The Snowstorm
After days of heavy skies and cringingly cold winds, the weather had finally made good on its promise and snow began to fall on the sleepy little town of Harris Glen. What had started as light flurries on Friday afternoon had become a torrent by Saturday morning, and the town and its surroundings were swiftly buried under two feet of powdery snow. The ploughs had done their best, but it just kept coming, and by the time Sergeant Mike Hanson headed out for work there was still six inches on the asphalt as he drove. Fortunately, the station was less than a mile from his house, else he wasn’t sure that even his truck could have made it.
He fucking hated the snow. It was a battle to pull open the station door; even though it was sheltered, the wind had blown a thick layer of snow onto the stoop. Officer Wade, his second in command, immediately came barrelling out from the office as he entered, an apologetic look on her face as she struggled into her coat.
“It still falling?” she asked breathlessly.
“Yep. Anything happen?”
“Not a damn thing. Thanks, Sarge,” and he held the door open for her as she rushed out.
After the roar of the wind outside it seemed quiet in the little station, even more isolated than geography and weather could account for.
Hanson and Wade were the only police officers for Harris Glen, had been for the last four months, since Adamovski had retired, and he was getting sick of it. Wade had a family, so he’d taken on as many shifts as he could physically manage, with occasional help from two of the new officers from over in South Bend. Those guys had started off useless and hadn’t got much better, but at least their presence gave Hanson a day off every now and then.
Not that he did anything but sleep and watch TV on his own time.
Forty three years old and with one failed marriage under his belt, ended and unlamented six years ago. What little family he had were scattered to the four winds, Harris Glen was so damn quiet he couldn’t expect to make any headway with his career, and yet still he didn’t want to leave…it was like everything had just stalled.
Wade though, she was happy in her marriage, or at least a hell of a lot happier than he’d ever been. She and her husband had a sweet little girl and, as soon as Adamovski got replaced permanently they were going to try for another. Tonight she was taking Nona and Peter, her husband, to the snow festival in the town hall. Which, yeah, Hanson couldn’t see the fucking point of.
‘The year’s first snow fell, woo, let’s have a party. Same time as last year, woo. Then we’ll all go home, but shit, we can’t cause our cars are buried in the damn snow. Woo!’
Apparently little Nona liked it though. Nice kid. Maybe he’d go next year, if they had another guy by then.
For now though, he was stuck at the station for the next twelve hours, it was getting dark and he couldn’t shake the mildly pissed off feeling of missing something. Couldn’t quite pin it down.
And shit but he was tired. As soon as he’d got into bed that morning his neighbour’s kids had dived out of the house and swooped screaming and giggling into the snow like a pack of little demons. Every sound they made echoed up the damn street and rang in his head until, finally, he’d gone out there and told them to move it to the park. Well, they’d moved, and the speed they went at told him they’d been scared of him, which bothered him more than he’d like to admit. So yeah, he hadn’t been able to sleep.
He slumped behind his desk and turned on the computer. Checked out the most recent reports. Wade had finished typing up the last week’s stuff that afternoon it seemed, and nothing else had happened since.
So tired, pissed off and not a damn thing to do.
Woo.
*
A few hours of killing time hadn’t improved his mood any. A little filing, a lot of coffee and some quality time playing solitaire on the computer and he was so fucking bored he was seriously considering setting up some kind of practical joke on Wade. Would she be pissed or would she laugh? Probably both.
It was pitch dark outside, nearly midnight. The lights of the town didn’t reach this far, even though in daylight he’d be able to see the nearest house through the trees. The festival would be over by now, long over, and little Nona and her parents would be tucked up warm at home, fast asleep. The snow was still falling outside.
One call all evening, and that had been Mr Bromley, the local old whiner, calling to complain about his TV reception being out. Wade usually humoured him, but Hanson just told him not to waste his time and hung up. That had been nearly an hour ago.
Seven hours to go.
He sat back in his creaky swivel chair and rubbed his eyes. He had too much energy and nothing to do and it was making him fucking twitchy.
