Snowed In

"Son of a bitch."

The speed at which Castiel and Sam are alert really speaks to how much time the three have spent together. Sam's sitting up in bed, his hair sticking up every which way, and Castiel pushes himself up in the chair he's been sitting in for the past few hours. Both are staring at Dean's silhouette against the window.

"It's freakin' snowing," Dean growls.

"Okay, Scrooge. What's so bad about that?" Sam asks, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"Snowing snowing."

Castiel tilts his head like he doesn't understand, but pretty soon all three men are standing at the window, Dean looking pissed, Cas still confused, Sam wrapped in a blanket and and slowly waking up.

"Oh," the younger Winchester states. There's enough snow blanketing the parking lot that there really isn't a parking lot left. In fact, it's creeping up to touch the bottom of the windowsill, and flakes are still falling from the sky.

Then, the lights flicker, and just like that, the electricity is gone.

The three continue staring in silence for a few minutes, long enough to feel the cold start to creep into the room. Dean's the first one to break the silence.

"Great. This is great. We're trailing a freaking vengeful spirit, we get snowed in, and now we lose power," he complains as he trudges back to the couch. "Who knows how long we're going to be stuck here."

"Okay, first off, it's a vengeful spirit stuck in a haunted house. Nothing's going to happen. Nobody's going to a haunted house in the middle of a white-out," Sam says calmly as he checks the lock on the window and closes the shades. "Second, they're probably gonna have power soon. Any decent motel probably has a generator."

"You say that like this is actually decent."

Sam ignores him. "Until then, we'll just... layer up on clothing and hope for the best," he shrugs.

"Awesome." The older man rolls his eyes, but he grabs his bag anyway. He and Sam both pull out the meager amounts of clothing they own. Dean's pulling a long sleeve shirt over his head when he catches his brother giving him that look that lets him know something's amiss, and then he remembers: Cas.

"Cas, uh... you need anything extra to wear?" Sam asks him carefully. The angel lifts his head, a pleasantly curious look on his face.

"Yes, I believe that will be necessary," he responds after a moment of pondering. Sam waves him over, and the brothers begin to split up their clothes.

"Do angels even get cold?" Dean asks as he throws a flannel shirt at Cas.

"Angels, no. Vessels, yes. I do not mind it, but a suffering vessel does not bode well for me."

"... Oh."

Nobody speaks as they get dressed. The Winchesters alternate between pulling on extra layers and throwing t-shirts to Cas. By the time they're done, they look like Eskimos, but Sam keeps repeating "but it'll keep us warm" to all of Dean's pouting glances and statements of "we look freaking ridiculous." Eventually Dean rolls his eyes, but he knows that his younger brother is right.

"Look, there's nothing we can do right now. They'll probably have the generators running in a while, and until then, we might as well amuse ourselves," he tells Dean.

"Amuse ourselves how?"

"I don't know, find something," Sam shrugs, gesturing to the room. "We've got... books, I guess. I think there's board games in the closet. You two can find something."

"Us two... what the hell are you gonna be doing?" Dean demands as he jams his hands into the pockets of the jacket he's wearing.

"Sleeping. Goodnight."

And that's all Sam says before he returns to the comfort of his bedsheets. Dean merely stands there for a moment, jaw dropped in mock indignation at the action.

"What are... board games?" Castiel finally asks, pronouncing the final two words as if they're a topic that needs to be carefully breached. His nose is scrunched in a look of confusion that Dean finds ridiculously endearing.

"They're.... c'mon, I'll just show you," Dean says, nudging Castiel with a grin. He makes his way to the closet with a culturally deprived angel in tow.

__________

"I do not understand what possessed Miss Scarlet to murder Professor Plum. And why with the candlestick? That is a very impractical method."

Dean sighs dramatically, gripping the bridge of his nose. It's been an hour since Dean set up the board game Cas had picked out - Clue - and they've just concluded their first round. Explaining the rules to Cas had been an event, and the angel still required steady guidance throughout its entirety. He had asked hundreds of questions (what is this pawn, why can it only move four spaces that seems very imprudent, what is the name of the purple pawn, this does not seem to be a very effective mode of solving a murder) and Dean had responded as patiently as possible (that's your character, Cas, you need to be one of the guests in the house; because those are the rules, this has to be fair for everyone; Professor Plum, I've told you like a million times; that's because it's a game for entertainment, not for actual crime solving).

