AND FEBRUARY WAS SO LONG

Chapter Two

"The nights were long and cold and scary.

Can we live through February?"

-Dar Williams, "February"

"Dean."

He doesn't want to wake up. Wants to keep his head under the pillow, preserve what little heat is being generated by his puffs of breath against the fabric. But –

"Dean!"

Groan. Dean tugs the pillow aside, peeps up at his brother's face looming in the dark. "What, Sam?"

He sees Sam gulp, sees him look toward the window and back again. "Something's wrong."

But Dean already knows that. It's colder than usual and his little brother is holding a candle, casting dark, moving shadows against the fake-wood-grain paneling of the trailer walls. He listens for the furnace and doesn't hear it. He doesn't hear anything, come to think of it, except Sam's quiet breaths and a far-off creaking like the wind leaning on the tree branches.

"Power's out, Sammy, that's all," Dean says, sparing half a glance to the window, proving to himself that it's still dark, and therefore not a decent hour to be up and about. "Go back to sleep." He collapses the pillow back over his face, but the fabric has already gone cold.

He hears Sam step closer. The trailer groans and crackles with his weight, but the sound is oddly muted. "Dean!"

"Gggguuuuh," Dean mutters, and sits up, allowing his brother to pluck the pillow off his face. "Sam. For real. Can't we just be late to first period?"

Sam climbs onto the bed next to his brother. Dean has taken advantage of his dad's absence and has been sleeping in the master bedroom, with the queen-sized bed and the private half-bath, not that the latter does much good without running water. Sam's been sleeping alone in the half-sized bedroom down the hall, tucked into a twin-sized bed with a queen-sized quilt. He's got the quilt dragging behind him now as he crawls into Dean's bed, up into his face, to insist, "Something's wrong!"

"Your face is wrong," Dean dredges up. He feels exhausted. Like he cannot possibly force himself to get out of this bed and start yet another day of sneaking into a gas station bathroom and spot-scrubbing grime off his little brother's face. Or of sitting through algebra next to Denise Sadler and holding in his flirtatious nature because he knows he doesn't have the wardrobe or the hygiene right now to back it up. Or of waiting for the phone to ring, worrying whether Dad's going to make it back and whether he and Sammy will have frozen by the time he does.

"Dean -"

"God, Sammy, what? Is wrong?" He doesn't mean to snap, except, God!, it's still dark out and he's tired and it's cold out from under the one thin blanket he has kept for himself.

Sam gulps again. Nods to the darkened window. "Dean ... it's ten o'clock."

The sudden dysphoria is startling. He doesn't understand for a minute. Ten o'clock at night? Surely it can't – but it can't be ten o'clock last night. They went to bed after ten o'clock last night. Have they slept an entire day through? But how? Has he missed something? Is something supernatural going on? He is out of bed in a heartbeat, moving to check the salt. Even as he does, his mind catches up, calms down. Forces himself to fact-check.

"You sure your watch ain't broken?"

"Both our watches and all three clocks say the same thing. And, Dean, the radio."

"It's ten o-freakin-clock? For real? How'd we sleep an entire day? You been asleep this whole time, too?"

"No – no, Dean, that's not -"

But Dean has already left him behind, is checking the salt in Sam's bedroom windowsill, is checking the door locks, is looking, for himself, at every watch and clock in the trailer. He hears the radio still prattling in Sam's bedroom, but he doesn't stop to listen. He checks the kitchen, which is ghost-quiet without the hum of the refrigerator. Windows are locked. Salted. Everything is safe and secure. Normal, other than his brother's revelation of the time. What the hell? They don't even have gas heat, it can't have been a gas leak knocked them out for twenty-four hours. Is it possible to get so cold you accidentally hibernate? What the hell …

Then Sam catches up. Catches his arm. "Dean, stop!"

"Sam, what?"

"I'm saying it's ten o'clock! In the morning!"

Nothing in him believes Sam, except the back of his neck, which freezes up with chill bumps. He forces a derisive snort. "What are you talking about?"

"The radio says it's ten in the morning. Eastern." Trust Sam to have taken time zones into account. "All our watches say the same thing."

"Uh, Sammy, last I checked, sun comes up in the morning …" Dean goes to the window, peers close, but all he can see is his own reflection, flickering in candlelight. It's as if someone has thrown a blanket over the trailer. Startled by the thought, Dean plunges for the door. Careful to leave the salt line intact, he turns the dead bolt and twists the knob.

Outside, he can feel the familiar dampness of fog on his skin and the squelch of mud beneath his feet. He can hear a distant car engine, and, closer, the frantic barking of dogs. Somewhere, probably still miles away, there is the whistle of a train.

He cannot see a thing.

Sam steps out behind him, but the minute he does, the candle is snuffed out by the heavy wetness of fog. Sam makes a noise like a small, startled animal. Dean hears a beep and sees a tiny, glowing rectangle of green, which throws no light. He knows Sam's pushing the light-up button on his watch, desperate for anything but this darkness, which is beyond darkness.

"Go back inside," Dean says abruptly in the direction of the tiny green rectangle. "Sam, go." He hears stumbling footsteps and adds, "Watch the salt." As if Sam can watch anything. As if either of them can see anything. Dean's heart is stutter-stepping in his chest, but he forces his voice to sound steady, close to normal, as he follows his brother back into the house and locks the door by feel. "How'd you light the candles?"

He hears the scratch of a lighter once, twice, and then there is light again. Each boy's involuntary sigh of relief is hidden by the other's.

With a candle between them, Dean looks at Sam and Sam looks at Dean. The candle's flame dances.

Dean takes the candle and bends with it to check the salt. Intact. Safe. From certain dangers, anyway.

"Let me see that radio," he says, grim.

They sit cross-legged on the living room floor, knee to knee. This whole month, they have neglected the couch and now they don't feel comfortable sitting there, with the window at their backs. They prefer the vent, although the metal grate is stone-cold, because it is backed by a solid wall they can lean on.

Dean twists the radio's knob to "on."

"... you're getting a late start this morning, be sure to give yourself plenty of time to reach your destination, particularly folks in the area of Hackney or Sun Station. We're getting reports of twelve to eighteen inches of accumulation in some of the higher elevations, with the valleys reporting anywhere from six to eight inches of snow on the ground. And it's still coming down out there, folks. Doppler radar at 10:06 this morning showed no end in sight to the blizzard that continues to slam our entire listening area. Temperatures are steady in the mid-twenties and this storm isn't going anywhere yet. The time is 10:25 a.m. Stay tuned to WXKP for all your weather updates. Now let's get back to Heather, standing by in the studio ..."

"We're in the listening area," Sam says. "How come we don't have snow?"

Dean shuts off the radio. Runs a hand across his tired eyes. "This can't be real," he mutters.

"I know," Sam tells him. "But …" and he pushes the button on his watch, the button that makes the face light up. Ten twenty-seven a.m.

"But it is," Dean finishes for him.

To be continued …