Disclaimer - I admit to playing with someone else's toys, but I fully intend to give them back, whole and undamaged.
WIND WALKING
C1
-o-o-o-o-
On a scale of strong winds, Dean nominated this particular gale as overall supreme champion in the category of Alpha Winds. It was, no doubt, an Apex Predator of winds. It blasted around everything and everyone with fierce fury, hitting hard, Mohammed Ali hard, stinging bare skin and punching repeatedly at it's target without let up; holding it's victims against the ropes, throwing them into the corner and keeping them there, helpless, whilst it hammered at them over and over. Only the truly insane would venture outside and leave themselves open to the gale's none stop assault. The truly insane ... Oh yeah, and the Winchesters ... Dean's thoughts rolled on, suggesting and then agreeing with himself that, in fact, the insane and the Winchesters were quite probably one and the same. Especially in the case of his little brother. Correction...His taller, little brother. Dean could imagine Sam describing the weather in dumbass words such as "bracing" and "invigorating." With eyes that were sore and dried out by the gusts, Dean squinted into the wind to check on the relevant brother who was four or five yards ahead. Much like himself, Sam was walking with his body thrust forward at virtually a 45 degree angle, physically having to push his way through the oncoming blasts. Dean called out to him.
"Hey Sammy? What's the wind like up there where you are?"
Dean's words were instantly whipped away, torn from his lips and cast aside before ever reaching Sam's ears. Gritting his teeth, Dean pushed harder against this dark force of nature, determined to catch up with Sam. If he could, he'd be ordering his brother to take shelter, wait it out for a while, see if the winds began to lessen. Glancing around through his half closed eyes simply confirmed that there was no shelter to be had. He and Sam were out in the open, struggling to make any real headway across a high plain where, even in the best of weathers, only short, stubby grasses and thick, spiky shrubs covered the ground. Trees were infrequent, small and stunted, with bare branches that were twisted into weird knots and angles. There was no offer of respite from them. The sky was a heavy mass of rushing clouds, ranging from yellow grey through to being so dark in colour that they were almost black. No speck of sunlight could penetrate those thick, rolling, sombre clouds. Heavy with foreboding, they managed to make midday seem almost like dusk.
-o-
Dean struggled to close the short distance between himself and his brother, feeling like he was trying to swim against white water currents; the sensation made even more pronounced by the constant battle to draw breath before the wild winds could snatch it away. At last he got close enough to reach out and grab the hood of his brother's all weather coat and give it a tug, as though pulling on the reigns of a horse, bringing Sam to a halt. Turning, Sam's hair whipped and lashed at his own face, covering him, blinding him. Using both hands, he did his best to hold it off his face and out of his eyes. Despite his own discomfort, Dean still managed an amused expression as he watched Sam's contest against his own hair.
"How much further to this out post?"
It was only by reading Dean's lips that he actually knew what his older brother had asked. Sam leaned over so that he was speaking directly into Dean's ear.
"About another three miles. It's in the bottom of a circular hollow in the terrain. Imagine a crater left by a meteor hit an' you'll get the picture. Hopefully it's a bit more sheltered from the wind down there."
Dean nodded his understanding and together, the brothers turned to the task of walking against the buffeting wind, hoping they could make their destination before the heavily pregnant clouds finally gave birth to the inevitable rain. They had managed to cover another mile when they both heard the first ominous rumble of thunder and, along with it, felt the first hit of large, globular raindrops. As the rain gradually became heavier and faster, the wind caught it, turned it into spears of water that it hurled at a steep angle, driving the pounding shafts of water at their bodies. Lancing their exposed faces like some mad, heavy
handed acupuncturist, determinedly slowing their progress yet further, whilst increasing the misery they both felt.
-o-
By the time the now thoroughly depressed, sodden and shivering cold Hunters came across the edge of the deep indentation in the landscape, they were being subjected to the full Hammer House of Horror storm, complete with frequent brilliant fiery spikes of forked lightening. Visibility had been reduced down to a hundred yards or so in the heavy rain. Combined with the still howling winds, it felt to the Winchesters like the top layers of skin on their faces was being sand blasted away. Dean by this point was functioning on auto pilot, hanging his head, his gaze fixed on the toes of his boots as he willed his feet to keep moving, one ahead of the other, then the next. It was fortunate for him that Sam spotted the edge of the crater like formation and had the presence of mind to grab on to Dean, in doing so stopping his brother from simply trudging over the crater's edge and plummeting all the way down the slope.
"Whoa, careful. We'll need to take it steady, the slope's going to be wet and muddy. Try walking down sideways on, you know, kinda like you've got skis on and you're walking down a snow covered mountain slope, ok?"
"Skis. Slope. Sideways. Gottit. ... There'd better be some kinda heating in this place when we get down there"
Sam nodded in heartfelt agreement. At that same moment, Dean startled himself by unexpectedly letting fly with a series of eardrum bursting sneezes.
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