Snow and Angels
"See?" Dean said with a huge grin, spreading his arms to indicate the white expanse of the park before them.
Castiel looked down at the ground. "I see snow, Dean."
"Exactly!" Dean slapped him on the back, still smiling like a kid who'd been told he could have anything he wanted in a candy store. "Don't you just love snow?"
Castiel cocked his head to the side. "It is one of the beautiful wonders of God's creation." He looked at Dean, puzzled. "But I am unsure why you love it, Dean."
Dean laughed. "Because it's fun!"
"Fun," Castiel repeated, his definite lack of understanding written all over his face.
"Yeah," Dean said grabbing his friend by the shoulders and giving him a bit of a shake. "Fun. I know you don't get it, but you're going to, because I'm going to show you." He shook his head and stepped away from the angel, gesturing expansively. "There's just so much fun stuff you can do with snow. What do you want to try first? Snow fort? Snowball fight?"
Castiel cocked his head even further to the side. "Military exercises?"
"No!" Dean looked disappointed, his excitement temporarily dampened. "It's supposed to be fun. Look, maybe those were bad examples. How about….snow angels?" He grinned broadly, his eyes twinkling.
"Snow 'angels'?" Castiel was clearly perplexed, but also somewhat curious.
"Yeah, here: this is what you do." Dean stood facing Castiel with his arms spread wide and suddenly fell backward so he was lying flat on his back in the snow, then began moving his arms up and down at his sides and his legs back and forth. "And then," he said, demonstrating, "you get up—very carefully." He stood back to admire his work, clasping his hands in front of him and grinning. "Well?" he said, turning to look at his friend.
Castiel crouched down beside the imprint Dean had made in the snow, narrowing his eyes as though examining a particularly interesting piece of crime scene evidence. "This is meant to represent an angel?" he asked, clearly unconvinced.
"Well yeah. See the wings? And the dress?" Dean gestured, indicating the fan-shaped parts of the design.
"The 'dress'?"
"Well, in your case, it'd be the trench coat I guess." Dean was shaking with barely suppressed laughter.
Castiel nodded soberly, apparently satisfied with the explanation, and his reaction provoking ever more laughter in Dean. After taking a few breaths to calm himself down, Dean urged, "Go on, Cas; you make one."
"Dean, I fail to see the purpose—"
"Please," Dean cut him off, "just…try it."
Heaving a longsuffering sigh, Castiel stood and looked about for a suitable patch of undisturbed snow. Finding one of sufficient size, he copied Dean's earlier actions, though with markedly less enthusiasm.
Watching the angel moving his arms and legs to form the snow angel's wings and skirt, Dean grinned from ear to ear, but then looked disapprovingly at Castiel's face. "You could at least smile."
Castiel's eyes sparkled with a hint of amusement as he looked up at his pouting friend.
"Yeah, that's more like it!" Dean grinned, offering a hand which Castiel accepted to help him to his feet. They both turned to admire the second snow angel. "Not bad," Dean said giving Castiel a slap on the back. "Mine's better, of course, but then I've had much more practice."
"I believe my trench coat may have caused the rendering of the 'dress' to be flawed." Castiel's voice was entirely serious and his face thoughtful.
Dean barked a laugh. "No, no, Cas; I think it's way better this way. A lot better." He grinned at his friend, all excitement once again. "Now let's make a snowman!"
"A snow 'man'?" Castiel's face was once again puzzled. "Is this also achieved by imprinting one's body into the snow?"
"No," Dean said as though the answer was completely obvious, and laughed, shaking his head. "You gotta roll three balls of snow, different sizes. And then stack them." Dean bent down and began to shape the snow with his hands. "I'll make the biggest one, and you start on the middle one. Just make sure it's smaller than the one I make, but not too much smaller."
Castiel obediently crouched and began to follow Dean's example gathering and packing the snow in to a roughly spherical shape, then rolling it, watching with some interest as the snow naturally stuck to itself causing the ball to grow in size as it was moved about. He kept an eye on Dean's snowball, which was becoming quite large—when Dean finally stopped rolling it and stood, the top of it reached just above his knees.
"Bring that over here." Dean gestured to Castiel's snowball. "Pick it up and carry it—wouldn't want it to get any bigger. We'll stack it right on top of this one, and I'll make the head."
Castiel carefully placed his ball of snow on top of the larger one Dean had made, noting that now the structure reached to around his waist. It did not appear this 'snowman' would be a very tall 'man'. It didn't take Dean long to fashion the smallest of the three balls, which he brought over and placed atop Castiel's snowball with a satisfied grin.
