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It was cold. It was fanfuckingfreezing cold and though Dean wouldn’t admit it—at least not to Sam, though he’d muttered about it almost constantly into the Impala’s ear while they plowed through knee-high drifts on the overgrown highway and sleeping Sam was a long, warm weight at his back—he was seriously concerned. Winchesters could freeze to death, same as anyone, and the way Dean’s nose felt kind of numb even through the scarf he used to protect himself from the wind, meant it was probably getting to that point.
The snow had been coming down for what seemed like two straight days. They had camped in a thicket of trees last night, bundled by the Impala’s side, but Dean had gotten them up early that morning. He’d been concerned with how snowflakes had begun to stick to their skin instead of melt. Added to that, there was a scent on the wind that he felt in the back of his throat more than tasted. It reminded him of the Apocalypse-powered storms that had fucked up the World of Before. He’d been too young, then, to really understand how much humanity had lost—and Sam probably didn’t remember that world at all—but even then it had tasted wrong, like danger. Older and wiser now—or wearier— he wanted to get them under some sturdier cover before it hit and the Impala could no longer struggle forward. The slight shivers he could feel from Sam were already worrying enough.
Later, he wasn’t sure how he saw it. The mostly collapsed motel was just a darker shape through the steadily falling snow but he turned the Impala toward it. Even the wreck of a building would give them more shelter than they’d been able to find recently.
The motel had been two stories, and only half of it was intact. The eastern side had been crushed sometime in the last decade, like a giant had gone at it with a hammer. Dean had seen enough weird shit since the Apocalypse that he couldn’t even rule that out. At least the damage wasn’t recent. Whatever had happened probably wasn’t coming back.
This style of motel had no interior hallways. All the rooms opened directly onto the cracked and overgrown remains of the parking lot. People renting a room on the second floor would have taken spindly metal stairs up to a wrap-around balcony. Most of the doors and windows were broken or blown away, but the walls were mostly intact.
“Sammy,” Dean said after reining the Impala to a stop. He had to say it twice before Sam moved against his back and raised his head. Dean would have liked to believe that it was just the cold and the rising storm, but there was something distant in Sam’s eyes. Maybe thinking about Dad, or how when they had gone back to Stanford after the hunt Jess had been gone too, with no evidence on where she had gone.
“Dean?” he mumbled.
“Bad storm’s coming,” Dean said, shifting himself to slide down the Impala’s flank. “We’re going to hole up here.”
Sam blinked blurrily at the half-shattered building, and then nodded and slid down after him.
Dean chose a room on the lower floor that looked mostly protected by the rooms and walls to either side, had a mostly intact door hanging on one hinge, and that didn’t have visible damage from animals or previous human squatters. He pushed in, forcing the Impala to duck its head to make it under the lintel, with Sam following after them.
The room was in surprisingly good condition. Something had shattered the TV and mirror on the one wall, and dirt and leaves were scattered everywhere from the half-cracked window, but wonder of wonders the blankets were still on both double beds. It looked like even the mice, rabbits, and other critters had only visited the room in passing.
Dean was wondering if they could prop the door up and brace it with something, maybe cover the window with one of comforters, when the storm outside picked up speed, the wind shifted, and snow began driving in through the door and window. The cold it brought had a supernatural chill that Dean didn’t like at all. Suddenly, he didn’t want to spend the night anywhere with an open window or door if they could help it.
He did a quick circuit of the room, while Sam shoved the fallen door upright and tried to brace it with the intact armchair. The Impala, head down because of the limited ceilings, lipped at one of the bed covers.
Glass shards cracked under Dean’s boots as he walked to the sink alcove at the other end of the room. Someone or something had ripped the toilet out of the bathroom, but the rest of it was intact, down to the door.
Dean looked at the tub and then to the rest of the room and made a decision.
“Sam, leave the door and start stripping the beds.”
Sam nodded and started. “What’s the plan?”
Dean gestured at the bathroom. “We’ll pile one bed worth of covers in the tub for you, and maybe we can fit the Impala in here, too. I’ll watch the door.”
Frowning, Sam walked over with his arms full of bedding. “You think there’s something out in this storm that we have to watch for?”
Dean didn’t really think that. He thought that the storm itself was the danger tonight. He shrugged.
Still frowning, Sam disappeared into the bathroom while Dean dragged the comforter and sheets off the other bed. When he came out of the room Dean went in with his load. The coverage on the bathtub didn’t look warm enough—he was really worried about Sam’s shivering—so he re-arranged some of the blanks and added his load. He could use Sam’s blankets off the Impala, and put his on the Impala, and they should still all be warm as they could get..
