.”
Sam and Dean traded a look. Karen Heitzman picked up on it. “It’s a run-down old farmhouse at the edge of our property,” she explained. “Used to be part of the Bittner homestead, before they cut it up into smaller lots. Kind of spooky, so the girls called it haunted.”
“Jordan liked to make up these stories about her Barbies,” Brenna said. “Not like, play house with Ken stories. Like, Tomb Raider adventure stories, you know? Anyway, I came in to take care of the animals. I was in the barn checking on the new cria. The wind started howling, real loud, and when I looked out, there was so much snow I couldn’t see a thing. I stayed inside like we’re supposed to. I figured Jordan would stay in the house. It was all over in less than half an hour. The wind stopped. The sun came out again. And I found Jordan in the field.”
Sam hesitated before he asked. “Could you show us where it happened?”
The brothers waited while Brenna pulled on fur-topped boots and a puffy white coat with fur lining the hood - a teenager’s concern with fashion mixed with farmgirl practicality. Cold wind slammed them as soon as they stepped outside. Sam pulled up his hood, stuffed his hands in his pockets. Dean dug out his gloves and a black watch cap. Fashion statements be damned - if someone had handed him one of those Elmer Fudd caps with the fuzzy ear flaps, he’d have donned it in a heartbeat.
They trudged through the field behind the Heitzmans’ house, giant moon-steps through the foot-deep snow. A few alpacas peeked out from the door of the barn; two of them trotted over to the fence. Funny lookin’ things - puffs of wool topped by warm eyes and smirking mouths. The animals watched with apparent amusement as the trio passed them by.
The old house wasn’t far, maybe half a mile or less, hidden from the current farm by a copse of trees. It was a suitably spooky place for a couple of tomboys to play: a ranch-style house with sagging walls and a buckled porch. Dead brown vines wound their way along the walls, through broken windows. A sapling grew up through a hole in the roof.
Brenna stopped, folded her arms across her chest. Nodded toward a tree at the edge of the clearing. “I found her right over there.”
Dean ducked inside the house. Sunlight streamed through the holes in the roof, catching motes of dust, silver strands of cobweb. Snow drifts piled beneath broken windows. Dean glanced back, made sure Sam still had Brenna occupied, fished his EMF reader out of his pocket.
Warped floorboards creaked underfoot as he swept the main room and moved down the short hall. He found shards of broken dishes, tattered curtains, abandoned chairs with their cane seats eaten away. The meter stayed silent.
After the gloom of the house, the sun on the snow was blinding. Dean rejoined Sam and Brenna near a boarded-up well, in what must have been the homestead’s front yard. Sam looked a question. Dean shook his head.
Brenna crossed her arms, shifted from one foot to the other, snow crunching beneath her boots. She turned her face away, toward the spot where her sister had died. “If she’d just stayed inside,” she said, “she probably would’ve been okay.”
Dean squinted up at the sky. Fat, lazy flakes drifted down through pale winter sun.
--
One nice thing about a small town: people were easy to find. Martin Torbor was listed in Freeman’s thin phone book. A call to his home got hold of his wife, who told Sam that Marty was working at his hardware store on Main Street.
Freeman Hardware smelled of licorice and sawdust. Glass jars filled with old-time penny candy filled the shelves before the front counter. On the shelves behind it, a dozen or more handcrafted wood clocks tracked the time. Morning sun slanted through the front window, cast shadows of letters on the scuffed hardwood floor. A man emerged from the aisles at the sound of the schoolmarm’s bell fixed to the door. “Mornin’,” he said. “Help you with something?”
Martin Torbor wore a dark green apron over khakis and a long-sleeved blue polo shirt. His hair had receded to a gray fringe; his watery blue eyes swam too huge behind wire-rimmed bifocals. Just a middle-aged guy with a middle-aged paunch, trying to get by.
Sam stepped forward while Dean shut the door and knocked some snow off his boots. “I’m Sam, this is Dean,” he began.
“Oh, the storm chasers.” Torbor smiled, stuck his price gun in an apron pocket, held out his hand. They shook. Torbor leaned against the front counter. “Suppose you’re here to ask about my blizzard.”
“Yessir,” Dean said. “How’d you guess?”
“Small town. News travels fast. What would you like to know?”
Dean slouched against the wall, right next to a genuine cigar-store Indian. He glanced from the statue to Sam, raised an eyebrow. Sam returned a twitch of a grin, but couldn’t help but notice the way Dean leaned to keep his weight off his wrenched knee, the way his left hand stayed in his coat pocket, a makeshift sling.
No one else would have noticed. By the time Dean spoke, he had that empty camouflage smile plastered on his face. “We’d like to hear everything about that storm,” he said. “Whatever you saw that day, in your own words.”
