Chapter Text
"What you got?"
Dean Winchester folded his arms over his chest, eyeing the chief of police. Superintendant Greg Landers was a short man, with prematurely greying hair and a frown permanently etched onto his features. He hadn't been pleased to hear that the FBI had taken an interest in his case, and had so far been less than welcoming to the pair of 'agents' that had shown up in his town three days before.
Still, he was an honest citizen, and what he lacked in courtesy, he made up for in information.
"Same as the other three." He replied in a curt tone. "Full bill of health, no psychiatric problems, no evidence of bullying or narcotics. This one jumped out of the second floor window."
"Any signs that someone could have pushed him?"
"None. No signs of a struggle, no blood. No self-defence wounds on the body, either."
Dean nodded at this news, sharing a quick, meaningful glance with his colleague.
"Mind if we take a look?" The taller man - Sam - added.
"Be my guest. Upstairs, door on the left. Photography's finished up already." Greg shrugged, gesturing to the door of the picturesque, semi-detached house. He turned to leave, before pausing and glancing back. "One more thing. There was one difference between this one and the others."
The Winchesters raised their brows in twin expressions of interest, silently encouraging the Superintendant to continue.
"This was a kid."
"Not what we thought, then." Sam sighed as the pair entered the deserted crime scene. The rooms downstairs were pristine, untouched - save for the boot prints on the carpet, obviously left by some inconsiderate officer or other.
"Nope. Not gonna be a succubus if it's killing kids, too." Dean ran a hand through his hair, allowing the other rooms a glance before starting upstairs. The door of the room indicated by the Superintendant was ajar, the bootprints focussed in that direction.
The room itself was clearly a child's bedroom; crayon drawings and posters were pinned up to the walls, toys scattered the floor, and a rumpled bed stood in one corner, occupied - though neither Sam nor Dean saw it - by a pale teen, perched on the mattress.
"Damn." Sam murmured quietly, inspecting one of the drawings on the wall; a frozen pond surrounded by several smiling figures, the tallest dressed in blue with a mop of white hair, holding some kind of branch and beaming. "He can't have been older than nine."
"He was eight." The boy on the bed corrected through gritted teeth, though the Winchesters didn't appear to hear him.
"So we stop it before it gets to anyone else." Dean was saying, searching the room."Best bet is to look for hex bags, though I doubt a witch would go after a little kid."
"Unless they were out to get the parents." Sam pointed out.
"What are you talking about?" The figure by the bed asked, rising to his feet. His once cheerful expression had been replaced by a scowl. "He committed suicide. The police said so. Stop messing with his stuff."
"Sulfur?" The younger brother suggested, moving over to the open window - just in time to see ice bloom across the glass as a testament to the teen's anger. The hunter's brows rose. "Uh, Dean?"
The shorter of the pair turned to him.
"What?"
Wordlessly, Sam gestured to the glass, now frosted over entirely.
"So? We're in Burgess. Do you know how much snow this place gets?"
"Inside?" The hunter countered, dragging his finger over the window to cause a blemish in the otherwise untouched surface.
"Huh." Dean ran a hand through his hair. His eyes narrowed, and he moved closer to inspect the glass too. "So, what, we're looking for a killer Jack Frost?"
"Hey!" The boy seemed indignant.
"Dean, can you just be realistic for a minute?"
"Hey!"
"Look," Sam continued, unaware of the interruption. He moved away from the window, the chill breeze unpleasant. Dean must have felt the same, as he followed soon after. "I've read up stuff on Winter Sprites, but nowhere does it say anything about them killing like this."
"Or at all." The pale boy insisted, folding his arms over his chest and approaching the pair. "Hello? Do I look like a killer?"
"That's because they don't exist. They're made up." Dean was adamant, jaw set in a familiarly stubborn way.
"Uh huh, that's what you said about angels."
Sam barely had time to finish that thought before a snowball came hurtling out of nowhere, striking Dean square on the back of the head. Perched on the windowsill, the teen smirked a little vindictively.
Dean growled, moving over to peer outside around the frosted glass. "Freakin' kids." He mumbled, pulling the pane closed. "C'mon, Sammy. We need to get to the morgue."
The younger of the two let out a sigh and shook his head, though amusement lingered at the corners of his mouth. He paused before leaving the place, once more glancing at the drawing. The white haired figure smiled benignly back at him from the paper, and he frowned a little, considering. Then he shook his head, turning on his heel and striding from the room.
Jack Frost was left alone, sat upon the windowsill with nothing to distract him from his thoughts as he watched his late friend's bedroom.
That was, until he thought better of it.
Within seconds, he was downstairs, slipping inside the sleek black car parked alongside the house.
The ride to the morgue was short, but Sam managed to get in a surprising amount of ribbing in that time at the fact that the great hunter, defeater of monsters and demons alike, had been caught off guard by a snowball.
Jack listened to it all in fascination, gleaning as much as he could from the conversation. The two men were brothers, clearly, and they appeared to dedicate their lives to hunting down evil creatures that preyed on humans. The teenage Guardian was no idiot, and it was easy to draw the conclusion that the pair suspected the spate of suicides recently to be unnatural.
Finally, the conversation turned back to him, and he pulled himself out of his thoughts to listen.
"Sammy, you can't seriously think that all this was caused by some - what was it, Winter Spirit?"
"Sprite." The younger man corrected. "Though technically a spirit too. And I don't know, man. Just don't rule it out."
"Right. And maybe we should call on the Easter Bunny, see if he's seen anything."
"Dean, I'm serious."
The shorter man simply responded with an undignified snort, shaking his head.
At that point, the car pulled up in the shadow of the local hospital, and the conversation was cut off. Jack had been around long enough to know what a morgue was, and to know that he had no desire to visit one. So, while the two men exited the car and headed for the building, the teen slumped across the back seats, his thoughts catching up with him again.
It was his fault.
He was the Guardian of Fun, for god's sake, he ought to have noticed if one of his friends was suicidal. He ought to have done something about it. Even now, all he could remember in those final days was that the boy had seemed even happier, even more cheerful and lighthearted than usual. It didn't make sense.
"It isn't right!" He growled, fists clenching. His anger and frustration rolled off of him in icy waves, frost blooming over the windows of the car, but he barely noticed. "It's not fair!"
Even before becoming a Guardian, when he'd gone unseen and unheard, when he hadn't been believed in, he'd never felt as helpless as he did now.
"God, Jamie, why didn't you just talk to me?"