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*PROLOGUE * * CHAPTER 1: THE STORM * CHAPTER 2: SNOWBOUND * CHAPTER 3: SURVIVAL CUDDLING * CHAPTER 4: CUPiD

A pertinacious adversary, pushed to extremities, may say, that husbands indeed are willing to be reasonable.

That was the last line Sean Murphy read before 300 pounds of bull terrier dropped onto the loveseat next to him. It interrupted the husky's reading, to say the least, in that it practically bounced him right over his armrest.

His copy of Assorted Essays of John Stuart Mill flew out of his hands and landed on the stained carpet of the Sig Tau's living room. A couple of the other guys looked up from the main couch and the TV, where a loud round of _Call of Duty_was currently in progress.

He looked over. It was Robbie Brandt, an enormous white bull terrier, exhibiting his default expression, which was grinning like a moron. "Hey, Sean!" he called, louder than necessary. "Ultimate Frisbee! Let's go." Robbie was a staggering 6'5", with biceps the size of Sean's quads. He was a defensive lineman and his special talent was carrying two beer kegs at a time. Sean was quite fond of him, but Robbie was straight, and there were a lot of guys in the frat of which he was fond. Robbie was wearing athletic shorts and a mustard-yellow Carrington University t-shirt.

Sean frowned. "Sorry, man, I got an English Lit test in like three hours." He picked up his book. "And I'm really enjoying this book." He grinned. "It was all the rage in 1869."

Robbie laughed. "No, you're not. C'mon. One round." He grinned dopily, leaning forward. Robbie was a sophomore, like Sean, and was in his absolute glory in the fraternity. He loved to roughhouse and apparently sacking guys for four hours a day on the football field simply was not sufficient.

Sean shrugged. "Sorry, dude. I should be done around 5:00. Catch you then?"

The big white dog stared at him, and then sighed. "Aww, I have practice at five!"

Sean cocked his head. "What about Tommy? Or Darren?"

Robbie pouted. "Nobody's as fast as you." He lowered his voice. "And I think Darren's afraid I'll crush him." He frowned.

Sean tried not to grin. "I could see where that comes from."

Robbie stared at him, and then narrowed his eyes. "So you're really going to read your lame book?"

Sean grinned back. "Yep."

"Okay," Robbie said, leaning back in his seat. He lifted his thick legs up onto the cushion, scooted around, and laid lengthwise along the couch, putting his feet on Sean's armrest and pinning the husky to the cushion with hundreds of pounds of bull terrier. "Good luck concentrating!"

"WHURF!" Sean grunted, as he was squished back into the cushion. Robbie had definitely not been skipping Leg Day. "Are you kidding me?!" he yowled, trying to push Robbie's tree-trunk legs off of him. It was like being buckled into a seat in a roller coaster, if the restraint was 5 inches thick and smelled like Right Guard.

"Chill, bro, I'm sure you'll be fine! Huskies are known for being book-smart, right?" The big dog grinned devilishly down at him.

"Okay, that's it, you fat-muzzled fucker," Sean grunted. He leaned hard to his side and grabbed one of Robbie's enormous shoes with both hands. They were Nike's and they looked like about a size 17.

"The fuck are you doing?" Robbie asked him, confused.

Sean popped the bigger dog's sneaker off, peeled his massive sock off his enormous paw, and dug his claws into the terrier's soft pawpads.

"WAAHAAHAAHAAHAA!" Robbie howled, flailing mightily. The couch shook like the building was falling into a sinkhole. All the guys on the couch looked up, wide-eyed. Robbie thrashed but did not release Sean from his leg pin.

"That's what you get, fucker!" Sean howled. He wrapped his other arm around the big dog's knees to hold him and dug his claws in between Robbie's fat toes.

"AAHAAHAAHAAHAAA!!" Robbie squealed, and then he thrashed so hard with his shoulders that the loveseat tipped up onto its back legs.

Oops, Sean thought, and then the couch tipped over backwards and landed with a crash. The whole house shook.

"WHUFFF!" Sean emitted as Robbie's legs crashed onto his chest. He flailed for a moment and then bit Robbie on the leg.

"OW!" Robbie howled. He yanked his legs back, laughing, and rolled off the back of the couch, crashing onto the hardwood of the living room. "Was that part of your plan, genius?"

"You fucking asshole," Sean snapped, but he couldn't keep the grin off his face.

"Aww, it's always beautiful to see two dogs in love!" called one of the guys from the couch. It was Darren, a lion, and he made kissy faces at them. The other guys laughed.

Robbie lifted himself nimbly to his feet and reached out for Sean's hand. Sean accepted, bracing his muscular arms, and as expected Robbie hoisted him effortlessly to his feet with only a slight risk of dislocating his shoulder.

The big white terrier grinned down at the husky. "Catch you after practice?"

"If it's not too cold," Sean said. It was November, and while unseasonably warm for northwest Indiana, it was starting to get pretty chilly at night.

Robbie snorted and raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Too cold for your fluffy ass?"

Sean grinned. "I didn't mean for me." He puffed out his fluffy chest. "I just like to watch out for my lesser-furred brothers. I know you can't handle the cold."

Robbie snorted again. He reached for his shoe and sock, stuck his tongue out, and loped lopsidedly out of the room.

Sean shook his head, shoved the couch back onto its legs, and got back to studying. He finished the book in an hour and skated by with an A-.

That evening, the temperature dropped into the 40's, and they never did meet back up for Frisbee.

CHAPTER 1: THE STORM

WHUNKvvvvvvvvrrrRRRRRRRRNNNNNNNN! went the transmission, and Sean Murphy immediately knew he was screwed.

He was in northwest Indiana, headed southwest on Route 49. He was less than 30 miles from Carrington University, close enough to make it via bicycle on a normal day, but this was anything but a normal day. This was the worst blizzard he had ever seen, in his entire nineteen years of life.

It was 10 pm on a frigid February day and the young husky was barely ahead of a huge storm moving into Indiana. The city of Chicago was only sixty miles away - Sean had passed the greater metropolitan area on his way back to school - and according to the radio the storm had dumped over 15 inches of snow in the last couple hours. There were broadcasts coming in that a _few hundred_cars had been buried on Lake Shore Drive, most of them with their drivers still inside of them. This storm was going to be one for the record books.

