Author's note: Wow, thanks for all the feedback, guys! I really didn't expect it for a one-shot... well, two-shot...

Special thanks to Maknatuna, Mello18, Maddy Love Castiel, midnight0211, Kid'sDarkWolf, Creativity Incarnate and two guests for leaving reviews! You made me very happy!

Edit: Many thanks to Ghastly Eternity for beta-reading :-)

Once upon a time… and not too far away

All of this was entirely Gabriel's fault! Dean didn't know exactly why or how, but he knew that the archangel had had a conversation with that goddess and then she had zapped him and Sam away. Dean, of course, had drawn his gun at the bitch and now he was standing next to a pond aiming at nothing.

"Cas?" the older Winchester called for the angel who had been standing next to him and put the gun back into the waistband of his jeans.

It was very clear that they had been transported to another place and apparently not to the same place Sam and Gabriel had been sent to. It was quite hard to miss his giant of a little brother usually and the archangel's big mouth made sure that everyone always knew when he was around, too.

"I am here, Dean," Castiel replied.

Dean turned around and then looked into the other direction once more. Still, the angel was nowhere to be seen. He had clearly heard him, though.

"Down here, Dean," the angel added after a couple of moments. He didn't quite understand why the hunter broke into fits of laughter when he finally saw him, however.

"This is not a laughing matter!" Castiel stated as upset as he would ever get, "The ducks keep eyeing me!"

The older Winchester barely managed to stop laughing long enough to pick his friend up by the back of his shrunken trenchcoat.

A frog in a trenchcoat! How the hell was Dean supposed not to laugh at that? Not to mention that a short quack escaped the angelic frog of the Lord every now and then.

"I've got to say, the coat still suits you," the older Winchester chuckled and allowed the frog to sit on his shoulder and out of reach of the two ducks that had indeed come ever closer to them. "Alright, Kermit, what's going on here?"

"I don't understand that reference," Castiel grumbled and held on tight to the lapel of the human's jacket as he started to walk around.

Maybe they could find their missing companions, or at least any clues how they were supposed to get out of this anywhere near. Having the Impala conveniently parked around the next corner would be asking for too much, he could accept that much.

"Woah, mind the flippers, Mr. Toad!" Dean shivered as Castiel's cold and slightly slimy toes touched his neck accidentally.

"I am a frog, not a toad," the angel replied matter-of-factly. He was careful not to get his skin in contact with the other man's anymore, though. Apparently, touching frogs was one of the things humans didn't appreciate, even though Dean had touched many way worse things before. Humans were confusing like that.

"Remind me to give you a crash course in pop culture some day, Cas," the older Winchester snorted amusedly. He had thought about doing that often before, but something always came up and prevented it from happening.

"That would be much appreciated," the angelic frog replied and added a silent ribbit at the end of his statement. He couldn't quite help making those sounds every now and then, however.

No matter how far into the forest Dean wandered, everything looked basically the same. It seemed a little as if some lazy designer had decided to copy and paste the background image numerous times. Thinking about it that really might be the case, too.

"We're in some alternate universe crap here, right?" the older Winchester asked his angelic friend with a sigh. One might think that all tricksters liked that sort of shit! Well, damn.

"I agree," Castiel replied thoughtfully, "It seems that the rules of your world do not apply here."

"Cas, you're a talking frog in a trenchcoat with a blue tie," Dean pointed out sarcastically, "Are you really sure that those are different rules?"

Thinking about it, Castiel could have become some internet meme like this in no time at all, if Dean remembered what a meme was correctly, that was. He made a mental note to snap a picture of the angelic frog before he got turned back into his usual form. Actually, Cas' usual form was a vessel, so was he an angel possessing a frog right now? Thinking about this gave Dean a headache, so he pushed the thought aside as quickly as possible.

"Absolutely sure," the angel answered seriously.

"Remind me to give you a crash course in sarcasm, too," the older Winchester mumbled and went on walking past rows and rows of trees that looked exactly the same, "We should try to find a princess for you to kiss."

The frog gave a confused ribbit at that suggestion.

"The bitch that got us into this was a trickster, right?" Dean began to explain his train of thought, "And those fuckers sure like their symbolism and more or less classical storylines. You're the frog pr… angel, so we need a princess to kiss you back to normal. Just roll with it, Cas!"

The angel tried to make sense of what his human companion had just said, but Dean seemed to have an easier time trying to figure the rules they were meant to play by out. Well, Castiel had more than enough trust into the older Winchester to just keep sitting on his shoulder and rolling with it, as he had just called it.

"You are not going to take me to another den of iniquity!" Cas ribbited scandalized as soon as the thought that his friend might be planning something like that came to his mind, though.

"The idea isn't half bad. I'm pretty sure we'd find enough girls that'd go by the name of Princess there," Dean mused and shivered when he got one of Castiel's feet pressed against his neck as a punishment, "Calm down! We won't find a place like that around here, anyway!"

In fact, they weren't going to find anything around the place they were in. Nothing but an ever repeating landscape, anyway.

"Dean, what do we do if we cannot find a princess?" Castiel asked after a couple of minutes of silent walking.

