The air was frigid, a solid block of ice around his body. His fingers had long since lost feeling, a numbing sensation slowly crawling up his arms. His entire being was frozen, save for the angel's lips against his. They were warm and soft and life-giving, moving against his in a lazy kiss. Dean mustered up a weary response, a trill making its way through his chest, despite the cold, when he felt the angel's tongue peek out shyly and trace his bottom lip.
Who're you? he thought, because he wouldn't be able to move his mouth even if he'd wanted to.
Dean mourned the loss of the angel's lips as he pulled away to speak.
"My name is Castiel. I am an angel of the Lord."
His voice was inflectionless, monotonous and unobtrusive, much like the matter-of-fact was he'd appeared as Dean lay dying in the storm, waiting for the snow to swallow him.
Unruly black curls were threaded through Dean's fingers. He hadn't expected his preference in angels to stray from fluffy wings and miniskirts to dark-haired, blue-eyed, trench coated and male, but what can you say. His hand warmed where it pressed against the angel's head, finger tips rubbing against his scalp. Dean could feel his life returning to him, winter's death grip lightening its hold on his lungs. He kissed the angel more urgently, desperate to take hold of this revitalization while he could.
The angel slowed, making Dean realized he could hear labored breaths being pulled, though from which one of them, he couldn't tell. He almost whined as the lips on his broke away â he was sure he would have if it throat was thawed. The angel murmured something in a foreign language. It was fluid and yet guttural in the angel's gravelly voice, full of the emotion he'd previously been lacking.
Dean flinched when a hand worked under his shirt, expecting it to be cold, but it radiated comforting heat. Dean watched, bewildered, as the angel slid his fingers up to his heart. A ragged gasp tore from Dean's lips as a warmth that felt whole and pure and right flooded into his body in an almost overwhelming rush. He almost missed the way the angel's eyes turned brilliant blue, illuminating the black snow.
"I was the one who gripped you tight and raise you from perdition," the angel said, and his words boomed in a thousand voices, yet at the same time, he whispered in a voice that was heart-wrenchingly familiar.
Dean opened his mouth to speak, but his throat was still sealed shut with a layer of ice. The heat on his chest was becoming too much, too hot, the sting of the cold giving way to a burning pain that carved deep into his heart, it was too much, hotstoppleasecan'tâ
A wordless yelled of agony ripped from his broken vocal chords, head thrown back as his back arched to near-breaking point. His shout echoed through the tundra, louder than the thump his body made as he flopped into the snow. Disoriented, he brought himself up to his knees and looked down at his hand. His skin was healthy and whole where it had been black and cracked.
Green eyes, clear and alert, surveyed his surroundings slightly frantically. Where was the angel? Dean stumbled to his feet, unsteady but confident.
"Castiel?" His voice sprawled across the white plane, and suddenly he felt tiny.
From the depths of his mind, a voice that was both one and many, familiar and foreign, replied.
Hello Dean.