The storm was moving south, and just behind Sean, I-80/90 and 94 were shut down in a dozen places between Gary and Michigan City. Sadistically gleeful radio announcers told tales of twelve-foot drifts burying entire houses.

I should've left about five hours ago, Sean thought, frowning anxiously.

The storm seemed to be moving faster than he was, and by the time he reached the two-thirds point of Chesterton, the highway was an ocean of roiling white cotton and miserable churned slush. The air was so thick with snow and ice it looked like grayish smoke, and with the hammering wind behind it, hundreds of cubic feet of snow gushed onto the highway like frothing ocean whitecaps. In most places the highway looked like it was flooding.

WRRRMMMMPPPHHHHHHH! his Blazer growled as it plowed through a snowdrift tall enough to hit the front bumper. That was happening every couple miles now, even though the plows had been through less than an hour ago. Sean guessed the snowdrifts in the ditch between himself and the northbound lanes were probably as tall as the car.

He was close to the school but the road condition was steadily deteriorating, faster than Sean would have ever thought possible, and he was starting to get extremely nervous.

By 10:30, the young husky had turned off the radio and slowed to below 40 MPH. He hadn't seen another set of headlights in almost twenty minutes. Not that he would have seen them - the two northbound lanes were separated by 25 feet of a grassy median ditch, and the storm was so thick and turbulent that he couldn't see anything on that side of the road. There could have been a convoy of ice cream trucks on the other side of the highway and Sean would never have known about it.

Snow roared past his windows, like stars in a sci-fi show, and he had the wipers on their highest setting. The roaring of the wind, the tires, and the thunking of the wipers made the interior of the truck almost deafeningly loud.

Not loud enough for Sean to miss the transmission skipping, however.

The car was old - very old. The Blazer had rolled off the line in 1996, when Sean was just a fluffy little puppy who could barely string sentences together. As a result, it had its share of electronic glitches, one of which was in the 4WD transfer case. As a result, the truck liked to randomly drop out of four-wheel-drive into two-wheel-drive. Sometimes fewer than that. It was rare, but it happened on occasion.

One of these occasions occurred at precisely 10:36 p.m.

WHUNK! went the transmission as it shifted violently back into rear-wheel drive.

Sean still had his foot on the gas, so the rear wheels immediately revved up to full-speed.VvvvvvvrrrRRRRRRRRNNNNNNNN! they sounded, as they lost their tenuous connection on the icy roadway. The back end of the Blazer swung violently out to the right.

"Oh SHIT!" yowled Sean, as his truck shot straight for the ditch between the northbound and southbound lanes. He cut the wheel hard to the passenger side.

The desperate maneuver reversed the fishtail, but ultimately didn't make a difference. Sean and his Blazer charged off of I-49 into a median filled with snow piled high enough to bury a garden shed.

The heavy truck plowed through yard after yard of thick, drifted snow, making huge white tufts of powder explode up over both sides and the front of the truck, barely slowing enough to throw Sean into his seatbelt as it chugged forward through the mess. The noise was unexpectedly deafening, a deep bass radiating through the framework of the truck, like thunder.

Sean felt the SUV grind all the way downward, and even start to climb the ditch out toward the northbound lanes. The Blazer finally chugged to a stop like a passenger train slowing, bucking violently toward the passenger side and making Sean sure he was going to roll, before finally dropping back onto all four wheels. Crashing down, the truck rocked gently back and forth, its shocks creaking softly, and finally settled pointed subtly nose up, listing ever-so-slightly to the left.

The truck was silent, except for the gentle creaking of snowpack. Wrunk! went the snowbank under the front of his car, and the Blazer dropped another two or three inches in place.

Wide-eyed and terrified, Sean still gripped the steering wheel. His heart pounded viciously.

"F-f-f-f-fuuuccckkk," he breathed out, shivering. He took his paws off the wheel and clutched them to his chest to keep them from shaking. A late adrenaline surge hit him and filled him with useless energy. He swallowed, still shaking.

Turning to look behind himself, the rear window behind the tail-lights was an ocean of red-tinted snow.

He looked out his window. The snow was as high as the door handles. Swallowing, he reached down for the 4WD shift lever, on the floor under the radio console.

As he reached for it, the electrical short apparently reversed itself, because the light clicked from 2-HI to 4-HI.

Sean scowled. "You piece of craaaaaaaaapppp," he hissed at the car. Frowning, he wrenched the lever down to 4-LO, the most powerful transmission setting. He had a feeling he was going to need it.

Looking over his shoulder, he clunked the bulky shift lever up to REVERSE. He pried his booted paw off the brake and slowly moved it to the accelerator.

"Come on, baby," he whispered, pushing down on the gas.

_Vrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!_went the engine.

The Blazer did not move.

Letting out a shaky sigh, Sean looked forward and dropped the truck back into DRIVE. He looked through the windshield. The snow was up over the hood. Sean didn't know if he had bulldozed it up that high, or the snow in the median really was four feet deep.

He pressed down the accelerator again.

_Vrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrm!_The speedometer jumped up to 25 MPH.

Grimacing, Sean pushed the gas down further._Vrrrrrr RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!_The speedo was closing on 40. The big engine roared angrily. Even the air vents rumbled with the extra airflow, and for a moment the air pouring from them was pure heat. He could feel the vehicle vibrating as all four wheels spun uselessly.

Nothing.

REVERSE. DRIVE. REVERSE. 4-HI.

Nothing.

Closing his eyes, Sean put his head down on the thick steering wheel.

Rubbing his eyes, he craned his neck around.

Thirty seconds later, he had his scarf, hat, and down jacket back on. He had a feeling the back doors would be easier to open, so he scrambled over the seatbacks into the rear of the truck.

The snow out the backseat was at least four feet deep. It went up to his chest, and there was a moment before his feet touched solid ground that Sean felt absolute, pure panic. He would need a backhoe to dig the truck out. Panting and grunting, he pulled himself back up into the backseat.

Gasping, he sprawled across the backseat.

He wasn't going anywhere.

