AN: This is what happens when I'm snowed in my house and all I get to do is go to Tesco and watch women fight over bread.

"Cas!" Sam calls as he steps through the door of the motel room, "We're back."

Dean follows him in, looking for the other bed apart from the huge one in the middle, as he walks into the dimly lit room. Where is the other bed?

Cas springs off the bed, his trench coat thrown across it behind him and the sleeves of his shirt rolled up. Dean's pretty sure that he's feeling anxious, "I sensed something worrying while you were gone. It appears I was incorrect."

Dean and Sam exchange glances before Sam turns his back on them both and goes over to his bag, haphazardly slung in the corner.

"Actually, Cas..." Dean begins, but doesn't finish since Castiel has crossed the room in a heartbeat and has pressed his lips to Dean's. And is kissing him. Why is Cas kissing him? Kissing him. Wait it's okay; it's only Cas. Dean relaxes a little before his brain catches up with him. It's Cas. What the fuck does he think he's doing? He breaks the kiss and pushes Cas away, putting space between them- only it's not as much as he'd like, "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

Castiel looks confused, and tilts his head to convey this.

"Dude," Dean says, gesticulating wildly with his hands, "you did not just kiss me. I am a guy. You are a guy. Guys do not kiss!"

"You are unpleased?" Cas asks, with a head tilt as he frowns at Dean. "I do not understand. You enjoyed it this morning. "

"You weren't even there this morning!" Dean protests, "I have no idea what the hell you're talking about, but I sure as hell did not make out with you this-"

Dean's rant is cut off as Sam sprays him in the face with Holy water. Asshole.

"He is not a demon Sam," Castiel says grim-faced from across Dean.

Sam shrugs and Dean realizes he only did it to distract him from the impeding argument, "Just double-checking. You do realize that this is Dean, but not Dean right?"

Cas frowns and so does Dean.

"Maybe you should sit down?" Sam offers. Cas returns to the bed, and Dean looks around for a chair before he realizes that Sam has taken the only one, alone at a miniature-barely-standing upright table. Dean barks out a laugh since Sam currently has his knees folded up to his chest- and seriously? Who told him to grow so freaking tall? But there's nowhere else for him to sit– and no way is he getting comfy with Castiel on the bed, so he ends up propped against a radiator.

"Remember the day that Dean had that talk with us about that post-averted-apocalypse trip into the future he had?"

"Yes," Castiel says with a solemn nod at the exact time that Dean says, "No."

Dean glares at him, feeling like he's back at middle school and Cas is the smart ass in the corner with all the answers and no social skills. Oh. Wait.

"Well it's just happened." Sam explains in his best geek impression. It's good to know some things are the same wherever you find yourself. "This Dean's been pulled from the past to fill his body in our present until we fix it and he gets sent back to the past. Remember?"

Dean feels like he's just fast forwarded too far in his life. This sounds like something that he'd remember if it'd happened and he hasn't been drinking that much recently so, he concludes, it just hasn't happened yet. And when did that become a perfectly acceptable answer to a problem instead of sounding crazy as shit?

"Fix me how?" Dean says, rubbing his face and getting annoyed at the lack of information they're sharing with him. "Will someone just tell me what the hell has just happened to me?"

Castiel moves across the room and stops in front of Dean, staring at him intensely with a vacant expression on his face. Looking, but not seeing.

"What the hell? Dude, stop staring." Dean waves his hand in front of Cas's face in an effort to make him blink.

"You are right Sam. He is Dean," Castiel announces after his inspection and Dean rolls his eyes because he could have told them that, "but he is different from the Dean of this morning."

"I'm sure you'd know all about that," Sam mutters from the corner.

Dean turns to glare at him and Sam grins back unrepentantly.

"While you two were gone I sensed something disturbing," Castiel says for the second time with a surprising amount of patience as he steps away from Dean. "Something it seems I was, in fact, correct about and Dean failed to mention in his account of his visit to the future."

"I'm sure there's a hell of a lot of stuff he missed out," Sam points out.

"Well do you want to get to it?" Dean grouches, "I want to know what the hell is going on here."

Cas flashes a fond smile at him, before he returns to looking grim, "I have contacted the Archangels and they have confirmed my fears. Dean's soul has been removed from his body. This Dean has been pulled from the past and that is why he is unable to remember anything from the last few months."

Sam nods, "So that's why he can't remember anything about the apocalypse or your relationship—he just doesn't know, it hasn't happened for him yet."

Cas looks pained but agrees.

"So the apocalypse," Dean says steering the conversation away from shit-he-doesn't-want-to-talk-about-ever-so-stop-making-eyes-like-that-Sammy and pulls a beer out of the rusty and grey tinged fridge, "what was that like?"

"We cannot tell you," Castiel says, a little smugly in Dean's opinion as Dean hands him the bottle so Cas can use his angelic powers to crack off the top, "you told us in the past that we refused to tell you anything about the apocalypse."

"Bitched about it more like." Sam interjects from the kids-size table and chair—which is just too frickin' hilarious for Dean not to laugh at whenever he glances in his direction, "Is that why you were so jumpy around Cas?"

Dean shakes his head and grabs the bottle back from Cas before he can drink it—much like he did with that liquor store, "Me? I just got here. I don't know shit."

"Say we find the thing that's taken his soul," Sam says screwing up his face as he thinks out loud, "We just pick Dean's soul up and do what with it exactly?"

"And where do I go?" Dean asks, getting the idea that this plan is very shaky at best.

