Three Thousand Six Hundred Degrees Fahrenheit, for pyrebi (gen, PG)
Title: Three Thousand Six Hundred Degrees Fahrenheit
Author: victoria p. [musesfool] / Sammy Hagar
Recipient: pyrebi
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: 3,910 words. Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to Kripke et al. Spoilers: Through AHBL2. Thanks to luzdeestrellas for the beta. All errors remaining are mine.
Summary: "As metaphors go, it's pretty on the nose, don't you think?"

~*~

The compressor's been broken since somewhere west of Odessa, and Dean's trying really hard not to take it personally. The car is like an oven, and he thinks he might suffocate from the heat, even with the windows open.

Sam doesn't look any more comfortable than Dean feels, his t-shirt damp and his hair dark with sweat, and his lips pinched like he's just sucked a lemon. "How long did Bobby say it would take to get the part?"

Dean shrugs, feeling his shirt stick to him, sweat trickling down his neck. "A few days. A week, maybe. We can do the job in Sedona and hole up there until it arrives. There's always weird shit going on out in the desert--we can find something to do while we wait."

Sam rolls his eyes. "Oh yeah, 'cause we blend so well with the New Agers and the hippies."

"Please don't start talking about your biological clock." He smirks and Sam scowls at him. "It's only for a few days. It'll be fine."

"You just want to hunt a chupacabra."

Dean grins. "It's a classic, Sammy. I'd like to add it to my list."

"Yeah, whatever." Sam's never dealt well with the heat. He turns his face to the open window, an obvious invitation for Dean to press down on the gas, get some air moving through the car.

*

All of the motels in Sedona are out of their usual price range, even in August, so Dean uses the emergency backup credit card to book them into the Rose Tree Inn, which at least has off-season discount rates and rooms with mini-kitchens.

"And working air conditioning," Sam insists, pushing his lank hair off his forehead, face red from the heat.

"And working air conditioning," Dean confirms.

The room is done up in typical old lady style--roses on the walls, roses on the bedspreads, roses on the fucking coffee mugs in the cabinets. But the lace curtains (and there are roses on those as well) are fluttering from the air conditioning, so Dean doesn't bitch too much about the decor.

They don't spend much time in the room cooling off, though. They each take a quick shower to wash off the worst of the sweat and grit, and then it's out into the heat again, asking questions, trying to drum up leads. They hit all the shops and restaurants on the main strip, one after the other. Sam says they're writing a book on abandoned mines of the Southwest, and Dean tries not to look like he's wanted by the FBI. The heat makes them sweaty and desperate, and even Sam is off his game, almost fumbling his interview with the hippie chick selling crystals in the shop across from the inn.

They're both awkward and stiff in the glassblower's shop, surrounded by tabletops covered in tiny glass animals and delicate vases, afraid to move and send it all tumbling, but the girl behind the counter has long dark hair and a nice rack, and she laughs at Dean's jokes, so even though they don't learn anything helpful, he considers it a win.

When they're done, Dean buys Sam a lemon ice from a pushcart vendor, and Sam smiles ruefully, sucks it down like he's starving.

He opens his mouth to say something and Dean cuts him off with, "I swear to God, if you say, but it's a dry heat, I will shoot you myself."

"I think they think if they keep repeating that it's not so bad, they'll convince themselves it isn't."

"They're delusional."

"Well, you do have to be kind of crazy to live in the desert, I guess."

Dean laughs, turns to go back to the pushcart and get himself an ice cream. "Yeah, that's true. And I guess if you don't start out crazy, you get that way after a while."

*

The air conditioning in the library is set on high, and they spend a blissful hour in the stacks, skimming through microfiche of old newspapers nobody's bothered to scan, looking for a pattern, a link between the seemingly random deaths that brought them here. The librarian takes a shine to Sam, and doesn't bat an eye at any of the weird stuff he asks for. Considering the guy behind them at the reference desk is asking for information on ley lines and harmonic convergence, Dean figures the librarian has probably heard it all before.

Back at the motel room, they sort through all the stuff they've found, and Dean starts tacking it up on the wall, the way Dad used to. They don't do it very often--Sam doesn't need the visual to find the patterns, but Dean's feeling homesick, and for the first time in a long time, the car isn't a refuge.

"The victims have all died of asphyxiation," Sam says as Dean sits down on the bed to take in the big picture. "There's no apparent pattern in the years--1908, 1914, 1923, 1931, 1940, and then nothing until it starts up again in 1962. The victims don't appear to be related, and after the first two, none are local."

"Though several have ties to the area." Dean gets up off the bed, starts pacing. "Gerard Dooley and Jack Lavin," he taps the two pictures on the wall, "had family who were originally from here, and moved away. Martin Trent's grandfather worked in the mine."

"That's it, Dean." Sam jumps up, almost knocking his chair over. "They all have some connection to the mine."

