Hell will be frozen for a while

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural and its studs ... Sadly.

Summary: This time Bobby is the witness to the chaos. Chaos, being a tickle fight extraordinaire. (Slight AU, apocalypse ended with no major casualties, Human!Cas, fatherly!Bobby, and an almost inappropriate amount of fluff.)

Warnings: Prepare yourself for the biggest fluff-fest this year and brotherly love in its extreme. You have been warned.

Holy crap, I'm back from the dead! To all of you wonderful readers, I apologize for not updating for a long while as life has seemed to have gotten in the was of my writing, but here I am again!

This is another installment for the HFO series, which of course means more insanity.

In this you should expect Human!Cas, because I've fallen in love with writing him that way. Also expect loads upon loads of brotherly love. This is, in fact sorta-kinda AU (as are all of the HFO fics.) Now, with that said…

Enjoy!

Castiel's eyes swept the living room space. There were books everywhere, strewn about the floor and flooding the desks – some open, some closed and all of them dusty. The place had a particular smell, nothing that he could really put an exact point on, but it was a smell that could only be associated with Bobby.

The former angel and the boys had taken a break from hunting for a few days (mostly because Bobby had threatened that if they didn't show up soon he'd track them down and sever their heads one by one) and lazily hung around the house sometimes researching, sometimes sparring and sometimes working on cars out in the junkyard. In all, the days were lazy, relaxed even. It was something Castiel was not used to, for all his years of living was spent in war, or some sort of hardcore struggle.

It was about the time where the sky started to become golden with a few stripes of pink and orange. Castiel sat in a chair, staring at the outside from within semi-grimy windows. He begins to think that Bobby didn't have the patience to do extended cleaning – especially now since he had messy company. Not to mention that he is getting old as well. Castiel promises himself that he will scrub the house from roof to panic room to thank the old man for his hospitality. It would quench his boredom and squash down his rather overwhelming desire to go out and kill more demons and evil supernatural beings. (Sam tells him he hangs around Dean too much because of that last bit.)

But the cleaning will have to wait for tomorrow, because now he was content sitting down in the muted space, watching the beautiful scene that was somewhat muddled by the grime of the windows. The silence, however, proves to unnerve the former angel, as he finds his mind wondering towards thoughts he'd rather stay away from. He tries resolutely not to think of the heavens where he was created and raised, his home.

He tries not to think of home, where he'd see the glorious color of the sky from above.

He tries not to think of home, where he'd feel the sanctified air under his now extinct wings.

He tries not to think of home, where he'd be among his brothers, when he felt a heavy hand smack his shoulder.

"Hey Cas, how's it goin'?"

Castiel's blue eyes flickered upward. It was the giant Sam Winchester.

"It is going good," Castiel nodded sagely, much to Sam's amusement.

"That's great," Sam says and then he adds contentedly, "Man its good to be here."

Castiel gazed up at Sam silently, but intently. The younger Winchester's beaming expression faltered a bit.

"Uh… is there something on my face?"

"You like it here," said Castiel in more of a statement than a question.

Sam blinked a few times. He sat in a vacant seat next to the ex-angel after a beat. An involuntary smile spread across his face.

"Yeah…Yeah, I do. I love it here. It's like…home, y'know?"

Castiel's blue eyes darted beyond the window, letting his gaze settle back on the now darkening skies. He did not want to think of home.

When he heard the young Winchester shift into a more comfortable position in the chair, he looked back. Sam had the most blissful expression on his face, his gaze also cast beyond the grimy windows. There was no doubt his mind was someplace else, however. He looked completely at ease, and it seemed as though his good mood was contagious, as Castiel found his melancholy thoughts fading.

"Dean and I…" Sam continued, just as if he'd stepped out of a reverie, "we used to come here a lot while our Dad went out hunting. It was a nice change to finally have a permanent place to stay once and a while… I mean, no matter what Bobby always accepted us with open arms."

Sam looked at Castiel, his eyes smiling. Castiel's usually impassive face had softened. The ex-angel felt glee in Sam's happiness. If he could, he'd ensure that the Winchester brothers be happy at all times.

"We used to cause a lot of trouble too," Sam laughed. "I'll bet we're the reason that Bobby has gray hair."

Castiel smiled – if you can call a slight upturn in the corner of his mouth a smile – at that statement. He liked the sound of Sam's laugh. It was carefree, jovial.

"We used to run a muck in the junk yard, or just have fun," Sam erupted in a few manly giggles after a thought."Hell, I think Dean and I ended up having a tickle fight in the kitchen once."

That last part threw Castiel for a moment. His eyebrows drew together as he tried to process the information.

"…Tickle fight?"

Sam shifted in his seat. He really needed to learn how to apply a filter when he was around Castiel. The former angel could pick up on the most humiliating details.

