SPN: The Narrow Way Part 3 of ?

[lunesque]

Rating: PG-13

Warnings for this chapter: Unrequited incest. Hate crime? I guess that's a good warning.

Chapter summary: He stumbled over the lines of prayer, lips moving soundlessly, until he knew no more.

Additional story notes and disclaimers are in the first chapter.



Chapter Three: Snow Blind

Atoan Missal was happy to say he was a pretty normal kid, all things considered. Despite being a full-blooded Abenaki, he didn't live on the reservation (definitely something to be thankful for; he hated the cold, whether it be the kind of cold that was in Maine or Quebec, either one); he had plenty of high tech toys thanks to his parents; he was in a posh high school; he had a lot of friends.

In fact, he'd just had an awesome day at the school literary fair. He had raked leaves and cleared gutters so that he would have enough money to buy the books he'd wanted, and he couldn't wait to get home and read them.

Or he had been excited before someone had taken what felt like a brick to his head.

He didn't think that there were things like this—intellectually, he knew about hate crimes, but he always thought that it was something suffered by gay people,- or people who hated religion or something crazy like that. He didn't expect it to happen just because he was Native American. He didn't expect it to happen here. He didn't expect it to happen to him.

And he didn't expect it to hurt like this, where each blow was searing, the air scorching his lungs with every agonizing burst, every gasp, where just trying to move was mind numbing.

"Please," he begged. "Please."

It felt like pieces of him were grinding together in ways they weren't supposed to, jagged and raw and so, so painful.

With we who visit ghosts from the Sun Star of our birth and in our infancy, which is from the Land of The Rising Star…

But it was so hard to keep the prayer in mind and he was so afraid and he hated them for doing this hated hated hated—

The pain burst behind his eyes in sparkles of light, and he could feel his cheeks wet with his tears and oh god—

… we have been taught to love Mother Earth and to Respect her we are the Children of the Dawn, the People of the East …

He stumbled over the lines of prayer, lips moving soundlessly, until he knew no more.

~*~

Dean dipped a French fry into ketchup, dragging it on his plate as he waited for Sam to come back from the bathroom. He was still pissed off over what happened in Bluewater, and he knew it; worse, Sam knew it, and although Dean knew it hurt Sam's feelings that he couldn't bring himself to explain why it pissed him off, he also felt that it was kind of self- explanatory. Casti—the angels. They just wiped a town without blinking, not even feeling anything over it. It just steamed him. And it didn't help that only he, Sam, and Bobby even seemed to remember that the place had existed in the first place. Maybe that was the angelic idea of mercy. Or clean up. What was that about? If it was mercy, it was lame. Lamer than drinking before noon in a little place in Idaho, anyway.

Sam slid into the booth opposite of Dean and tossed a folded newspaper at his head.

"Hey!" Dean protested, batting at it with his hand and knocking it to the table. "What gives?"

"We might have a case," Sam said. "Take a look."

Dean snapped the paper out and looked at the newspaper, scanning over the headlines. "Huh." He set it down, chomping on his fry.

"Well?" Sam said impatiently.

Dean cocked an eyebrow in Sam's direction, clearly skeptical. "You really think it's a case? It's snow."

"Yeah, it's snow." Sam looked at Dean as though he couldn't believe how stupid his brother was sometimes. Dean stared at him, part of him doing it just to be obstinate, part of him genuinely curious as to how his brother would try to talk him into it. "It's snow. In Arizona. In October. You don't think that's worth investigating?"

"It could be anything. Probably just global warming or something," Dean said and ate his last fry.

The look that Sam gave him could have peeled paint from the walls. Dean resisted the urge to look and see if that could have actually happened. "Yeah, Dean. That makes a lot of sense. Global warming caused it to snow in Arizona, because it's obvious that greenhouse gasses actually cool things down!"

"Okay, okay! Jeez." Dean wiped his hands on his jeans as he got ready to stand up. "I got it. We'll check it out. See if anything supernatural-like is causing it to snow in Arizona." Dean shook his head. "Arizona again. Something must be wrong with that place."

"And … " Sam mumbled something under his breath that Dean couldn't catch, so Dean flicked him on the ear as he passed.

"What was that, Sammy?" Dean asked as Sam rubbed his ear and followed after him, grabbing the paper.

"I said that, you know, since it's near the right place and everything, we could go see the Grand Canyon. Like you keep complaining that you want to."

Dean gave him a bright smile, his mood lifting incredibly just by that one sentence. "Well, why didn't you just say so?"

"We're going to check on the weather first," Sam said pointedly, "and then—"

"I got it, little brother. We'll hunt, and then if the sky hasn't started falling, we'll be tourists for a little while." They went to the Impala, and Dean's baby purred as he turned on the ignition and pulled out of the parking lot, as eager for a new hunt as Dean was himself. "So, tell me more."

Sam nodded and looked back at the paper. "The town is Peach Springs. It seems that they've been having flurries over the last month and a half. A couple of people have been caught out in it. No fatalities yet, but there's been several cases of hypothermia and some frost bite. If it's something, I think it's gearing up, testing itself out. It's going to get worse the closer it gets to winter."

"Damn," Dean said wistfully, looking out the Impala's windshield at the crystal clear blue sky. "So, do you have any ideas about what it could be?"

Sam shrugged. "No clue, really. It could be anything. It could be nothing."

"Yeah, that narrows it down, Sammy," Dean said sarcastically.

"Hey, I'm sorry I can't just automatically figure out what's going on from some weird weather patterns and a really bad article, okay?" Sam said, face squinched in annoyance. "I don't see you coming up with any ideas."

"Whoa, cowboy," Dean said hastily. "Calm down. I wasn't asking if you had this solved, just if you had any clues." Dean squirmed a little as Sam sucked in a deep breath and figured maybe a judiciously-applied compliment would not be amiss. "Hey, you're the brains, you know. I figure if anyone can figure it out from weird weather patterns and a really bad article, it would be you." Sam exhaled and slumped back into his seat. Dean counted that a victory. "Besides, my vote is that the abominable snowman's come down from his mountain and brought his snow with him."

As he'd planned, Sam made a sound that was torn somewhere between a laugh and a scoff, and he shook his head. "You know as well as I do that the abominable snowman doesn't exist, and if he did, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't bring his own mood lighting."

"Hey, you never know," Dean said, "some of these suckers like their mood lighting."

Sam rolled his eyes, his expression lightening, and Dean counted that as a victory as well.

~*~

They pulled into Peach Springs, Arizona with no fan fare, did their usual measure of the place — pick their beds, get the things they might need, look around outside (it was beautiful, the air crisp and clean, the sky a perfect birds-egg blue, comfortably warm) — and Sam sighed and parked himself in front of the laptop again. Dean patted his shoulder and went out to take a look at the townspeople.

He went to his favorite place to cruise, which of course was the family restaurant a couple of streets down the way, and got himself a piece of apple pie and a glass of milk to snack on while he eavesdropped. It didn't take long to get involved in an interesting conversation with the waiter and the cook on duty—it was a slow day, and he was new; that never failed to be a mark in his favor.

"So wait, wait," Dean said, waving his hand to interrupt Ed, the cook, "Are you telling me you guys have had snow? With this kind of weather perking up on you?"

"Crazy, isn't it?" Barry, the waiter, asked enthusiastically. "My cousin got caught in a flurry just a couple of days ago."

"Caught up in one?" Dean asked curiously, taking a bite of his pie. "How do you just get caught? Isn't there usually some sort of warning?"

"Well, yeah," Barry said, "but there really wasn't one. Weather report said it was clear, but she got caught anyway. Just shows that you can't really trust the weather channel, huh?"

"You bet," Dean said. "Is your cousin going to be okay?"

"Yeah, she'll be fine. She was a bit loopy at first, though. Kept talking about a bird making it snow."

"A bird making it snow?" Dean laughed and shook his head. "That's nutty. She was probably just confused from the hypothermia." Dean took some bills from his pocket and handed them to Barry. "Thanks for the conversation." Dean smiled. "That's for the pie. Go ahead and keep the change."