It's easy enough to piece together what happened after that.

"This guy Bernard Thornby," Dean says, rifling through the pages of stuff they'd copied at the library. "He took the blame when a shaft collapsed, hanged himself when he couldn't get work afterwards."

Sam nods. "And then he started killing off the people who blamed him, and when they were out of reach, any of their descendants who came back." Sam checks his notes. "He's buried over in Jerome."

"I guess we know what we're doing tonight."

*

The air is cooler after the sun goes down, and the breeze from the windows actually cools them off as they drive to Jerome, though the heat is still blasting through the vents on the dash like the furnace of hell.

They roll past a sign advertising Jerome as America's biggest ghost town, and Sam mutters, "Not literally, I hope," and Dean wonders if he's thinking of South Dakota. Dean tries really hard not to think about it himself.

The old graveyard, full of dead miners and their families, is beyond the town, and it doesn't take them long to find Bernard Thornby's grave. It's a routine salt and burn, the kind of thing they could do in their sleep, and they're done early.

They go to the nearest bar that night, and Dean quizzes the bartender about the Grand Canyon, "which is a totally doable trip from here, Sam."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

Sam shakes his head, takes a long sip of beer. "How about after the air conditioning is fixed?"

"Wuss."

Sam ducks his head and laughs.

*

Dean checks the post office box each morning after ten a.m., and again after the afternoon mail delivery at two. He knows spare parts for his baby are hard to come by, even for guys like Bobby, and that promised parts don't always materialize. But Bobby said he'd send it as soon as he had it, and Dean figures he and Sam both could use a little rest, so he's not too annoyed at the wait, though two days in he can tell it's already making Sam crazy, which is all kinds of new and different.

When they were kids, Sam could lose himself in a book or a game for hours--he'd look up with foggy eyes when Dean called him for dinner or to do training--and Dean could never sit still in one place for too long.

Now, Dean thinks he could stand to stop and stay a while somewhere, anywhere, even here with the godawful heat and the freaking roses printed on everything, the earth brown and red and carved by water and time, a reminder that nothing lasts forever.

Now, Sam is the one who can't sit still, who always has to be in motion--he's trying to find a loophole in Dean's deal, and trying to fit a lifetime into the months Dean has left just in case he doesn't, and Dean's getting tired of it already.

When he's not Googling for ways to lawyer up on the crossroads demon, Sam comes up with a bunch of possible cases in the area, and they spend their mornings and evenings chasing them down, separating rumor from legend from truth. It's what they do, and if it keeps Sam occupied, he's not going to complain. Much.

He wonders if this is what hell will be like, hot and boring, with endless stretches of empty space tempting people to waterless misery and death. Though probably not the death part, if they're already in hell. He shakes his head, shivers in the heat, and ignores Sam's concerned glance.

"For a place with a big reputation for woo-woo crap," Dean says after they find no evidence of anything supernatural lurking at Cathedral Rock, despite the suggestion from a couple of locals that mystic energy is strong there, "it's kind of a disappointment."

Sam slaps at a mosquito, nose wrinkling in disgust, and shoves his sweaty hair off his forehead. "Maybe the reputation for woo-woo crap keeps the real thing away."

Dean shrugs. It's a possibility, but not a likely one.

*

Two more days, and still no compressor, still no real job, and they're working each other's nerves like nails on a chalkboard. He calls Bobby, who answers with a long-suffering sigh. "I didn't send it Fed Ex, Dean. It'll get there eventually. Won't hurt you to cool your jets for a few more days."

Dean's got a few choice words about that, mostly about how he wouldn't be complaining if there were anything cool about this whole thing, but he bites them back, just says, "Thanks, Bobby."

He takes one look at Sam's face and heads for the bathroom.

Sam's hunched over the laptop when Dean comes out of the shower, and he grunts in response when Dean says, "I'm going out. Don't wait up."

Friday night, the bar is more crowded than it was earlier in the week, with locals kicking off their weekends, and a new group of tourists too cheap to pay in season prices looking for a place to relax.

There's Zeppelin on the jukebox, and a handful of pretty girls in silver jewelry flipping their hair and eyeing their prospects.

The girl from the glassblower's shop is checking him out, so he strolls over, buys her a drink. Her name is Esme and she's a glassblower herself; her family owns the shop, been there for years, she says. "It's okay, you can make a joke. Everyone does."

He shakes his head. "I'm not that guy."

"You're totally that guy," she says, smiling around the rim of her glass. She has a pretty smile and she laughs at his jokes again, genuine laughter that sounds like it comes from her belly. He buys her a beer, and then another one, and a shot of Goldschläger. He doesn't feel awkward here, nothing breakable in the vicinity except shot glasses and beer mugs, and he's been handling those since he was fifteen.