Needless to say, there's only so much he can take.

"You're not supposed to look into it that far, buddy. It's a game."

"I was under the impression that the point of the game was to determine the cause of murder. We are sorely lacking this information."

Sam - who hadn't been able to sleep due to the hilarity of an angel trying to learn the rules of a board game - is sitting up in bed, snickering. Dean throws his hands up in exasperation and groans, "Okay, I give up. Clue was obviously a bad place to start."

"I apologize, Dean. I did not mean to make this unenjoyable," Castiel says sheepishly. He has a kicked puppy look on his face that melts Dean's heart, so he leans over and gives the angel a playful tap on the shoulder.

"Don't beat yourself up over it. Next time we'll just play Connect Four or something, okay?"

"Yes, Dean."

It's then that Dean really realizes how cold he's become. Being exasperated with Cas had consumed most of his attention, but now that they've finished their game, he can feel how the cold has seeped past his layers of clothing and into his bones. An involuntary shiver runs down his spine.

Castiel tilts his head to the side as soon as he notices the action. "You're cold," he points out.

"Well, no shit, Sherlock," Dean mutters sarcastically, and then adds, "It's a... nevermind," in response to Castiel's confused look.

"It is important to preserve our body heat. The three of us gathered under one blanket would make this much easier," the angel suggests, looking from Sam to Dean for acknowledgement of his idea. It takes a few seconds to sink in, and then Sam is doubled over in laughter while Dean's jaw has dropped in shock.

"No! Hell no, Cas, three grown men do not - under any circumstances - share a bed, and they sure as hell do not share a blanket to preserve body heat," the older Winchester splutters. Castiel's face goes from pleasantly content to slightly dejected in a fraction of a second at the utterance of the words. He turns to Sam for confirmation.

"He's got a point, Dean," Sam says as he wipes the tears of laughter from his eyes.

"Yeah, well. You two can have your little slumber party. I'm gonna sit this one out, thanks." Dean stands up and makes his way to the couch, grabbing the comforter off of one of the beds.

"Suit yourself," the younger Winchester shrugs. "C'mon, Cas. We're gonna make a tent. Keeps the heat in."

"All right," Castiel agrees.

Dean rolls his eyes and sighs dramatically, but the other two aren't paying attention to him. Instead, they're working out the dynamics of how they're going to make a tent out of the headboards and one of the blankets. They eventually figure out how to make it work with some belts and a piece of loose string, but Dean isn't paying any attention to their actions. He's too busy trying to keep himself warm.

Just before Sam and Cas make their retreat into the tent, the angel turns to Dean and asks, "Are you positive that you don't want to join?"

"Yeah, no thanks. Cuddling up to an angel of the lord and my little brother really isn't doing it for me."

"C'mon, Cas. Dean's too comfortable in his iron-clad masculinity to avoid freezing to death," Sam says from within the tent, loud enough to make sure that Dean can hear him. A middle finger would have been thrown up in response to that, but Sam wouldn't be able to see it, and Dean's hands might end up freezing in the process, so the action is really pointless. Dean merely huffs, and Cas gives him a sorrowful look before retreating into the tent with Sam.

"Traitor," he hisses to himself. And really, he kind of wants to throw a fit about the whole thing, but he's still retained some shred of dignity and would like to keep it, thank you very much.

Which he does by pouting on the couch.

He's glad that Sam and Cas are too busy whispering in their tent like freakin' 12-year-old girls at their first sleepover to notice.

__________

Dean doesn't remember falling asleep, but he sure as hell remembers waking up, because his blanket has disappeared somewhere into the oblivion, and all of his extremities feel like they've turned to ice.

"Son of a bitch," he groans to himself as he gropes blindly for the blanket. He finds the thing, but it, too, has turned into a sheet of ice. A string of profanities fall from his lips, and he turns to press his face into the back of the couch.

There's a rustling from the bed. Dean's curious, but he doesn't want to look. He wants to melt into the couch until the freaking electricity comes back on, but he can't not look. So he turns and peeks over to the bed.

