"Gabriel, this isn't even fun." Castiel grumbled as he ducked below a wheelie bin for the hundredth time in the last half an hour.

He had a snowball in his gloved hand but he couldn't even poke his head out long enough to aim at his brother.

Gabriel seemed to have built a den of snow on the opposite side of the road and a large supply of snowballs before Castiel had even left the house.

He peeked out, and just threw the snowball, hearing Gabriel's cackling laugh as it flew far off target.

"This isn't fair!" Castiel yelled, gathering another handful of snow with fingers that were frozen inside his gloves.

"How about we go inside for hot chocolate?" he shouted at his brother, peeping around the side of the bin hopefully. Bribing Gabriel usually worked.

Not this time it seemed, as Gabriel threw several snowballs in quick succession and with a yelp, Castiel fell to his knees, but not quick enough to dodge getting a particularly large snowball to the head, knocking his hat off.

"Gabe!" He whined, wondering if he could make a run for the door. Finally, he stood up, flinging the snowball to distract Gabriel, hearing a yell of surprise and laughed, and ran for the door, glancing back at Gabe to see if his brother was trying to throw even more snowballs.

Not looking where he was going, he ran into a boy, around his own age. The boy was wearing a plaid shirt, with the too-long sleeves rolled up over his hands. He had snow melting in his hair and an expression on his face, which could anything from angry to upset.

"Hey!" he exclaimed, and Castiel stepped back. "I was just going to ask if I could play."

He brushed clumps of snow out of his hair. "You could've given me a chance to find cover before you threw the snowball at me."

Castiel looked around at Gabriel who had come out of his fort to see what was happening to his brother. Castiel had an idea and looked back at the unnamed boy, and smiled. "Of course you can play but," he paused, and tilted his head back at Gabriel, who was quickly walking over, yet still out of ear shot.

"You're on my side, and we're totally going to beat Gabe." he bent and picked up a handful of snow, scrunching it into a ball shape as he began to run at Gabriel, and gloriously, beautifully hit Gabriel in the face with his snow

The boy seemed to catch on and dashed down the street with Castiel, beginning to laugh as they dove under the cover of Gabriel's fort.

"Cassie!" Gabriel yelled, his cheeks glowing red as he wiped the snow off his face. "You're gonna get it now!"

Castiel laughed, giving Gabriel's stash of snowballs an appreciative look.

"I'm Dean by the way." the boy told Castiel, scooping up snow around the fort to add to their arsenal.

"I'm Castiel." Castiel replied, peeping over the top of the snowfort to see Gabriel ducking behind the wheelie bin. "Sorry for hitting you in the face with a snowball."

Dean gave him a sidelong grin. "You can make up for it by hot chocolate after we beat this sucker."

"Deal."