"No problem. Make sure you drop by before you leave town!" Ed said cheerfully. "We'll have another slice of pie for you!"

"Dude," Dean said, honest and heartfelt. "You are awesome."

He drove back to the hotel and burst into the room, confident that if anyone could make any sense of that bird thing, Sammy would. Sam looked up from his laptop when Dean came in, moving from an uncomfortable-looking hunch. Dean could hear his shoulders and spine pop with the tension as Sam stretched.

"Dude, you must have the worst back ever, sitting like that all the time," Dean said, sauntering over to his brother and resting his hip against the table.

"Someone's got to do the research, Dean—" Sam began, putting a hand to the back of his neck, but Dean just waved him silent.

"You can do research without doing a pretzel, Sammy."

"Yeah, whatever, shut up. Did you find anything interesting out?" Sam winced and moved his shoulder in a circle, trying to get it relaxed. Dean cast his eyes heavenward and pushed Sam's hands away from the back of his neck, replacing them with his own.

"What're you—?" Sam began, but Dean squeezed his neck, silently warning him.

"Say anything, and I stop, got it?" Dean demanded, and Sam just obediently dropped his hands and relaxed under Dean's touch. Dean felt along Sam's shoulders for the worst of the knots and pressed, testing the knots and how much pressure he could put without hurting Sam more than he was hurting already. "Anyway, I was talking to the people in the diner—they have great pie, by the way—"

"Of course they do," Sam said in an undertone.

"And apparently these storms come out of nowhere. The weather predictions will be all mild and sunny, and then poof. There's snow."

"Interesting," Sam mumbled, and Dean noticed with some amusement that the back of Sam's neck had begun to flush. He dug his thumbs into a particularly stubborn knot at the base of Sam's neck and got a gasp as it loosened and Sam relaxed a little more. "Anything else?"

"Yeah. Apparently, one of the people who got hypothermia from the cold said that it was coming from a bird." Dean tested the tension in Sam's shoulders and then pressed gently along the curve of Sam's spine. He swept his palms to either side, easing the knots there as well. Sam made a low, happy noise in his throat, and Dean smiled, biting his tongue to keep himself from mocking his little brother.

"A bird making it snow?" Sam asked, his tone going from warm and a little sleepy to sharp and aware.

"Yeah," Dean confirmed, surprised. "Do we know something like that?"

"Well, it's nothing I've ever heard of attacking anyone, but it's—ah—" Sam pulled away from Dean's massage and made as if to get up and then blushed crimson, sitting heavily back down. "Could you get me the journal?" Sam asked briskly, as though his face weren't the color of a fire engine, and Dean shrugged.

"No problem." Dean went over to Sam's duffle bag, pulling out the journal and flipping through it himself as he brought it back. Sam had also turned back to his laptop, scrolling through things just a little too fast for Dean to see. He grabbed the journal from Dean's hand without looking at him, and Dean frowned, leaning over Sam's shoulder to look at the pages Sam was moving through.

Sam froze. "Could you—not—do that?"

"Not do what?" Dean asked, confused.

"Not. Loom. Over me."

"Dude," Dean said and took a step back. "I loom? I'm the loomer? Take a look in the mirror, Sasquatch!"

"Dean, please," Sam said, and Dean rolled his eyes, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"Whatever," he said with a certain sort of finality, and Sam eyed him one last time before he started comparing notes between whatever he'd been looking for online and whatever it was that he'd found in the journal. Dean looked around the room, trying not to loom over Sam, and hummed 'Hells Bells' under his breath.

"Okay," Sam said finally and slid the journal carefully to where Dean could see it. "Right there. It's an Abenaki legend, a nature spirit in the shape of an eagle called Psônen."

"I see," Dean said, and he did, reading his father's spidery writing and trying to make sense of it. "It brings snow when it opens its wings?"

"Right," Sam agreed. "But I've never heard of it being violent. As near as I can tell, that's really just the Abenaki legend of how snow is created. I don't know what kind of spirit would use that to manifest; obviously a Native American would have the most information—"

"So what do you think? Is it possible that there's a ghost out there, using the legends he knew when he was alive in order to punish people now?"

"That's possible," Sam said, chewing on his bottom lip. "I'm trying to find out something that links it—hold on."

"What?" Dean asked, shifting restlessly, trying to stop himself from looming over Sam again.

"There was a murder about a month and a half ago—a Native American kid named Atoan Missal. Looks like he was beaten to death by a couple of guys after some school thing."

"That makes sense," Dean agreed. "Do we have addresses for the killers or their families?"

"No," Sam said, shaking his head. "There was only one guy that confessed, and he didn't rat out on anyone else."

"Huh. Are we sure that it wasn't just the one person who did it?"

"It's always possible," Sam said thoughtfully. "But the point is, the killer was supposedly caught and punished. Why are things still going on?"

"There must be something missing. We should probably salt and burn his body just to be careful."

"Looks like he was buried in Nelson Cemetery," Sam said after a moment of scanning a little more information, either an article or an obituary. "It's to the east of here, outside city limits."

"So," Dean drawled, "we'll go there tonight and do a little digging. Nice and easy."

"I hope so," Sam said quietly.

"What? What is it?" Dean asked, a little aggravated. "You don't think it'll be easy at all, do you?"

"Maybe. I'm not saying that it isn't," Sam said hastily, finally getting out of his chair and turning away from Dean to rummage in his duffle bag. "Maybe we should do a little more talking to people."

"Yeah. So, what are we this time? Journalists, maybe?"

"That should work." Sam pulled out his journalist identification and stuck it into his back pocket. "We could either be investigating the strange weather or how crime affects small communities."

"I like that last one," Dean patted himself down to see if he had his identification in the right pocket. "And that way, we'll be able to ask any questions we need, hopefully without getting our asses kicked from six ways to Sunday for being inappropriate."

"Okay." Sam pulled a memo pad and pen from his pocket. "So let me see if I can get some more names from the papers or the police reports, then we'll split up, see if we can get more information."

"Just an hour or two." Dean sits to slide a knife into his boot. "Then we need to get some sleep so that we'll be sharp for digging later tonight."

Sam nodded and went to the laptop for another couple of minutes, scribbling down a couple of names and addresses. He tore the page out of his notebook and handed it to Dean, who glanced at it and then put it in his pocket.

"I'm out of here, then. See you in a little." Dean patted his jacket pockets to make sure that he still had his key to the room, gave his brother one last grin and headed back out into the town.

~*~

The first person on Sam's list for Dean was kind of a stroke of good fortune, as she ended up actually being Barry's cousin, the girl he'd already spoken about briefly. So he ended up in the living room of her apartment, surrounded by pink wallpaper and sparkly glass knick knacks, sipping chamomile tea. Dean hated chamomile tea.

"You said you spoke to my cousin?" she asked, clasping her hands in her lap.

"Yeah. Barry's a pretty cool guy, and he mentioned something about the fact that you survived one of those snow flurries. That's pretty incredible. Can you tell me what it was like?" Dean gave her an encouraging look and leaned a little closer.

"I don't mind," she said. "I've told it to everyone, but I don't really think they believe me."

"Well, why don't you tell me, Sherry—"

"Shannon," she said sharply.

"Shannon," Dean corrected himself, "why don't you just tell me everything? I'll believe you."

"Well," Shannon began, "I was walking home a couple of days ago, and it was just, you know, a normal night. Kind of mild. And I saw this … "

"You saw … ?" Dean encouraged.

"I saw this — I guess it was a boy, maybe sixteen, seventeen?" Shannon chewed on her bottom lip, smearing a little of her lipstick.

"Anything else you can remember about him? Did he look familiar or anything?" Dean asked.

"Um. I remember he had dark hair, but he was kind of hard to see. It was like—He kept. Flashing?" Shannon looked at him in embarrassment, as though Dean were going to scoff at her.

He nodded instead. "And then what happened?"

