The Head Can Be Persuaded
 

Tiana yawned briefly and moved over to settle onto the couch for a little while, grabbing a blanket. The house was always on the chilly side, which she normally didn't mind since she could just bundle up pretty easily. Turning on the TV, she settled in for the evening, absently pulling out one of her gems to play with.

Avery hurried home, her jacket pulled tight around her and her gloved hands jammed into her pockets. She glanced around quickly as she walked, wariness bordering on paranoia. She just wanted to get home where it was safe, where she couldn't hurt anyone.

As soon as she got home, she closed the door behind her and locked it. Then she slowly took her jacket off. The gloves stayed.

"Hey," Tiana greeted quietly. She didn't expect the gloves to come off. That was normal by now. She was, however, careful not to startle her roommate. Avery looked even more spooked than normal. "Everything go okay today?"

Avery still jumped a little, but she knew Tiana was around, so she wasn't startled too badly.

"No," she said softly. "I... slipped."

"Slipped?" Tiana looked at her, still keeping herself relaxed. "How badly? Like "oops, you didn't need that fountain, right?" or "that city block can be thawed eventually"?"

"The storage closet," Avery said. "Half an inch of solid glaze." She bit her lip. "I left before anyone saw me, but..." she trailed off.

"It could be worse," Tiana said consolingly. "It wasn't a person, there was no one hurt, and you won't be hurt because of it. You'll be fine. No one expects you to be perfect at this. I slip and my talent is much less pushy than yours."

"They're going to put it together sooner or later," Avery insisted. "It happened because the guy at the desk next to mine wouldn't stop asking why I wear gloves. I hid in the supply closet to get away."

Tiana tucked the ruby back into her pocket as she stood.

"So we can move again," she said. "Neither of our jobs are permanent or awesome, let's just move to another city. It takes people a while to start asking questions, after all."

"You'd be okay with that?" Avery asked tentatively. "Moving again?"

"Yeah," Tiana said with a shrug. "I've got no ties to this place, and I can sell a few of these to help us along." She held up one of the rubies. She didn't like to sell them very often, because it was difficult and could lead the difficult questions. Like why she had raw, uncut gemstones of decent size, and where she got them. So mostly she just sold them when they wanted to move or needed some cash.

Avery hesitated for a moment. She knew how reluctant Tiana could be about selling the gemstones. Sometimes they were more trouble than they were (literally) worth.

"Maybe stick around a little longer," she said finally. "Maybe nothing will happen."

"We'll decide in a few days," Tiana agreed. "See if anything happens in the next few days." Even so, she was going to go see about making some small gemstones, ones that would be easier to sell and cause less fuss.

Avery nodded. She fidgeted a bit, twisting her fingers together, but she didn't take her gloves off.

Elsewhere, news had spread about the rash of weird, isolated freezings that had been happening, and that news had reached the ears of one Bobby Singer. Once he'd gathered what preliminary information he could, he picked up the phone and dialed the boys.

"Hey Bobby," Sam answered after checking his phone. "What's up?" He settled into a chair in the most recent hotel room, already reaching over to grab his laptop and a pad of paper. Just in case.

"Found somethin' kinda weird, think maybe you boys should look into it," Bobby replied. "You remember hearing anything about that car and house that completely froze over out by the coast?"

"Yeah," Sam said. "That was a little while back, we headed out that direction but never heard anything more about it." Up until now, anyway, if his guess as to why Bobby was calling was right.

"I did a little digging, it's a thing that happens every so often, across a coupla states," Bobby said. "You boys don't think it's weird at all?"

"Across a few states?" Sam's eyebrows went up. "Yeah, that is weird. Just happens every so often? Something gets frozen over and then it dies down for a while and pops up somewhere else?"

"Pretty much," Bobby replied. "Reports I found say it's usually not in the winter, either."

"That doesn't sound like anything I've ever heard of," Sam said with a frown. "If it's magic, it seems kind of odd. I mean, no one's been hurt so far, and it's pretty spread out."

"Which is why I think you boys should look into it," Bobby said. "No offense, but you two aren't the shoot-first-ask-never type anymore, and if this thing's not hurtin' people, it don't sound right to shoot it quite yet."

"Right," Sam said. He wasn't offended, he kind of preferred not to shoot things until they had hurt people. "Well, we can head out in the morning and see what's going on."

"Sounds good," Bobby replied. "I'll keep you boys posted if I hear anything else about it. Lemme know how it goes."

"Will do. Thanks, Bobby." Sam hung up and tucked his phone back in his pocket, looking over at the bathroom to check if Dean was done showering yet.