She tells him about the different kinds of glass, the different ways of making it. How it's true that a lightning strike is hot enough to make glass, like in the movie Sweet Home Alabama.

"Haven't seen it," he says, managing not to roll his eyes, "but that's pretty hot, huh?"

"Yeah. It is."

"Almost as hot as it is in here."

She doesn't try to hide her eye-roll at that, but she lets him kiss her, so it's okay. She tastes like cinnamon, and is soft and warm under his hands and mouth, not breakable at all. When she invites him back to her apartment, he says yes with a smile.

The shelves in her bedroom are covered with the same kinds of glass knickknacks as the store, but she doesn't seem concerned that they rattle when the headboard hits the wall.

*

Dean zips his jeans, laces up his boots, and takes one last look at the girl on the bed. Her long, dark hair spills across the white pillowcases like a shadow, and the olive skin of her shoulders is smooth and unmarked, except for the half-moon crescents left by his fingernails.

He smells of beer and sweat and sex, and he's not looking forward to even the brief ride back to the motel in the hotbox the car has become. He hesitates a second too long, and she wakes up, rolls over and stretches. She has a hickey purpling on her collarbone; it makes him grin in recollection.

"Hey," she says, yawning.

"Hey. I have to go." He jerks his head towards the door, tries to make his smile apologetic.

"Okay," she says, nodding, which makes her silver earrings jangle like bells.

"So, um, thanks." He tosses off a little wave and gets the hell out, feeling more relaxed than he has in days, even with the morning after awkwardness.

*

Sam's still asleep when Dean gets back to the room, so he kicks off his boots and crawls into bed, grateful for the extra sleep.

He wakes to the smell of coffee and bright sunshine filtering through a crack in the drapes.

Sam hands him a mug and he drinks from it gratefully. There are egg sandwiches in a bag on the counter, and they eat breakfast quietly, gearing up for another day of chasing rumors instead of ghosts.

He takes a shower, lets the water run cooler than usual, though he knows as soon as he steps outside he's going to be sweating like a pig.

He strolls down to the post office, but there's still no package. He sighs and stops off at the diner to get Sam a shake so he won't be too annoyed when Dean gives him the news.

Sam's got the television on when Dean comes back--All My Children has been interrupted by a special news bulletin, which is never, ever good.

"Nothing yet. Which means there's still time for you to find me a chupacabra to waste," he says when he hands Sam the shake. Sam takes it and flips him off and shifts to watch TV around him when he doesn't get out of the way.

Dean gives up on annoying him for the moment and goes to the bathroom to wash the sweat and dust off his face. The newscaster is saying, "Eric and Martha Petrie were hiking out by Cathedral Rock this morning when they found the body of a young woman."

"Dean, could this maybe be something?" Sam says.

He sticks his head out of the bathroom "I don't--" He breaks off when he sees the picture on the screen.

"Esme Hernandez was twenty-seven years old," the newscaster is saying, over a picture of the girl Dean left smiling in bed a few hours ago. "Her neck was broken, and there were bite marks on her collarbone."

Dean's stomach rebels, and he barely gets the toilet seat up before he's puking his guts out.

*

Sam rushes around the room, shoving stuff into his duffel. They don't unpack much to begin with, but they've been here nearly a week now, and stuff seems to get scattered around the room even when they only stay for a night. Dean's usually the one who packs up, leftover from the days when Sam was too little to do it himself, and later, the times when he'd thought not packing meant Dad would let them stay. But all it had ever meant was a lecture and a lot of extra PT, so Dean started packing Sam's stuff as well as his own again when he was fourteen.

But all Dean can do right now is sit on the end of the bed and stare blankly at the television, video of cops and dogs scouring the desert alternating with video of Esme's crying parents, and that one still picture of her grinning at the camera the way she'd grinned at him last night.

"Dean, man, come on. We have to get out of here before they run your prints. Henriksen's gonna be on us like white on rice when they get a match." He drops his overstuffed duffel onto the bed next to Dean. "Come on," he says again, gently. "I know you're freaked--Dude, you used a condom, right? What am I saying? Of course, you did. You're, like, the king of condom use. I remember when I was fourteen and you told me--" He shakes his head, and Dean can tell he's freaked, probably thinking about Madison, which means Dean has to pull himself together, because they can't both be freaked at the same time, or they'll end up in jail.

"Yeah, I did, Sam. And we can't leave. Not yet. Not without the compressor."

Sam shakes his head. "I can come back. Or get someone else to pick it up. Or we can find another one. It doesn't matter--"

"No, we can't." Dean stands, grabs hold of Sam's biceps, as much to ground himself as Sam. "We have to find out what did this."

*

"I'm not possessed."

"That's what you'd say if you were." Sam hands him the glass of holy water and Dean rolls his eyes, but he drinks it. He hates having to do it, but at least it means Sam's thinking like a hunter, has got his freak-out under control. It tastes like water. No screaming agony tearing up his insides, no sense of being locked up inside his own head, unable to get out. He's as much himself as he ever was.