It was time to call for help.

His uncle picked up on the second ring.

Sergeant Travis MacGregor was an Ohio state trooper, and his voice was clear and strong. As usual, just hearing him immediately made Sean feel better. Even three hundred miles away, Uncle Travis projected such confidence that Sean could feel himself relaxing just talking to him. He summarized his situation in one breathless 90-second run-on sentence.

"So the car is alright?" Uncle Travis asked him. Slowly. Calmly.

Sean let out a sigh. "Yes. I mean, except for the transmission," he said, scowling at the shift lever.

Uncle Travis chuckled softly. "Okay. How's your phone battery?"

Sean held his phone away from his head for a moment. "Uh. 68 percent," he said.

There was a pause. "Is that...a lot?" his uncle asked him. "My phone still has the little battery-bar things."

Sean smiled. "Not really, Uncle Travis. But I got a charger."

"Mm," the other dog grunted. Sean could picture him, frowning into the phone. He was probably pacing, too. He paced when he was thinking. Travis was his mom's twin, and he and Sean looked enough alike that they were frequently mistaken for father and son. "How much gas you got?"

He looked. "Like...three quarters of a tank?"

"Mm. That should get you through the night. If you get under half a tank, start to ration it. Twenty minutes on, one hour off. Do you have a shovel?"

Sean looked over his shoulder into the cargo area. "Yeah, the one Mom gave me. But it's one of those crappy plastic ones."

"That'll be fine. You just have to keep the tailpipe clear. Depending on the wind you may have to do it every couple hours. Carbon monoxide is your biggest problem right now. The storm is supposed to end by 7 or 8 and they should start clearing the highways right after that."

Sean nodded. "Okay," he said. "That's like not even twelve hours, right? I can make it twelve hours." He could hear his own voice shaking.

"Yes. You're going to be fine. The important thing is, for God's sake, do not leave that car. The dead ones are always the assholes who make a break for it."

Sean swallowed. "The dead ones?!"

Travis cleared his throat. "Uh...yes."

Sean let out a shaky breath. "Why would you even say that," he said, flatly.

Over the line, Uncle Travis let out a sigh. "Because I need you to know how serious this is. I know it seems like a ten-minute walk to safety but it's so easy to get turned around in these storms, and exposure doesn't take long to kill. The people who try to hike to safety are the ones we find frozen in the morning. They usually don't make it more than a mile."

"Jesus Christ," Sean whispered.

"Sean, listen to me. You're gonna be okay. Stay hydrated, and set a watch alarm to wake up every couple hours. Don't go more than an hour with the engine off. And keep an eye on the tailpipe. You've got a long night ahead of you but you're gonna be fine."

Sean thought about it, and nodded, frowning. "Hey, is it okay if I text you my latitude and longitude? Just...like, in case."

The older husky chuckled. "Sure thing. I'll call Indiana Dispatch and tell them where you are. They should have one of the plow guys out by 8. Just stay put in your nice warm car and try to get some sleep, huh?"

Sean let out a sigh. "Thanks, Uncle Travis."

There was a short, quiet pause.

Travis cleared his throat. "Sean?"

"Yeah?" "Did you call your parents?"

Sean exhaled softly. "Uh, not...not yet. It was...it was kind of a rough weekend." He swallowed the lump in his throat.

"It's okay. Don't waste your phone battery. I'll call them."

Sean nodded. He let out a relieved sigh. "Thanks, Uncle Travis."

The older husky cleared his throat. Over the phone, it sounded a bit like radio static. "How are, uh, how are things on that front?"

Sean snorted. "Great. I'm sure they'll find a way to blame this car accident on my sexual orientation."

Travis chuckled. "Knowing your father, I can't really argue that."

Sean swallowed again, trying to clear his throat. "It isn't...I don't know why they can't..." He took a deep breath and let out an annoyed sigh. "I don't know why this is such a big fucking deal." He closed his eyes.

Travis sighed softly. "I'm sorry, kiddo. That's probably my fault. I don't think your mom ever got over it when I came out. I would have kept that to myself if I'd had the slightest idea about you." He was silent for a moment. "Look...try not to worry about that right now, okay? Just...concentrate on staying safe. That's the important thing right now. This storm is just hitting us here in Ohio and it looks like a hell of a blow. Focus on the problem in front of you."

Sean nodded, clenching his teeth. "I wish you were here," he blurted out softly. He regretted it immediately. It made him sound like a child.

Uncle Travis rumbled quietly over the phone. "I know, kiddo. Me too. You be safe now, okay? Yves says hi and he loves you too."

Sean managed a smiled. "Kay. Thanks, Uncle Travis."

He hung up the phone.

Afterward, he was left with only the wind and the rough idle of the engine.

Banjo music filled the car. "WELL, IT'S HAPPENED AGAIN!" thundered a Boston accent through the Blazer's sound system. "You've wasted another perfectly good hour listening to Car Talk! Our esteemed producer is Doug the Subway Fugitive, not-a-slave-to-fashion, Bongo Boy Berman--"

With one thick thumbclaw, Sean paused his iPod, yawning. He lifted it to his eyes and checked the battery. He still had about half the juice left, but his iPod charger was sitting on his desk back at the dorm, and he wanted to save the power for the wee small hours of the morning. Besides, after two straight hours of snapping Massachusetts accents, he was ready for a break.

The dash clock said 12:41.

Lifting his muscular arms over his head, Sean stretched and writhed in his seat. He had stripped down to his tank top, the full-blast heating necessary to keep the windshield clear bringing the car to what felt like 85 degrees.

Once again, he turned the heat down, and once again, big thick blobs of half-melted snow immediately began clinging to the windshield, sliding down the glass with lazy, unhurried confidence.

Last time, within ten minutes, they had gathered there, and enough snow had drifted up on top of the wipers that the view through the windshield had begun to blur.

Shivering, Sean cranked the heat back up. "Fuck that," he said. "I don't need to feel like I'm being buried alive in here."

He leaned back in his chair. No, you certainly don't, a little voice told him, because you ARE being buried alive in here.

Grimacing, Sean snapped the wipers on. They flailed across the windshield glass, flinging bits of frost hither and thither.