Torbor scratched at his fringe of hair. “Well, I don’t know how useful it will be. I was driving out on Oak Tree Road, heading home from my brother’s place. It’d been snowing off and on all day, nothing too bad, just enough to leave a dusting. Then the snow started getting thicker, almost instantly went from flurries to blizzard. I couldn’t see a thing. So I pulled off on the shoulder to wait it out. It was a complete whiteout for maybe twenty minutes, half an hour. And then it cleared up just as suddenly. The snow was so deep I couldn’t even open the doors - of a Ford Explorer, mind you, not some tiny little Japanese thing.”
Dean quirked an eyebrow. “Damn. That’s a lotta snow.”
“You better believe it.” Torbor chuckled.
Sam tried out his best thoughtful frown, what he considered a scholarly look, though Dean usually referred to it as the constipated look. “Did you notice anything unusual before the storm?” he asked. “An odd look to the sky, or strange sounds?”
“Maybe electrical interference?” Dean added. “Like the radio turning to static, or a sudden loss of cell phone reception?”
Torbor grinned. “Son, around here, it’d be more unusual to actually get reception.”
But that wasn’t a real answer, and Torbor’s face tightened. Sam caught a look from Dean that said they were on the same page: Marty Torbor was leaving something out.
“Mr. Torbor,” Dean started.
“Please, call me Marty.”
Dean nodded. “Marty. It’s okay if you saw something bizarre, something that sounds a little crazy. You’d be surprised how many people tell us they’ve seen UFOs in a weird cloud formation, or a ghost in the woods that turns out to be ball lightning or swamp gas.”
Torbor bowed his head, apparently studying a knot in the hardwood floor. Sam tried to arrange his face into a sensitive frown, a look that said, I’m here to listen. Dean rolled his eyes, shot Sam a glare that said, Dude.
A slow moment passed, marked by the ticking of a dozen clocks, the shadows of passers-by crawling across the floor. Then Torbor looked up, rubbed a hand across his chin. “Well, this will probably out-crazy your swamp gas,” he said. “But at the height of the storm, when I couldn’t see a foot in front of the bumper, I could have sworn I saw a figure out there in the snow, a person walking toward me, completely covered in white. Like it was made of snow.” He laughed, shook his head. “Not like an abominable snowman, or anything, just a regular, average-sized human being, only I couldn’t make out any features. Lord, I knew this would sound strange.”
“No, not at all,” Sam said. “It’s actually quite common for people to see things like that in blizzards.” Jesus, he was really pulling this out of his ass. “It’s a visual effect similar to what causes a mirage.”
Torbor pulled off his glasses, passed a hand over his eyes. “Thank god! I really thought I was out of my mind for a while there - didn’t even tell my wife.”
He beamed at the brothers, shook hands in a hearty two-handed grip, gave them each a rectangular carpenter’s pencil printed with the name and number of the store.
As they walked back to the car, icy wind prying in at cuffs and collars, Sam shook his head at his pencil, tucked it away in a pocket. Dean slid him a sideways glance, wry smile tugging at his lips. “Mirage,” he laughed. “Good one, Sammy.”
--
Deep, slow breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth.
Sprawled on the hard motel bed, Dean ran through the relaxation techniques he’d picked up over the years, from his dad during post-hunt patch-up sessions, from an old hippie friend who’d talked him through a bad reaction to some strong weed, from a hot therapist he’d picked up at some hotel bar outside Portland a few years back. He closed his eyes and let the day’s tension drain out of him, one muscle at a time, working up from his toes.
Each pain he encountered, he pushed away in his mind, walling it off until the Vicodin kicked in. His right knee, which had never been the same since that poltergeist in Kansas City, now throbbing from some wrong step barely remembered. Lower back. Ribs, still sore from his last unfortunate meeting with a tombstone. Both hands, broken too many times in too many fights. Left shoulder, where he really, really had to stop getting shot.
He’d made it through the day on nothing stronger than Advil, but by mid-afternoon, he’d been grinding his teeth, wanting nothing more than a couple painkillers and about fourteen hours of sleep. He and Sam had split up after lunch, Sam hitting the library to sift through old newspapers and local folklore, Dean taking the county clerk’s office to search the records for more mysterious hypothermia deaths. He’d spent three hours poring over dusty ledgers bound in crumbling leather, squinting at faded, spidery longhand. Now he had a wicked headache to add to everything else.
He opened his eyes, stared up at the water-stained ceiling, the pain starting to fade at the edges. The room was disappointingly themeless, save for the hideous floral patterns that graced the curtains and bedspread. Everything was done up in shades of mauve and beige that were uncomfortably reminiscent of a hospital waiting room, but at least it was clean.
A key slotted into the room’s lock. Sam elbowed his way inside, followed by a blast of cold air, laptop bag slung over his shoulder, newspaper tucked under his arm, two cups of coffee balanced one atop the other in one big hand. “Hey.” He kicked the door shut behind him.
Dean grunted. Didn’t move.
Sam settled his stuff on the room’s wobbly round table, handed a coffee to Dean. “Figured we could both use some caffeine.” He pried the plastic lid off his own cup. “Find anything?”
