Fic: Thaw
Title: Thaw
Author: tartary_lamb
Rating: G
Genre and/or Pairing: Dean/Castiel (pre-slash)
Word Count: ~1,400
Author's Notes: Thanks so much to pintsizeninja and crimsonquills for reading this over for me. You both rock.
Summary: Castiel wasn't just some run-of-the-mill, person-shaped space heater.
Dean first heard the rustling as he leaned over the exposed engine of the Impala, cursing the cold for the way his fuel line had frozen solid. A lesser man might have taken the sound for leaves, but Dean was a regular viewer of Stalked by an Angel; he knew unseen feathers when he heard them. He smirked. “You here to help me with my engine trouble?”
Castiel closed the space between them, hovering with interest at Dean’s side.
It hit him after a minute that, chances were, Cas had never seen an engine before. By Dean’s reckoning, that was kind of sad.
The angel’s voice was tentative. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Unless you come with a defrost setting, nah.” Dean slammed the hood closed but it sprung back up. The cold must have done a number on his reaction time because it nearly smacked him in the face. “Oh, for fuck’s sake...”
Castiel set a bare hand on Dean’s arm and gently steered him to one side. He looked back at the engine, his brow creased with concentration. “It needs to be warm to function?”
“Uh, yeah.” If Dean sounded wary, that was because he was. He trusted Cas with his life; hell, he trusted him with his brother. He just wasn’t sure that trust extended to his car. “What are you thinking?”
Standing above the engine, Castiel carefully, methodically pushed up his sleeves. When he finally touched the engine block, it was a good, old-fashioned laying of hands. He moved like a preacher-cum-miracle worker playing the crowd.
Dean was about to step in, to interject nice try, Cas, but it doesn’t work that way, when the first of the steam began to rise. “Nice,” he said, nodding appreciatively as the first of the snow slid from the roof of the car. “You do Pop-Tarts?”
Castiel huffed, a soft puff of clouded air in the cold, but that was as close to a laugh as he ever got so Dean took it. As the last of the snow melted and Cas eased the hood closed, Dean stuffed his gloved hands, useless and shaking, into the pockets of his jacket. “So, divinity has its perks, huh?”
“Yes.” Castiel stepped back from the car, shoving down his sleeves as the snow yielded silently beneath his feet. When he finally turned to Dean, his brow was furrowed; not confusion, this time, but concern. “You look cold.”
“You kidding me?” Dean said incredulously. He’d grown accustomed to the weight of the angel’s stare. Besides, he didn’t have to squirm; the bite of the wind already had him jumping like a jackrabbit in his skin. “With this wind chill, it's got to be below zero degrees."
“I mean,” Castiel began, uncertainty ghosting across his face as he stiffly extended his hand. “I could be of assistance.”
It was an innocent gesture, full of warmth and awkward sincerity, but Dean was Dean. His lips pulled into a joking, licentious smirk. “What are you saying, Cas? You want to hold my hand?”
Castiel tensed. The movement was almost imperceptible, but Dean knew where to look. When he spoke, it with was with an earnestness that, cold be damned, sent an involuntary shudder down Dean’s spine. "Yes," he said. "Please."
Dean craned a look over his shoulder; the parking lot was deserted, just the snow and the ice and a couple of half-buried cars left for dead until the thaw. "Uh, yeah," he said finally, with a nod. "Why not?"
When he turned back, Castiel was in front of him. Whatever small distance had been between them had disappeared.
Old conversations about personal space tugged faintly at the edges of Dean's mind as the angel reached down and, with a gentleness unnecessary to the task, wrapped his fingers around Dean's wrist, carefully easing Dean's hand free from his jacket. "You're some kind of ninja, you know that?"
Castiel said nothing, instead seemingly content to tug the glove lightly from Dean's fingers, securing the unnecessary article in the pocket of his trench coat.
When the angel's hands finally slid against his, fingers curling into his palm, a soft, traitorous noise escaped Dean's mouth. And okay, that was embarrassing; in the ensuing rush of sensation, color flushed across his cheeks like a confused teenager as his brain, or what was left of it, grappled uselessly for some benchmark for comparison. He shuddered as a warm, almost alien sense of comfort poured into him like light he couldn't see.
It took him a couple of dumbfounded, blissed-out minutes to see what he should have realized from the start. Castiel wasn't just some run-of-the-mill, person-shaped space heater; the heat he'd been promised, the comfortable, curling warmth that was thawing his hands as it soaked into his skin, wasn't heat, not really. It was grace, raw and pure; the kind of good that humans weren't meant to feel or understand. His face slid into a slack, happy smile. At least, Dean got the feeling, that was the idea.
But Dean knew better. He could feel it, buried deep, hidden beneath the sterile chorus of holy holy holy ringing in his ears. Emotion ran through it like a current; a jumble of affection, loneliness and devotion, all too human and all too familiar. The strength of it would have scared him if it wasn't so damned beautiful.