The Blazer was now wedged into a perfect trench of snow, the wind having filled in the gaps between the truck and the walls of snow on either side. The tremendous heat of the engine was keeping any slush from collecting on the hood, but the top of the windshield and all four side windows were completely obscured. The headlights were buried, which made for a peculiar, igloo-lit-from-within effect on the snow in front of him, and of course the taillights lit the storm blood red behind him. Other than that, Sean was encased.

He squeezed his eyes shut, finally unable to ignore the pressure in his bladder. "I suppose this was going to happen sooner or later," he said. Frowning, he reached for his jacket and scarf.

He frowned and craned his neck around. "Guess I'll go out the back." He opened the glove box and pushed the release button for the rear hatch glass.

Sean was lithe and athletic, with a mercilessly-toned athletic body, and scrambling into the backseat wasn't a problem, even with his puffy down jacket and colossal husky-sized boots. He lowered the rear seats and climbed up on top of them. Crawling into the flattened cargo area, he pushed outward on the rear windshield.

The ice-cold glass fought him, and when it finally gave and pushed out into the night, Sean was hit with such a wave of icy air that he gasped.

Sean had stupidly agreed, this last Halloween, to go bobbing for apples, and some sadistic asshat at his fraternity had used ice-cold water. That was what this sensation was like: it chilled him directly through his fur, straight to the skin and the bone beneath.

The storm was in absolutely full force now, and in seconds Sean understood how hardened Chicagoans could be helplessly stranded in taxis and city buses just yards from 40-story apartment high-rises.

Visibility was non-existent. The world was made up of hurling wind so thick with snow that it had mass: brutal, icy, pure white mass. The snow didn't fall so much as it careened; it was moving horizontally much faster than it was falling vertically. It was like being inside a snow tornado. Sean had never seen anything like it.

Swallowing, he peered down at the ground. The 20 or so feet of the Blazer's trench that he could see had already filled in, astonishingly, with a good two and a half feet of snow. It had poured in like water at the edges of the trench, completely obscuring the tire tracks, and just begun to fill in the gap. This wasn't about how much snow was falling anymore. It was about how fast the wind could move it.

For a moment, Sean just considered pissing out the back of his truck.

After a brief consideration, he rejected the idea. He really had to go - this was a full Shell station Big Gulp in the works. Whoever rescued him would probably be pulling him out by the trailer hitch, and would likely not appreciate a half-gallon of frozen husky piss coating every exposed inch of metal.

Just considering the thought, Sean felt his urethra cinch closed. The husky was still getting used to pooping in the same bathroom as his housemates...if the tow truck guys had to wade through a sea of yellow snow to save him he might actually die of embarrassment.

And yet...he looked up the miserable, terrifying, snow-buried trench.

Before he went, he grabbed his cellphone and the keyless entry fob off of his keys, in case (God forbid) he somehow locked himself out.

He left the lights and the heat on.

Just as far as the highway, he thought. He would pee on the opposite shoulder, the plows would bury it in the morning, and he could go on living without the memory of coating some poor state employee's work boots in dog urine.

Calling upon the spirit of his Siberian ancestors, Sean swung one leg over the tailgate and felt for the rear bumper. He missed it completely, lost his grip in half a second, and crashed out into the night.

WHUMPH! He landed on his back in waist-deep snow, sinking a foot before coming to a cushioned stop. Ice slid in against his muzzle and neck. Sean scrambled to his feet, and found that he could again barely touch the grass underneath all the snow. The wind whirled around him, even in the relative shelter of the trench, and within seconds enough snow had gathered on the end of his muzzle to be visible in his field of vision. Holy shit, he thought, and had an epiphany moment: if he had tried to hike to safety, there was a good chance he would already be dead by now.

He stood there for a moment, breathing nervously.

Let's make this quick, he thought, and began his 40-foot trek to the highway.

Situated atop high ground, southbound State Road 49 was only buried to a depth of about ten inches, but between the wind and the visibility, Sean determined that even if he somehow managed to free the Blazer, he would get about half a mile before he put it in a ditch again. Ten inches of snow was a lot of crap to get through, and even if he could get the Blazer going again, it would be next to impossible to maneuver. He would be less "steering" and more "careening." There was literally nothing to do but wait until the storm died down. Shivering, he looked back at the taillights of his stranded Blazer through a massive curtain of driving snow, and shook his head, astonished that the world could actually get like this.

Emptying his bladder in the midst of 70 MPH gusts of wind was a comical and ridiculous proposition, but buried as he was up to his knees, anything that might have ended up splattered on his shoes just ended up in the snow, sometimes yards away. He finished up and vowed, embarrassment or not, just to piss on the trailer hitch next time.

Frowning, the wind whistling around him, Sean took a moment to look around.

He'd thought it would be weird to stand in the middle of a state highway in the middle of the night, but the landscape was so alien and bizarre that it didn't look like a highway at all. He'd taken this road dozens of times, but the husky might as well have been standing in the middle of an empty field, full of acrid gray smoke.

The only sign of civilization to be seen in any direction was the dimly-visible taillights of his own helpless SUV, and what appeared to be some kind of...curious...reflection, on the other side of the road.

He stared for a moment. Could that be a reflection? A reflection on what? He leaned forward, narrowing his eyes. It was so hard to make out. It was like trying to make out a picture through television static.

He looked back and the Blazer. Tall, narrow taillights. Taller than they were wide.

He looked back toward the west, on the other side of the southbound lanes. Short, fat taillights.

He gasped.

It was another car.

There was another car stranded in the snow, on the other side of the highway. It was further down - a hundred feet, maybe two hundred?

He started toward it immediately, but halted after a few trudging, dragging steps.

Was this a good idea, he wondered?

He didn't know who this person was. Plenty of unsavory characters littered dark highways in rural Indiana past 10:00 p.m. on weekdays. For all Sean knew, the driver of could have been out buying meth when he slid off the road. This was a single-vehicle accident. The person could easily have been on something. Did he really want to march in to that? Alone, in the storm, when help was hours away? What was even to say he would be able to find his way back to his own vehicle? Leaving the Blazer was madness.