"Uh," Sam let out a bashful chuckle, "yeah… it turns out Dean's really ticklish…especially in his sides."

Castiel's mouth had pressed in a thin line and his eyebrows where still drawn together. It amused Sam that a simple statement had brought such a highly contemplative look on the other man's face.

Before Sam had a chance to comment, however, the doors to the Singer household exploded open. Donned in a white T-shirt covered in car grease and thoroughly ripped jeans, came the eldest of the Winchester brothers. His boots made loud thuds as he trekked across the wooden floorboards. He stopped in front of the pair with a smirk already forming at his lips.

"What'd you do, Sammy? Profess your undying love for him, or what?"

Sam spluttered at the mention.

"What? N-no, dude, what the hell?"

"Then why does Cas have that constipated look on his face he gets whenever he thinks too hard?"

"I do not look constipated, Dean." Cas gave Dean a bitchfaced look that he'd learned from watching Sam.

"Sure, of course you don't." Dean laughed, but the hearty laugh quickly turned into an edgy one. "Cas, why are you standing so close? I know I taught you about personal space."

Castiel was curious. In fact, curiosity was always in his nature – even as a young cherub. One could say it was one of the reasons he fell. But at this particular moment, his curiosity was focused on Dean Winchester, and whether or not he was ticklish. He reached out his hand to poke Dean in the side, an action that caused the elder Winchester to jerk away.

"Hey! Touch yourself." Dean protested, backing away. He did not like the gleam that was forming in Castiel's eyes. If Gabriel had been alive still, with Castiel in this humanized condition, the two might have been personality twins.

"Sam." Castiel said, and the younger Winchester immediately knew what to do.

Sam leaped up from his sitting position and wrestled his older brother onto the floor. Dean bucked and protested, but as soon as Castiel joined in he was exceptionally overpowered. Thirty seconds in, Dean let out a roar of laughter. Sam was grinning so hard that his face was beginning to ache.

"Cas!" Dean gasped for the air that was rushing out of his lungs, "Sam! Stop!"

"Do you hear something, Cas? I know I don't, especially not a please."

"Oh, fuck you Sammy!" while the remark should've been hostile, the laughs that came out with it ruined everything.

It was at this point where Castiel's tickling began to cease in its ferocity. His fingers were moving slower, simply because he couldn't focus. Dean's consistent roar of laughter was contagious. It had quickly spread to the giant Sam Winchester, and now it was reaching the former angel as well.

Castiel had never in his human life laughed with such abandon. Hell, he'd never laughed at all, save for some chuckles here and small amused huffs there. Though, once upon a time, when he had been an angel in a place he called home, he laughed almost every day. He had a comrade, a brother, named Balthazar at the time. Balthazar was perhaps the only angel that could ever (or rather, ever tried to) make him laugh. But that was eons ago, before Balthazar died in battle and long before Castiel fell. Castiel never stopped grieving for his brother though, if he had to be honest.

With Castiel's loss of focus and growing pity for the oxygen deprived Winchester, Castiel stopped tickling Dean and his laughs died down into a few manly giggles. Castiel's amusement reached his eyes; the blue orbs were almost glowing with glee. It was rare to see Castiel in such a light mood, and his laugh was slightly akin to music. Sam immediately took a liking to it, and although he wouldn't admit it aloud, Dean did too.

"I hate you both," said a breathless Dean.

Castiel responded with a smirk and Sam with a shit eating grin. They sat, or laid in Dean's case, on the floor in comfortable silence for a few moments, each man catching his breath. None of the three made to move, but Dean was waiting, watching Castiel inconspicuously. When the former angel moved to get off of the elder Winchester, it seemed to have triggered a reaction. In that exact moment, the Winchester brothers locked mischievous gazes before each tackling the smaller man.

With a loud, "Oof!" the trio tumbled onto the floor once more, a crescendo of boisterous laughter starting up again. Castiel, although smaller than the boys, was not in any way weaker than them, and was giving them a hard time.

"What's wrong Cas? Don't want us to find out where you're ticklish?" said a cackling Dean.

"I am not ticklish."

"Oh, then why don't you stay still?" said an equally devilish Sam.

A couple of chairs were knocked down as Castiel attempted to crawl away from the rambunctious men. Crawl. Oh, what they have reduced him to.

"Sam, get him to stop moving!"

"I'm trying."

And he succeeded.

With quick thinking, Sam unceremoniously dumped himself on top of the former angel, straddling him, causing a vicious string of enochian to fly out of Castiel's lips – no doubt a string of some very colorful curses.

"Get your abnormally gargantuan body off of me," Castiel wheezed out, "You are quite heavy."