"Whoa," Dean said, which, under the circumstances, seemed somehow like an understatement.
Castiel watched him curiously, stilling the thumb that Dean was dully aware had been tracing small, comforting circles against the skin of his hand. "Do you feel better?"
"Yeah, I'm peachy." It took him a second to realize he'd just said "peachy" without a hint of irony. The beat of his own heart was thundering in his ears. "Good, I mean. That was -- what the hell was that?"
Castiel's hands dropped self-consciously to his sides and, without their anchoring presence, the comfortable, happy feeling that had settled in Dean's bones leached away, lost in the chill. "I apologize, Dean," he said, after a moment. "That was more intense than I'd intended."
"I figured," Dean said. The world was more starkly drawn than he remembered, but his hands were steady; the residual warmth, a lingering gift, was holding off the worst of the cold. "Cas, that felt..." He hesitated. If there were easy words for this, he hadn't found them. "I mean, I felt..."
Castiel stiffened. "I had not anticipated any transference." The melted snow had puddled around their feet and he stepped back, out of the water and into the snow. "Again," he said. "I --"
"Apologize," Dean finished. "Yeah, I heard you the first time." He stepped forward, out of the puddle and back into Castiel's personal space. That was, apparently, an unexpected reversal; Dean took some satisfaction in the way the angel tensed at his approach. "So, transference, huh?"
"An angel's grace is a powerful conduit," Castiel said, his voice maintaining its usual careful neutrality. He seemed unwilling to meet Dean's eyes. "I believe you have somewhere to be."
Shit. Sammy. Because, right now, an interruption was the last thing he needed. Dean swore at his watch. Any other day of the week, he might have wondered about the safety of taking the Lord's name in vain with an angel present. Today, watching as Castiel straightened uncomfortably, even guiltily in his presence, it was the last thing on his mind. "I said I'd pick him up forty-five minutes ago."
Castiel nodded. The movement was tense to the point of being almost robotic. "You should go."
Dean looked back to the Impala; a solid five minutes later and the engine was still steaming. "Yeah," he said. "I should." He reached down, catching Castiel's hand easily in his own as he started back through what was left of the snow. When Castiel didn't follow, he stopped. "You coming?"
Castiel was staring at their hands in dumb amazement. Somehow, their fingers had twined together. "Dean," he said finally. "I don't understand."
"If it helps any," Dean said, with a smirk and a squeeze of the hand he'd totally deny later, "neither do I." He turned back toward the car. "Now, get your feathery ass in gear before I freeze."
For the first time, out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw the angel smile.
Author: tartary_lamb
Rating: G
Genre and/or Pairing: Dean/Castiel (pre-slash)
Word Count: ~1,400
Author's Notes: Thanks so much to pintsizeninja and crimsonquills for reading this over for me. You both rock.
Summary: Castiel wasn't just some run-of-the-mill, person-shaped space heater.
Dean first heard the rustling as he leaned over the exposed engine of the Impala, cursing the cold for the way his fuel line had frozen solid. A lesser man might have taken the sound for leaves, but Dean was a regular viewer of Stalked by an Angel; he knew unseen feathers when he heard them. He smirked. “You here to help me with my engine trouble?”
Castiel closed the space between them, hovering with interest at Dean’s side.
It hit him after a minute that, chances were, Cas had never seen an engine before. By Dean’s reckoning, that was kind of sad.
The angel’s voice was tentative. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Unless you come with a defrost setting, nah.” Dean slammed the hood closed but it sprung back up. The cold must have done a number on his reaction time because it nearly smacked him in the face. “Oh, for fuck’s sake...”
Castiel set a bare hand on Dean’s arm and gently steered him to one side. He looked back at the engine, his brow creased with concentration. “It needs to be warm to function?”
“Uh, yeah.” If Dean sounded wary, that was because he was. He trusted Cas with his life; hell, he trusted him with his brother. He just wasn’t sure that trust extended to his car. “What are you thinking?”
Standing above the engine, Castiel carefully, methodically pushed up his sleeves. When he finally touched the engine block, it was a good, old-fashioned laying of hands. He moved like a preacher-cum-miracle worker playing the crowd.
Dean was about to step in, to interject nice try, Cas, but it doesn’t work that way, when the first of the steam began to rise. “Nice,” he said, nodding appreciatively as the first of the snow slid from the roof of the car. “You do Pop-Tarts?”
Castiel huffed, a soft puff of clouded air in the cold, but that was as close to a laugh as he ever got so Dean took it. As the last of the snow melted and Cas eased the hood closed, Dean stuffed his gloved hands, useless and shaking, into the pockets of his jacket. “So, divinity has its perks, huh?”
“Yes.” Castiel stepped back from the car, shoving down his sleeves as the snow yielded silently beneath his feet. When he finally turned to Dean, his brow was furrowed; not confusion, this time, but concern. “You look cold.”
