It was but little while ago that I hoped never in all my life to find healing of any of my woes, when this best of houses stood stained with blood and dripping with fresh gore: that was a grief far-reaching to every one of my counsellors, who hoped not that they ever in the world should defend this stronghold of the people of the land from the malice of demons and of devils. Now hath one young man through the might of the Lord wrought a deed that we none of us with our wisdom were able to compass.

"This was a stupid idea."

"Shut up, Linds. I think they were trying to be romantic."

"Little chilly for that, yeah?"

The figures down by the pond shore hollered, waving their arms in something that looked a little primal against the flames of the campfire. Beyond, the virgin snow whispered across ice, frozen since early December.

Reluctantly, Lindsay picked her way down to the edge. She was less reluctant when Drew's mittened hands folded over her chilled fingers. "We brought beer," he murmured, against her ear. "C'mon. It'll be fun."

They hadn't planned for skating. Hadn't even brought their skates. But Shelly said hey, the snow was thin. They could still slide.

So they did, skimming through the shimmering powder, fingers and boots grasping for purchase against the uniformity of ice.

Lindsay started singing, chanting some too-late-in-January caroling nonsense. Chestnuts and open fires. She couldn't remember most of it. But Drew laughed and Shelley joined in, and even Jake started howling in a godawful baritone.

It was perfect and surreal, a little desperate because of the way the cold air pricked at her throat and lungs. Lindsay felt alive. She felt something.

She felt the ice give way under feet.

Shelley screamed, and Drew was running and then stopping, eyes wild, rocking at the edge. He didn't want to make it worse. Her coat and mittens were sodden, sinking. She choked, flailing.

The grip came from below, pulling her down, and drowning passed quickly for a mouth wide in terror.

The last thing she would have remembered, had she lived, was that the hands that wrapped around her waist were large enough to go all the way around.

...

"It," says Sam, "is fu-reaking cold." He changes tactics at the last moment, deciding that Dad looks low-to-medium pissed from driving thirteen hours and swearing will push him towards medium sooner than Sam wants to. Sam has his strategies.

It's frustrating that he has to hold it back like some grandma, though, because Dean is twenty-two in a few days, Sam's going on eighteen, and seriously? When will Dad stop spitting out, language, son, as though he himself doesn't run up blue streaks every single day?

There are always inconsistencies with Dad's philosophies—he is not, Sam thinks bitterly, a complete theorist—but when Sam has goals in mind he diverts his stubbornness to another day and waits it out. Crafty son-of-a-gun, as Bobby has called him before with fondness. Little weasel, as Dean has called him, also with fondness. Although, they must both acknowledge, not so little anymore.

Sam stands six-foot-three in his socks, now.

"It's upstate New York," Dean says, pretending like his teeth aren't chattering. It's not like they have more than one real winter coat to go around, pretty much ever—Winchesters are all about layers—but Dean takes that a step further and never bothers with gloves and hats. It turns the tips of his ears pink and Sam wonders how he's not sick all the time.

It must simply be another of Dean's unrealistic talents. Sam rolls his eyes privately.

Dad, as usual, only pays attention to their conversation when he's giving an order. Right now, it's to grind the Impala's wheels to a halt over snow-dusted gravel and say, "Unload the car, boys. I'm going to check out a few local leads."

No comment on the cold. No concern for whether the one-story dump he's dropping them at is even heated. It's goddamn January. Sam jams his hands, insufficiently warmed by threadbare gloves, into his pockets and remembers that he has a goal in mind. First things first: don't piss off dad.

They pull the duffels and a few of the gun cases out and head inside the dump. Sam wrinkles his nose. It smells a bit like cat-piss and a lot like dust. There's a bit of furniture; laminated fifties-era table with a splitting metal rim; dingy cupboards; a swayback couch.

"Spacious." Dean lifts an eyebrow. He's still on the right side of a good mood, eyes sparkling from the last town's memories, a mouth-shaped bruise marked proudly purple where his throat meets his jaw.

Sam hates him for a minute, then decides it's not worth it.

"Yeah. Drafty's more like it."

There's two bedrooms. One has bunkbeds, one's got a queen frame. Sam takes in the bathroom, little more than a broom closet, and wonders if he's ever going to find a place where the walls are pale and clean from floor to ceiling. Where's there no cobwebs and secrets hiding in every corner.

Sam imagines a dorm room. Doesn't care how small it is. He shrugs away the thought quickly, a secret in itself, when he realizes Dean's watching.

