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When Dean Winchester was five years old – sorry 5 and ¾, which made him almost 6, as he liked to tell everyone who would ask – he loved to play with matchbox cars. His father had gotten them for his third birthday and they had been his favorite toys ever since. Because his son seemed to share his enthusiasm for cars, John always liked to joke that his son would follow in his footsteps and become a mechanic, just like him.
One beautiful fall day, the sun was streaming in through the window of the Winchester house and warming the floor of the living room. Dean was playing with his matchbox cars in that spot, his back getting warmed by the sun. Since he was too preoccupied with the race that was currently going on between a Chevrolet Corvette and a Mazda RX7, he wasn’t listening to his parents talking in the kitchen. And why would he? His world was perfect.
If he had listened though, he would have heard them discussing buying a house in the suburbs of a town that Dean, with his so far short experience of the world and limited geographical understanding, had never heard of. But in that moment all the little boy cared about was which car would win.
He wouldn’t remember that it was the Corvette that did when he thought back to that time as an adult, however he would remember how his parents had sat him down at the dinner table a fortnight later.
He would remember how his parents had told him that they would be moving soon, his mother carrying his few months old brother Sam on her hip. He would remember how in that moment that was the ending of the world for him and he would smile at the thought.
However when he did think back to that day, the predominant moment that came to his mind was how his mom had patted his head, while his dad had taken him into his big strong arms and told him that it was going to be okay. Oh, and how right he had been.
This realization only came later though. In that moment he was devastated and he was cranky for the rest of the day.
Just as usual he threw a tantrum at bedtime but at least he could vent to his teddy bear how unfair everything was when he was finally tucked in. Mr. Teddy was very understanding and an exceptionally good listener but he could not take his friend’s worries away. He was a small comfort to the boy though, when he thought about leaving behind his friends from the kindergarten and the apple tree from their backyard.
He voiced these concerns to his parents the next day at breakfast, trying to convince them of staying. But it was no use, his mom assured him that he would make many new friends where they would be moving to, especially when he started primary school.
In addition his dad promised that there was a much bigger tree in their new back yard and that they could even build a tree house. But Dean didn’t want a tree house. Or well, he definitely did but what good was a tree house if you couldn’t even share it with a friend? It was not like his brother was any use either. He was just fussy and didn’t care about Dean’s games anyway.
The more stuff from the house disappeared into cardboard boxes, the harder Dean tried to stop his parents from going through with the move. But of course his parents didn’t give in. John and Mary were both sad that their son was so upset about the move, but they also knew that he would indeed find new friends in no time.
On the day the moving truck was standing in from of their house, Dean knew Christmas was less than a month away. The air outside had gotten crispy cold over the past week and it smelled like snow. They were moving away, though. Away from the snow that was soon to come.
The grey clouds that were covering the sky up were clogging Dean’s mind as well when his mother fastened his seat belt for him and pressed a kiss on the top of his head. The empty house they were leaving behind grew smaller and smaller until they took a turn and it was gone completely. Soon they were on the highway and Dean watched the trees whoosh by his window…
The first morning he woke up in his new room Dean was very confused. It took him a moment to remember where he was but when he did, something still felt off. The lighting wasn’t right for some reason. He hopped out of bed to investigate the situation.
The moment he passed the window that faced the back yard he knew what was up. The lawn that had yesterday still been green was now covered in a thick white blanket, as was the big tree and everything else in sight.
So at least this new place does have snow, Dean thought as he ran down the hall, into his parents’ bedroom and jumped right into their bed to tell them the great news.
“Mom, Dad, wake up! It snowed!”
Upon finally seeing Dean in a good mood they were not even mad at him for waking them up a little too early. After breakfast the snow still hadn’t melted and Dean was bouncing around the house, excited to finally go outside and leave tracks in the newly fallen snow.
New. Right. Dean stood still all of the sudden when he remembered that he did not have anyone to play with because all his friends were hundreds of miles away. He dropped his bright green wool hat back into the box that stood next to front door and contained the Winchester’s hats, scarfs, gloves and mittens in various shapes and colors.
“What’s wrong, honey?” His mother asked him when he strode through the kitchen towards the living room. “Didn’t you want to go outside and play in the snow?”
Dean just shook his head and told her he would help dad assemble some furniture. Mary wanted to go outside and play with her son very much but she really needed to unpack at least some kitchen utensils. They had to eat something, after all. Also she had to watch Sam while John was working on the furniture and that would make wrestling in the snow with a toddler kind of hard.
John was very happy about the help from his oldest son since now he didn’t have to bow down to pick up every single screw anymore but instead Dean handed them to him. After they had finished putting together the double bed in the parent’s bedroom they moved on to Dean’s bed. When that was done as well they were ready to start with the big bookcase in the living room.