"He said something, like, 'Why didn't you tell someone?' And I blinked. He had been over by the cedar tree in Mrs. Proudfeather's yard, but when I opened my eyes again, there was a bird sitting on one of the branches, like an eagle or a falcon. It started flying around me, and the snow came from its wings." Shannon gave him a bashful sort of look. "Do you believe me?"

Dean gave her a reassuring, conspiratorial smile. "Yeah, I believe you."

"You're not just saying that?" Shannon asked hopefully. "Because I understand if you are—I know how crazy it sounds—"

"Shannon," Dean said firmly. "I believe you."

"Okay," Shannon said and smiled. She had a pretty smile, sweet and shy.

"Just one last thing, though," Dean said, flipping his little notepad shut. "You said that he told you 'why didn't you tell someone?' What do you think he meant by that?"

Shannon flushed and averted her eyes. "I don't know."

"Okay," Dean said and stood, offering Shannon a hand to shake. "If there's anything else that you can think of, here," and he pulled out a page of his memo pad and scrawled his cell phone number, ripped it off of its spot and handed the paper to her. "Don't hesitate to give me a call, you got that?"

Shannon grasped the piece of paper in her hand gratefully. "I will. Thank you, Mr. Bachman."

With nothing left to say, Dean just gave her another smile and headed out the door, marking a check by her name. She was definitely hiding something, but he didn't know if it had anything to do with the actual case he was following or if it was just something personal. After all, if a random spirit asked him why he was hiding things, he'd be hard pressed to understand which secret the ghost meant in the first place. It could be about anything from sneaking her boyfriend in for a little make out session to crashing her car into a fence and blaming it on a deer or maybe even something as silly as cheating on a test in high school. That's even assuming he was on the right track in his thinking. Dean dug his cell phone out of his pocket and pressed Sam's number on his speed dial, bringing it up to his ear.

"Turner," Sam's voice said briskly.

"Hey, are you finished with your interview yet?" Dean asked, although he had a suspicion that he wasn't, which is why he was using his alias. He hated when he figured something out three seconds after his voice had already come out of his mouth.

"Almost," Sam said, "I'll call you back in a second."

"Okay," Dean agreed and flipped his phone shut. He made his way to the Impala and looked at the second address on Sam's list for him: 1738 Mercer St., home of a kid named Joey Lopez. First victim of the snow bird, lost a couple of toes to it before someone saved his life. Sounded like a lot of fun. Dean was halfway there when Sam finally rang him back.

"So, what'd you find out?" Sam asked.

"I think it's our dead Indian kid," Dean said.

"God, Dean, can you show some respect for anything? Indian and Native American are two completely different indigenous people!"

"I know, I know," Dean rolled his eyes with such violence he actually stopped looking at the road for a second. "Native Americans had Thanksgiving with the pilgrims, Indians don't like pork. I got it, already."

"Oh, my god. You're a moron on purpose, aren't you?" Sam asked him. "There's no way that you could just be this dumb."

"Hey, sticks and stones, little brother," Dean said. "Anyway, did your witness see anything weird? Because Shannon swears there was an Indian kid that turned into the bird with snow coming out of its wings. And I'm pretty sure she wasn't tripping. She seemed a little too wholesome to be doing acid."

"My guy swears he didn't see anything. He was just walking along and then it was snowing. I suppose it's possible for the ghost to have been after someone in particular and this guy just being unlucky enough to get caught in the crossfire."

"Great," Dean scoffed. "Ghosts have no consideration for the casualties."

"So, did Shannon say anything else?"

"Yeah, there was one thing." Dean scratched the back of his head. "Before our boy transformed into a bird, he asked her 'Why didn't you tell someone?'"

"He sounds like a local version of the Bloody Mary we encountered."

"So, what? You think if someone's lying about something, then they get their asses frozen off? What does that accomplish, really?"

"I don't know. Maybe someone saw him murdered but didn't report it to the police. Maybe there really was more than one of them there, and he's unhappy that only one of his attackers was caught?"

Dean shook his head, impressed. "And you just think of this stuff off the top of your head, don't you?"

Sam laughed. "Well, someone has to."

"Anyway," Dean said, "I'm at my next guy. I'll see what I can find out with him."

"Good luck," Sam said, and the line disconnected.

Dean got out of the Impala and tugged on his clothing, trying to look at least semi-respectable, and knocked on the door. There was thumping behind the door, as if someone was running down a hallway, and then the door creaked open, a little brown eye peeking out from behind the door. "Hello?"

"Hello," Dean said, bending down a little so that he could look into that brown eye dead on. "Is Joey Lopez here?"

The door clicked shut, and there were more scampering sounds down the hallway, along with a wail of, "Joey, there's someone at the door to seeeee yooou!" Dean ducked his head to hide his grin and scratched the back of his neck. Siblings, little ones, were totally the best. Soon after, there was the slow thump and drag of someone on crutches and uncomfortable with their immobility and the door cracked open again.

"Who are you?" the taller brown eye asked.

Dean gave a business-like nod and flashed his identification, "I'm Al Bachman. I'm a reporter from a couple of towns that way." He pointed west over his shoulder. "We'd noticed all the weird weather you guys were having and wanted to do a little story on it. Can I borrow a moment of your time?"

The brown eye gave him a measuring look, and Dean had to fight back the urge to ask 'what are you staring at, Cyclops?' until the door opened, and the young man before him backed up the hall, leaving the door open as an obvious invitation. Dean closed the door obediently and followed after him, wagging his fingers in greeting at the little kid still peeking at him from behind a corner.

"Mariella!" Joey snapped without turning around. The little girl blushed and vanished around the corner.

Once they were both seated more or less comfortably in the living room, Joey taking the arm chair and Dean perching on the couch, Dean took a breath and opened his notepad. "So," Dean said, "why don't you tell me your version about what happened?"

"There really isn't much to tell," Joey said, looking down at his feet and scratching the back of his head absently. "I was walking around, just going home from my part-time job, and there was a snow flurry. I got lost. I got froze."

"Yeah," Dean said, doodling a picture in the margin of his memo pad, trying to look as if he were serious about taking notes. "You were in town, right? How'd you get lost long enough to get frostbite?"

Joey shrugged. "I really don't know. Near as I can tell, I was blinded by the snow. Couldn't see anywhere. I guess I just started wandering in circles. I couldn't figure it out."

"Did you see anything unusual?"

"Like what?" Joey asked defensively.

"I don't know, that's why I was asking you," Dean said nonchalantly. "I was speaking to another person caught in the snow, a Miss Shannon Allred, and she said some kind of interesting things."

Joey snorted derisively. "Is Shannon telling that stupid bird story again? She's nuts—everyone in town knows that."

Dean laughed as though he were in complete agreement with Joey, although inside he seethed a little. It was jerks like this who made it okay when someone was killed because of the color of their skin, or why people were afraid to come forward with what they see because they're too afraid of being mocked for their honesty. It made him sick sometimes when he thought about it. It was small towns like this where horrible things happened and then were covered up just because secretly they're really good townsfolk.

Dean thought of Cassie for the first time in a long while, about how people hated her just because her mother was white and her father was black. How they were the type to come back as ghosts to kill people who had anything to do with what they considered wrong, rather than what was actually, truly evil. He supposed he would've been the poster boy for that kind of wrong-headed thinking if he were normal, probably, but after everything he'd seen—who you loved was nothing. What you thought, who you were— those were the important things. What you did, that was important, too.

"So you didn't see any crazy snow birds or ghosts?" Dean contested congenially, giving Joey a smile as though anything he said was just between them, like they were buddies.

"I'm not as crazy as some people," Joey said stiffly.

Dean nodded and looked around the room, just out of a habit of casing every joint he had the fortune and misfortune to enter. He noticed a silvery thing out of the corner of his eye and made an inquisitive noise.

"What're you looking at?" Joey asked.

Dean shook his head. "I was just looking at that gorgeous turquoise bird pendant you have there. Where'd you get it?"

Joey shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "I found it," he said. "You find a lot of stuff like that around here. What with all the Indians around. They make a lot of stuff to sell to the tourists and things like that. You know how it is."

