AN: it's sastiel week! So I'm taking a break out from studying to write some more sastiel.

This piece was written for the prompt 'sastiel + making snow angels' from booksandwings (on tumblr). Honestly, it's not really right for that prompt; y'all know me, I love me some angst and h/c, so that's what I wrote. :)

Flakes of snow tumbled chaotically from the sky as Castiel shot out of the warehouse the angels had been using at their new 'green room', as the Winchesters called it – though it was gold and white, not green. It was of no consequence – after the destruction of the one in Van Nuys, they had relocated to a town in Minnesota, setting up yet another anonymous base of operations, after their mass fall.

The problem was the weather: it was much more inclement than the hunters had anticipated when they'd decided to go on this hunt, based on intel gained from Cas' angel radio; Cas had insisted on coming with them, even though he usually had to stay away. It felt personal, this time around.

Really, they should have known, given that it was late December. A few days before Christmas. Castiel had never really felt the cold before; he hadn't dressed properly for the weather.

Neither had he dressed for running for his life: the concrete he raced across was slippery, covered in ice; he had slipped three or so times already in about 100 metres. But he wouldn't slow down.

Because he sought the Impala's safety: Sam had told him he'd be right behind him, before being blasted into a wall by one of the angels in the warehouse, thick, crimson blood pooling in the hollow of his neck. The image of his frightened eyes registering what was about to happen to him was burned onto Castiel's own retinas.

And what had he done? Run.

Run, because he needed to bring the Impala around. Run, because he couldn't waste time walking. Run, because he couldn't carry both Winchesters at once. Because he wasn't strong enough to carry Sam out of there – only to drag him to the car, he hoped.

The angels were a huge problem: the three of them had anticipated perhaps one or two being there; had thought they would be fine with Castiel's angel blade, and the one Dean had stolen from another angel they had killed in the past couple of months. Cas had insisted that Sam take his angel blade – he'd pressed the issue, fortunately, until Sam had given in with an eye-roll and a long-suffering smile.

I'm no damsel, Cas.

In reality, there were many more angels than they'd expected, and the ones that were there . . . Were vicious, to say the least. Bartholomew himself had been there when they had first burst in. He'd incapacitated Dean by, with a flick of his hand, toppling one of the many heavy antique ornaments onto him: it had crushed him under its weight, and he'd had trouble getting out from under it. Moreover, Castiel had heard the unmistakable sound of a few of his ribs breaking upon impact.

That had been when Sam had yelled at him to run: the younger Winchester had been knife-fighting one of the clerical angels that Bartholomew surrounded himself with – no, on closer inspection, he'd been knife-fighting two. He'd simply killed one already. The second one was giving him trouble; he wasn't paying full attention to the fight, due to his concerned glances to Dean, trapped, and Cas, weaponless and unsure how to help. The angel he was fighting had got a shot in – slashing at Sam's neck – catching him off guard.

Dean had struggled out from under the statue at that point, clutching his ribs but still emerging with his angel blade held aloft, ready to swing at the angel that was now approaching him. Cas noticed that Bartholomew had left: he supposed they were hardly worth his time. However, it left them with four or so angels left to tackle.

The slash on Sam's neck had been superficial: he'd had yelled at Cas to run, before being thrown against a wall with a breath-taking force.

So Cas had run. He trusted Sam . . . But now he wondered if he was going to be too late.

He could see the Impala now – the car that Sam had taught him how to drive in, after Dean had failed. He remembered the older Winchester straight-up refusing to let him drive it; how when Dean had given in and tried to teach him, he'd lost his temper quickly; how Sam ad stepped in, gentle and patient and very distracting with those soft, hazel eyes.

He rocketed forwards, and was within spitting-distance of the car when suddenly he tripped over a barrier that had not been there merely seconds before. He flew forward, landing palms-first on the icy, snow-covered concrete.