Dean held onto the coffee, savoring the warmth, and nodded toward the sheaf of photocopies he’d dropped on the dresser. Didn’t bother to sit up. “Few more deaths. Nothing definite, but worth checking out. You?”
“Plenty.” Sam dug into his bag, pulled out his own stack of copies. “Found some more newspaper accounts, some of them pretty obscure. I was also able to find a couple more references in letters and diaries in the local history room. The earliest mystery blizzard I could find was 1893, but there wasn’t much settlement in the area until the 1870s, so any earlier incidents would probably be oral history at best. And there’s no discernable pattern, chronological or otherwise. The victims have all been different ages, races, occupations.”
Dean nodded. His own work had yielded similar results.
“And as far as I can tell, we’re not dealing with unholy ground,” Sam continued. “No massacres or battles, at least not in recorded history. I only had time for a quick scan of local folklore, but nothing major stood out.”
“Hmm.” Dean hoped that could be mistaken for deep thought.
Outside the room, tires crunched over the new snow. Sam sipped his coffee and leaned back in his chair, studying Dean. “You’re high as a kite,” he said.
Dean half-shrugged. “Gettin’ there.” And yeah, there it was, that uncoiling of tension in his gut that he’d been waiting for, that pushed the rest of his pain away and left his limbs feeling liquid and loose. He felt a lazy smile slide across his lips.
Sam shook his head, grinned, but there was a little tightness of worry around his eyes. “Seriously,” he said. “You hurting bad?”
“ ’Bout a four.” Which on a normal person’s scale would be more like a seven. “But I’m feelin’ pretty good right now.”
Sam seemed to accept the answer, or at least didn’t call him on it, which was just as good. Dean set his coffee on the nightstand, pushed himself up to sit against the headboard - a much easier task than it would have been half an hour ago. He scrubbed a hand through his hair. Tried to focus. “Got any theories?”
Sam shrugged. “I dunno, man, there’s not too much in the way of snow-lore. There’s yeti, there’s a Japanese snow demon called yuki-onna - I think they based a Pokemon character on it. There are some Scandinavian legends that say trolls can cause blizzards.”
Dean nodded. “Ninth circle of hell is ice.”
Sam did a full-face frown. “Did you just make an Inferno reference?”
“Hey, I read sometimes.” Dean didn’t mention he’d read The Inferno as kind of a tour guide - might be a good idea to do some reconnaissance before he went on his permanent vacation.
“Okay,” Sam said. “I think my mind is officially blown.”
Dean tilted his head to one side. Felt like his brain was sloshing around. “That makes two of us.” Maybe he should have stuck to just one pill.
Sam sighed, shook his head. “So I guess tomorrow we should dig into the lore. See if we can figure out what could control the weather and freeze a person in half an hour.”
“Yeah.” Dean took a sip of his coffee. “Should probably check the land deeds, tax records. There were no battles or massacres, but there could be something smaller-scale. Or maybe something attached to a family.”
Sam took out the laptop, booted it up. “If nothing else, that might give us a place to start. Maybe the ethnic background of the settlers can get us on the right track. Maybe it’s another imported god.”
“Hope not. After that damn vanir I couldn’t even look at an apple pie for months.”
They passed the rest of the night with pizza, beer, and cellular modem, the room’s heat cranked high to keep the chill at bay. Sam thought twice before handing Dean a bottle, but in the end doubted his brother had the energy to overdrink. Dean lay propped on his bed watching the History Channel, a pleasure he was much more likely to admit while under the influence. While Sam was busy researching, he offered grunts and comments, sometimes snide and occasionally helpful.
It was during a show on the history of zeppelins that Dean’s eyelids started to droop. Out of the corner of his eye, Sam caught Dean’s head jerk, once, twice, as he tried to stay awake. Onscreen, footage of the Hindenburg crash looped. Dean gave a soft laugh. “This would be way cooler with ‘Whole Lotta Love’ in the background.”
Sam snorted, went back to clicking through a library database. A few minutes later, Dean’s breathing evened out, whistling softly through his nose.
Finally. Sam closed out the current window, clicked open the other files Bobby had sent him, the ones that didn’t have anything to do with their case, the newly completed translation of an ancient Coptic text on demonology. He glanced back at Dean, who’d fallen asleep at a typically awkward angle, mouth hanging open, one hand wrapped loosely around the remote control. He finished off his beer in one long swallow. Leaned back in his chair and settled in to read.
Part Two
Rating: PG-13 for language
Word Count: 10,677
Characters/Pairing: Sam and Dean, gen, no pairing
Disclaimer: All the witty disclaimers are already taken. Sam and Dean belong to Kripke & Co., not me.
Summary: Sam and Dean investigate a series of mysterious hypothermia deaths in small-town South Dakota. Set after "Jus in Bello."
A/N: Written for egorstandish for the spn_thur_nights Fic Exchange. This may not be exactly what you’re looking for, but it’s an idea that has haunted me for a long time - I hope you enjoy it. (You asked for PG, and I really, really tried, but these boys were very determined to cuss a bit. I managed to only drop two f-bombs, though, which is some kind of record for me.)