Cas and Sam have poked their heads out of the blankets and are looking at him, one face donning something resembling pity and the other amusement.

"How's the ice age treating you?" Sam grins.

"I am not in the mood for your shit, Sammy," Dean grumbles. He rolls over and settles himself into the little crevice between the cushions and the back of the couch, trying not to think about all the terrible things that have probably been crammed down there in its sad history. At least it's warmer there.

"It's awfully warm in here," his brother calls loudly. "Ain't that right, Cas?"

"Yes, Sam, that's correct."

"I don't care," Dean mutters into the cushions.

"I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of all this heat."

At that, the older Winchester turns around, eyes narrowed. "Okay, that just sounds vaguely homoerotic, and I am not up for a threesome with my baby brother and an angel of the lord."

"Hey, on the bright side, we'd all be sharing body heat."

"Dude!"

Sam seems to find Dean's horror absolutely hilarious. So much so that he can't even hold himself upright and has to retreat into the tent to keep laughing. Cas, on the other hand, just purses his lips and looks at Dean seriously.

"You should come join us," he says.

"No thanks."

"There will be no fornication between. I give you my word."

Dean chokes on a laugh, because Cas can say the weirdest, most surprising shit with a straight face, and because the angel still has no idea what teasing is. He can't hold back the amusement in his voice when he says, "I appreciate the sincerity, Cas. But I'm doin' real good out here on my own."

"Dean. If you remain out there, you will get sick or suffer from frostbite, and I will not heal you simply because you were too stubborn to act in your best interest," Castiel points out, his tone getting a little harsher. Dean finds himself looking wide-eyed at the angel, because, yeah, it's not the first time Cas has given him lip or threatened him, but it's not exactly something that happens often. And he also realizes that he can be a stubborn dick all he wants, but there are probably going to be consequences, and getting sick really fucks his ability to hunt.

So he grumbles and mutters and bitches, but he climbs off of the couch and shuffles to the bed. In return, he gets a gentle smile from Castiel, and Sam is looking at the two of them like it's the second coming of Christ.

"Dude," he says in shock, "Cas, you need to teach me how to do that."

"Yeah, yeah, shut the hell up, Sam," Dean gripes as he climbs into the tent and makes sure that their makeshift door is covered to prevent any heat from escaping. And holy shit, he can definitely feel a difference in temperature. It's at least twenty degrees warmer than the rest of the room, which is fucking awesome. And then he notices that Sam has gravitated his sasquatch body to one half of the bed while Castiel is perched on the opposite edge. Meaning that Dean is left with the middle.

"Scoot," he commands Cas, tapping the angel's legs.

Castiel tilts his head in confusion. "Why?"

"Because. Scoot."

"You have plenty of room right here, Dean."

"Yeah, Dean," Sam chimes in, the grin on his face so wide and amused that Dean kind of wants to shove his sorry ass out into the cold.

"I hate you both," he groans. No one budges. "I hate this day." He crawls into the middle of the bed. "I hate mother nature." He drops face-first onto the pillow. "And I hate whatever fucking higher power decided that I deserved this hell."

Nobody says anything, but Dean can hear Sam snickering at him.

"Go the fuck to sleep, Sammy," he says. "And Cas... do whatever you angels do."

"Aye aye, captain."

__________

When Dean wakes up this time around, he does so gasping into alertness because of the shitty dream he had been having about crashing the Impala and being stuck in the wreckage. His heart doesn't stop thumping, because the feeling of being pinned down remains. It takes him a second to regain his bearings.

He's in a tent in a motel in the middle of nowhere. Okay. Better than in the scraps of his baby.

The electricity is gone, but that's okay, because he feels pretty damn warm.

There's breath on his neck and- oh.

Well, there's a moose who has one arm thrown over Dean's chest, long legs tangled around one of Dean's, and a face buried in Dean's neck.

Sam's always been a cuddler, though. They used to share a bed when on a hunt with their dad, before they reached the double digits, and Sam had always had a penchant for trapping the nearest body, blanket, or pillow under his gangly limbs. Dean gets that. It's still weird, but he gets it.