And yet...what if the driver was hurt? What if they didn't know the first thing about cold-weather survival? What if this was a hapless college student like him, preparing at this very moment to leave the car and go for help?

Not everybody had an Uncle Travis.

He swallowed, clenching his paws into fists. The wind whistled murderously around him.

This was not a fair proposition for a 19-year-old.

On the one hand, this was probably the first time in his entire life that his decision could legitimately result in life-or-death consequences. He had to act.

On the other hand, the safer option was clearly obvious in this case. If he were smart, he would go back to his car, call the authorities, and wait for qualified help. Uncle Travis would want him to go back to the Blazer. His mom would want him to go back to the Blazer. His dad would want him to go back to the Blazer, and would probably yell at him for even considering an alternative. With his own safety in mind, the smarter option was clearly obvious: go back to the Blazer.

And yet...

Cursing into the snow and wind, Sean headed off toward the other car.

As he neared the other vehicle, he was horrified to realize that he recognized it.

It was a small Jeep Wrangler nose-down in the snow, at the base of a hill, about fifty feet off the highway's surface, down a long hill leading toward the tree-line. The entire engine block was sunk into the snow, and Sean could actually see the back wheels, the rear bumper, and the distinctive rear-mounted spare. Buried as it was nose-down in the snow, the Jeep looked like a sinking ship.

The snow-trench leading to the Jeep was wider than the car itself, and even with the edges dulled with flying snow and obscured by ice-smoke, it looked violently cleaved out of the snowscape. Swallowing a lump in his throat, Sean realized that the Jeep had rolled into its current position not on its wheels, but crashed end-over-end down the hillside. The roof was still intact, but barely; the Jeep's square frame looked like a wet, misshapen cardboard box. Sean smelled no exhaust.

There were bumper stickers on the back, ones that Sean recognized, and that's when he realized he had seen the Jeep before. In the near-darkness it just looked black, but he knew it to be dark maroon. The small rear tailgate, underneath the vinyl rear window, were half a dozen band logos Sean didn't recognize. What made him recognize the vehicle was the giant MUSE sticker across the bottom of the back door.

"Oh shit!" he gasped.

It was Robbie Brandt.

Robbie, the enormous bull terrier, who was tall enough to require special seat rails to fit in the driver's seat of the Jeep. Robbie, who was always grinning, and whose favorite thing on earth was Waffle Sunday at the Hagerman Cafeteria.

There was a small chance he was still alive.

Panting, Sean scrambled down the hillside.

The Jeep had left a trench of trampled snow on its way down, just like Sean had, but this trench was almost completely filled in. Robbie's accident had been a lot sooner. Did Robbie know enough to stay with the car? How far would he have made it? Was he too injured to leave? What the hell was Sean supposed to do then?

Sean's heart was pounding like a jackhammer as he neared the wreck, taking the edge off the chill working its way through his jeans and gloves. The snow was wet and hard-packed, and trudging through it was like wading through chest-deep water. He could feel himself soaking his shirt and scarf with sweat, even as his legs and paws felt the frigid chill of pure ice.

As he approached he realized the wrecked Wrangler was almost perfectly vertical in the snow, nose down, like a sinking ship. The front grille was probably touching the ground, the entire engine block and front doors were buried, and only the rear two feet of the vehicle protruded from the snow. It looked like it had rolled off the top level of a parking garage. He would have to dig out one of the doors.

Flap...flap...flap-flap...flap flap...

A noise like a flag in a strong wind peaked Sean's attention.

In the squashed-square frame of the rear window, the vinyl had torn out on one side. It was flapping in the wind.

"Hang on, Robbie," Sean muttered, and dug his way forward.

Sean was just tall enough to reach the rear axle, and just strong enough to muscle himself up the Jeep's undercarriage, his big feet scrambling for purchase on the axle and the transmission and other under-car things he couldn't identify. He hoisted himself up onto the back door, perched precariously on the spare tire, peering in through the little sliver of torn milky-white vinyl that once made up the rear window. The vehicle was really banged up. Up on top of the Jeep, the wind cut at him like fiberglass insulation.

"Robbie?!" he called, softly, wrapping his thick fingers around the vinyl and tugging it back. It gave as easily as tearing paper. He couldn't even hear himself over the wind, so he took a deep breath. "HELLO??" he called into the Jeep.

He looked inside, almost straight down.

The night outside had seemed dark, but inside the Jeep it was all but pitch-black. It took his eyes a moment to adjust.

The airbags had deployed. The dashboard lights and dome light were still lit but very dim. The windshield and the front windows were a solid expanse of white.

Laying across the dashboard, curled into a miserable-looking ball leaned against the passenger window, was a very big bull terrier.

Mildly surprised, Robbie Brandt looked up and stared at him.

Sean let out a massive sigh. "Holy shit, you're alive," he said. "Thank you Jesus."

The big dog stared up at him. He frowned.

Sean blinked down at him. "Robbie!" he called. "It's me! Sean! Are you okay?"

Robbie stared up at him. "Whuh...wh...what are you doing here?"

Sean hunkered down. The wind was starting to get to him. His heart was still pounding. "I was driving home! I crashed my car too. But the heat still works." He stuck his head in through the tear. There was no temperature difference. He could still see his breath inside the car, billowing out in front of him. "Is your engine dead?"

Robbie stared up at him, looked down, and looked around, confused.

He seemed to be having a lot of trouble with the question.

Something was wrong.

Sean stared at him. "Robbie...do...you know where you are right now?" he asked, slowly.

Robbie blinked, looked around, and slowly turned his head back up to Sean.

"I think I had a wreck," he said, slowly, and his voice had a definite slur.

Oh shit, Sean thought.

He put both his hands on the vinyl and yanked it, hard. It took him a few seconds to pull the vinyl out of its frame, but it came out in one big piece. He scramble-clattered his way inside, lowered himself onto the back of the driver's seat, and then dropped awkwardly down into the big dog's lap. The interior of the Jeep felt as small as a steamer trunk.

Robbie let out a soft grunt as Sean descended onto his lap but seemed otherwise unsurprised at the turn of events. The big dog stared at him.