"I sure do," Dean said with a grin. "Well, thanks for your time. If there's anything else you can remember about what happened to you, here's my number." Dean wrote his number on a piece of paper, just as he'd done for Shannon, and passed it to Joey. "You can reach me any time."


"Thanks," Joey said, and as Dean stood, raised his hand a little, as though to stop him. "Do you think the flurries will stop?"

Dean shrugged. "I couldn't really say. I'm not a meteorologist. But I figure, if we're getting snow in October? The colder it gets, I guess the worse it's going to be."

Joey went pale under his Arizona tan and nodded. "I see."

"I wouldn't worry about it if I were you," Dean said in a soothing voice, but inside he was alternately wishing Joey would break already and give him something he could use and laughing maniacally because it was obvious the guy was worried about something, and if it wasn't worry over a ghostly snow bird, he'd eat the Impala's leather seat cover. "After all, it's just some weird weather. And as long as you're careful, you'll be okay."

"You're right, Mr. Bachman. Thanks," Joey said, looking a little less relieved than his words implied. "If I think of anything else, I'll definitely let you know."

"Thanks. Have a good day, kid," Dean said, nice and professional, and let himself out, going back to the Impala. The last two names on his list weren't at home, so Dean shrugged and made his way back to the hotel to wait for Sam.

It didn't take long for Sam to pop back up; mostly it was enough for Dean to shuck off his jacket and flop onto his back with the remote control to the television, to watch a daytime soap opera or two. He secretly missed the vibrating bed he found in that last hotel in Idaho—it should be a rule or something that each hotel room should have one of those.

"Quit fantasizing about the vibrating beds, Dean." Sam's crisp, prissy voice washed over him as Sam let himself into their hotel room.

Dean couldn't resist a smarmy grin. "How'd you know that's what I was thinking about?"

"You're on a bed, with a wistful look on your face, while," Sam shot a look at the television as he passed it, "'The Young and the Restless' is on. I figure you're not mooning over that old guy there, so it was a simple matter of deduction."

"'A simple matter of deduction.' Can we be any stuffier there?" Dean asked, laughing.

"Excuse me for paying attention to having a decent vocabulary," Sam said stuffily as he flopped down into a chair.

Dean grinned, filled to the brim with affection for his younger brother. "How'd you know this was 'The Young and the Restless'? Done a bit of TV watching while I was gone?"

Sam turned pink and resolutely faced his laptop. "Sometimes there's just nothing else on."

"Yeah, uh huh," Dean said, sitting up and looking at the back of Sam's head. "Admit it. You like that old guy's storyline there."

"Dean," Sam said, the tone of his voice just as good at showing his impatience as his long suffering sigh, "shut up. Did you find anything else that might be interesting?"

"I don't really think so," Dean sighed, resting his head back against his pillows again. "Just that people suck."

"Well, that's nothing new."

"What about you?" Dean asked, out of rote curiosity. "Did you find out anything interesting?"

"Not really. No one really wants to talk about it. The best lead we have is what that girl Shannon gave you. But it should be okay once we salt and burn the kid's body."

"And there aren't any weird cycles of this sort of thing happening here? Just to be sure we're going after the right thing?"

"Dude, if there were any other options, I would have mentioned them already," Sam said a little testily. Dean raised his hands in defense, even though Sam hadn't looked at him and he was facing the ceiling anyway.

"Okay then. I'm taking a nap. If you're going to go to sleep, too, just remember to set the alarm for us, okay?"

"When do I ever forget, really?" Sam asked, turning for the first time to look directly at him.

Dean arched an eyebrow and stared right back. "You never used to forget my pie, either. Just saying."

"Will you let that go, please? It was one pie. Once," Sam said, casting his eyes to the ceiling as well.

"If I let it slide once, then you'll just keep doing it, and I'm always going to have to get my own pie forever," Dean said woefully.

Sam laughed and tossed his memo pad at Dean's head. "You're such a jerk."

"Takes a bitch to know one," Dean mumbled, closing his eyes for a nap.

~*~

He really should have expected the dreams. The memories sat on him like a weight on his chest and shoulders, flashing on the back of his eyelids like a movie that he was starring in, and he could never get away from the taste and touch and texture of the pain. He would do anything to make it stop.

"Dean!"

Dean bolted upright, hands flailing into the air as he went from hell-filled sleep to darkness—not true darkness, he realized as he shook his way into wakefulness; there was light by a lamp on his left, and Sam had Dean's shoulder in his hand, shaking him gently.

"I'm up, I'm up," Dean said gruffly, rubbing a hand across his face as though he could wipe the dreams away.

"Dean," Sam said softly, and he sat down next to him, still not removing his hand from Dean's shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Sammy," Dean said, making an effort not to shake Sam's hand off—Sam's hand was uncomfortably close to Castiel's handprint, and it made him a little edgy.

"You can talk to me if you need to, you know that, right?" Sam fidgeted a little closer. Dean stared at his leg, at where Sam's thigh was pressed against his, and nodded.

"I know," Dean breathed and then stood. Sam's hand clung tight to his arm for a second before falling away. "Give me a minute, and we'll head off to the cemetery."

"No problem," Sam said, and Dean fled to the bathroom to do his business. When he looked in the mirror, he couldn't recognize himself, and the hate and shame flared until he was gasping for air that didn't feel tainted.

It might have lasted three minutes or three hours, but Dean finally managed to get himself and his memories back under control and headed back out into the main room. Sam was double checking his duffle bag for the things they would need — the salt and the gasoline and other implements — so Dean supposed that either he hadn't been in there as long as he thought, or Sam was just really good at trying to make him feel more comfortable.

"Thanks," Dean said, and Sam nodded to let Dean know he'd heard him but didn't push. Dean didn't know how it was possible, but he loved Sam just a little more for that. "We ready to go?"

"Whenever you are," Sam said, zipping up the duffle bag and hefting it in his fist.

"Okay, then. Let's head out." Dean snagged the Impala's keys from the nightstand and headed out the door.

When they got to the cemetery, they jumped the chained fence with the quiet grace of practiced grave robbers and began the search for Atoan Missal's grave. Dean wandered around through row after row of the dead, flashing his light on every other headstone now and again. It was Sam who found it, of course; he was a lot better at finding the boring things, even though Dean hated to admit that. Sam had sort of a scary kind of single-minded intensity that Dean found hard to personally maintain, even though it was often useful.

Sam flashed his flashlight in the pattern that they had agreed on: two short, two long, a pause, and then one short and one long again, and Dean headed over in a loping, ground-eating pace. When he managed to get over to Sam, Sam had already begun digging, although the ground was hard and rocky due to the way the crazy weather had been. Dean pushed Sam over to the side. Sam handled inactivity better than Dean did, and he shot a look at Dean that Dean pretended not to notice. He still passed over the shovel with no questions. Dean would have denied it if asked, but he was actually fond of the labor part of a salt and burn. He wasn't God's gift to research, but at least he knew how to work.

About an hour and a half in, they were more than five feet down into the ground. Now that there was a definite goal in sight, Dean was digging with even more vigor. Of course, that's when things went sour.

"Dean," Sam said urgently, and Dean stopped digging, resting an arm on the wooden shovel handle and wiping the sweat and dirt from his face with his sleeve as he looked over at his brother. Sam gestured at his right, a little ways away and under a tree, at the ghost of a Native American boy, teenage, young in the face, and looking so very sad. Sam nabbed the shotgun they had brought just for this sort of eventuality, cocked and aimed it. The boy didn't move, just watched them, and Dean ignored him, continuing to dig.

"If you're going to say something," Dean said to the ghost, off-handed and nonchalant, "then you should just say it and go to the happy hunting ground or whatever."

"Why didn't you tell anyone?" the ghost asked, and it felt like ice water had been splashed down his back. Dean shot a glance at the ghost without stopping his digging to verify that the ghost was looking at him. He was. Then he turned to Sam, his eyes dark and sorrowful. "Why didn't you tell anyone?" Sam briefly looked away, glancing at the ground before retraining the gun on the ghost, although it hadn't moved. It flickered, and Dean began to dig even faster, unnerved at the fact that it was just standing there. Normally, hostile spirits were already up in their business of punishing them for whatever faults they were believed to have. They normally weren't so measuring, so full of gravity.