"Now we just need some sticks for arms and something to make the face…"
Castiel watched with curiosity as Dean searched the nearby bushes for suitable "arms". Dean returned shortly, hands and arms filled with sticks, rocks, and fur cones. "So you see," he said as though explaining something to a small child, "you put a stick in each side for the arms…" his actions mirroring his words. "And you see how the branches look like fingers?"
Castiel's expression suggested that he did not indeed see, but Dean was too focused on his task to notice, only favouring the angel with a brief glance. As he began to press the small rocks and fur cones into the snow man's head, making two eyes, a nose, and a wide smiling mouth, he began humming to himself.
"I do not recognize that melody."
"Hmm—what? Oh! I guess I was humming…um, 'Frosty the Snowman;' it's a song about a snowman—some kids build it and then it comes to life when they put a magic hat on its head."
Castiel's eyes betrayed alarm. "But the song sounds so cheerful."
"What?" Dean looked at his friend in honest confusion. "Oh! Oh yeah." He laughed, shaking his head. "It's not supposed to have actually happened—and the snowman wasn't dangerous, he just wanted to play and dance around and stuff. I'm pretty sure the song was written by someone who believed all magic was just pretend." He paused and looked thoughtful. "Man, I never thought about it that way. Imagine if 'Frosty the Snowman' were really some vengeful winter spirit—yet another supernatural thing out to kill us, or at least kill our kids…" He sighed and looked up at Castiel. "I think I prefer the snow angels. I don't know any stories about snow angels coming to life."
Castiel looked over at the pair of snow angels he and Dean had made. "That would be rather difficult, Dean; they do not have the physical form of your 'snow man'. They are more like shadows or footprints left behind than anything capable of moving about on its own."
Dean moved to stand beside Castiel and the two of them looked at the imprints they had made in the snow. "They're a lot prettier than the snowman, too; he's a rather deformed fat dude with extremely wimpy arms." The side of Dean's mouth turned up in a lopsided grin.
"Do you know any songs about angels, Dean?"
"Yeah, I guess. There's loads of Christmas songs about angels…my mother used to like to sing some of them. There's…'Hark the Herald Angels Sing' and 'Angels We Have Heard on High'…the one my mom used to sing the most was 'It Came Upon a Midnight Clear'—she had a beautiful singing voice, and I remember her singing me to sleep with that song on Christmas Eve…" Dean drew in a deep breath of the cold air and blinked back the tears that were stinging his eyes. He looked at Castiel. "You don't want me to sing it do you?" He looked around, but they were the only ones in the wintry park. He grinned with some embarrassment. "It won't sound like angels singing, I can tell you that."
"I would love to hear you sing, Dean."
"Yeah, you say that now…" They began to walk slowly though the hushed park with no real destination in mind. He sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "I'd-I'd tell you not to laugh, but it's not like you would anyway." He gave his friend a look that seemed to say 'alright; here goes,' and began to sing.
"It came upon a midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the Earth,
To touch their harps of gold."
His voice became richer as he began to forget his embarrassment and lose himself in the song.
"'Peace on the Earth, good will to men,
From Heaven's all-gracious King,'
The world in solemn stillness waits
To hear the angels sing."
Dean found himself somewhat surprised that he remembered the lyrics so well as he continued to sing.
"Still through the cloven skies they come,
With peaceful wings unfurled;
And still their heavenly music floats
O'er all the weary world:
Above its sad and lowly plains
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever o'er its Babel sounds
The blessed angels sing."
As he began to sing the third verse, the meaning of the words he sang brought a lump of rough emotion to Dean's throat, making it difficult to continue.
"O ye beneath life's crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow;
Look now, for glad and golden hour
Comes swiftly on the wing;
Oh rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing."
He finished the song, his voice much rougher in the final lines, hunched his shoulders and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "Yeah, we humans were a gullible and trusting load of sons-of-bitches, weren't we? All that bullshit about angels caring about our troubles…"
"Dean." Castiel's deep, rough voice was gentle but held a hint of argument.
Dean turned to look at him. "Yeah, I know; I know! But you're not like the other angels. The rest of those dicks couldn't care less about humanity, about the pain we go through; they just ignore us unless they want something, and then they expect immediate and unquestioning obedience." He stopped walking and gripped Castiel's shoulder, looking into Castiel's eyes. "Have I ever told you that I'm glad you saved me from hell? I mean, I'm glad that you were the angel who pulled me out. I—just—thank you. For being you."
Castiel didn't quite smile, but for him it was close enough.
A/N: I had originally planned on writing a very short fic about Dean and Cas making snow angels, but then it seemed to follow logically for them to make a snowman as well. And that led to "Frosty the Snowman" which led to songs about angels, so in the end it was quite a lot more serious and emotional than I had originally intended. Hope you enjoyed reading it; I enjoyed writing it. :)