"You should return from where you came," Castiel explains as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, rolling his sleeves back down now the crisis has been averted—and when did he learn to do that? Last time Dean checked, the only thing Cas could do with his clothes was billow his trench coat around him impressively and struggle undoing shoe laces, "and since we don't know where your soul is being held currently, we can do nothing."

"Nothing?" Dean repeats, getting more pissed off by the minute, "We're just going to sit around here and let some demon or something play monopoly with my soul? Or whatever the fuck it is they do for fun."

Castiel's sigh is so loud it fills the room, "Nothing will 'play' with your soul Dean."

"You bet your ass it won't be," Dean agrees, "because you're going to get us to this bastard before it can."

"Actually no Dean," Castiel interrupts, "they're invisible to the Host. Whoever's taken your soul has done a good job of concealing it and themselves from us. If I hadn't been near you and sensed such a thing; it is likely that this whole situation would have gone undetected by the angels."

"So who's looking for it?" Dean asks, standing up to pace as he gets more and more agitated, "Anyone we trust? Or are we going to let some rogue dick-face angel grab it first and give it to Lucifer himself?"

"You're going to have to find them yourselves," begins Castiel, "I have no doubts as to whether or not you and Sam will succeed. You need to calm down Dean."

Sam winces.

"Calm down?" Dean repeats, his voice raising as he gets angrier, "You're telling me to calm down when my soul has been fucking kidnapped? When did you get so fucking patronizing?"

"Anger will not help the situation, Dean." Castiel says soothingly. Dean can see his fingers twitching by his sides and wonders if he's trying to restrain himself from punching Dean or pressing two fingers to his forehead to knock him out. "Everything will be alright."

"And how do you know this?" Dean asks, rounding on him because he's a dick and he's angry and he's lost and nothing is what it should be, "Or is my soul not really missing and you angels are just using your mojo, fucking around with my head again, and trying to figure out how many shots it takes before I'm down for the count?"

"Because all your memories are intact," Castiel says coolly (not rising to the bait) as he looks up at Dean. "If this was a 'mind trick', then you would have no recollection of yourself or your brother."

Sam simplifies the situation, "Cas wouldn't be here either since the angels never turn up in those things."

Dean shakes his head and takes a sip of his beer as he glares at Sam, "Dude, why didn't you say this before?"

Sam shrugs, "Didn't want to interrupt the lovebirds."

"We are not lovebirds," Dean clarifies, pointing his finger between him and Cas and waving his near-finishing bottle of beer. "Not a couple."

Much to Dean's surprise, Castiel nods, "Dean is right, Sam. I am not in a relationship with this man."

Sam frowns from his chair-that-is-too-small and looks a bit like a kicked puppy, "I don't understand."

Dean smirks happily, sitting on the radiator again, ready to hear Castiel explain to Sam that they are not a couple and that Sam was wrong. Obviously. For someone who went to Stanford, Sam can be really dumb about a lot of things. "The man I am currently in a relationship with is the Dean Winchester of our present. This is the Dean of our past and so, I am not in a relationship with him."

"What kind of relationship is this?" Dean asks, regretting it immediately, but has convinced himself in the short space of time that he's been standing in the motel room that there has been some kind of misunderstanding and that him and Cas are just really, really, really good friends.

And that he uses radiators to warm his ass instead of Cas.

"We are engaging in mutual intercourse." Castiel says with a nonchalant air, though Dean thinks, as he chokes on his beer, that it's not really the kind of the thing that you should announce nonchalantly to a guy that's been straight his whole life.

"Dude, seriously?" Sam splutters as his rickety too-small-wooden chair groans, bitchface firmly plastered on, "I did not need to hear that. What's wrong with just saying, 'It's not platonic.' And leaving it at that."

Dean frowns, secretly agreeing, "And when did this, erm, relationship start?"

This time Sam and Cas exchange a glance. To be more accurate, Sam glances at Cas and Castiel tilts his head.

"We can't tell you." Sam explains.

"Okay," Dean stands up to emphasize his point, before he decides to snag another beer out the fridge, "this we-can't-tell-you-anything bullshit is going to get old. Fast."

"Dean, of our present, said not to tell you when you, of our past, asked." Castiel says. The fact that he's more willing to obey the Dean of his present rather than the Dean who's standing in front of him says something that Dean's not sure he wants to analyze.

"And that's supposed to help?" Dean decides that the beer's gone straight to his head and that maybe it'd be better (and easier) to just pretend that he'd understood what Cas has said. "Fuck me."

"Cas would," Sam mutters.

Dean ignores him and pats the pocket of his jacket down for some money to buy some proper liquor so he can get wasted with minimal effort.

"Are you sure it's a good idea to get yourself intoxicated?" Cas asks, reading his intentions.

"Hell yes," Dean mutters as he finds some bills and rolls them in his fingers to find out what's in his price range. Getting blind drunk? Fantastic idea.

"I disagree," Castiel argues, "we are not exactly 'rolling in money' as you would say."

Sam nods, "He's right. I'm not as comfortable as you with stealing people's money to make enough to live off and this past month you've been more interested in nailing Cas than hustling pool."

Dean grimaces, "Why are you telling me these things?"

There's an awkward silence and Dean glances at Cas quickly to see an expression of hurt flash across his face.

"It's only eleven thirty," Sam says. "We should really get started with some research."

"You're right," Dean shrugs, "the bars won't be open yet."

"How about you two head back to the gas station; see if you can pick any clues up about who was there," Sam suggests as he pulls out his laptop, "I'm gonna start searching on what kinds of rituals could be used and maybe start working on a counter."

Dean frowns at how transparent Sam's plans to get the two of them (back) together are, but walks out, jerking with his head for Cas to follow him.