By then lunch was ready and they took a break from their hard work. Dean was feeling a little better now, too, after he had been told an awesome story by his dad while they were working.
After lunch they went back to set up their house, Dean getting more and more bored after the initial excitement over assembling furniture had worn off. Once he was supported by his brother who felt like he was not getting enough attention from his parents and therefore went from being a little fussy to wailing.
The Winchester household was now officially a mess. Wood planks were strewn across the floor, along with hinges, screws and various tools; big cardboard boxes stacked everywhere and two little children added to this chaos.
In the end Mary had enough and just wrapped Dean in his winter jacket, put a colorful scarf around his neck and a green woolen hat on top of his head, handed him mittens and told him to go play outside and enjoy the snow. Seeing him wade through the untouched snow looked like a color bomb getting thrown on a white canvas. Mary let out a long sigh at the look of the peaceful image. Then she turned around to sort out the mess in her living room.
Dean felt a little lost in this big, unfamiliar back yard. He let his gaze wander around. Over the big tree, the small shed and the fence separating their yard from their neighbor’s. The latter of which seems to have fallen over quite recently, which left a clear view of the other side. Maybe Dean would later ask his dad if they could fix it together.
For now he only shuffled around in the snow, picking some of the white flakes up and watching them melt on the fabric of his mittens or throwing it in the air just to let it snow on his head again.
When he once again looked up from his moderately enthusiastic playing, he spotted another kid playing on the other side of the toppled fence. They were looking just as lonely as Dean felt, with their shoulders hanging low and their feet drawing patterns in the snow.
“Hey!” Dean called out.
The kid’s head snapped up and they turned towards Dean. He still couldn’t make out if it was a boy or a girl because of all the winter clothes they were wearing. As the small person stepped closer to the fence Dean could make out a pair of the bluest eyes he had ever seen and a few strands of dark brown hair peeking out from under the boy’s – he could see it now – red hat with a bobble on top of it.
The other boy tilted his head a little to the side and mustered Dean with squinted eyes as if trying to figure out a difficult problem.
“I’m Dean Winchester,” He started to introduce himself, hoping he might have found someone to play with “We just moved in here yesterday and my parents send me out here to play so they could finish putting up the furniture. I even build my own bed earlier, can you believe that? But playing alone is so boring! Do you want to play together? We could build a snowman or –“
His excited babbling was cut off when the other boy answered “Yes, I’d like that very much, Dean!”
And just that easy a bond was formed between two little boys. Dean soon found out that the other’s name was Castiel Novak and that they were around the same age.
Together they rolled snow into a big balls and stacked them onto each other. They made smaller, egg shaped, arms and tried to stick them to the snowman’s body. Throughout the process of building the snowman, they talked. Dean told Cas, as he was calling him now since it was so much easier to say, about his old home, about his friends at kindergarten, about the awesome pie his mom made sometimes and about his matchbox cars.
In exchange Cas told him about the bees that he saw in the summer on the flowers his mother planted, about how his big brother Gabriel always played pranks on him but told the best jokes and how his name was the name of an angel because his mother loved angels.
Upon finishing their slightly deformed snowman – Cas had gone to ask his mother for an old pot to put as the hat and a carrot for the nose, they even got some stones for the eyes and mouth - Cas just let himself fall over on his back, directly into the snow.
“What are you doing?” Dean laughed at his new friend. Then Cas started to move his arms and legs back and forth, wiping the snow away and leaving behind an even area of snow.
“I’m making a snow angel,” he explained. It became clearer when he got up, very carefully trying not to destroy his creation. “It’s fun!” he promised.
The two of them proceeded to make as many snow angels as possible in the bits of untouched snow they had left over after their snowman building activities. They didn’t even notice how it grew darker and darker, giggling with joy, throwing snow and chasing each other.
What finally drew them out of their own little world was Cas’ mom calling her son inside. They said their goodbyes and promised to continue their playing the next day.
Dean figured he could go back inside, too, as he realized how dark and cold it had gotten, especially now that Cas was gone.
Mary was very glad that her son came back inside when he did, since she had been planning to fetch him but she didn’t want to interrupt the playing of the two boys as they had looked so happy together.
Now she could peel him out of his wet winter clothes, sit him down on the couch they had put into the right spot at some point in the afternoon, make him hot chocolate and listen to Dean go on and on about the neighbor’s boy and their adventures of the afternoon.
“And then he flopped to in the snow and made a snow angel! And we made so many! And he is named after an angel, can you believe that, mom? And…”
She smiled at Dean’s excited rambling, happy that he had found a friend so fast.
“Well, that makes it easier to go over and introduce ourselves to the neighbors,” Mary said that evening at dinner with a big smile on her face when Dean still couldn’t stop talking about Cas and how much fun they’d had.
