A/N: This is the next story in a mild AU/canon divergence series called The Other Guardian 'verse. There's a detailed note about it on my profile page, but in brief: after Dean is raised from Hell by Castiel, an entire year passes before the Lilith rises and the seals start to break. During that time, Castiel is assigned to watch over the Winchesters, and finds himself growing closer and closer to Sam.

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Epilogue

The Hallowed Grounds coffee shop in the main lodge was packed at ten in the morning. Sam thought he was the only person in there not headed out cross-country skiing; where he stood at the end of the bar, waiting for his latte and towering over the rest of the coffee crowd, the world was a sea of knit hats and ear warmers, gloved hands endlessly pulling hot drinks down from the counter. A long line of skis was propped up near the outer door, and the entryway of the coffee shop was glistening from the wet treads of snow boots, probably just ducking in for a pick-me-up before heading right back out. Sam glanced out the picture windows at the sun on the unbroken snow, the white mountains stretching up into a startling blue sky, and wondered what it would be like, to go out into the woods for fun instead of chasing God only knew what with a couple of shotguns and a car that sucked in the snow.

Dean had been pissed to hear Sam's theory that Cas had bailed the night before because he didn't like riding in the Impala—Dean had a bad habit of taking anything negative said about the Impala as a personal insult, and apparently the fact that Castiel was an angel and had probably never ridden in a car before was no excuse for not appreciating Dean's baby. Dean had threatened to knock some sense into Castiel the next time they saw him; Sam doubted his brother would remember it, though, since he'd been busy calling the lodge's day spa at the time and arranging some kind of massage date with somebody named Kim. Apparently massages weren't lame if they were basically, in Dean's words, live soft-core porn with hot Asian chicks. They'd agreed to meet at the coffee shop at ten thirty to get on the road, but Sam had come early, and it was probably a good thing—with the crowd, it might take half an hour just to get his coffee.

"Hot chocolates for Marina!"

Sam flattened himself against the wall to get out of the way of the woman reaching for the two ceramic cups, each one bobbing with whipped cream. He smiled as his eyes caught the sign behind the bar, the words "Hallowed Grounds" written in curling green script above a steaming cup. In some ways it was a shame they hadn't stopped by with Cas the night before—but on second thought, the angel probably wouldn't have gotten the joke anyway.

Sam's eyes wandered to the window again, unfocused except for the memory of Castiel's wings rustling in the dark, the angel pressed against his back, catching him effortlessly in a fraction of a second. Sam didn't know what he'd been expecting, but Castiel stopping his momentum without so much as bracing himself was not it; Cas had felt solid, real, like being caught by a person instead of a manifestation of grace and light—except that no person had been able to catch Sam like that since he shot up the summer before tenth grade. As he'd hovered right at the edge of sleep, Sam thought he'd felt Castiel's hand on his, the phantom sensation of warm fingers still lingering on his skin when he woke in the morning—but Sam was willing to admit that might be more dream than reality. He leaned into the wall and flexed his right hand in the pocket of his coat. He could still feel it almost, just a flicker of sensation, there and not there—sort of like Cas himself.

"Latte for Sam!"

Sam pulled himself out of his thoughts and grabbed the paper cup from the middle-aged woman behind the counter, giving her an absentminded smile. Most of the tables in the café were full; he saw one open chair at a two-person table, but when he realized that the person in the other chair was none other than the short blond woman who'd been their own personal vengeful spirit since they arrived at the bunkhouse, he kept moving, weaving between couples and families until he reached the far corner of the café. A window looked out at the lodge's back patio, the fire pit already blazing; Sam sat down on the small couch beneath it and tucked his long legs as close as he could to keep them out of the way of other patrons. He took his first sip of coffee and let it sit on his tongue, dropping his head back to rest along the top of the couch.

It was stupid to get attached—he knew that. Castiel was an angel—Dean's angel, God's dazzling angel—and he was always going to belong to things that were so much bigger and more important, things he needed wings just to get to. Sam opened his eyes and looked backward out the window at the fire pit, the flames dull against the backdrop of brilliant snow. When Castiel was right there, his shoes hissing on the flagstones, it seemed so simple—but maybe the truth was that some part of Castiel was always far away, even when he felt close enough to touch, or dream about.