I’ve never been to South Dakota. While the towns mentioned are real, the details are filled in from my imagination, and I’ve fudged a bit on county lines. I apologize for any inadvertent travesties. If anyone happens to notice errors - typos or factual - please let me know!
Thanks to my beta/partner-in-crime/enabler, laurie_bug.
Title taken from a line in the final poem of Ted Kooser’s The Blizzard Voices.
--
Flat cornfields, big sky. The 1967 Impala crossed into South Dakota on a gray January day, sleek black dulled by salt and dust, the only car in sight on the two lane blacktop.
Dean Winchester jerked awake in the passenger seat. His head thunked against the window. He sat up, swiped the sleeve of his jacket across his mouth. NPR played low on the radio. “Huh,” Dean said. “Didn’t know there were liberals in South Dakota.”
Sam Winchester shot his brother a glance. “I’m pretty sure there are at least four.”
Dean rubbed at the crick in his neck. “How far?”
“ ’Bout an hour to Freeman, then maybe forty minutes to Yankton. We can find a room, grab some dinner. Get started in the morning.”
Dean grunted agreement. “Sounds good.” He shifted, searching for a comfortable position. Every joint in his body ached, and the throb had started back up in his shoulder. If it got much worse, he’d have to hit the good drugs again. Just as well they’d be stopping soon - that stuff knocked his ass out every time.
Sam turned the radio down another notch, leaving the droning commentary barely audible. “What else did Bobby say about these deaths?”
“Not much. Winters get so rough around here, hypothermia deaths wouldn’t be that unusual. Guess it was the last one that tipped him off.”
“Right,” Sam said. “That would be the extremely localized blizzard - ”
“ - On a seventy-degree day. Exactly.”
“He have any idea what we might be dealing with?”
“Didn’t say.” Dean shifted again, ignored the spike of pain in his shoulder. “Freak storms, though - could be demonic.”
“Hope not.” Sam’s tone was too even, his eyes fixed to the road. Probably meant Dean hadn’t done a very good job keeping the wince out of his voice.
A few quiet miles passed, the radio’s murmur backed by the tires’ hum, the Impala’s throaty roar. Sam’s eyes flicked back toward Dean. “Why don’t you get some more sleep,” he said. “I’ll wake you when we get there.”
Dean nodded. Leaned against the door once more, the window glass cool against his forehead. Outside, light snow fell on the stubbled fields. The miles blurred past. His eyes slipped shut.
--
Snow eddied in white swirls along the streets of Freeman. Sam and Dean hit downtown just after morning rush hour, or what passed for rush hour in a town so small.
The anchor of Main Street was a little corner diner. Old-fashioned drop-shadow lettering on the plate-glass window identified it as Freeman Homestyle Restaurant. Seemed as good a place as any to start.
Dean circled the block, burbling exhaust bouncing back off walls of plowed snow that lined the curbs. He found a spot off the street in a small paved lot behind a barbershop. The Impala’s heater didn’t do much besides blow around lukewarm air, but the cold wind that blasted him when he opened the door made him want to crawl back inside. He huddled down into his jacket, cursed the ache that settled in his bones.
There was no way to work this place without drawing attention. With a population of just over thirteen hundred and a downtown that covered maybe three blocks, strangers were bound to be noticed.
No suits this time. Today the Winchesters were playing climatologists, dressed neat but casual, the practical wear of academics in the field. The role of eccentric storm chasers would help explain bizarre questions as well as the bruises still fading to green on Dean’s face.
Sam fell into step beside him as they navigated the icy sidewalks toward the diner. “Bobby e-mailed me some files last night.”
And how embarrassing was that - Sam had to fill him in because he’d been out cold by nine o’clock. Fell asleep watching Modern Marvels, the history of dirt or some shit.
Sam went on, “Looks like there’ve been at least fourteen of these micro-blizzards in the area. The earliest he found was 1904. Small-town papers didn’t always spell everything out, since most of their readers would have already known what happened, so there’s a lot of reading between the lines, and there may be even more incidents buried in the accounts.”
“Or never even reported.”
“Right.” Sam paused to blow hot breath into his cupped hands. “Sometimes there were fatalities, sometimes not. A few of the reports mentioned livestock deaths - one storm froze over two dozen cows.”
“So we’re dealing with the ghost of Bessie. Great.” Dean shot Sam a grin and reached for the diner’s door.
Jangling sleigh bells announced their presence. Every head in the joint swiveled or raised, frank gazes appraising the newcomers.
You had to love small towns.
A few old-timers sat in booths or at the counter, newspapers folded precisely according to lifelong habits, steaming cups of coffee close at hand. One waitress cleared a booth in the back; another wiped the counter with a rag.
Sam and Dean took seats at the end of the counter, Dean with his back to the wall. Sam watched his brother slide onto the stool with a slight hitch in his hip, his left arm held close to his body.