It's the fact that an angel of the freakin' lord has also got in on this totally awkward cuddling action that really. Dean's arm is tucked under Cas's head, and Cas is totally using it as a pillow. Not to mention the fact that he's also kind of clutching Dean's shirt like it's his only link to earth.

Not that Dean minds.

If you look closely, here's where you can see Dean's iron-clad masculinity make a break for it by jumping out the window and hitching a ride to Mexico for a much needed vacation. You probably won't be seeing him again any time soon.

"Cas," Dean whispers. Then, when he doesn't get a response, "Cas!"

The angel murmurs sleepily and nuzzles closer to Dean, pressing his face into the man's chest. "Yes, Dean?"

"Cas, I thought angels didn't have to sleep."

"We don't."

"So, this is...?"

"Something similar to meditation; it's necessary on occasions," Castiel says, and his voice is so much huskier than usual. Dean is kind of sad that Cas doesn't sleep, because if the angel's voice sounds like this every time he wakes up... Before he can finish the thought, Castiel continues with, "The body heat was also a bonus. I found it was far easier to meditate with you here."

"Oh, well, uh." Dean clears his throat. "Good to know. I guess."

"Is something wrong, Dean?"

"Just a little weird to wake up to find a sasquatch and an angel cuddling against you. Probably the last thing I ever expected to happen." He wants to scrub at his face, because for some reason, that kind of makes things easier to deal with, but Cas has one arm pinned under his head, and the other one is pushed above his head because of Sam's awkward position, and he's lost most of the feeling in it.

At that moment, Sam stirs, groaning under his breath. He rather gracelessly detaches himself from his older brother and turns over, grappling his pillow into his arms. Castiel, on the other hand, doesn't move.

But Dean finds himself rolling over as well, shifting Castiel around in the process. He doesn't really know what he's doing, but he doesn't care.

And he finds himself with an angel cradled in his arms. In a blanket fort. In a white-out in the middle of nowhere.

Needless to say, it's probably the last thing he expected out of the day.

"What are you doing, Dean?"

"Sharing body heat, right?"

He can't say that he regrets it. Although his infamous iron-clad masculinity is probably extending its vacation until the end of eternity.

Dean kind of expected Castiel to go back to meditating or whatever, but the angel is staring at him with wide, almost-terrified eyes. So he asks, "Cas, buddy, what's the matter?"

"I... I'm not supposed to talk about it."

Dean dons the angel's usual confused look for a second, because that statement combined with him wondering what the fuck Cas has got in the pocket of that trench coat that's so fucking hard and-

Oh.

Oh.

"Oh," Dean chokes out loud. He doesn't realize he's said it until Cas gets that look like he's ready to beam off to wherever-the-fuck angels go to, but the man grips him tight like that would actually stop anything. "Don't go."

Castiel tenses, but he doesn't go anywhere else, so Dean decides to just take what he can get, and if that means awkwardly hugging a tense angel...

But that's not what happens.

Because Castiel grips the layers of Dean's clothing and pulls the man closer, barely brushing their lips together in a gesture that's so chaste that it almost kind of breaks Dean's heart.

Cas pulls back, but now that the dam's been broken, Dean puts his hands on both sides of the angel's face and kisses him slowly, just lips moving in sync, just hands mapping out jawlines and cheekbones and stubble.

It crosses Dean's mind that, yeah, he's locking lips with a centuries-old creation of God, a chaotic, celestial being of pure light and energy that's condensed into a human vessel. It's kind of fucking beautiful.

"Dean," Cas breathes, and shitshitshit, that sound makes Dean want to search for every way he can cause it again. "Dean, stop."

He lazily finishes the kiss he was planting just at the corner of Cas's mouth. "Hmm?"

"Sam is right there, Dean."

Damn.

Dean kind of forgot about that.

"Just be extra quiet then, okay?" And then Dean's got one hand curling around the back of Castiel's neck, holding them together in the most intimate display of affection he's ever been involved in.

Dean shifts the still-awkward angel carefully onto his lap, careful not to break their lips apart, and Cas settles there like a permanent fixture. Their kisses are languid and undemanding; all they want to do is to familiarize themselves with the mouth of the other being. It's a slow burn, though, and there's only so much touching and kissing that can happen before Cas is experimenting with the whole 'holy shit friction feels really nice' thing, and Dean is finding it kind of hard not to push his hips up in response every so often.