When he came out of the bathroom, the storm had already worsened, with large flakes coming in like a knife. The Impala, apparently not interested in the bare, stained mattresses, has started to chew suspiciously on some of the fresher leaves across the floor. Sam was standing, glaring at him with his arms crossed.
Ignoring the stubborn-ass warning signs, Dean gestured to the neat little nest in the tub. “Get in, Sammy.”
“Dean, you’re going to freeze out here.”
“Sam, you know that’s not true, this is already better than our last camp. Besides, we can switch out at shifts.”
Sam raised an eyebrow, as though to say I am not an idiot and therefore do not believe you.
Internally cursing insightful little brothers, Dean hesitated. There wasn’t really enough space for two grown men in the space, but he wasn’t sure how he was going to be able to convince Sammy of that. Worse, he wasn’t completely sure that Sam was wrong. While this space was definitely better than camping out in the middle of a forest or on the road itself, the storm was still howling into the main space.
He edged closer, still trying to articulate his argument, when another blast of cold air came screaming in through the window.
The Impala startled at the sound, in a way that it rarely did when confronted with bandits or ghosts alike and rushed toward them. Sam jumped and retreated, with Dean following behind him, and suddenly both he and Sam were crowded into the tub with the Impala’s bulk pressing in behind them. The great deer snuffled at Dean’s hair, bit half-heartedly at Sam’s shoulder (which, good it was half-hearted as Sam didn’t have that much room to dodge), and then turned around in its spot and sat down where the toilet used to be.
Dean leaned against the bulk of his brother and thought about leaving the bathroom. There was something appealing about leaving the two things he loved the most in the world in this safe space while he guarded them from anything threatening the storm. There was also something profoundly unappealing about leaving this place, that already felt warmer than the outer room, in favor of danger and no good defensive position. Just as he was trying to decide the best course, something screamed in the storm, something that was neither wind nor human. Spurred by instinct, and the Impala’s snort, Dean fought his way over the Impala’s head toward the bathroom door and slammed it shut.
They didn’t have the space or the salt for a proper salt circle, but Dean took a couple handfuls from the pack closest to them and tossed them to the corners. He had to operate mostly by feel as his eyes adjusted to the darkness of the little room. Sam managed to light one of his emergency candles just as Dean got to the salt, so Dean could see both Sam and the Impala, long accustomed to the ritual, closed their eyes as the crystals went flying.
“I guess you’re staying here then?” Sam was a little out of breath, but he still managed to sound both smug and relieved.
Dean shrugged. “Would be pretty stupid to go out in that now.”
Sam grinned.
Moving awkwardly in the small space, Dean worked a blanket out for the Impala while Sam arranged the borrowed bedding in the tub, careful not to light anything on fire with the candle.
Dean thought about offering to sleep out of the tub, but there really wasn’t room. He was stepping on some part of the Impala just getting the door closed and putting a blanket on their mount.
When he finally had the blanket arranged on his baby the way he wanted, had double-checked the door, and made sure that both his gun and ax were easy to access, Dean turned back to the tub. Sam had already settled into the nest as best he could. There wasn’t really enough room for two grown men in the tub, much less two as tall as they were, but they could both sit in it on opposite sides and let their legs overlap. Wouldn’t be the first time they had to get comfortable with one another’s legs in their space. Sam had even made it so they each had a nice backrest of reclaimed pillows.
As soon as Dean settled on the opposite side, probably stepping on Sam in the process, the Impala swung its head around and rested it over their legs.
“Great,” Sam said. “Now my feet are going numb.”
Dean heard the humor in his complaint and grinned. “At least it’s not from the cold.”
It really was warmer in the mass of blankets, even in the first few minutes of settling in. Knowing that his brother was close enough to touch and watching his back—or, in this case, the door to the bathroom—was enough to have Dean feeling sleepy in a way he couldn’t afford when they were on the move..
“Think we’re going to have to dig ourselves out of here?”
“Maybe tomorrow.” Dean listened to the wind. “Maybe the day after, honestly.” All that assuming that whatever was in the storm didn’t find them first. “Does it really matter, Sammy? Let’s just not freeze to death first.”
Dean already had his eyes closed, so he had to hear rather than see the smile. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”
“I always make sense.” Dean didn’t know you could express an eyeroll with your feet, but Sammy managed it. “Night, Sam.”
“Night, Dean.”
“Night, baby.” The Impala snorted in reply, and didn’t bite either of them.
Dean fell asleep, safe and warm with all his family, and smiling while monsters and the wind howled outside.