The woman behind the counter headed their way, pencil tucked behind her ear. “Help you boys?” Smoke-roughened voice, wry half-smile.
Sam put on his best shy grin, the bashful farmboy special that went just right with his plaid flannel shirt and Carhartt jacket. “Coffee to start, please,” he said.
She set two heavy white mugs in front of them, filled each with an expert hand. “Passing through?” she asked.
“Actually, we’re here doing some research.” Sam busied his hands with two sugar packets, tearing both open at once. Dean’s coffee was already half gone, pure black. “I’m Sam, this is Dean,” he went on. “We’re climatologists with Ohio State University. We heard about these freak blizzards you’ve been having, wanted to see if we could figure out what conditions are causing them.”
The waitress - Pamela, according to her nametag - folded her arms across her chest but kept the little smile. “I don’t know what more you can find out. Weather can be pretty extreme out here. Always has been, always will be.”
“We’re looking for personal accounts to go with our collected data. Instruments don’t always tell the whole story.”
“Well, if it’s stories you want, you should talk to Russ.”
One of the old men perked up, wizened face under a black Chessie cap, yellow lettering and cat silhouette. Nicotine-stained fingers wrapped around a steaming mug. A barked laugh shook his jowls. “You boys come to the right place, it’s weather you’re looking for.” Voice deep, thick with catarrh. “I’m eighty-six years old, lived here all my life. Seen blizzards, floods, tornadoes, baseball-sized hail, you name it. Now what is it you want to know?”
Old-timers were Dean’s department. He finished his coffee in one slug and leaned forward. “Hell, Russ,” he said. “We grew up in Kansas, we know as well as the next guy how quick things can change out here. But you all seem to be getting more than your fair share of these weird blizzards. We’re thinking there may be some sort of microclimate affecting things - physical features that can cause a storm to stay in one place, or to suddenly dissipate once it leaves the area.”
Sam wasn’t sure if Dean knew what he was talking about or had just watched too much Weather Channel. Either way, it sounded impressive.
“Could well be.” Russ shrugged, slurped from his mug. “Storms do seem to form east of town, when you’d expect ’em to come from the west.”
“What’s out that way? Any big hills? Lakes or rivers? Large buildings or manmade structures?”
“Not much. Some small farms. Couple’a cricks, but mostly fields. Used to be homesteads, but most of that land, I don’t believe anyone’s worked in years.”
Sam unfolded a map of the area he’d printed from Google; the town was so small, it was the best view they could find. “Would you mind showing us where some of these storms have taken place?”
Russ produced a pair of glasses from a shirt pocket, perched them on the end of his nose. “Well, this is where the Heitzman girl died last week.” He pointed a thick finger at a spot on the map. “Year ago, Marty Torbor got stuck on the road right here.” Another point. “They had to dig his car out ’fore they could open the doors, but the rest of town only got a few inches.”
Soon, Pamela delivered heaping plates, and Sam did his best to jot some notes while wolfing down his utterly unhealthy but absolutely delicious breakfast special: a massive omelet, hashbrowns, and bacon. He noted with relief Dean cleared most of his plate - between that and the coffee, he was starting to look a little more alert, losing that Vicodin haze.
The other old men had drifted closer and now jumped into the conversation. Soon, they had marked at least a dozen spots on the map, some from recent events, easily verifiable, some from stories passed down through the years. All, however, were concentrated within a ten- to fifteen-mile radius.
Not a bad starting point. And with the small-town grapevine in full effect, maybe some of the locals would be more inclined to open up to the big-time university storm chasers.
Hell, Sam thought, if nothing else, at least Pamela knew how to keep a coffee cup bottomless on a cold winter’s day.
--
The woman sitting across the table looked more fierce than recently bereaved: blond hair pulled back in a tight braid, mouth set in a hard line. “We know the way weather can change around here,” Karen Heitzman told the Winchesters. “We’re not city slickers. Our family has been here since this was Dakota Territory.”
Karen and Joseph Heitzman owned a five-acre farm a few miles out of town, a family operation that grew organic vegetables and raised alpacas, chickens, and a few goats. Their youngest daughter, Jordan, would have turned twelve in another month. She’d died less than a mile from home, on her family’s own land, frozen as though she’d spent the night outside when she’d only been alone for half an hour.
Mrs. Heitzman had welcomed the already famous climatologists, plying them with fresh-baked pumpkin bread and blueberry muffins. They sat at the big butcher-block table in the kitchen, sipping rich coffee that made Dean’s eyelids flutter in pleasure. Outside, snow fell in leisurely flakes, piled at the corners of the windows.
“Jordan knew what to do - keep an eye on the sky, find shelter if she could, and stay there. If she couldn’t, she knew to stay close to the ground, where the visibility is better.”
Sam did his sympathetic frown. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Heitzman. I can’t imagine what you must be going through.”
She picked at a fingernail, scraping away chipped pink polish. “You just never expect to bury one of your children.”
“You said your other daughter was with Jordan just before the storm?”