"So." Dean's voice is mild. If Sam has his own goals, Dean does too. For all his many expressions, Dean can be hard to read when he wants to be. "Fly Creek, huh?"

"Probably named for a biblical plague," Sam suggests darkly. He likes to take off his jacket and hat when he's indoors, but it's still frigid.

"Dude," Dean says, face lighting up. "Did you see how many ponds there are around here? We've got to get ourselves some skates."

"Is this about your Michelle Kwan fascination?" Sam snarks.

Dean scoffs. "Dude, if you want to insult my masculinity, don't be such a girl about it. I didn't mean figure skates, Samantha. Hockey skates are where it's at."

Sam does not even know why Dean knows this. "Great idea, Dean. Did you suddenly forget what Dad said? People getting dragged under the ice by something? Maybe not the time for pirouetting?"

"What's wrong with a little danger?" Dean shrugs off his jacket like it wasn't twenty-two degrees in here, too. "Lighten up, Sammy. New semester. Fresh start." He busies himself with putting away what food supplies they have in a refrigerator that looks like it hasn't been cleaned since the Great Depression. Sam shudders.

"I liked Michigan," he says, sourly. Like it wasn't equally cold in Michigan.

"You liked Alison."

Screw Dean. "Screw you, Dean."

"Screw you, Sammy." Just for reciprocity's sake. Then—"I didn't mean—I get it. She was cute."

She had been more than cute. She was—Sam remembers Christmas, her cool fingers tangling in the curls at his neck. She'd had red hair and soft brown eyes, and she was smart, wanted to be a history teacher—

Screw Dad. Screw the job. Screw people getting dragged under thin ice.

Sam scowls, more for his own benefit than Dean's. He's being pissy, and kind of a little bitch, and he knows it. He's got to keep it together. Goals.

"So what do you say?" Dean isn't done with his grand plan. "This thing only attacks at night, and its radius is limited. We need some hockey skates. How else are we supposed to hunt it?"

"OK," Sam concedes. It's a far, far better prospect than their typical training. "As long as we pick somewhere safe to practice."

"Yeah. Sure." Dean winks. "Got to make Michelle Kwan proud."

...

Fly Creek is a tiny patchwork of crossing streets. Then it's just farms, and patches of trees, and low rolling hills that don't belong to Fly Creek at all, or, Sam thinks, to anyone really. Every piece of countryside he's ever seen is a little different. All a little wild.

He feels a tug inside him, thinks of Stanford and Brown and Harvard and damnit, damnit, how long do acceptance letters take? Thinks how Dean is happy in this dead-end life, or at least is good at pretending. But Sam—he's just done. He wants to see the country on his own terms. He feels too old for this family and too young to let his brother go.

"Sam." Dean is snapping his fingers in front of him. "Seriously. Do all your brain cells get eaten up by producing that hair?"

"If that's so," Sam retorts, "Not sure what your excuse is."

Dean flips him off, but they keep going, poking around the little shops and cafes. Finally, Dean finds what he's looking for.

"Thrift store?" Sam asks, a little incredulous. They hit up thrift stores every few months, for more flannels and jeans and t-shirts and the occasional dress shirt. The shoe assortment is always limited, especially for boys who have size thirteen feet. Sam would know.

"Trust me," Dean says, undercutting any possible credibility in those words as he pauses to fix his gaze on a girl on the other side of the street. She sees him looking and swings her hips a bit.

Sam stomps on Dean's foot.

"Ow, jackass," Dean says. He's wearing steel-toe boots so the complaint is more for effect than anything else. "C'mon."

Dean, as much Sam hates to admit it, is right. There are two dozen pairs of skates, jumbled together with tangled laces. Dean dives in, examining with a seemingly expert eye.

"When did you learn about hockey?"

"I don't care crap-all about hockey," Dean says. "But skating. Kind of cool, you know." His face is splitting into that little-kid grin, the one that Sam's know forever, the one that frustrates him sometimes in how simple the things are in which Dean finds contentment. "We'll be flying, Sammy."

"It. Is. Sam." It's hard to be mature and almost eighteen when your brother is Dean Winchester. Sam schools his features into vague boredom and kicks at the box of skates. "Found a size thirteen yet?"

"Here."

"OK." Sam's mildly impressed. The men of Fly Creek have big feet. It's better than nothing. He tugs off his sneakers, which are slushy and cold, and tries the skates. They fit.

"Dude," Dean says. "We're going to freaking fly."