He was winded and unable to breathe properly, when hands grabbed him, and flipped him over onto his back. He stared up into the black sky, which deposited tiny pin-pricks of cold onto his skin in the form of snowflakes. The bitter cold was bracing; almost intolerable, as a sneering face emerged from the blackness, into his field of vision. His breath came back to him with a start – he had to get away.

His limbs flailed, uncooperative and uncoordinated, as he struggled to put a name to the face he was seeing: a female vessel with straight, brown hair and a grey, pristine suit; one he'd seen before . . . When Naomi had come to collect Metatron, while they were searching for the cupid's bow. The same angel that had tried to kill him then.

"What's the matter, Castiel? Forgotten my name?" She asked, grabbing the front of his too-thin hoody and yanking him out of the snow. She knelt beside him, pressing her face close to his; anger distorted her vessel's features. "Wouldn't be the first time you forgot a sister. Or all of your brothers and sisters, for that matter,"

She raised her fist, and punched him squarely in the face. His head spun, and his nose felt like it was trying to retreat back into his face, as he finally understood the expression 'seeing stars'.

"You'd rather be with them, wouldn't you? Your precious righteous man," She punched him again, this time a vicious uppercut that knocked his head back into the concrete with a painful thump. ". . . And that filthy brotherof his that you've taken a shine to. Your standards are truly rock-bottom," She grabbed his neck, pushing him mercilessly into the ground now. "But then again, you are human," She reasoned, leaning back a little and considering him with an expression of revulsion.

"Leave them out of this," Castiel croaked past her constrictive grip on his airway. Her suit was growing whiter around her shoulders; her hair laced with snowflakes, too. She laughed derisively at him.
"Oh, they'll get what's coming to them – you can count on that. Dean Winchester – we'll kill him, slowly, for his crimes against heaven," She leaned in close once again, "And Sam Winchester. The one you have been fornicating with – we shall put him back from whence he came. Lucifer is sure to be missing his favourite plaything . . . You and he have that in common,"

"N-no," Cas choked, shaking his head.
"Yes," She hissed, her angel blade slipping from the sleeve of the arm that wasn't currently pinning him into the snow. He struggled against her grip, his eyes focussed unwaveringly on the weapon – but he was stuck fast, frozen; held still by superhuman strength that he couldn't hope to match now.

She changed her grip so that the tip of the blade pointed down towards him; the stabbed downwards; the weapon thrust into his shoulder, and he slammed his eyes shut with a long, drawn-out scream, snowflakes falling into his mouth and into the creases of pain that lined his face. The angel smiled, and began to twist the blade with sick satisfaction. Vengeance, as Bartholomew had promised, was truly divine.

He grit his teeth, opening his eyes to form slits of pain and rage that stared up at her maliciously enraptured face. He grunted, feeling sick at the sensation of her digging into the wound further.
"HEY!" A voice roared from behind the angel. Cas didn't know whether it was real, or if his frozen, pain-riddled delirious mind was playing the cruellest of tricks on him.

In a way, he didn't want the voice to be there. Its owner would be in too much danger – go, just leave me, please, be safe, let me go-

The angel whipped around, seeing Sam Winchester stand in the snow, chest heaving, fists clenched at his sides. No weapon. She narrowed her eyes and smiled, wrenching the blade from Castiel's shoulder, and standing up. The former-angel cried out again, his hand flying to the wound; he was torn between putting pressure on it, as the Winchesters had both advised him to do with bleeding wounds, or not touching it, resulting in less pain. He stared up into the night sky, eyes lazily tracking flake after flake of snow, as they landed on him and attempted to bury his battered body.

"Sam Winchester. The boy with the demon blood. Got a taste for angels instead of demons, now?" The angel sneered, looking down her nose at Sam, whose face reflected his disgust.
"Go to Hell," He growled, looking into her eyes. He spared a glance at Castiel – turning blue, laid out on the icy ground, getting covered in agonisingly cold white snow as if he were already – like he was-

The angel's biting laughter thankfully interrupted his train of thought.