Sam's eyes drifted up from the fire pit to the doors into the restaurant, and then even higher, to the windows on the upper floor, the sitting area with creaky wicker chairs—and suddenly he was remembering something else entirely: pulling Castiel up the stairs by the cuff of his coat, sitting together in the dark and listening to Dean laugh. Castiel saying he'd never had a friend before, which was sort of sad and sort of childish and just so like Cas, an awkward angel with a strange beige trench coat and piercing blue eyes that shone in the moonlight and made Sam jump when they locked with his. Warm, unyielding arms catching him in the dark. Then Sam was smiling again, and he shook his head as he turned back to his coffee, rolling his eyes at his own melancholy. Because they were friends, and he could let the rest go, whether Cas came around for an evening or a day or just five minutes. Because he might not always be Dean's guardian angel, but friendship didn't have to be that transient, if you didn't let it. He would make sure he told Cas that, next time.

"Man, you must be one lonely fucker, Sam. Give you the choice of any seat in the house and you'll pick the loveseat every time."

Sam blinked at his coffee and looked up, surprised to see Dean standing next to his armrest. He started to ask why his brother was out of his massage already, and why he had to be an ass so early in the morning—but those questions were pushed out of his mind the second he got a good look at Dean and realized that every exposed part of his skin, from his hands to his neck above his jacket to the tips of his ears, was bright, flaming red. He looked like he'd been peeled. Sam burned his mouth on a gulp of coffee and then coughed through the last of it, staring up at his brother in horror.

"Dude, what the hell happened to you?" Sam asked, wiping flecks of coffee away from his mouth with the back of his hand. "I thought you had a massage with some girl named Kim."

"Okay, first of all, Kim is not a girl," Dean snapped. "Kim is not even a guy. Kim is a terminator. Apparently Kim is short for Kimmal Schwarzenegger." He ducked toward Sam and dropped his voice to a grumble, glancing over his shoulder like he expected to be ambushed any second. "And that was not a massage, Sammy. That was skin rape. I got fucking violated." Sam made a face at him, and Dean dug through his jean pockets until he found a crumpled pamphlet for the lodge's spa, which he shook in Sam's face. "This thing lied to me. 'Exfoliating Rawhide Rubdown.' What would you think that was?"

Sam couldn't keep his expression from twisting into a grimace, even the aftertaste of coffee sour in his mouth. "Um… someone scrubbing your skin off with a rough-bristle brush?" Dean gave him the classic idiot blink, and Sam shrugged against the couch, fighting to keep his smile from bursting out on his lips. "Why? What did you think it was?"

Dean shoved the pamphlet back in his pocket. "I don't know. But I'll tell you one thing—the Cowgirls' Rawhide Roundup was way different."

Sam rolled his eyes. "You're confusing reality with porn again."

"Yeah, whatever," Dean said. "Can we just get out of here? I've had all of this psycho ski lodge I can take. I need pigs in a blanket and a cheap beer in the next twenty minutes or I'm gonna lose it."

"It's ten in the morning," Sam muttered under his breath. But he got up from the couch anyway, because once Dean got on a roll nothing could stop him and they really had no reason to hang around. Then he paused and tucked his coffee cup close to his stomach, biting his lip. "Hey, Dean," he started. "I looked into the case a little more last night—you know, the sightings…"

Dean gave him a look like he'd just announced aliens were invading Sioux Falls. "Who the hell cares, Sam? Move your ass. We gotta get out of Dodge before that sadist comes back for the rest of me."

Sam had a good laugh about that as they walked to the car. Dean only smacked his arm once, and Sam figured that was fair, even though his coffee spilled and a few drops hit the tops of his worn-out boots. When they were safe inside the Impala, the motor purring under the hood and the poor excuse for heating slowly cranking out into the car, Dean turned to Sam and stared at him for a second, the way he did sometimes when Sam wished his brother would just talk to him instead of chasing his demons around his own head. Then Dean shook himself and shifted into first, and the Impala rolled out of the sunny parking lot, the packed snow crunching under her tires. Dean punched the stereo on and classic rock exploded out of the speakers.

"Shit vacation, Sammy," he yelled over the music, shaking his head as he gunned it down the icy washboard road. "No babes, barely any booze—I ended up with Kim and you ended up with Cas."

Sam almost said something to that. He even got his mouth halfway open. But then he closed it again and turned to look out the window, and studied the smile on the face of his reflection—because Dean didn't get his licks nearly often enough, so he had to savor it every time karma bit his brother in the ass, and ending up with Cas didn't sound so bad. Sam closed his eyes and leaned his head against the window to the familiar pounding beat, and thought about warm fingers around his—and somehow, the car didn't seem so cold anymore.

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This is the last chapter of "A Change in the Weather," but the next Cas/Sam story in the Other Guardian 'verse should hopefully be up soon. It will be called "Blood and Broken Glass." Thanks for reading, everyone.