“You kidding me?” Dean said incredulously. He’d grown accustomed to the weight of the angel’s stare. Besides, he didn’t have to squirm; the bite of the wind already had him jumping like a jackrabbit in his skin. “With this wind chill, it's got to be below zero degrees."
“I mean,” Castiel began, uncertainty ghosting across his face as he stiffly extended his hand. “I could be of assistance.”
It was an innocent gesture, full of warmth and awkward sincerity, but Dean was Dean. His lips pulled into a joking, licentious smirk. “What are you saying, Cas? You want to hold my hand?”
Castiel tensed. The movement was almost imperceptible, but Dean knew where to look. When he spoke, it with was with an earnestness that, cold be damned, sent an involuntary shudder down Dean’s spine. "Yes," he said. "Please."
Dean craned a look over his shoulder; the parking lot was deserted, just the snow and the ice and a couple of half-buried cars left for dead until the thaw. "Uh, yeah," he said finally, with a nod. "Why not?"
When he turned back, Castiel was in front of him. Whatever small distance had been between them had disappeared.
Old conversations about personal space tugged faintly at the edges of Dean's mind as the angel reached down and, with a gentleness unnecessary to the task, wrapped his fingers around Dean's wrist, carefully easing Dean's hand free from his jacket. "You're some kind of ninja, you know that?"
Castiel said nothing, instead seemingly content to tug the glove lightly from Dean's fingers, securing the unnecessary article in the pocket of his trench coat.
When the angel's hands finally slid against his, fingers curling into his palm, a soft, traitorous noise escaped Dean's mouth. And okay, that was embarrassing; in the ensuing rush of sensation, color flushed across his cheeks like a confused teenager as his brain, or what was left of it, grappled uselessly for some benchmark for comparison. He shuddered as a warm, almost alien sense of comfort poured into him like light he couldn't see.
It took him a couple of dumbfounded, blissed-out minutes to see what he should have realized from the start. Castiel wasn't just some run-of-the-mill, person-shaped space heater; the heat he'd been promised, the comfortable, curling warmth that was thawing his hands as it soaked into his skin, wasn't heat, not really. It was grace, raw and pure; the kind of good that humans weren't meant to feel or understand. His face slid into a slack, happy smile. At least, Dean got the feeling, that was the idea.
But Dean knew better. He could feel it, buried deep, hidden beneath the sterile chorus of holy holy holy ringing in his ears. Emotion ran through it like a current; a jumble of affection, loneliness and devotion, all too human and all too familiar. The strength of it would have scared him if it wasn't so damned beautiful.
"Whoa," Dean said, which, under the circumstances, seemed somehow like an understatement.
Castiel watched him curiously, stilling the thumb that Dean was dully aware had been tracing small, comforting circles against the skin of his hand. "Do you feel better?"
"Yeah, I'm peachy." It took him a second to realize he'd just said "peachy" without a hint of irony. The beat of his own heart was thundering in his ears. "Good, I mean. That was -- what the hell was that?"
Castiel's hands dropped self-consciously to his sides and, without their anchoring presence, the comfortable, happy feeling that had settled in Dean's bones leached away, lost in the chill. "I apologize, Dean," he said, after a moment. "That was more intense than I'd intended."
"I figured," Dean said. The world was more starkly drawn than he remembered, but his hands were steady; the residual warmth, a lingering gift, was holding off the worst of the cold. "Cas, that felt..." He hesitated. If there were easy words for this, he hadn't found them. "I mean, I felt..."
Castiel stiffened. "I had not anticipated any transference." The melted snow had puddled around their feet and he stepped back, out of the water and into the snow. "Again," he said. "I --"
"Apologize," Dean finished. "Yeah, I heard you the first time." He stepped forward, out of the puddle and back into Castiel's personal space. That was, apparently, an unexpected reversal; Dean took some satisfaction in the way the angel tensed at his approach. "So, transference, huh?"
"An angel's grace is a powerful conduit," Castiel said, his voice maintaining its usual careful neutrality. He seemed unwilling to meet Dean's eyes. "I believe you have somewhere to be."
Shit. Sammy. Because, right now, an interruption was the last thing he needed. Dean swore at his watch. Any other day of the week, he might have wondered about the safety of taking the Lord's name in vain with an angel present. Today, watching as Castiel straightened uncomfortably, even guiltily in his presence, it was the last thing on his mind. "I said I'd pick him up forty-five minutes ago."
Castiel nodded. The movement was tense to the point of being almost robotic. "You should go."
Dean looked back to the Impala; a solid five minutes later and the engine was still steaming. "Yeah," he said. "I should." He reached down, catching Castiel's hand easily in his own as he started back through what was left of the snow. When Castiel didn't follow, he stopped. "You coming?"
Castiel was staring at their hands in dumb amazement. Somehow, their fingers had twined together. "Dean," he said finally. "I don't understand."
"If it helps any," Dean said, with a smirk and a squeeze of the hand he'd totally deny later, "neither do I." He turned back toward the car. "Now, get your feathery ass in gear before I freeze."
For the first time, out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw the angel smile.