So much so that when he heard the crunch outside he thought for a moment that he’d imagined it. Over the noise of the wind it wouldn’t have been surprising. But no, as soon as he stuck his head out the door he could see, through the mesmerising swirl of the snow, the clear flicker of a car’s orange emergency lights, a quarter of a mile down the road at least.
He grabbed his coat and hat off the rack, picked up the radio, the flash-light and the first aid box from his desk and ran out into the cold.
The snow on the road surface was the best part of two feet deep and the muscles in his legs were aching warmly by the time he got to the car. A big SUV, which the driver had probably thought would be fine in deep snow, probably made him so confident that was why he hadn’t even put fucking chains on the tyres. It hadn’t crashed by the looks of things, just skidded off the road into the ditch and gotten stuck there.
As Hanson approached he heard a series of thumps which, as he drew closer, resolved itself into the door being opened against the waist-high drift of snow beside the car and falling closed again. As he drew closer he heard the muffled sound of half-hearted cursing, and was relieved that the car’s inhabitant seemed to be okay.
Flicking on the flash-light, Hanson clambered down the slope using the space cleared of snow by the SUVs skidding tyres. He could see the driver’s side now, and the rhythmically opening and closing door.
“You okay in there?” he yelled above the wind, and the driver renewed his struggles to get the door to open until he had enough space to stick his face into the gap and squint at Hanson through the beam of light.
“Hey! Oh great, I thought I was gonna be stuck here all night! Can you help me out?”
“Hang on,” Hanson shouted back. He was next to the car now and could see the guy; a little younger than himself, fair haired and wearing glasses and indoor clothes. He could feel a draught of warm air coming from the open door. He propped the flash-light on the roof of the SUV so it pointed at the snow trapping the door, then asked “Where’s your shovel?”
“Huh?”
“Your shovel, is it in the trunk?”
“I don’t have one!”
Hanson resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Guy wasn’t from around here, clearly. No fucking idiot would travel without a shovel at this time of year, not if they’d seen winters here before.
No chance of getting the car back on the road tonight anyway though, so it wouldn’t have been much use, though it would have made it a damn sight easier to get the door open. He could go back to the station and get theirs, but it would be quicker to just dig in with his hands. The snow hadn’t been settled long enough to be unbreakably solid. Ought to work.
“Get back in and shut the door. I’m going to move enough snow for you to get out. My station’s just up the road, you can come back there until we can get a tow-truck out.”
“Okay,” the guy called back happily, and closed the door, peering out curiously to see what Hanson did.
Not often anyone did what he told them, so already things were looking up.
He dug his gloved fingers into the snow and found it crumbled away pretty easily, and soon he was scooping it out of the way as fast as his arms would move, making a nice little crater just right for the door. When he figured it was big enough, he turned and pulled the door open, and almost instantly the guy jumped out of the car, now bundled up in a completely insufficient anorak and a huge woolly scarf.
He was wearing running shoes and jeans.
“Where’d you say we could go?”
“Police station. Follow me,” Hanson replied, and practically dragged the guy back up the slope onto the road, hustling him along through the whirling snow, back to the lights of the station. Walking against the wind this time, and he kept one hand clenched tightly into the back of the guy’s coat, keep him from going off track in the long moments when they had to shut their eyes against the stinging of the snow.
Finally they climbed up onto the stoop outside the station, Hanson wrestled the door open and they tumbled inside. The warmth of the main room was a shock, as was the quiet after he managed to get the door closed.
To his credit, the first thing his guest did was take off his soaking wet running shoes and socks and start rubbing at his feet with the relatively dry cuffs of his jacket sleeves. Not much risk of a serious problem, but it was wise to be safe. Hanson reached for the controls to the heating vent and flicked it on to full.
“I’ll get you a towel, buddy. Stay put, okay?”
“Yeah, thanks,” the guy said breathlessly. He seemed pretty chipper for a man hopping around a police station on one bare foot.
“Sit,” Hanson said, a little more harshly than he’d intended. The guy shot over to the bench seat like he’d been fired from a gun and dropped onto the thin cushion with a thud.