As Dean was thinking that, the Native American boy flickered one last time and then transformed into a bird that was, quite frankly, absolutely beautiful, pure white with deep blue markings around the ends of its feathers; Dean wanted to say it was an eagle, but he didn't know enough about birds to give a definite name. It was sitting on the bare oak branch, and Dean thought maybe they were being given the opportunity to confess their secrets before it was too late.

For a minute, words that fell short of really describing hell and his actions and the way it felt to be saved, to be redeemed tangled on his tongue, begging for release, but considering the fact that it fell short in his mind made it impossible to even comprehend trying to use speech to bring it out in the open, and he couldn't bring himself to say anything.

He couldn't say anything at all.

Dean saw Sam look at him, but he also remained silent. Dean braced for an explosion and wasn't really disappointed by that ghost. It opened its wings and flew; from its feathers drifted a snow so cold that it stung where it touched Dean's bare flesh. When Dean took a moment to wipe it away, so it would stop distracting him from his digging, he noticed that it left a little red mark, as though it had genuinely scalded him with its frozen temperature.

Sam fired off a salt round at the bird, and Dean trusted Sam's aim, although he couldn't take a moment from his task to see if the salt had connected. It felt like it was too late, though—the snow storm was already beginning to rage around them, and Dean dug with a growing desperation as he went minutes without striking the coffin for the body.

"Dean, come on!" Sam cried, firing off another shot. "What are you doing over there?"

"I don't know what's going on!" Dean dropped the shovel and scrambled on his hands and knees to thrust his hands in the dirt and pull it out in heaping armfuls. But there was still nothing there, and Dean swore helplessly. "I can't find a thing!"

Sam dropped into the hole beside him, digging frantically, but even with his brother shivering at his side, he didn't have any better luck.

"Damn it!" Sam spat, and Dean flicked the collar of his jacket up, the back of his neck and the tips of his ears already icy and numb.

"He wasn't buried, Sam!" Dean shouted over the rising, freezing wind, and hoisted himself out of the hole, reaching out a hand to help Sam up. "He wasn't buried. We need to get out of here!"

"I can't feel my fingers," Sam confessed, teeth chattering miserably.

Dean squinted against the blinding snow, unwilling to confess that his fingers had disappeared minutes ago when he'd been clawing at the ground, and shivered desperately. He snagged his fingers in the cuff of Sam's jacket (and had to double check to make sure he had hold of him) and tugged him forward, following the line of tombstones by feel, each piece of stone pressing against his legs serving as a kind of rough road map. He could understand how it would be so easy to get lost, even with the city all around you, because in the snow it felt like you were the only person in a hundred miles, and pushing forward seemed almost pointless. But Sam was depending on him, and Dean refused to let him down, refused to lose to a stupid ghost who didn't realize what kind of secrets he had, and why it was better that Dean not tell his brother the truth. Besides, he was a hunter; if civilians could get out with a little bit of frost bite, then he sure as hell would get him and Sam out with nothing more than cold feet.

Dean could feel Sam huddling against his back, fingers clenched in his, and he could feel by the way Sam moved that he felt he should take point, maybe because he was so much bigger, but that was a no go. Sam was the little brother. Dean was the big brother. It was simple as that. They finally reached the fence detailing the boundary of the cemetery, and Dean pulled Sam forward and pressed his hands to the metal, even though that felt like it burned. At this point, it was a relief that they could feel anything. Sam clambered up and over the fence, Dean assumed, because he couldn't see when he dropped to the other side.

"Dean," Sam yelled. "Come on!"

Dean vaulted over the top and slammed back against the fence, the skin of his fingers caught and freezing against the metal. He got his foot pressed against the bars of the fence and roared into the oncoming storm as he wrenched himself backward. There were fingers tugging at him again, pulling him away from the whorled cast iron, and Dean could barely feel Sam's arms, even as he could feel the pressure of Sam's arms flexing around him. His jacket was caught on the spikes at the top of the fence for a second, but Sam had him, fumbling over him with the lack of grace of the terminally frozen, groping for his jacket and unhooking it from where it was stuck. Dean pulled again, his muscles straining, and he felt the rip of skin, a bright flash of pain, and blood freezing into ice on his palms. Then they were running, clinging to each other again, until they literally fell against the Impala, suddenly shining black and sturdy in the painfully white snow. Dean scrabbled for his keys as Sam felt his way to the other side of the car, teeth chattering hard enough that he was catching his tongue on every other bite, and it took him a couple of minutes longer than he wanted to fit the key into the keyhole and open the door.

Dean fell into the driver's seat with a harsh sound, the gear shift slamming heavily into his ribs, but he didn't allow himself to feel the pain as he struggled to his knees, trying to force his frozen fingers to grasp the peg at the window to unlock the door for Sam. There was blood oozing everywhere, almost like a slushie, and Dean's stomach heaved. On the third try, his fingers spasmed, hooking the lock in the way he wanted, and he unlocked the door in one fierce pull. Sam bolted the door open and fell against Dean, smacking his head hard into Dean's shoulder as he slammed the door shut behind him. They shivered together in silence as the storm raged outside the Impala, their shared body heat slowly thawing out their extremities. Dean rested his head on Sam's shoulder, gasping in air that wasn't painful with cold, even as his shoulder was throbbing from where Sam had accidentally smacked into him, and patted his brother down with the backs of his hands, just beginning to feel like something more than cold at the ends of his fingers.

"Are you okay, Sammy?" he asked, trying to calm the pounding of his heart. "Can you feel everything?"

"Give me a second, Dean," Sam gasped, and Dean could feel Sam's hands bend against him as he tested the feeling in his fingers.

Dean sat back into the driver's seat, scooting around until he was in proper driving position instead of kneeling disrespectfully in the Impala's seat. He scrounged for the keys, which he'd dropped in between the seats when he had struggled to get Sam in the car, and cried out, the floor rough against his torn hands. Sam's head whipped around, his eyes growing large as he saw Dean's palms, and immediately pushed him into the backseat, scrabbling for the keys himself. He stuck the key into the ignition and started Dean's baby, shivering again as cold air fluttered in from the vents. Dean climbed into the passenger seat and turned the heater on high, shutting the vents for a couple of minutes to let the car warm up. Only after that was finished did he turn and shamelessly cuddle a little longer with Sam.

"You haven't answered me yet, punk," Dean warned, although he was comforted by the thump of Sam's heart that he could hear from where they were pressed together.

"I'm okay," Sam answered, although he didn't seem any more inclined to move away from Dean as Dean was to move away from Sam. "Fingers, toes, all checked in and accounted for."

"Good," Dean said through still chattering teeth. "That's good. Christ, I'm cold."

Sam reached his hands into Dean's coat, circling his arms around Dean and pressing as close as possible, even though with Sam's height and the gear shift stuck between them, it was kind of awkward and uncomfortable. Dean drew his legs up into his seat, offering a silent apology to his girl as he returned Sam's embrace, unable to even mock a little bit about how ridiculous of a girl moment it was to be hugging. He was friggin' freezing. Being this cold obviously allowed for a little bending of his boundaries.

He was half asleep, lulled by the purring of the car engine beneath him and Sam's warm arms around him, almost forgetting about the heater until Sam stirred restlessly. Dean reluctantly pulled away for a second to check the vents and breathed a blissful sigh as blessedly warm air flooded out against them.

"So," he finally said. "That sucked."

Sam laughed mirthlessly. "You're telling me."

"So," Dean said slowly. "I'm thinking that we'll drive—really slowly—back to the hotel, maybe do a little more research on the Atoan Missal kid. Maybe some more on his family."

"Yeah. That'd be a good idea. Especially since, according to my witnesses at least, the snow won't follow us." They pulled away, and Sam rested his hands on the steering wheel, taking a moment longer to greedily soak up the warmth.