“Yes, Brenna. It was her turn to round up the animals before dinner, so she came in a bit early.”
“Do you think we could talk to her?” Sam asked. “Just a few questions?”
Brenna turned out to be a gangly thirteen-year-old with pale blond hair and nails bitten down to the quick. She sat at the table next to her mother, wrapping the headphone cord around her iPod, watching Sam and Dean with too-big gray eyes.
“Your mom said you were with Jordan just a few minutes before the storm,” Dean said. “Can you tell us about that afternoon?”
Brenna gave a little shrug, stared down at her hands. “It was a nice day, you know? First warm day in weeks. So we were playing out at the haunted house.”
Sam and Dean traded a look. Karen Heitzman picked up on it. “It’s a run-down old farmhouse at the edge of our property,” she explained. “Used to be part of the Bittner homestead, before they cut it up into smaller lots. Kind of spooky, so the girls called it haunted.”
“Jordan liked to make up these stories about her Barbies,” Brenna said. “Not like, play house with Ken stories. Like, Tomb Raider adventure stories, you know? Anyway, I came in to take care of the animals. I was in the barn checking on the new cria. The wind started howling, real loud, and when I looked out, there was so much snow I couldn’t see a thing. I stayed inside like we’re supposed to. I figured Jordan would stay in the house. It was all over in less than half an hour. The wind stopped. The sun came out again. And I found Jordan in the field.”
Sam hesitated before he asked. “Could you show us where it happened?”
The brothers waited while Brenna pulled on fur-topped boots and a puffy white coat with fur lining the hood - a teenager’s concern with fashion mixed with farmgirl practicality. Cold wind slammed them as soon as they stepped outside. Sam pulled up his hood, stuffed his hands in his pockets. Dean dug out his gloves and a black watch cap. Fashion statements be damned - if someone had handed him one of those Elmer Fudd caps with the fuzzy ear flaps, he’d have donned it in a heartbeat.
They trudged through the field behind the Heitzmans’ house, giant moon-steps through the foot-deep snow. A few alpacas peeked out from the door of the barn; two of them trotted over to the fence. Funny lookin’ things - puffs of wool topped by warm eyes and smirking mouths. The animals watched with apparent amusement as the trio passed them by.
The old house wasn’t far, maybe half a mile or less, hidden from the current farm by a copse of trees. It was a suitably spooky place for a couple of tomboys to play: a ranch-style house with sagging walls and a buckled porch. Dead brown vines wound their way along the walls, through broken windows. A sapling grew up through a hole in the roof.
Brenna stopped, folded her arms across her chest. Nodded toward a tree at the edge of the clearing. “I found her right over there.”
Dean ducked inside the house. Sunlight streamed through the holes in the roof, catching motes of dust, silver strands of cobweb. Snow drifts piled beneath broken windows. Dean glanced back, made sure Sam still had Brenna occupied, fished his EMF reader out of his pocket.
Warped floorboards creaked underfoot as he swept the main room and moved down the short hall. He found shards of broken dishes, tattered curtains, abandoned chairs with their cane seats eaten away. The meter stayed silent.
After the gloom of the house, the sun on the snow was blinding. Dean rejoined Sam and Brenna near a boarded-up well, in what must have been the homestead’s front yard. Sam looked a question. Dean shook his head.
Brenna crossed her arms, shifted from one foot to the other, snow crunching beneath her boots. She turned her face away, toward the spot where her sister had died. “If she’d just stayed inside,” she said, “she probably would’ve been okay.”
Dean squinted up at the sky. Fat, lazy flakes drifted down through pale winter sun.
--
One nice thing about a small town: people were easy to find. Martin Torbor was listed in Freeman’s thin phone book. A call to his home got hold of his wife, who told Sam that Marty was working at his hardware store on Main Street.
Freeman Hardware smelled of licorice and sawdust. Glass jars filled with old-time penny candy filled the shelves before the front counter. On the shelves behind it, a dozen or more handcrafted wood clocks tracked the time. Morning sun slanted through the front window, cast shadows of letters on the scuffed hardwood floor. A man emerged from the aisles at the sound of the schoolmarm’s bell fixed to the door. “Mornin’,” he said. “Help you with something?”
Martin Torbor wore a dark green apron over khakis and a long-sleeved blue polo shirt. His hair had receded to a gray fringe; his watery blue eyes swam too huge behind wire-rimmed bifocals. Just a middle-aged guy with a middle-aged paunch, trying to get by.
Sam stepped forward while Dean shut the door and knocked some snow off his boots. “I’m Sam, this is Dean,” he began.
“Oh, the storm chasers.” Torbor smiled, stuck his price gun in an apron pocket, held out his hand. They shook. Torbor leaned against the front counter. “Suppose you’re here to ask about my blizzard.”
“Yessir,” Dean said. “How’d you guess?”
“Small town. News travels fast. What would you like to know?”