Hanson turned and walked into the small bathroom. There was a closet in there with all the stuff for keeping their two little cells liveable, bedding and the like. He took a couple of towels and, after a flash of inspiration, rummaged on the bottom shelf until he found a pair of grey sweat pants and some balled up socks. Wade had insisted they keep some bits of spare clothing around since the previous summer, when they’d arrested a mugger who’d tried to make a run for it through the woods and ended up getting sprayed by a skunk. She’d said if they’d been able to make him change his clothes as soon as he got to the station they wouldn’t have ended up smelling it for weeks after, though Hanson still believed that it wouldn’t have made any difference once the man and his stink were in the building.
But at least his guest had dry clothes now, so chalk one up to Wade’s weird feminine premonition or whatever it was.
When he got back into the main room, the guy from the car was standing right in front of the heating vent, holding the collar of his sweater and t-shirt away from his neck with both hands so the warm air could blow down it.
“Here. There’s some clean pants if you want to change.”
“Thanks,” and the guy was entirely too cheerful for somebody who’d been close to a deadly situation only minutes ago.
“You want to tell me what happened?” Hanson asked lightly, settling in the chair behind his desk.
“Yeah, I…uh,” casting an apologetic glance at Hanson, the guy slung a towel around his hips, turned his back and rapidly whipped off his jeans, then grabbed the sweatpants and pulled them on. Hanson tried not to watch him, but he moved so fast there was practically no time for him to turn away.
“I, uh…I got lost. To start with.” He rubbed at his hair with the towel making it stick up in tufts, then sat back down on the bench.
“I’m a doctor. I’m starting at a new surgery in a town about thirty miles from here next week, but while I was driving over there I took a couple of wrong turns, and of course the snow makes everything harder…I don’t know what happened, really. One minute I was crawling along, next the car’s sliding off the road. I’m not drunk.”
“No, I didn’t think you were. Roads are treacherous at this time of year, especially if you aren’t used to snow driving.”
The guy nodded and looked a little chagrined, like he’d been told off.
“What’s your name?” Hanson asked, reaching to his desk for a paper and pen. Might as well get a move along with the report.
“Arthur Stuart. Call me Art, please,” the guy replied, and Hanson nodded and jotted it down.
“Doctor Arthur Stuart, actually. I’m moving from the city, got sick of the rat race, you know?”
“Hm,” Hanson responded, scribbling a couple of notes down before he forgot them. Checked the clock, noted the time.
“Sergeant Michael Hanson,” Art said quietly, leaning forward exaggeratedly to read the name plate on the desk.
“Yeah,” Hanson replied, feeling vaguely awkward.
“I, uh, I hoped to get there tonight, but I guess it’ll probably be tomorrow night earliest. God knows how far away I am by now.”
Hanson glanced up at him, nodded briefly, before turning back to his note pad.
“Any idea if the roads’ll get cleared tomorrow?”
“As long as the ploughs can get out, yeah. Shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Great.”
The guy’s voice sounded suddenly despondent, and Hanson raised his head enough to take a look at him. He’d sat back down in the bench and was rubbing the sole of one foot with the towel. Art Stuart. Not the most fortunate name. Pleasant looking kind of guy, mild face with blond hair flopping over his forehead. He was tall and a little lanky, which made him look younger at first glance, or at least younger than the late-thirty something that Hanson put him at.
Hanson suddenly realised that he hadn’t exactly been personable. Wade was always on his back about that.
“Are you, uh, are you feeling okay? Your feet okay?”
“Yeah, no problems.” He was still rubbing his sole with the towel, turning the skin pink. “Wishing I’d worn rubber boots though. What...” He sighed.
“What?” Hanson asked.
“What am I gonna do? I mean, where can I get to at this time of night?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“What? But I’ve got to find some place to-”
“No, no. I mean don’t worry...I’ll sort something out,” Hanson said, trying to sound friendly. “You don’t mind a cell, you can sleep here for the night. Ain’t luxurious, but it’s warm and dry.”
“Cells? Jesus, I never even thought of that. That’s a huge relief, thanks.”
He was smiling now, turning his face up to Hanson so that it hit him full beam, teeth showing and eyes lit up. Wherever he was going, this guy would be popular for sure.
Hanson nodded, stuck his hands in his pockets.
“Let me show you where they are.”
*
One a.m.