"Any idea what he was asking you about?" Dean asked eventually.

Sam tucked his arms underneath his armpits and stared out the window. "No idea. You?"

Dean laughed. "I have no clue," he said and then he fell silent as they began the slow, arduous process of getting out of the storm.

They had just gotten back to the hotel when Sam said, "We left the hole, and we forgot the shovel and the shotgun."

"Frankly, Sam," Dean breathed, staring at the enticing image of their hotel room door. "I don't give a damn."

"Just saying."

"I got it," Dean said and got out of the car.

~*~

After a long, lazy, hot as possible shower, Sam wrapped up Dean's hands and Dean made Sam promise to have something hot — either coffee or hot chocolate — waiting for him when he got back, and headed back toward the cemetery again. Sam had wanted to go with him, but Dean nixed the idea with a glare. After what had happened, he wasn't willing to risk Sam to this thing again, and it would be a lot faster if he just went there alone to nab their things and fill that hole back in. Plus, after he got all dirty playing in the grave, it would be a great excuse for another hot shower, and Dean was nothing if not a hedonist.

It looked like the caretaker and anyone who might have been in the cemetery at this time of night had been scared away by the freakish weather, so Dean actually found it a lot easier to fill the hole in and lug their shovel and shotgun back to the Impala, to toss them into the back seat after a cursory examination for dirt or snow (the Impala didn't have to get dirt or snow in her unless she absolutely had to) and headed back to the hotel.

As promised, the moment that Dean came back into the hotel room, he was struck by the smell of warm chocolate, sitting at Sam's elbow on the table; two cups. Dean made a sound of wordless appreciation and grabbed the fuller one, sitting in the chair next to Sam and drinking the hot chocolate in greedy gulps.

"Are you okay?" Sam asked, as if he wasn't really concerned, and even though he was shooting glances at Dean every couple of seconds and it totally belied his nonchalant attitude, Dean was still a little grateful for his tone. There was aspirin on the table, and Dean grabbed them, his hands awkward; he threw his head back and swallowed them before picking up his mug again in both hands.

"I'm fine, dude. I'm built tough," Dean boasted, even if he spoiled his image by sucking down hot chocolate like it was crack. "Did you find anything while I was gone?"

"I found some information about the wake," Sam said slowly, clicking through a couple of pages.

"So, do you think we should talk to his parents, or should we talk to the funeral people?"

"I think we should ask the funeral director in charge of the burial," Sam decided. "If they presided over a ritual of closure instead of an actual funeral, then we might get more out of them than having to bother the kid's parents. I would really prefer to leave them as a last resort. It kind of sucks to be forced to talk about their dead son when they were a victim of a hate crime."

"So what if it's not the body? What if it turns out that the body's been cremated?"

Sam shook his head. "Then we need to find what object it is that he's still hanging around in. Obviously."

"Well, we can't do anything about it now," Dean decided, and swallowed the last of his hot chocolate before standing. "I'm taking another shower."

"Be my guest," Sam said, gesturing toward the bathroom again.

Dean shrugged off his jacket and dropped it on the back of his chair before he kicked off his shoes, heading back into the bathroom and turning the hot water all the way up. He un-bandaged his hands and stepped into the shower, letting the water pound more warmth into his muscles. Eventually, the dirt slicked off, and the water began to get cooler in cranky bursts of water pressure, so Dean grabbed a towel and went back into the main room. Sam helped him wrap his hands again, and then Dean grabbed his boxers and a T-shirt, tossing his second batch of dirty clothes of the day in the corner. He decided that he was still a little too cold, so he put on a pair of jeans over his boxers. Sam was standing between their beds, looking back and forth between the mattresses.

"What is it?" Dean demanded. "Did you find a pea in your bed, princess?"

"I'm still cold," Sam said plaintively, crossing his arms over his chest and bouncing a little on the balls of his feet.

"So put some more clothes on," Dean said, a little more sympathetic than he let on. He was still frozen to all hell, too. And his hands hurt like a son of a bitch, even with the painkillers.

"Can I sleep with you tonight?"

"Dude, are you five?" Dean asked, beginning to laugh, but at Sam's serious expression, he swallowed the sound, the laugh sticking in his throat.

"No," Sam said stubbornly. "But can I sleep with you anyway?"

Dean shook his head and slid under the covers, watching Sam watch him for just a second before he sighed and patted the other side of the bed. "The moment you start stealing the blankets," Dean warned, "I willl kick you out. You got that, Sasquatch?"

Sam grinned and turned off the lights, snuggling under the covers without another word. Dean closed his eyes and tried to go to sleep; even though he wouldn't admit it, it was comforting having Sam cuddling up against his back, warm and solid. It reminded him that he wasn't supposed to be cold anymore and helped a lot to get him there.

~*~

Dean and Sam decided to go over to the library the next morning, just to double check the newspapers and make sure Sam wasn't overlooking anything by using the online archive almost exclusively. Fortunately for them, the closest library had recently upgraded to microfilm, so Sam looked at that information while Dean looked at the actual newspaper copies, preferring to hold the original thing. Microfilm always made his eyes tired.

Dean looked with a half-hearted eye at the paper, not seeing anything useful about Atoan Missal that he could really sink his teeth into. Nothing about a cremation, just a front page splash about a murder in Peach Springs, some opinion columns about the nature of the modern teenager, and what it was like to grow up in a culture of violence that gave children skewed notions of what was right and wrong. There was the obituary, another follow up piece on how his friends and family were holding up under the strain of their loss, and how they'd risen up against the crushing pressure of loss to make a foundation in his name, educating about race and humanity and why hate crimes were hurtful not only to the victims and their families, but also to the perpetrator and their families as well. Dean kind of felt like it was all psychological mumbo jumbo. A culture of violence. Whatever.

Dean sighed and kicked back in his seat, propping his boots on the table in front of him. Sam shot a glance over in his direction and heaved a heavy, pointed sigh, but Dean ignored him. His hands hurt, he wasn't finding anything, and it took five friggin' minutes to turn a page, so he just tilted his head back and stared up at the ceiling. He was out of patience, and without anything to distract him, his brain started circling around the whole issue of the Apocalypse again; he'd mocked Sam a little for the way that he kept thinking about things even though he couldn't change them, but the truth was that Dean was as guilty of that himself.

Dean's phone vibrated in his pocket, and he clunked his feet to the floor, thankful for the interruption. He tapped Sam's shoulder to let him know that he was taking the call and headed out of the building, flipping the phone up and connecting the call as he went. "Hello?" he answered.

"Mr. Bachman? Oh god, oh god, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry—"

Dean stopped on the sidewalk, trying to hear over the sound of wind rushing in his ear. "What—who is—Shannon, is that you?"

"Mr. Bachman, I have to tell you—oh, god, I'm so cold—I have to tell you that when I was sixteen I saw my neighbor, Mr. Feldman, and he—"

"Hold on, Shannon, I'm at the library, I'll be right there—" Dean said, hurrying to the Impala and throwing her into drive.

He squealed out of the parking lot and sped to her apartment, Shannon babbling in his ear the entire time. He wasn't actually as close as he promised; Shannon's apartment building was about a half an hour to the west, so he took the road faster than he should have, but luck was with him. Just as he was about to pull into the parking lot, the sound of the wind through the telephone stopped, leaving a silence so sudden and thick it made his ears ring.

"Shannon?" Dean's heart pounded in his throat as he jumped out of the Impala and ran up to her second floor apartment.

"Mr. Bachman?" Shannon asked quietly, her voice shaky. The door to her apartment flew open just as he stopped in front of it, and there was Shannon, the phone still at her ear. Her hair was iced over with snowflakes, and her lips were blue. She dropped her arm to her side, cell phone falling to the ground without her notice, and Dean flipped his phone shut, reaching for her.

She curled up against him, dry sobs rattling in her throat, and Dean briskly rubbed her arms, gritting his teeth against the pain as he tried to chafe some warmth back into her. She felt like an icicle, and Dean shrugged off his jacket to put around her shoulders.