"Hey," Sean said. He took off his gloves and slipped his cellphone out of his pocket. "Look at me," he said, turning on the flashlight. "Did you hit your head, Robbie?"

Robbie shied away from the light, squeezing his eyes shut.

Sean reached forward and took his muzzle. "Hey, c'mon, buddy," he said. He angled the light so it wasn't directly in the big dog's eyes. Snowflakes drifting down from the rear window illuminated and threw shadows. It was snowing inside the car now.

Robbie stared back at him, squinting a little. His pupils looked like they were dilating normally.

Sean turned off the light. "How long have you been in this car?" he said. He felt Robbie's face. He felt ice-cold. Being a short-haired breed, he should have felt warm to the touch. Sean looked at what the other dog was wearing. He had on jeans and a ski jacket. It would have helped, but not by much.

Robbie stared dopily back at him, half-closing one eye. "Iunno, what is it, like six-a-clock?"

Sean felt his blood run cold. "It's...uh...after midnight." Had Robbie actually been out here that long? How long could a person survive below-zero temperatures? He remembered a local news story about a girl dying in a Burger King walk-in freezer. That had only been overnight, maybe eight hours. How long had Robbie been out here?

The bull terrier just blinked at him.

Sean swallowed. "Um. We have to go to. To my car." He looked up at the rear window, feeling his heart start pounding again. "Right now."

Robbie grimaced. "Noway man, I'm tired. I'm not goin' anywhere."

Sean leaned forward. "Robbie, listen to me. I'm pretty sure you have beginning-stage hypothermia." He thought for a moment. "Or maybe end-stage. Oh my God, I hope it's beginning-stage." He grit his teeth. "We have to go to my car_right now_. Okay?"

The big dog frowned. "I gotta go out in that?"

Sean nodded. "Just for a minute. And then we can hang out in my car. I got snacks." He smacked Robbie in the muzzle a few times. "C'mon. Let's go. Let's go right now."

Robbie shied away and ineffectually held his big hands up. "Ahhhh," he moaned. "Cut it out, maaann!"

"Robbie, listen, I am really worried right now," Sean said, letting the concern bleed into his voice. It wasn't difficult. "Please. I'm begging you. You're a nice guy, you don't want me to be worried, right?!" he said. "C'mon!"

Robbie frowned, staring at him, his eyes unfocused. He thought for a moment and then sighed loudly. "Alright," he mumbled.

Sean let out a sigh. "Thank you," he said. "I owe you one, bro." He stuck his phone back in his pocket and looked up at the rear window.

It took Sean half a minute to scramble back up onto the spare tire back into the raging winds. Robbie simply stood up on the dash, raising his head and shoulders out of the gap.

The big terrier winced and closed his eyes, swaying gently from side to side. He grimaced but that was the sum total of his reaction.

Sean smacked him in the face again. "Hey!" he yelled, over the storm. "Let's move!"

Robbie squinted back at him. "I don't feel so good, man," he slurred at him. His mouth opened slightly and his head started to dip down. He looked like he could go to sleep at any moment.

If that happened he wouldn't be waking up.

Sean slapped him across the face. "HEY!" he roared.

Robbie snapped to attention, eyes wider, but still only half-opened. "Whaaaat!" he grumbled.

"LET'S MOVE! NOW!" Sean yelled in his face.

"Okaaayy!" Robbie whined, looking down and awkwardly placing his big feet. He lifted himself out the rear window opening, and watching him come out of the absurdly small car interior was like watching a life raft inflate inside a phone booth.

Sean winced in the driving wind. His fingers and toes were starting to go numb. This was taking way too long.

Robbie put his hands on the spare tire and lifted his butt onto the window frame. He looked weary and confused.

"Come on," Sean insisted, grabbing the shoulders of the big dog's jacket.

Robbie stared at him, his eyes swimming. "Whus...whus goin' on again?"

Sean swallowed. He was losing him.

Focus on the problem in front of you, he heard his uncle say.

Problem: beginning(hopefully)-stage hypothermia.

Solution? Warmth.

Robbie sized up the dog in front of him. The bull terrier was easily north of 300 pounds. Sean wouldn't be able to drag him across a shag carpet, let alone uphill through four feet of snow. He needed Robbie ambulatory under his own power.

A pep talk was probably not going to help here. Caffeine? Alcohol? That wouldn't act fast enough. What did they give people in ambulances? Epinephrine, right? That was basically just adrenaline. Could he give him an adrenaline rush?

What was the one thing on earth that woke your ass all the way up right when you were about to fall asleep?

He looked past Robbie, at the five-foot drop-off into the snow.

Behind and around him, the wind whistled.

What the hell, he thought.

Grabbing the collar of Robbie's jacket, Sean tipped sideways off the edge of the Jeep. He dropped into the darkness and took Robbie with him.

The drop made him gasp.

Whoosh went the air around him, as he left his stomach behind. He hit snow with the impact of a high-dive belly flop and totally lost his bearings for a moment. Ice cascaded in at Sean's collar and up under his shirt. "Ungh!"

Next to him, Robbie crashed into the snow like a meteor falling to earth. Just before he hit the white, he let out an ear-piercing yelp. "YARRP!"

FWUMMMP!

It took Sean a moment to dig out. Wide-eyed, he scrambled to find purchase on the ground. His adrenaline was pumping again.

Robbie sat up in front of him, wide-eyed and panicked, covered in snow. "AHHH DUDE WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!" he squealed.

Sean scrambled upright and fought his way over to the bull terrier. "Are you okay?" he demanded.

Robbie looked at him, really looked at him, and for the first time his eyes looked clear. He cowered in the driving winds, folding his ears back against his head. "Wh-wh-what's going on?!" he asked, shakily.

Sean reached up and tried to squeeze Robbie's arm comfortingly, but between the size of the dog's bicep and the thick ski jacket, he couldn't even begin to get his fingers around. He settled for patting him comfortingly. "Come on!" he insisted, yelling to be heard over the raging winds.

Robbie nodded back, scared, and obediently followed Sean as he went.

It took them almost ten minutes to get up the hill - Sean almost had to dig a path, and at points he was all but swimming through the snow - and by the time they reached the comparatively-clear highway where the snow was only knee-deep, the husky was completely disoriented. He only knew he was back on pavement because the ground felt different under his boots.