Dean slouched against the wall, right next to a genuine cigar-store Indian. He glanced from the statue to Sam, raised an eyebrow. Sam returned a twitch of a grin, but couldn’t help but notice the way Dean leaned to keep his weight off his wrenched knee, the way his left hand stayed in his coat pocket, a makeshift sling.
No one else would have noticed. By the time Dean spoke, he had that empty camouflage smile plastered on his face. “We’d like to hear everything about that storm,” he said. “Whatever you saw that day, in your own words.”
Torbor scratched at his fringe of hair. “Well, I don’t know how useful it will be. I was driving out on Oak Tree Road, heading home from my brother’s place. It’d been snowing off and on all day, nothing too bad, just enough to leave a dusting. Then the snow started getting thicker, almost instantly went from flurries to blizzard. I couldn’t see a thing. So I pulled off on the shoulder to wait it out. It was a complete whiteout for maybe twenty minutes, half an hour. And then it cleared up just as suddenly. The snow was so deep I couldn’t even open the doors - of a Ford Explorer, mind you, not some tiny little Japanese thing.”
Dean quirked an eyebrow. “Damn. That’s a lotta snow.”
“You better believe it.” Torbor chuckled.
Sam tried out his best thoughtful frown, what he considered a scholarly look, though Dean usually referred to it as the constipated look. “Did you notice anything unusual before the storm?” he asked. “An odd look to the sky, or strange sounds?”
“Maybe electrical interference?” Dean added. “Like the radio turning to static, or a sudden loss of cell phone reception?”
Torbor grinned. “Son, around here, it’d be more unusual to actually get reception.”
But that wasn’t a real answer, and Torbor’s face tightened. Sam caught a look from Dean that said they were on the same page: Marty Torbor was leaving something out.
“Mr. Torbor,” Dean started.
“Please, call me Marty.”
Dean nodded. “Marty. It’s okay if you saw something bizarre, something that sounds a little crazy. You’d be surprised how many people tell us they’ve seen UFOs in a weird cloud formation, or a ghost in the woods that turns out to be ball lightning or swamp gas.”
Torbor bowed his head, apparently studying a knot in the hardwood floor. Sam tried to arrange his face into a sensitive frown, a look that said, I’m here to listen. Dean rolled his eyes, shot Sam a glare that said, Dude.
A slow moment passed, marked by the ticking of a dozen clocks, the shadows of passers-by crawling across the floor. Then Torbor looked up, rubbed a hand across his chin. “Well, this will probably out-crazy your swamp gas,” he said. “But at the height of the storm, when I couldn’t see a foot in front of the bumper, I could have sworn I saw a figure out there in the snow, a person walking toward me, completely covered in white. Like it was made of snow.” He laughed, shook his head. “Not like an abominable snowman, or anything, just a regular, average-sized human being, only I couldn’t make out any features. Lord, I knew this would sound strange.”
“No, not at all,” Sam said. “It’s actually quite common for people to see things like that in blizzards.” Jesus, he was really pulling this out of his ass. “It’s a visual effect similar to what causes a mirage.”
Torbor pulled off his glasses, passed a hand over his eyes. “Thank god! I really thought I was out of my mind for a while there - didn’t even tell my wife.”
He beamed at the brothers, shook hands in a hearty two-handed grip, gave them each a rectangular carpenter’s pencil printed with the name and number of the store.
As they walked back to the car, icy wind prying in at cuffs and collars, Sam shook his head at his pencil, tucked it away in a pocket. Dean slid him a sideways glance, wry smile tugging at his lips. “Mirage,” he laughed. “Good one, Sammy.”
--
Deep, slow breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth.
Sprawled on the hard motel bed, Dean ran through the relaxation techniques he’d picked up over the years, from his dad during post-hunt patch-up sessions, from an old hippie friend who’d talked him through a bad reaction to some strong weed, from a hot therapist he’d picked up at some hotel bar outside Portland a few years back. He closed his eyes and let the day’s tension drain out of him, one muscle at a time, working up from his toes.
Each pain he encountered, he pushed away in his mind, walling it off until the Vicodin kicked in. His right knee, which had never been the same since that poltergeist in Kansas City, now throbbing from some wrong step barely remembered. Lower back. Ribs, still sore from his last unfortunate meeting with a tombstone. Both hands, broken too many times in too many fights. Left shoulder, where he really, really had to stop getting shot.
He’d made it through the day on nothing stronger than Advil, but by mid-afternoon, he’d been grinding his teeth, wanting nothing more than a couple painkillers and about fourteen hours of sleep. He and Sam had split up after lunch, Sam hitting the library to sift through old newspapers and local folklore, Dean taking the county clerk’s office to search the records for more mysterious hypothermia deaths. He’d spent three hours poring over dusty ledgers bound in crumbling leather, squinting at faded, spidery longhand. Now he had a wicked headache to add to everything else.
He opened his eyes, stared up at the water-stained ceiling, the pain starting to fade at the edges. The room was disappointingly themeless, save for the hideous floral patterns that graced the curtains and bedspread. Everything was done up in shades of mauve and beige that were uncomfortably reminiscent of a hospital waiting room, but at least it was clean.