"Are you okay?" he asked her, and she nodded.

"I'm cold," she said softly, her teeth chattering, and Dean took a moment to look through her apartment, noticing the fine layer of frost that coated everything.

"What happened?" He put an arm around her shoulder again. "Come on, I'm going to take you to the hospital, so go ahead and tell me the story while we're going."

Shannon nodded obediently, ice crystals breaking off from her hair to crunch under their feet. "I told you my secret," she said, "and it went away."

"Wait, are you talking about the bird ghost thing? Did it show up in your apartment? Why did you call me?"

Shannon flushed and winced at the feeling of heat suffusing her face; it looked painful. "You're the only one who believed me," Shannon said. "What was I going to tell my cousin, or my uncle? That the bird was in my apartment? They would have just laughed at me. They did laugh at me."

"Okay," Dean said, and they were at the Impala by this time, so he opened the passenger side door and coaxed her to take a seat. Dean's phone vibrated in his pocket, and he answered it as he went to his side of the car.

"Dean, where the hell are you?" Sam asked immediately.

"Sam, I'm with Shannon."

"What? Why? What's going on?"

"Shannon was that call that I got, the one I took at the library," Dean said as he brought the Impala into drive and began to pull out of his haphazard parking position. He covered the mouthpiece and looked at Shannon apologetically. "Sorry, this is my partner. Give me just a minute." At Shannon's half-nod, Dean turned the heat on low and turned the vents away from her. He didn't know much about hypothermia, but ice crystals in your hair was a damn bad sign regardless. He didn't want her to get hurt any more than she already was. "I'm taking her to the hospital, Sam. She's practically frozen to the core. I'll tell you more once I get her taken care of, okay?"

"You better. I think I found some information too. We'll touch bases later," Sam agreed, and Dean hung up, sticking the phone back into his pocket.

"So what happened?" Dean asked, shooting a look at Shannon. She didn't look good; her lips were blue, her skin waxy and pale. Her head lulled against the window, and he took a second to shake her shoulder gently, just to get her attention back. "Shannon?"

"Hmm?" She struggled to turn her gaze toward him.

"What happened?" Dean demanded, and waited until she gave him something more than a blurry look. "What made your apartment look like that?"

"What happened to your hands?" Shannon asked softly.

"Don't worry about it." Dean gave her a bright smile. "Stay with me, you got that? Can you answer my question?"

"He—the guy, bird, whatever—I was reading a book and went to get myself something to drink, and he was in my kitchen. And he asked me that question again and—and he touched my cheek. I was so cold—I thought I'd been cold in the storm, but this was a million times worse, like my blood was freezing. And that's when I knew that I was going to die if I didn't tell someone." Shannon rested her head against the window, tears dangling on her eyelashes. "You were the only one who believed me the first time, so I thought, maybe that would be enough. If I told you what I'd seen."

Dean tried frantically to remember the secret that she'd told him, but he'd been so intent on trying to save her that he hadn't actually listened to what she said. "Do we need to get the police involved with this?" he asked neutrally, thinking that was enough of a middle road that she could take it out of his hands.

Shannon shook her head and pushed her wet hair out of her face. Dean turned the heater up a little higher, pointing the vent her way. The occasional shudders that Dean had been seeing had given way to full blown shivering, and he supposed that was a good sign, too. "I don't think so. I don't think there's anything that they could really do anyway. Mr. Feldman committed suicide a couple of weeks after that. Everyone always thought that he died of grief, but I … I knew better. I just didn't think it mattered anymore." Shannon rested her head against the headrest of her seat and sighed as the hospital came into view. "I didn't dream that, did I?" she whispered.

"Would I be taking you to the hospital if you were dreaming this?" Dean asked.

Shannon laughed. "I don't know. You're pretty hot. You being here could totally be my subconscious picking up on the cute reporter I saw earlier today."

"And you realize that you just called me hot, right?" Dean asked with a grin.

"My brain was just frozen into an icicle," Shannon said pragmatically. "You can't take anything I say seriously."

"Got it." Dean parked, dragging Shannon over to the emergency room entrance. He passed her over to a nurse who had a hundred questions, for Shannon and for him as well, and it was nothing that he could answer without giving a few hundred lies. He feigned a distressing need to use the bathroom and snuck his way out of there. Once he was safely back on the road again, he thumbed his cell phone open and called Sam, who picked up immediately.

"Do I get an explanation of what's been going on yet?" Sam asked. "You scared the hell out of me."

"Sorry," Dean said, and he was. "I'm on my way back to the library, and I'll tell you what happened when I get back. What about the stuff you were looking up?"

Sam sighed. "Well, I have confirmation that he wasn't buried; his family had him cremated but asked to keep it quiet, because Atoan's friends wanted some sort of memorial to remember him by. His parents had enough money set aside to pay for cremation, but there was some sort of collection at the school where they raised enough to pay for the stone and the plot. Sounds like he was really popular."

"How'd you miss this the first time, Sammy?" Dean asked, half teasing, and he could almost hear Sam shake his head.

"I don't know. It was really hard to find, buried in a report that had mention of his death certificate and a couple of other official papers from the funeral home."

"Great," Dean said and made it to the library in record time. Sam was standing outside the library, the phone to his ear and a pensive expression on his face. Sam opened the door and got into the car as he and Dean both closed their cell phones in a move so smooth it was almost synchronized.

"So," Sam said, "it's your turn, now."

"Yeah, so like I said, it was Shannon. She called, and there was the sound of wind howling in the background, and she told me a secret about a neighbor. It sounded like the storm was there with her, in her apartment."

"He's finally escalating," Sam said, and Dean nodded in agreement.

"So, anyway, apparently confessing to me did the trick, because she was still alive when I got there, but she was frozen to the core, man. And everything in her apartment was iced over with frost. She got lucky."

"Damn lucky," Sam breathed, and he scrubbed a hand through his hair. "So, any ideas about what's keeping him tied here? Because I'm out of ideas."

I'm thinking," Dean said and drove aimlessly for a few minutes, no destination in mind.

"It's interesting," Sam said thoughtfully. "It feels like he's giving us all second chances. He's kind of an unusual spirit, isn't he? Kind of like Molly."

"He's a spirit that's trying to kill people by freezing them," Dean said, unforgiving. "Nothing like Molly at all. And it creeps me out when you talk about ghosts like they're still people."

"We're not having this argument right now, Dean. Not while we're on a hunt."

"Who's arguing?" Dean asked but went quiet anyway. He tried to think through all of the clues they'd gotten so far, not that there were all that many of them. It seemed like an open and shut case: they had the victim, the motive, the method, even had the damn thing come after them personally, but what the heck were they supposed to do to find the item keeping him on earth? It had to be something that was still in town, too. If it had been anything that his parents had kept as a memento, he would have followed them, not sticking around these parts. "Hey, Sammy," Dean asked, and Sam looked at Dean, waiting for his question to continue. "How did they capture the guy who killed him?"

"From what I read, he just got himself drunk and turned himself into the sheriff."

"And what did the guy say he did it for?"

"No one's really sure why he did it," Sam said, a frown beginning to crease between his eyebrows. "They don't know if it really was a hate crime, although that's what everyone else assumed, or if it was a crime of passion or just sheer bad luck. Why? Do you have something in mind?"

"I might," Dean said evasively, trying to get the idea firm in his head before saying anything to Sam. "Did you get a picture of the kid, by any chance?"

"Dean," Sam said in exasperation, "you were looking at the newspapers just like I was. Are you really saying that you don't remember?"

"I'm sorry, I've been busy saving lives. I don't have the space to remember what a grainy photograph looked like. Humor me."

Sam rolled his eyes and pulled a sheaf of papers out from the inside of his jacket, leafing through them. Dean pulled off to the side of the road as Sam pulled a couple of sheets of paper out from the main body of printed material and passed them over to Dean. Dean stared at them for a long time, frowning, something he couldn't remember niggling at the back of his brain. In the pictures, he was absolutely, boringly normal. Hair parted to the side, dark eyes, bright smile.