"Sorry, can't do that, Cas." Sam laughed as he wriggled his fingers about the smaller man's sides. Nothing came out of Castiel but a few aggravated huffs as he tried and failed to push Sam off of him. Dean, not to be forgotten, swiftly brushed his fingers up and down the spot where Castiel's neck reached his shoulders, which triggered merely a few snickers and a weak effort to get away from them – a very boring response, and Dean would not settle for boring.

Just when Dean lifted his fingers in search of a different place to tickle, Castiel threw his head back, mouth wide open, as he erupted into a thunderous boom of laughter. The sound and its volume surprised Dean; it was this deep, gracefully strong laughter he couldn't get enough of. He looked to see what magic Sam was pulling to make Cas produce that wonderful sound. It turns out that his little brother had his hands under Castiel's grey ACDC shirt (one that Dean gave him for Christmas, so he could burn that stupid tax accountant uniform) as he tickled the former angel's stomach.

"So you are ticklish!" Sam exclaimed enthusiastically, always thrilled when he found out something new about the ex-angel.

When Dean joined, Cas' laughter reached an impressive octave. The two brothers' fingers were working furiously over Castiel's stomach, and his throat was getting sore from the laughter.

"St-op," the one syllable word was broken into two by a breathless laugh, "stop!"

"No fucking way, Cas," Dean chuckled.

"You two are complete assholes!" Castiel managed to bite out, tears prickling his eyes from laughing so hard and so long.

"Bitch!" Dean called him as Sam said, "You're the one that started, you jerk."

By the time Castiel managed to push them off of him, they had learned an array of his tickle spots; his stomach, feet, his hips and the under side of both his knees.

"Oh no," Sam says, scooting away from the gleam in Cas and Dean's eyes.

"Oh yes," Cas says, his voice extremely hoarse from the abnormal use of his vocal cords. Dean just grinned wolfishly.

Well, Sam was screwed because, fuck, he was ticklish just about everywhere.

Castiel practically pounced on the giant moose man, hands and fingers seeming to shoot out across every ticklish spot Sam had, Dean right along side him.

"No, guys," Sam gasped, "I can't breathe."

"I'm not stopping," Castiel declares and turns his face to his partner in crime, "Are you Dean?"

"Nope," says the elder Winchester, letting his lips pop on the 'p'.

"Fucking jerks," but Sam laughs with abandon, putting no venom behind those words.

The youngest Winchester brother had been reduced to a teary, red-faced, breathless mess before they heard the jungle of keys being set down on a table and heavy boot thuds coming towards them. They stop their rough-housing at once to look up at the newcomer.

"Hello Bobby," said a winded Castiel.

The old man stared at them. He knew what he saw, each of their eyes were drunk with mirth along with stupid grins on their faces. Bobby shakes his head in disbelief. He thinks hell just might have had a blizzard, and it just might be frozen for a while.

"You three are complete idjits," Bobby not unkindly informs them, "now come on I brought us some grub."

Sam hastily rises, causing Castiel to tumble off of him and onto the wooden floorboards. Soon Sam and Dean are racing towards the dining table pushing and shoving as if they weren't grown adults. Bobby shakes his head. It was like they were just a bunch of kids again.

He turns his head to the smiling fallen angel. Bobby's never seen that glint in his eye before, and he's glad that its there because although Castiel might think he doesn't give a rat's ass about him, he does. The too-blue-to-be-normal eyed man had been looking very downhearted as of late, and it would have been a downright lie if Bobby said that didn't concern him. Before Castiel went to follow the Winchesters, Bobby's hand landed on his shoulder, causing him to stop and give his attention to the old man.

"Yes?"

"I didn't get to say this before so I want to say it now."

Castiel gave Bobby that trademark head tilt of his, followed up by a questioning glance. Bobby grinned and the corner of his eyes crinkled in amusement. He gave the former angel's shoulder a firm, but reassuring squeeze.

"Welcome to the family, son."

If Bobby saw how Castiel's lip quivered slightly, he didn't say anything. The beam in Castiel's eyes made his grin wider and he gave the man another squeeze before letting go and walking in the dining room to join the boys.

Castiel blinks away the tears that might or might not have been forming in his eyes when he heard Dean bellow from the other room,

"Cas! Come on, Sam won't let me eat until you're here with us!"

"The family is not complete with out you Cas," he hears Sam say, and Dean must have said something in response because Sam yells, "What do you mean? That's not gay."

And for the first time since he left heaven, Castiel decides he doesn't miss home because he's already there.

End.

This was supposed to be a Sam/Cas friendship fic, and it suddenly turned into this. I can't say I'm mad though.

I've been (and still am) thinking about prompts or themes for future fics. (So if you have any ideas you want to see, by all means ask.) It sometimes takes me a while to get the inspiration to write.

Thank you for reading, and don't forget to review, or I'll get the boys to tickle you to death.