Shielding his eyes, squinting, he looked around. Up here in the full brunt of the wind, the driving snow was like being sandblasted with ice crystals.

Total whiteout.

Dark, fog, ice, whipping wind and horizontal snow. They were alone in a sea of black and white.

Up on the raised highway, Robbie cowered, hunching over and holding his arms to his chest. He squeezed his eyes shut, perpetually wincing. "Where's your car?" he yelled, over the storm.

Sean rotated in a circle, eyes wide and shielded.

Nothing.

He made it a full revolution, and settled on Robbie, eyes squinted shut. The big dog clenched his teeth, shivering violently.

Sean swallowed. "LISTEN REAL CLOSE, OKAY?" he cried. He slipped off his right glove. His ice-cold fingers fumbled on the fabric, and he dropped it. The wind caught it, and it flew a dozen feet before it hit the snowpack, where it skittered away like an animal.

He stuck his paw into his pocket. For one terrifying moment, he came up with nothing, and he was afraid he'd lost the key fob in their tumble off the Jeep. But then he felt the familiar black rectangle, and he pressed one thumbclaw in to what he knew was a red button.

Not far away at all, the Blazer's panic alarm activated catastrophically.

They both turned toward the noise. WHOOONK! WHOOOONK! WHOOONK! WHOOONK! sounded the Chevy, and with each wailing honk, three brake lights flared brightly.

It was just enough light to spot, a faint red glow in the distance.

"There!" Sean cried, and began wading through the snow.

Robbie trudged shakily behind him.

The last leg was much easier, moving downhill through a trench Sean had previously navigated, though he was astonished to find how much of his prior path had filled in just in the last ten minutes. If you dropped here you would completely disappear in half an hour, and no one would find you until spring, he thought, and the idea made him shiver a little harder.

Before they made it to the buried Blazer, Robbie was slowing down again. "Na'gonna...make...need a break..." he panted, his eyes half-closing again, only partly visible to Sean through the haze of snow that had collected on his muzzle.

"No way man!" he yelled back. "We're so close!" He slowed long enough to catch the staggering bull terrier's coat sleeve and dragged him after him.

Robbie let his tongue hang out, stumbling after Sean, unsure on his legs like a lost puppy.

The wailing SUV was just yards away, and Sean was startled to notice that the horn seemed quieter than it should have. Even the sound was being chopped up and carried away by the storm.

Ten feet...five feet...and just like that, they were at the car.

He had left the rear window open. With numb fingers, Sean reached inside and groped for the tailgate release. It released with a whunk! and the hydraulics were so chilled that the tailgate dropped open like a rock falling. BAM! it went, against the bottom-stops. It hit Sean in the side and almost knocked him over.

"Get in, Robbie! Get in!" Sean gasped.

Robbie staggered two final feet and collapsed onto the tailgate, chest down. He started to slide back off of it.

"No no no no no!" Sean wailed. He scrambled into the back of the truck, grasping for the collar of Robbie's jacket, and kicked back violently into the car. He tried to drag Robbie into the vehicle after him, but it was like dragging a sleeper sofa up a flight of stairs. "Robbie, you've got to push! Come on, you're almost there!"

Confused and seemingly half-asleep, Robbie attempted to push his big arms in under himself, but he was moving much too slowly. He was going to slide back out into the snow, and Sean wouldn't be able to get him up again. He was going to fall, and freeze to death, fourteen fucking inches from Sean's rear bumper.

Sean planted his boot heels into the gap at the edge of the cargo floor, bracing them against the tailgate. He wrenched backward as hard as he could, feeling every muscle in his back and arms tense and cry out. He lifted his head and screamed. "GODDAMMIT ROBBIE IF YOU CAN LIFT FOUR HUNDRED FUCKING POUNDS FOR A FUCKING FOOTBALL GAME YOU CAN PUSH YOURSELF TWO FUCKING FEET INTO A GODDAMN SPORT-UTILITY VEHICLE!" Spittle flew out of his mouth, arcing over Robbie's ears and spotting on his coat.

Robbie lifted his head. Setting his jaw determinedly, he grit his teeth and charged forward.

Scrambling up over the tailgate, he crashed into the back of the car.

"That's it!" Sean cried, his voice high and howl-like. He scrabbled for purchase on the carpet floor of the cargo area, pushing himself backward, hard, and dragged Robbie violently backward, up over the flattened rear seats.

The rear of the Blazer was perfectly flat, like a pickup bed, and big enough to hold a twin-size mattress. Sean pulled him almost all of the way back in, nearly to the point where the big dog's feet cleared the rear doorframe.

Robbie crawled another half a foot and collapsed. He crashed face-down onto the carpet of the folded rear-seat, his eyes sinking closed by the time he hit the floor.

Sean lunged for the dashboard, and slapped all the HVAC controls to full heat. He scrambled for the rear door and entered into the storm one last time, to yank the tailgate closed and pull the tailgate glass violently shut. The comparative silence inside the car was deafening.

Turning back into the vehicle, he was startled to see snow all over the carpet in the backseat. Oh God. The open window. It was probably just as cold in here as it had been outside. He couldn't even be sure, because his skin had gone completely numb.

Swallowing, he looked down at the limp bull terrier.

They weren't in the clear yet. He had to get Robbie's temperature back up. He could still die. He stared at him, wide-eyed. He could still die.

Sean scrambled for the bigger dog's coat, digging his fingers in around the collar and yanking it hard off his shoulders, leaving the white dog in only his football jersey. Grunting, he reached under Robbie's big arm and heaved violently, rolling the bigger dog onto his side and then onto his back. "WAKE UP!" he roared, his voice ricocheting around in the passenger cabin.

"Whuh-" Robbie grunted, half-opening his eyes. He had tiny little ice crystals on the end of his eyelashes.

"Just hang on, okay?" the husky begged him. "I'm gonna warm you up but you gotta stay awake." He tore off his jacket and yanked his sweatshirt over his head, accidentally taking his tanktop with it. The sweatshirt was warm so he balled it up and shoved it under Robbie's neck, and then he crashed down on top of the bigger dog.