His guest, Art, had been down in the cell for half an hour or so now, probably sound asleep. He’d gone to the bathroom while Hanson went in to check the heater was on and to spread some more blankets on the narrow bed. Pretty liveable, he decided.
Art had been cheery and kept thanking him as he shuffled around the little space, jabbering on about how he’d never been in a prison cell before, the obligatory ‘if these walls could talk’ comment, then he stuck his things on the chair that was bolted to the floor near the bed, which Hanson took to be his cue to leave. He told him to yell if he needed anything, set the lock on the door so it wouldn’t click shut, and went off back to his desk.
Where he still was.
Jesus God he was bored.
He’d typed up the report on having found Dr Stuart in his stuck car and given him a bed for the night and was wondering what he could do for the guy tomorrow. Well, first off, as soon as Tom O’Rourke came by with the snow plough, he could take his truck down the road and get the SUV back on the asphalt, make sure it was still road worthy. If it was, he could sort Art out with directions to whatever town he was going to and see him on his way. If not, get in touch with whoever was expecting him and let them know what had happened, Mrs Peeley probably had a room spare at the guest house...
Doctors. Every damn doctor he ever met, they were smart in their field, but everything else just passed them by. True, he’d only ever known a handful of them, but this guy was a prime example. No damn sense.
Nice enough though, he supposed.
Exactly the kind of guy who, if he’d still been married, his wife would have gotten all weird about when he told her about him.
He shivered a little, and shifted uncomfortably in his seat behind the desk. The latest round of solitaire flickered on the computer screen and was abruptly replaced with the screensaver, a big mess of flashing colours that Wade had put on there and he couldn’t figure how to change back to something plain.
He didn’t reach for the mouse.
Something about the station had changed since his guest’s arrival. Another person in the building made it feel like a different place, made the room that had been quiet all evening suddenly eerie. It was more than simply a lack of noise, it was silence.
Something felt wrong to him and if Hanson had ever put any stock in instinct, he would have blamed it on that. Whether it was instinct or worry, or plain damn restlessness that drove him he didn’t know, but he got to his feet and strode off down the corridor that led to the cells.
As soon as he opened the door into the room, he felt some of his nerves subside, only to be replaced with a nasty, creeping tension that crawled up his back and into his head. The cells were exactly as he’d left them, the one nearest to him closed and empty, the light from the fluorescent fitting in the ceiling above him dimly illuminating the bare corridor. The door of the far cell was still sitting on the latch, unlocked. He could hear the soft whir of the electric heater inside, mingling with the distant sounds of the wind outside to obscure anything he might have heard of his guest’s breathing.
That bothered him, just a little. Enough that he found himself edging towards the cell door. Just to check on him. Nothing more.
He peered in through the little barred section at the top of the door, squinting in the dull light that crept into the cell from the fluorescent. Art was definitely okay…more or less. He was breathing at least. He lay on his back on the narrow bed, still wearing the sweatpants and socks and his own t-shirt. The blankets were mostly spread over him, but one leg and one arm were sticking out, and the blankets were losing more ground steadily as he rocked and flinched from side to side, his face tense.
Jesus, a nightmare? Hanson didn’t have to deal with this shit, or at least he shouldn’t have to. But the guy just seemed so fucking helpless, and God alone knew why but rescuing somebody always made him feel like he owed them something for some stupid Goddamned reason.
He dithered at the door for a moment, wondering if he should actually do anything. Was it nightmares you weren’t supposed to wake people from? Or was that just sleepwalking? Could be both.
Art made a little whimpering sound in his throat and flinch carried from his hips all the way up to his neck like a wave, screwing up the blankets even worse. Yeah, Hanson decided, he ought to do something.
As quietly as possible, he opened the door, double checking that the latch was still notched in place so it wouldn’t lock on him, then crossed the room. Art’s hips twitched, and then his head jerked on the pillow. Probably best to wake him gently, wouldn’t really help to startle him.
One sock-clad foot jerked towards the corner of the bed Hanson was standing next to, and that seemed as good a place to start as any. He lifted the blankets a little and slid his other hand under Art’s calf, figuring tucking him back under the bedclothes would be a good move, calm him down.