A key slotted into the room’s lock. Sam elbowed his way inside, followed by a blast of cold air, laptop bag slung over his shoulder, newspaper tucked under his arm, two cups of coffee balanced one atop the other in one big hand. “Hey.” He kicked the door shut behind him.
Dean grunted. Didn’t move.
Sam settled his stuff on the room’s wobbly round table, handed a coffee to Dean. “Figured we could both use some caffeine.” He pried the plastic lid off his own cup. “Find anything?”
Dean held onto the coffee, savoring the warmth, and nodded toward the sheaf of photocopies he’d dropped on the dresser. Didn’t bother to sit up. “Few more deaths. Nothing definite, but worth checking out. You?”
“Plenty.” Sam dug into his bag, pulled out his own stack of copies. “Found some more newspaper accounts, some of them pretty obscure. I was also able to find a couple more references in letters and diaries in the local history room. The earliest mystery blizzard I could find was 1893, but there wasn’t much settlement in the area until the 1870s, so any earlier incidents would probably be oral history at best. And there’s no discernable pattern, chronological or otherwise. The victims have all been different ages, races, occupations.”
Dean nodded. His own work had yielded similar results.
“And as far as I can tell, we’re not dealing with unholy ground,” Sam continued. “No massacres or battles, at least not in recorded history. I only had time for a quick scan of local folklore, but nothing major stood out.”
“Hmm.” Dean hoped that could be mistaken for deep thought.
Outside the room, tires crunched over the new snow. Sam sipped his coffee and leaned back in his chair, studying Dean. “You’re high as a kite,” he said.
Dean half-shrugged. “Gettin’ there.” And yeah, there it was, that uncoiling of tension in his gut that he’d been waiting for, that pushed the rest of his pain away and left his limbs feeling liquid and loose. He felt a lazy smile slide across his lips.
Sam shook his head, grinned, but there was a little tightness of worry around his eyes. “Seriously,” he said. “You hurting bad?”
“ ’Bout a four.” Which on a normal person’s scale would be more like a seven. “But I’m feelin’ pretty good right now.”
Sam seemed to accept the answer, or at least didn’t call him on it, which was just as good. Dean set his coffee on the nightstand, pushed himself up to sit against the headboard - a much easier task than it would have been half an hour ago. He scrubbed a hand through his hair. Tried to focus. “Got any theories?”
Sam shrugged. “I dunno, man, there’s not too much in the way of snow-lore. There’s yeti, there’s a Japanese snow demon called yuki-onna - I think they based a Pokemon character on it. There are some Scandinavian legends that say trolls can cause blizzards.”
Dean nodded. “Ninth circle of hell is ice.”
Sam did a full-face frown. “Did you just make an Inferno reference?”
“Hey, I read sometimes.” Dean didn’t mention he’d read The Inferno as kind of a tour guide - might be a good idea to do some reconnaissance before he went on his permanent vacation.
“Okay,” Sam said. “I think my mind is officially blown.”
Dean tilted his head to one side. Felt like his brain was sloshing around. “That makes two of us.” Maybe he should have stuck to just one pill.
Sam sighed, shook his head. “So I guess tomorrow we should dig into the lore. See if we can figure out what could control the weather and freeze a person in half an hour.”
“Yeah.” Dean took a sip of his coffee. “Should probably check the land deeds, tax records. There were no battles or massacres, but there could be something smaller-scale. Or maybe something attached to a family.”
Sam took out the laptop, booted it up. “If nothing else, that might give us a place to start. Maybe the ethnic background of the settlers can get us on the right track. Maybe it’s another imported god.”
“Hope not. After that damn vanir I couldn’t even look at an apple pie for months.”
They passed the rest of the night with pizza, beer, and cellular modem, the room’s heat cranked high to keep the chill at bay. Sam thought twice before handing Dean a bottle, but in the end doubted his brother had the energy to overdrink. Dean lay propped on his bed watching the History Channel, a pleasure he was much more likely to admit while under the influence. While Sam was busy researching, he offered grunts and comments, sometimes snide and occasionally helpful.
It was during a show on the history of zeppelins that Dean’s eyelids started to droop. Out of the corner of his eye, Sam caught Dean’s head jerk, once, twice, as he tried to stay awake. Onscreen, footage of the Hindenburg crash looped. Dean gave a soft laugh. “This would be way cooler with ‘Whole Lotta Love’ in the background.”
Sam snorted, went back to clicking through a library database. A few minutes later, Dean’s breathing evened out, whistling softly through his nose.
Finally. Sam closed out the current window, clicked open the other files Bobby had sent him, the ones that didn’t have anything to do with their case, the newly completed translation of an ancient Coptic text on demonology. He glanced back at Dean, who’d fallen asleep at a typically awkward angle, mouth hanging open, one hand wrapped loosely around the remote control. He finished off his beer in one long swallow. Leaned back in his chair and settled in to read.
Part Two