Sam bit his lip. Cas needed help. Now. He and Dean both did – he'd left Dean fighting the one remaining angel, when he'd realised one had left to go after Cas. Unfortunately, he'd dropped Cas' angel blade in the skirmish that had resulted after Cas had left, and it had been picked up by the angel Dean was currently fighting.

He knew it was a stupid idea to try and help Cas with no weapon, but he didn't care. He needed to make sure he was okay. He needed him to be safe. He didn't know what he'd do if he-

"You must be a fool, Sam Winchester. Coming after me with no weapon?" She chided, shaking her head.
"I thought pride was a sin," He commented. She simply laughed.
"I'm an angel. I don't sin," She dismissed. "And what are you? – A pathetic human. A boy with demon blood," She mockingly.
"It doesn't matter what you are. It only matter what you do," He told her, standing his ground. He vividly remembered saying the same thing when begging for his brother's life to a rugaru; now, he was defending Castiel's, from an angel. It was so strange how things turned out – how his perceptions of good and evil, right and wrong, had been twisted and manipulated and altered irrevocably. He didn't know who was better or worse: demons, or angels or all the ugly primal things that lurked in the dark. He only knew that what he had here – his brother, and the man he loved – that was good. That was right. And he wasn't afraid to die for it.

"Sure, you're an angel. Doesn't mean you good. Or a good fighter,"
"I'm the best," She assured him boastfully.
"Then why did you run away?" He asked, raising his eyebrows. "After a human, with no weapons? . . . You're a coward," He goaded her.

Her eyes widened and her anger flared; her grip on the angel blade changed, so it was facing upwards and at the younger Winchester.
"I'll flay you alive, boy," She threatened.
"Better angels than you have tried," He replied, summoning his bravado though there was a large part of his mind screaming at him that if he didn't get to Cas soon, he would die.

At this point, he was biding his time until Dean turned up. But as he cast his gaze around, he realised that Dean wasn't coming – Cas was staring into nothingness, worryingly out for the count. He wasn't sure what to do – but he knew he had to think of something. Fast.

"Believe me. I'll be the last," She told him, approaching him slowly. He stepped backwards defensively.

She lunged at him. At which point, something neither of them had anticipated happened.

From the sleeve of Sam's jacket, a glinting silver angel blade emerged. He caught it, holding it up, and staring at it in shock for a second, before driving it forward to clash with that of the angel in front of him. The noise of metal-on-metal reached Castiel's ears, as he tried desperately to remain conscious: he frowned, wondering who the second knife belong to, if not to Sam. From the corner of his eye, he could see a growing patch of red staining the snow.

The angel made a pass for Sam's gut, which he dodged quickly, leaning backwards for a second before slashing forwards, the momentum carrying him. The angel clipped his slide, making him hiss; he clutched the injury, feigning a worse injury than the flesh-wound he'd sustained. The angel sniggered, and went in for a blow to his other side – but he was ready. He suddenly stood upright, and drove his blade into her heart.

Her shocked expression was emphasised in the light of her grace escaping, as he told her:
"I might have demon blood," He told her, "But I'm the one still standing,"

He wrenched the knife from her chest, chest heaving, and shielded his eyes when her grace seemed to explode from her, bleaching his vision momentarily as she died.

When the light died way, he fell to his knees beside Castiel, whose eyes had fallen shut. "Cas?" He asked, shaking the former-angel. He didn't respond.
"Cas? . . . Castiel?!"

Castiel was aware of the sensation of waking before he realised what was happening. The noise that had been present, even throughout his dreams, registered as something from the waking world: a rumbling, rhythmic and comforting to his cotton-wool stuffed ears. The sound of an engine.