The two become their own personal heaven. It's easy for them to forget that there's actually a world surrounding them.

They don't hear the soft grunt that Sam makes as he stretches out his muscles.

They don't feel the bed move as Sam turns around.

But they do hear the, "Ugh! Fucking gross, man!" that Sam practically screeches.

Dean and Castiel break apart immediately like two teenagers caught necking by their parents. Sam's flailing one arm in search of a pillow with his eyes squeezed shut, crying, "You couldn't have done that anywhere else? You had to do that right next to me while I was sleeping?"

The older Winchester is too busy laughing to really care, but Castiel looks like he's about to wither away in shame.

"I just... I really don't care that you guys were..." Sam makes a wide gesture with a fact that looks like he just tasted a lemon for the first time.

"Engaging in some good ol' homoerotic blasphemy?"

Sam makes that gagging noise that he does whenever Dean uses such crude terms and chokes out, "Please don't ever say that again." He tries to straighten his face, but it looks as if he's going to be stuck with that emotionally-scarred-but-somehow-endearingly-sad expression for the rest of his life. "But honestly, do you two have any shame?!"

Dean glances as Cas, grinning wider than he has in a hell of a long time. The angel still looks like he's about to pass out, so Dean says, "I don't know about him, but I sure don't."

Sam sighs heavily. Dean didn't know it was possible to exhale that much exasperation.

"I just..." He shakes his head. "I don't even know what to say about you two."

The three of the sit there for a while in a circle of mixed emotions, staring at each other or the bed or their own hands while they wait for the moment to pass.

In the silence, there's a mechanical cough, and then the buzz of a heater kicking on.

The faces of both Winchesters light up simultaneously, and Dean exclaims, "Heat!" as Sam sighs to the heavens, "Thank god." The younger of the two practically scrambles out of the tent after that.

"Dude, where you going?" Dean calls after him.

"That's probably the stupidest question you've ever asked, Dean. The tent's obviously become the den of iniquity, and I want no part of that."

It's quiet for a little while as Sam wanders into the bathroom. When the shower turns on, Castiel turns to Dean.

"I believe this situation calls for you giving me your thanks," he states seriously.

"Dude, why? He only left because the electricity..." Dean trails off as he puts two and two together. "Are you freaking kidding me? You could have fixed the electricity that whole time and just elected not to tell us?!"

"...You never asked."

"Cas, we talked about this. There are some things that you tell people, even if they don't ask."

"My apologies, Dean," Cas murmurs. "But you also told me that sometimes I need to do things for myself."

"I'm not following."

The angel makes a wide gesture to the entirety of the little tent, and Dean finally fits the pieces together.

"So you're saying you didn't bother with your angel mojo because you had a plan to cuddle with me?" the man asks, and he doesn't know if he wants to laugh or cry or be exasperated with the angel.

"It was not my main goal," Cas says with a small smile. "But I would be lying if I said that it was not a great motivation."

And looking at the angel - blue eyes sparkling with mischief, hair mussed from wandering fingers, still wearing that freakin' trench coat - Dean can't help but let his expression soften into some emotion that warms his heart and that he refuses to put a name to.

"C'mere," Dean sighs, rolling his eyes as he drags Castiel down onto the bed next to him. The angel wraps an arm over Dean's chest and rests with his head on the other man's chest. As they get comfortable, Dean mutters, "You should be honored. I don't do the whole... cuddling thing." He says the word like it leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

"I happen to know that you are lying, Dean."

"How-"

"Sam-"

"I'm going to freakin'-"

"-and I've also caught glimpses of your thoughts before."

"Yeah, well. It won't kill you to humor me."

"Yes, Dean."

Dean rolls his eyes and grumbles unhappily, but it's all a cover for the fact that he's actually feeling some warm emotion that would make him a girl if he admitted to it. He gets the feeling that Cas knows but doesn't need to say anything.

It occurs to him that being a hunter has really given him a messed up life, because, honestly, how many other people wake up to a white out and fall asleep in the arms of an angel? And while most of the time, he curses his upbringing, it's times like these that make him damn pleased to be who he is.