Robbie grunted and shifted, blinking in confusion. "Whu's going on, man?" he mumbled.

Sean cuddled up to the bigger dog, groping for the terrier's thick wrists and awkwardly dumping them over his own back. The back of his shoulder cramped up, filling him with searing pain, but he shook it off and squirmed on top of the prone athlete. "Come on," he said. "Just stay awake. Don't go to sleep, Robbie. Don't go to sleep." He licked the side of the terrier's face. The skin and fur was cold under his tongue. It was more like licking an ice-cream cone than another breathing dog.

Abruptly, the Blazer stopped honking. Apparently the Panic Alarm had a timer on it.

Sean tucked his head into the crook of Robbie's neck and nuzzled him aggressively. If he held his head just right he could hear the bigger dog's pulse. It was slow, but present.

Figuring he was covering as much surface area as possible, Sean held still and willed his body heat to transfer to Robbie. There was a tense thirty seconds, while he listened to Robbie's heart, and the hollow whoosh of the air vents, and nothing else. Sean felt hot tears begin to run down his face. He couldn't help it.

Then Robbie shivered, and Sean all but jumped out of his fur. The husky flinched, raising his head, and stared at the laid-out jock.

Robbie was staring back at him, eyes wide and concerned. "D-d-dude?" he asked, shakily, and then he began shaking all over.

The hugely muscular dog shivered like a mechanical bull, and if he hadn't suddenly reached up and enveloped Sean in a crushing embrace, the husky would have vibrated right off of him.

"Rrrr owwww!" Robbie hissed, his teeth chattering loudly, right in Sean's ear. "Ungh, f-feels like my s-skin's on fire!" He writhed under Sean as he trembled, his thick legs and muscular chest lifting Sean as effortlessly as a football.

"Are you okay?" Sean gasped. "Can you feel your fingers?"

Robbie nodded, gritting his teeth and hissing. "Ungh, they burn!" he snarled. He buried them in Sean's back fur, digging his ice-cold fingers in against the shirtless husky's skin.

"Aarp! I think that's good!" Sean gasped. "I think that means the feeling is coming back."

Shivering like an unbalanced washing machine, Robbie nodded furiously. He ground the husky against himself, desperate to warm up.

Sean grit his teeth, grunting in discomfort.

"D-d-d-dude, I think you just saved my l-l-life," Robbie chattered, gritting his teeth.

Sean let out a sigh of relief. "Don't think about that. Just think about getting warm." Sean felt his own fingers and toes starting to throb as the feeling returned to them.

Robbie nodded feverishly. In the interior light, Sean saw that the terrier was starting to take on his usual pinkish hue, and with a start he realized that Robbie had looked almost blue when he'd found him.

The inside of the car was beginning to heat up, and their combined breath was making the windows fog over.

Letting out a shaky breath, Robbie leaned in to muzzle-bump him, hard.

And that was all it took to push Sean into dangerous territory. I can smell his deodorant, he thought, and just like that the reality of the big musclejock grinding their bodies together, with only one football jersey and two pairs of jeans between them, crashed over him. He shivered violently, too, and like a rocket taking off his erection roared inexorably to life. He felt it dig into Robbie's abdomen and he felt himself absolutely seethe with embarrassment.

Robbie continued shivering violently, but for a moment ceased his pained writhing. "Oh my God, are you s-s-serious?" he grunted, his jaw dropping open. "Tell me that's not your-"

"I'm sorry it's the body heat!" Sean squealed. "I can get off you if you want."

Robbie snorted loudly. "F-f-fuck no dude, I can't even move yet!" he hissed. "But don't you d-dare jizz on me or I'm going back out there." He laughed loudly, still shivering.

Sean buried his muzzle in Robbie's chest, blushing furiously, mortified.

After another few minutes, Sean shifted his weight uncomfortably on the bigger dog. Laying on Robbie's thick, rock-hard muscles was like laying on industrial carpeting over a concrete floor, and Sean's crowbar-stiff cock was actually starting to throb.

"Unf!" Robbie grunted, lifting his head. "Whassat?"

"Shifting my weight," Sean snapped. He lifted his cock off of Robbie's gut, squirming in discomfort, and then slid backwards down his body. Maybe getting his muzzle out of the crook of Robbie's neck would help. Or maybe he could get away with sticking his muzzle under Robbie's arm. Either way he would get his-

"Wait, dude!" Robbie cried, and as he said it, Sean slid back onto what felt like a Maglite shoved down the big dog's pant leg. Confused, he settled the weight of his left leg onto it, and Robbie yelped in surprise. "ARP!" he cried.

Sean squirmed, eyes wide. "Holy shit," he gasped. "Is th-that your-" he stammered, but he knew the feel of a rock-hard cock when he lay down on one. He had enough experience.

Robbie Brandt was as stiff as a crowbar.

"Ungh, dude, what are you doing!" Robbie hissed, lifting his muzzle and gasping. "Get off of that!" Robbie writhed underneath him, pounding his big fists on the carpet of the cargo aread. "YOU'RE BENDING IT!"

"Oh!" Planting his paws on the carpet of the floor, Sean lifted himself up and readjusted the muscles of his legs.

Robbie let out a massive sigh. _"Ahhhhh!"_he gasped. He stared at Sean, wide-eyed. "Jeez, dude, for a gay guy, you're awfully fukken' hard on a penis." He let out a sigh of relief and put his arms back around Sean's back.

The husky stared at him, wide-eyed. "What the hell, dude?!"

Robbie stared innocently at him. "Just like you said, man. Body heat." He cocked his head. "I mean, that's cool, right? You probably love it, you big fag. Ha!"

Dumbfounded, Sean cocked his head.

Robbie smiled dopily up at him and tightened his arms around the husky's bare back.

Letting out a confused sigh, Sean lay his head on the bigger dog's chest. After another moment, he could hear his heart thumping again.

Finally, Robbie stopped shivering. He still felt cold to the touch, though. And, truth be told, the dog's big chest was not the worst place Sean had laid his fluffy head.

Inside the cabin, the only sound was the wind, and the air vents, and Robbie's swiftly-beating heart.

Quickly, Sean fell asleep.