Somehow, they ended up standing in the middle of the barn, shivering and unsure of their motivation. Tim had mentioned preparing the ranch for winter between spoonfuls of porridge that morning, but Violet had only murky ideas of what that would entail. Grabbing a pitchfork and finding a bale of hay, perhaps, or herding cows.

She had spent most of that afternoon avoiding him because she wasn't sure she felt up to finding out; all she wanted at the moment was to lay down on the bale of hay behind Klaus, who was currently shuffling his feet and creating a small-scale dustbowl with the dead leaves and dirty ground. For the past year or so, her life had been ripped from the back of one of those spy novels her mother used to read.

She had listened carefully when Kit told her to watch for her signal before driving off, she had walked along the dark, dank ditch at two AM with her siblings to get to this desolate Western nightmare, she had rapped in a rapid rhythm on the back door for admittance, and she was sick of all the subterfuge and secret codes. If she had the choice, she'd freeze time for as long as it took for her to catch her breath again. It wasn't something she signed up for.

Klaus was exhaling curlicues of breath a few feet away from her (only a few feet) and numbly bobbing his head tunelessly, obviously at a loss for what to do. Violet parted her lips a bit, possibly to suggest just giving up and going inside, but Klaus moved first.

"Maybe we're supposed to clean out the stalls? I think he said something about that. I'll go get some shovels," he stammered out suddenly and scuttled out the barn doors before Violet could come up with an excuse for him not to. She stood watching the door. The more she looked at it, the more incredible and unusual the hinges became. They resembled an Algarthian Hut Hinge, but the ornamentation on the joint was clearly Indonesian. She walked over to study them, swinging the doors open and shut and wondering if Tim would let her use them. Surely she could find something to do with them.

Klaus came back with the shovels trailing behind him, and he squeezed into the barn between Violet, who was currently standing ready to close the second door, and the other door, which had already been shut. She could feel him huffing and puffing on her shoulder blades as he passed her, and as she tried to follow him she could feel the barn handle still in her hand. She let go after a few steps, and the door crashed into place behind her. She could see Klaus's outline jump a little. She turned around and jiggled the door handle, groaned and felt in her pockets for her ribbon.

"I think we're stuck," she said, trying to sound as disappointed as she should be.

- - -

Somehow, she ended up sitting next to him on an empty crate for Ol' Captain Shurburt's Firewhiskey. Klaus had given up on trying to get out as soon as she had admitted defeat, and they had decided to simply wait for Tim to come back from wherever he was (working the fields? a secret meeting? dead?) and find them.

Violet supposed that the casual observer would look at Violet and see a model sister, cradling her brother in her arms to keep him warm, smiling beatifically down on his sun-bleached locks. Frozen was pushing through a hole in the roof and flowing down on them and Violet could hear the choir of angels singing "Ave Maria" overhead. It was so picturesque.

But she wasn't. She felt like the cold was seeping in, numbing her, preventing her from all the usual self-preservation tactics she used to keep herself from feeling this way.

The only thing she really wanted to do was reach down…

Violet blinked, hard, and leaned back against the saddle bags hanging on the wall, still rubbing Klaus's shoulder softly.

Clank.

She turned to the side and dug through the stale cracker crumbs and wood shavings to produce a silver flask. Around the cap were the remains of some resinous substance, and when Violet hunched over to inspect it, the scent of low-cost whiskey was unmistakable.

"Klaus," she asked, grabbing a piece of hair and tucking it into her ribbon, "doesn't alcohol warm you up a bit?"

"Oh. Well, it should, according to various medical journals." He adjusted his spectacles. "Of course there are always the detractors that believe the heat instead comes from sub-dermal thermal packets that - "

"No… Here, drink some."

They settled down against the wall, arm in arm.

- - -

Somehow, Violet ended up right where she wanted to be (that she didn't want to be), with her hand down Klaus's navy trousers and her lips right next to his ear lobe. She sighed into his ear and drew shooting stars on his shaft with her fingers.

Please, let me give you everything you need, please.

He reached for her blouse. The clasps were old and worn and didn't stay attached for long. Klaus paused, hoping she'd look at him, hoping she'd reassure him.

It's okay so long as you stay mine.

Even through everything they had done, his hands were still as soft as they ever had been, and when they floated over her she felt as if they were at home. She felt as if the only labor her brother had done earlier that day was carry a few books from the study to his room, not baling hay or sowing the brittle ground.

And it's not what I think, it's what you say.

His hands traveled over her breasts, up her neck to her lips, and as he leaned in, he whispered, "This is right. I'm not cold anymore."

The West can be a desperate place.
You search all day for just a taste of the cold cold water.
Cold cold water.