He hands the glass back to Sam. "Told you." Sam picks up Dad's journal, starts pacing as he flips through the pages. Dean can't believe they're even having this conversation. "Do you really think I did this?"

"What? No. But weird shit happens to us and around us. Maybe there's a shapeshifter..." He starts flipping pages again.

As votes of confidence go, it's pretty weak. Dean tries not to let it hurt him. He grabs the journal out of Sam's hands and tosses it onto the bed. "We need to get over there and sweep the place for EMF."

"Yeah, I'm sure the cops are going to let us waltz right in."

Dean forces the lie out. "We work this like any other case. Slip in once the cops are gone--"

"The cops are gonna be here soon, Dean. And we need to be gone before they are."

"I don't need a lot of time, just a quick sweep. We can do it before the cops--"

Sam straightens up to his full height, looks down at Dean, jaw set, nostrils flared, and Dean has to force himself not to stand at attention, the way he would have for Dad. "Who saw you leave the bar with her?"

"Oh, no, you do not get to pull that shit now."

"Everyone in the place, I bet. It's not like we're not conspicuous here already. You have to go and--"

"And what, Sam? Have a good time? Try to enjoy the nine months I've got left? What?"

Sam flinches, but doesn't stop. "The bite marks, that was you, too, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, yeah, it was. Do you want to hear how she enjoyed it, Sam? She liked--" He stops, feels like he's going to throw up again.

Sam's still talking. "Between that and the used condom, they'll come up with DNA, so don't even pretend you don't know how fucked we are right now."

He closes his eyes, swallows the bile rising in his throat, and lowers his head, because Sam is right.

*

They slip out of town while everyone's watching the police mill around Esme's apartment. They've got all the windows down and the hot air makes everything worse, makes it hard to breathe and hard to think. Dean's nausea is at low ebb, possibly because there's nothing left in his stomach to throw up, and Sam looks like he wants to cry.

"The heat is on," he says, the kind of lame joke Dean would usually make in this situation, if this situation wasn't so fucking personal. "As metaphors go, it's pretty on the nose, don't you think?"

"It's not a metaphor, Sam. The A/C is broken because of fucking bad luck, and because the car is old," sorry, baby, he thinks, hands tightening on the wheel, "and we work her hard. It's not a sign from God, or punishment for some crime you think I committed. I did not kill that girl." He dashes the sweat off his forehead angrily and keeps his eyes on the road. He can feel Sam watching him.

"I know you didn't kill her," Sam says finally.

It should be enough, but it's not, not right now. "Well, thanks for the vote of confidence. Took you fucking long enough to say it."

*

They slip back in under cover of darkness, silent and sweaty. Dean's itching to kill something, make something pay for the girl's death, and he lets Sam pick the lock because his hands are trembling just enough to make him a liability.

The apartment is a mess, glass everywhere, sparkling under the dull flare of their flashlights, like she put up a fight. Like whatever killed her wanted to shatter everything about her.

The EMF stays silent, even after Dean changes the batteries.

His stomach threatens to rebel again--he hasn't eaten since he puked, and he probably won't until sometime tomorrow--but he forces the nausea away.

"Something human did this," Sam whispers, and Dean wonders for a moment when Sam learned to accept that, hates that he has. He puts a hand on Dean's shoulder. "It's not our job--"

"You think the cops are gonna get this one right, Sam?"

"I think they're gonna think we killed her," Sam swallows hard, which Dean actually finds comforting, because it means he's not as jaded as he pretends, "like we killed Madison."

Dean nods, and wishes he believed in God, so he could pray for Esme Hernandez's soul.

*

Twelve hours later, they're holed up in a motel just north of Boulder and yet more police are hunting for Dean.

Dean's staring at the television, the Cubs game on WGN not making an impression, but better than the news of a shocking death in a tourist town that's all over CNN. He's not in the mood for cartoons or porn, and baseball is familiar, soothing.

"I think I found what we need," Sam says, turning the laptop around so Dean can see the screen.

Dean glances over, then gets up to take a closer look. He reads through the specs quickly--it's not an exact match, but it should work long enough for them to figure out how to get one that is. "Yeah," he says. "That'll do it."

When Sam's done typing in the credit card information, Dean hands him a beer, and they settle down onto the bed to watch the game.

end

***

Notes: I've never been to Sedona, so this is based on some internet research and a lot of making shit up. Also, I have no idea about how to fix the A/C in a car, but my dad says it's most likely the compressor that's broken, so I went with that. Sand turns to glass at temperatures from 3133°F to 3600°F, depending on the silicates involved.

The prompt I chose was: 3. The Impala's heating breaks, causing it to blow hot air constantly. In Arizona. In August.

~*~