"Then we'll try some random woman. You're not a prince, so maybe some other girl will work, too," Dean replied logically as he thought.

The older Winchester was pretty sure that charming someone into giving a quick kiss to his amphibious friend wouldn't be the biggest problem. The real problem was that it didn't look like they were going to find any random women either, however.

"I'm afraid we will be hard pressed to find any other people, male or female, in this place," Castiel quacked thoughtfully.

"Woah, who said anything about males?" Dean replied quickly. He would have tried to put some space between himself and Castiel, but that was impossible while the angel was travelling on his shoulder. A part of the older Winchester was amused by the fact that he literally had an angel sitting on his shoulder, but the bigger part of him was panicking because of the implications of Castiel's last statement.

"Technically, I am neither male nor female, so following your logic about the attribute of being a prince, a male or a female might work," the angel explained calmly and patiently.

"Uh, yeah, whatever," Dean mumbled awkwardly before he added more upbeat, "Let's go find Sammy then. He's kissing your brother, kissing a frog would be a step up from that!"

Kissing about anyone or anything might be a step up from Gabriel, if you asked Dean, however. Well, Lucifer and Ruby were the obvious exceptions to the rule. Actually, Gabriel might be a tiny step up from Ruby, not that the older Winchester would ever tell the archangel that. Besides, kissing Cas would be like a million steps up from Gabriel, even if the angel was a frog!

"I have no desire to kiss your brother, Dean," Castiel stated most definitely, "And I highly doubt Sam has any desire to kiss me."

Gabriel would not allow him to do anything like that, anyway. The archangel could get very possessive when it was about his human. Castiel didn't have the slightest desire to have his brother smite him, either.

"This is not about desire, it's about helping a friend out," the older Winchester insisted.

"Why don't you kiss me then?" the frog asked in a completely innocent puzzled voice. He wasn't faking it, either. If Dean really saw things the way he had just said he did, he might as well end this situation with a simple kiss. To Castiel this would only be logical and he didn't quite understand why the human had not come up with that solution earlier.

"Uh, I… that…" Dean stammered. What was he supposed to say to that? Great, he had dug out his own grave and hadn't even realized it!

He thought about telling Castiel that he was allergic to frogs and would drop dead if his lips got into contact with one, but he doubted that the angel would buy that. He might be inexperienced, but he wasn't stupid, after all. Dean sighed deeply and got the frog off his shoulder and let him sit in his palm instead.

"Alright, let's get it over with," the older Winchester groaned, resigning to his fate.

He squeezed his eyes tightly shut as he brought his hand toward his face, trying not to think of frogs and definitely not of angels in trenchcoats. They just needed a quick peck to the lips, that couldn't be all too hard!

Castiel waited for Dean to bring his palm close enough to his face for a short kiss patiently, but it seemed like the older Winchester had frozen mid-motion and he probably didn't even realize it. The angel contemplated bringing that fact to his friend's attention, but then he thought better of it.

The frog took aim and prepared himself as quickly as possible and then took the leap over to Dean's lips.

They both got the air knocked straight out of their lungs when Castiel returned to his usual body and the two men tumbled to the ground together, still attached at the lips for a few more moments.

"You're crushing me here, Cas," Dean breathed, a little pained.

"My apologies," the angel replied, not all too apologetically and got up and off the human as quickly as possible, offering his hand to his friend to help him up, as well.

They continued walking to the forest without talking to each other. To Castiel being quiet wasn't uncomfortable or strange, but it very much was for Dean, especially after what had just happened. He so didn't want to think about it, but being quiet gave him nothing else to do but think!

"Hey, look, finally!" the older Winchester exclaimed, glad for a reason to break the silence. He had only just noticed that they were close to a tower that interrupted the ever repeating landscape and it couldn't have been more welcome.

They reached the clearing with the tower on it quickly. Dean frowned deeply at the makeshift rope that looked an awful lot like it had been made from human hair. Human hair from the head of his younger brother, to be exact.

"Sammy?" the older Winchester yelled while Castiel stood next to him, looking up toward the tower in silent contemplation.

"Dean?" Sam called back, sounding a little breathlessly and like he had just been caught red-handed.

"Well, that's something," Dean told the angel with a relieved chuckle and stepped closer to the rope, testing its strength.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Castiel stated in a doubting tone and if the older Winchester wasn't mistaken the angel even looked a little embarrassed.

"We're coming up!" Dean gave a warning to his younger brother when the angel gave him another insistent look.

"Uh… give… us a couple more minutes!" the younger Winchester yelled a little panicky while the archangel laughed loudly.

The older Winchester couldn't suppress a full body shiver at the very unwanted pictures that popped into his mind. At least, that helped with not thinking of the kiss he had had to share with Castiel. He very much wanted to have those thoughts back instead, though!

"Fucking tricksters," Dean mumbled, but sat down by the foot of the tower to wait for the go ahead, if only for the sake of his mental health.

And once Gabriel and Castiel got them all back to the real world with their combined powers and they promised to each other never to mention certain events again they lived happily ever after.