Or it would’ve been, if Art hadn’t done a truly spectacular twitch, followed up by a liquid squirm, if Hanson hadn’t reactively tightened his grip at the first movement.
But he did and then he did, and the blankets got shunted completely to one side, as Hanson’s grip pulled on the fabric of the sweatpants, which Art’s squirm messed up completely. Messed up as in, he pulled himself out of them a little. Out of the waistband popped his skinny, smooth hip, and out popped the puffed up, shiny tip of his dick.
Not a baddream then. Hell of a way to misread that one.
He looked at Art’s face to make sure he was still asleep, and because everything he attempted on a day like today was going to go to hell, he wasn’t. His eyes were wide and bleary, his pupils huge.
Hanson was still holding Art’s calf, standing there, still, sweat crawling down his back inside his shirt, as Art’s dopey eyes raked up and down him, confused and considering.
A weird moment, possibly the most unsettling of his life, which was a surprise, all things considered.
Then Art shook his head, shifted on the bed, and held out his arms.
Still for a second, still as stone, and then Hanson tightened his grip on the fold of fabric in his hand and pulled. Art dragged his leg free of the pants, scrabbled the blankets out of the way, one leg still clothed and his crotch naked as could be.
Hanson grappled his belt undone, his pants, pushed everything down, just enough to give his own dick room to stand up and see what was going on, and Art’s hand found the loose tail of his shirt as he leaned over him, pulling him closer and pulling it up to bare his stomach. Weirdly loud noise as their bodies came together.
Hot, hotter than the heating in the little cell could account for, Art squirming up against him, clutching at his shirt with one hand, the other hand reaching underneath himself, as Hanson grabbed his hips to hold him still and ground down against him. Too hard, he knew he was doing it too hard, but Art was whining high up in his throat, bare leg hooked around Hanson’s thigh, he didn’t give a shit he was being crushed.
Hanson’s head was spinning, he was so hard and so fucking hot he felt like his breath should be steaming, and Art was saying something, the sound flitting from his lips with every shunting thrust of Hanson’s hips against his;
“ …in…in…IN…”
In?
With an impossible effort of will, he pulled back to slip his hand under Art’s ass, felt that his fingers were already in there, pulled them out and hitched Art’s leg up, the bare one, pushing his thigh up towards his chest and making him whimper. Licked his hand wet and swiped it over himself.
Lined up and pushed in.
Too soon and too dry and too damn tight, but Art was shoving back against him, ‘ yesyesyesyes with every breath, and it wasn’t too anything.
In and in, struggling against the bony, wriggling body, knees slipping on the sheets as he fought for purchase, fought his way into Art’s clinging, searing body. Hands clutching at his shoulder and his hair, pulling him down, pressing his face into the sweaty throat, feeling the thrumming pulse against his cheek as his hips worked and worked.
The springs of the bed were squealing underneath them, the metal frame hacking against the wall, suffering under them as they fucked. Sweat sliding between them where both their stomachs were bared, where the back of Art’s thigh pressed against Hanson’s side, where Art’s hand was clenched into Hanson’s hair, holding him in place by it.
Hanson’s back was killing him but he couldn’t care. It was too good, too fucking good, too fucking hard, he knew it had to be, but Art was going wild under him, along for it with him all the way, wheezing and keening and yelling, shaking violently as his dick jerked and throbbed against Hanson’s stomach, arms and legs clenching around him, his hole clenching around him, his whole body groping hard at Hanson’s dick until he couldn’t take it anymore. Drove in hard one more time, held himself there as his come pumped out of him.
Lying there in a fugue, minutes dawdled by with Art’s breath huffing uncomfortably into his ear and his own heart drumming hard at the insides of his ribs. Squishy come cooling between them and more of it sliding around where Hanson was going soft and slipping out. The heater was still humming in the corner, and how had it been loud enough to drown out Art’s breathing earlier? It was the only damn sound left in the world.
Art’s hands fell away from his body as he pushed himself up on his arms to look at him; fast asleep, one eye half open and rolled back to show the whites, mouth gaping and skin flushed. Hanson pulled back from him, felt for his pulse, which was fine. Worried there for a moment.