"Dean?" Sam asked. "Care to fill me in?"

And then, suddenly, Dean had it. "That, right there," he said, jabbing a finger at the picture. "Can you see what that is?" Dean passed Sam that first picture, taking a closer look at the second one. "It's here, too."

"Yeah?" Sam asked, looking down at the photo. "And?"

"And," Dean said with something approaching confidence, "don't you think it looks a lot like a pendant in the shape of a bird?"

Sam caught on quickly. "You think this is still around? That this might be what he's attached to?"

"Even better, I think I've seen this before. I think if I'm right, then we just got a hell of a lot of luck."

"Then what are you waiting for?" Sam asked, taking the pictures back from Dean. "Let's get started!"

~*~

When Dean and Sam got to Joey Lopez's house, everything looked normal, still and very quiet. Dean caught Sam's eye and Sam nodded, getting out of the car and going to the trunk to grab a pistol and some salt-packed bullets. Dean followed him out of the car and headed up the front walk to the door.

He knocked.

There wasn't a thump or scuttle or any sound from the hallway this time, and fear clenched cold in Dean's gut. He tested the door knob as Sam came up behind him and found it open. Sam passed Dean a crowbar, the only thing Dean was able to wrap his hand around, and Dean pushed the door open, stealthily making his way inside as he listened for anything unusual.

They snuck into the living room, and the turquoise bird was exactly where he'd previously seen it, on the mantle, sticking out from behind a picture of Joey and Mariella. Dean set the crowbar against the fireplace and picked the bird up. It was warm in his hand, just from the heat of the fire in the grate beneath the mantle. On the underside, engraved into the soft silver, were the initials AM.

"Bingo," Dean murmured.

"What the hell do you think you're doing here?" Joey bellowed from the doorway, and Sam and Dean spun around, whipping their pistols out.

Sam recovered first. "We're here to save your life."

"Yeah," Dean added. "You're about to become an ice cube because of this." He dangled the turquoise bird by one wing.

"Put my stuff down and leave before I call the cops," Joey gritted out, gesturing at them with one of his crutches.

Mariella peeked out from the hallway, her mouth opening in an outraged gasp as she saw Dean with the turquoise bird. "Hey!" she said shrilly. "Put it down! That's mine!"

"Mariella," Joey said, never moving his eyes from Sam and Dean for a second, "don't say anything."

"Wait." Sam shot a look in Dean's direction, fumbling for the picture in his jacket. "We're not trying to steal anything, not really. See here?" He waved the paper at Joey, who took it, still keeping his eyes trained on them. "This bird here is the exact same one that was owned by Atoan Missal. It's responsible for keeping his spirit here."

"You're crazy," Joey spat. "Spirits? Seriously? And you"He jerked his head toward Dean—"aren't you a reporter?"

"No." Dean took a deep breath and shook his head. "I'm not a reporter. The point is, you're keeping one hell of a secret, and unless we destroy this, you're going to be frozen into an ice cube, and then you'll be dead, and who's gonna care for your sister there?" Dean looked steadily at Joey, trying his best to project sincerity and trustworthiness. He sucked so hard at this part; he just wanted to get back to the hunt.

"Get out," Joey growled, standing protectively in front of Mariella. "Get out or I swear to god I will—"

"Watch out!" Sam yelled, and Dean scrabbled for his crowbar when Atoan appeared next to Mariella. He brushed his fingertips over her cheek and Mariella gasped at the touch, her breath coughing out in a cloud. She started to shiver, her skin going pale and blue hued. Dean got a shot off at Atoan, and the ghost flickered and disappeared.

"Oh, god," Joey said, trying to turn to Mariella and overbalancing. He collapsed to the ground as his crutches clattered to the floor. His sister crouched miserably on the floor with him, shuddering violently.

Dean shook his head. "Damn it, you weren't the one who saw him die, were you?" He tossed the turquoise bird over to Sam, who was bending to get the fire even hotter, and strode over to Joey and Mariella. "Dude, I'm sorry, but we've got to know. When you were walking home, when you got stuck in that storm, was Mariella with you?"

"Yes," Joey gasped brokenly, dragging Mariella over to him and chafing her arms hopelessly. "Yes, she was with me."

Dean swung back toward Sam. "Sammy, are we almost finished? We don't need to do any fancy Indian chanting, do we? We can just throw it in?"

"Right, you're right, we're almost ready—" Sam turned away from the fire for just a second, and before Dean had the chance to move, Atoan was there, his fingers on Sam's cheek. Sam fell to a knee, breath steaming out in clouds of white. His fingers shook and spasmed; the turquoise bird fell from his grip.

Dean scrambled to Sam's side and snagged the bird from the ground, smashing it on the marble as a satisfactory first strike, and then clambered over Sam's shivering body to throw the turquoise bird into the flame.

Dean glared spitefully up at the ghost, hovering protectively over his brother. The ghost stared at him for a second and then brought his hand up toward Dean's cheek. Dean could feel the iciness of his touch but refused to flinch. He darted a look at the bird pendant in the fireplace. Just as Atoan's ghost was about to touch him, the bird began to melt. Atoan clutched above his heart, where the pendant had lain when he was alive, and flamed out.

Immediately, Sam and Mariella gasped in a breath. Dean ran a comforting hand down Sam's back, and he felt as warm as he normally did. Then Dean turned to Mariella and Joey to make sure they were all right. Joey hugged Mariella, squeezing her tightly, and Dean sighed a breath of relief, sitting heavily on the couch.

Someone opened the front door and walked in, heading down the hall. It was an attractive brunette lady, obviously Joey and Mariella's mother. Dean huffed a laugh; he'd been beginning to wonder if they had parents.

"Is everything all right here, Joey?" the woman asked, and Joey caught Dean's eye.

Dean shrugged and looked over at Sam, who was just now uncurling from his crouch.

"Yeah, Mom," Joey said nonchalantly. "Everything's fine."

~*~

"So, you guys do this all the time?" Joey asked.

"Yeah," Sam said. "This was actually pretty simple, considering."

"I just want to get one thing straight," Dean said, looking candidly at Joey. "It was Mariella that saw Atoan being murdered, but his big theme had to do with keeping secrets. If you knew, then it really wasn't her secret anymore."

"I didn't exactly know," Joey clarified. Dean had discovered that he was a little more likable now than his first impression. Fear for a sibling could do horrible things to a guy's personality. "She came home with that bird—she was crying, and she said that something bad had happened. But it was my fault that she was out that night. I should have been watching her, but I didn't. So I asked her if anything had happened to her, and she said no, so I told her not to tell anyone what she saw, not even me. Stupid, I know," Joey continued, seeing Dean's expression. "But I didn't want to deal, as long as she was okay, you know? I didn't think that a ghost was going to come back and try to kill her for it."

"Yeah, well, let that be a lesson to you," Dean said lamely and then slid into the driver's seat of the Impala.

"Be careful," Sam advised.

Joey fidgeted. "So, where are you guys going now?"

"Well," Sam began.

"The Grand Canyon!" Dean bellowed from inside the car, waving his bandaged hands.

Sam laughed. "You heard the man. Grand Canyon it is."

"Well." Joey stopped fidgeting and looked Sam in the eye. At least, that's what it looked like from Dean's point of view. "Thank you for saving us." He bent down awkwardly to make sure Dean had heard him. "Thank you."

"It's what we do," Sam said. He opened the door and got in, shutting it solidly, and Dean bounced in his seat, just a little.

"So," Dean said, fingers jittering across his steering wheel.

"Let's go, Dean." Sam grinned. "To the Grand Canyon!"

Dean smiled broadly, and the Impala purred in contentment as they got on the road again.



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Comments

[sweetnlow]

I'm a terrible person and didn't read this until now, but it was *so* damn awesome!

I loved that this was like a single episode all in itself. The dialogue was dead on, as usual. I swear, I want to marry your Dean. I miss Dean like this.

I know I suck at feedback and commenting and all that, but this is amazing and I love it and it needs to keep going. :D