His breathing caught, as he became consciously aware of a deep, throbbing pain in his left shoulder. He let out a small whine as he accidentally shifted, and jarred the injury. It was then that he was aware that he wasn't lying in a bed, but on a warm, soft surface, with his head propped up, and a blanket thrown over him for warmth.

"Hey, hey – take it easy, try not to move," A gentle voice whispered. Sam.

His voice was different from when he'd last heard it – memories swan in front of his eyes momentarily like shimmering chimeras. His sister, stabbing his shoulder – Sam's furious voice as he protected him – the sound of knife-fighting –

"S-s-" He murmured, but found his mouth too dry to be able to speak properly.
"Here," A careful hand tipped his head up, until he was half-sitting, all while trying not to move his shoulder too much. A bottle was pressed to his mouth, and he drank the water from it eagerly.
"Whoa, hey – slowly," The quiet voice urged him. He complied, though he wanted more than anything to take huge gulps.

He was laid back down carefully again. He realised his head had actually been propped up on Sam's leg. He finally opened his eyes, and looked up.

Sam's face, a little paler than usual, smiled down at him in the darkness. In the light coming from the street lights outside, Castiel saw the bandage that had been taped as a temporary measure onto the superficial wound on Sam's neck. Castiel squirmed uncomfortably at the memory of the moment that the angel had wounded Sam in that way – for a moment, he'd thought it had been a fatal blow.

"Shh – lie still. We patched you up at the motel, while you were out. We're gonna fix you up properly when we get back to the bunker,"

The bunker.

"You never call it home," Castiel observed, and Sam smiled sadly at the fact that Cas wanted to talk about this now, even when he was injured and should be resting. It was a long journey ahead of them.
"Is it because this vehicle is your home?" Cas persisted, his shining blue eyes staring earnestly into Sam's. The younger Winchester sighed, and glanced at Dean, who was driving in the front seat. The older Winchester glanced back at him, but said nothing: he knew better than to get in the middle of Sam and Cas when they were having a chick-flick, sappy conversation like this one.

"Home . . . Was never really a place, for me. More like – a person. Or people," He moved his gaze from Dean to Cas, and hoped the angel understood what he meant.

Cas' smile as his eyes drifted shut confirmed that, yes, he'd understood.
Because Cas didn't live at the bunker. So it was never home – not really.

This . . . In the back seat of the Impala, with a drowsy Castiel's head resting in his lap, and Dean driving in the front seat . . . This was home.

"Did you kill her?" Cas' voice surprised Sam, who thought he was asleep. His eyes were shut, but he was frowning.
"Yes," He replied quietly. "I killed her, with an angel blade," He looked up at Dean, who was staring at the road steadfastly, refusing to turn and make eye-contact with Sam. The younger Winchester didn't care, though – it didn't matter how much Dean avoided talking about how strange he'd been acting recently, or the strange things that were happening to Sam: Sam would get the truth out of him, when they got back to the bunker.

"I'm sorry, Sam," Cas apologised, opening his eyes and shooting him a pained expression.
"Don't be sorry. Just – don't go making snow angels again,"
"Snow angels?" Sam felt Cas tense up, and put a soothing hand on his arm.
"Hey – it's just a game . . . We can play it, sometime," He explained, smiling and stroking a hand through Cas' hair.

Castiel thought about lying face-up in the snow, the frost creeping into his clothes, his hair; the biting cold enveloping him, getting into the bleeding wound on his shoulder; seeping into his body, his mind, killing him slowly-

"I am not sure I would enjoy that game," He replied vaguely.
". . . On second thoughts, maybe not," Sam decided.

With Sam's words echoing in his ears and Sam's hand in his hair, Cas fell asleep again. He'd never been so glad to be warm; never been so glad that he had Sam.

I also received a prompt from katsuri-san (on tumblr): "Sastiel with Cas trying to find a christmas gift for Sam :) pleeeeease!" so I may be writing that later this week, again for sastiel week (and just cause I love to write sassy). Stay tuned!