In the low light, he couldn’t see if Art’s ass was bloody, but couldn’t see any blood on…on himself.
He smoothed down his shirt and t-shirt, fastened up his pants. Folded Art back onto the bed and tucked the blankets back around him.
Watched him from the door for a moment, watched him sleeping like a baby.
Then he went back to his desk.
*
The basin in the bathroom wasn’t any damn good to try and wash in. And it was a good fucking idea to have kept a spare uniform shirt back there, even though Wade had laughed and called him neurotic. She couldn’t fucking say that to him, she stocked clothes for other people.
Six am and he was sitting at the desk with gradually receding sweat stains in weird spots on his pants, and a sore dick. Sore hair as well, and he didn’t know how in hell Art had managed to get such a tight grip on it, as short as it was.
That had been a foul up. Up until a point, it had been a good evening. Got the guy out of his car in one piece, got him to safety, put him up for the night, minded his manners, all that shit. All that good, solid community police work shit. Checked on him in the night, good. Made sure he wasn’t having a nightmare, well, that was only neighbourly. It was all good, in fact, right up until the point that he’d pulled his dick out and…
Yeah.
Deal with it in the morning, he told himself. Later in the morning that was, when Art was awake.
Computer, reports, boring shit.
To his surprise, he actually got a few things done. Nothing really important, but he managed to work steadily, pushing everything else from his mind, for about an hour and a half, no solitaire, no stopping, just a dull stream of forms and explanations, until the sound of a shuffling foot on the tile floor made him look up.
Art was standing in the doorway, watching him worriedly.
After a moment of cringing silence, Hanson managed to ask “You okay?”
“Yeah. Uh…you?”
He nodded.
Art winced and looked away, stared hard at the wall next to him, then at the floor. He was dressed in the same clothes from yesterday, rumpled and shoeless. Hanson turned and saw his shoes, now more or less dry, on the floor near the heating vent. He picked them up and took them over to him.
“Thanks,” Art mumbled, shuffling over to the bench seat to put them on. Sitting down veeeeery carefully, fighting with himself not to look at Hanson.
Hanson who had suddenly become fucking psychic, because he knew exactly, exactly, what Art was thinking, because it was the same damn thing that he was thinking himself;
Surgery in a town 30 miles away from here, never come back here, never see each other again.
He was pretty sure that was the only thought that was keeping them both from going crazy. They didn’t look at each other, but the need to look was like something solid in the air between them, pushing on them.
Hanson stared at his computer screen, running his eyes over the lines of text again and again, unable to make any sense out of the letters.
He heard a click as Art cleared his throat.
“Uh, listen...Michael, I think-”
Thump and a whoosh of chilly air, as the door opened and Wade tumbled in, batting fresh flakes off her coat and stamping her feet.
“Whew, it’s starting to ease up I…oh, hello.”
Hanson’s heart sank as Art got to his feet politely to greet her, introduce himself. Wade’s curiously glance told him that it was time for him to say something, else this was going to look weird.
“His car got stuck in the ditch out there, Wade. I let him sleep the night in one o’ the cells.”
“Oh, right,” Wade replied, giving Art a once over. “So you were stuck here with the sarge all night?” Her voice held a conciliatory tone that Hanson really didn’t appreciate.
Hanson opened his mouth to ask about the state of the road outside, but she butted in; “Hang on, did you say your name was Stuart?”
“Um, yes,” Art replied weakly, sitting down carefully once more to finish tying his laces.
“Dr Stuart? Dr Perry at the surgery said she was expecting the new doctor to arrive this week. That you?”
“W-what? But…that’s not here, that’s a different town!” Art replied in astonishment. “That’s in Harris Glen.”
“This is Harris Glen,” Wade and Hanson replied as one, in two very different tones.
Fortunately, Wade rushed off into the back office to call Dr Perry and tell her to stop worrying, and completely missed the look that passed between Art and Hanson.
Outside, Hanson could just hear churning racket of the snowplough coming along the road. Art’s wide eyes were on him, and he found himself having another psychic moment;
Same town, same small town, for the foreseeable future. So they were going to have to deal with this in a sensible Goddamn manner.
Hanson fucking hated the snow.