When Mary tucked her boy in that night and told him that angels were watching over him, just as she did always, he smiled at her sleepily and said “An angel like Cas” before his eyes drooped and he was out like a light.
On the next morning Dean woke up with excitement bubbling in his belly. He couldn’t wait to get outside and see Cas again. His parents could just barely convince him of eating breakfast and he realized the feeling in his stomach had also been part hunger. However he jumped right back into the snow after having brushed his teeth and put on some warm clothes.
As soon as Cas saw his friend come out of his house from his look-out at the living room window, he leaped to the floor and put on his clothes while calling out to his mother that he was going outside to play.
Excited over the new snow that had fallen in the night the two of them started to improve their snowman from yesterday and build another one in front of Cas’ house so both of their houses would have one. After some time Mary, John and Sam came over to introduce themselves to the Novak family and they all sat together and ate the pie Mary had baked. They got along great and it was a very pleasant get together.
Because once again their clothes were completely wet from their shenanigans outside they stayed inside for some time and Dean showed Cas his matchbox cars he had told him about and Cas promised to show him his favorite book when Dean would come over to his house some time. They spent the whole day trading stories and playing together and Dean was delighted when he found out that he would actually go to the same kindergarten as Cas.
So the next day they met in front of Cas’ house, both with a small backpack on their back; clasped their small hands together and Cas showed him the way to the kindergarten. Both of their mothers stood on the sidewalk, watching their children walk of together.
From then on Dean and Cas were attached by the hip. They played together in the tree house they eventually got around to build, except that John now had too helping hands and it wasn’t rare that Mary would find the two boys on her living room floor, playing with the matchbox cars, or on the couch, watching a movie together.
Both of them had two families and two homes growing up.
Dean also fitted right into Cas’ little group of friends consisting of the bubbly redhead Charlie and the shy but very smart Kevin. Later in Middle school their group was enhanced by Jo, Ash and Pam, who brought a lot of energy and fun into their group.
Over the years of friendship that followed, their snowmen grew bigger and taller, just as the two boys did and of course their story of friendship hit a few bumps along the road. Like the death of Charlie’s mom when they were twelve or Cas’ fight with his parents when he read the bible and discovered that god was not always righteous and merciful. But they got through all of that. Together.
The longest period of time Dean and Cas didn’t talk to each other was in their sophomore year of High School when Cas admitted to having had feelings that went beyond friendship for his best friend for a while and Dean completely freaked out. Dean had spent weeks feeling miserable until Mary finally talked some sense into him and made him realize what the fluttering in his stomach whenever he was with Cas actually meant.
After an awkward, stuttered confession from a blushing Dean and a chaste kiss, a relationship of a different kind began to bloom between the two boys. And eventually the fluttering wore off a little and shifted into a profound feeling of home and right.
They still had movie nights, sometimes with their group of friends, sometimes without, but now they were always cuddled together on a sofa, trading slow kisses every now and then.
The years went on and they went to college together, Cas studying history, while Dean was majoring in engineering. In the end he didn’t become a mechanic though, but instead he opened his own restauration shop for classic cars. Cas started teaching college and wrote books on different matters.
Still their tradition of the annual snowman building stuck. As soon as the first snow hit the ground each winter they were outside in no time and trying to scrape enough together to build a snowman.
It was on one of these first winter days that they rushed outside so fast that Dean’s scarf was still hanging loosely around his neck and Cas’ hat still showed half of his unruly hair after they had discovered the huge amount of snow that had fallen in the night. After Dean had finished putting the face on the snowman and declared it the best snowman they had ever build – just as he did every year – also because it even had a broomstick in its hand, he turned to his boyfriend. He had a huge grin plastered on his face that was still flushed from the cold and their hard work.
Seeing this made Cas’ heard swell with love and gave him the courage to follow through with the plan he’d had for months—hell, years.
He took the small velvet box he always carried with him from his pocket and sank to one knee. If he wouldn’t have been so nervous he would have laughed at Dean’s face. His face was frozen in an expression of disbelief, joy and confusion that was just plain ridiculous.
“Dean Winchester, I feel like I’ve known you all my life” Cas started with a shaky voice. That snapped Dean out of his stupor and he let out a loud laugh. He looked like he was about to burst with happiness. “Ever since we build that first snowman together as kids you have made my heart melt like a snowman in the sun. You have always been my best friend and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you please do me the honor of marrying me?”
“Yes, Cas, of course! I love you!” Dean tackled his boyfriend – no, fiancé – to the ground before he even had time to put the ring on his finger and pressed kisses all over his face. After some time they simultaneously burst into laughter, rolling around in the snow like lunatics.
Exactly one year later they stood in front of the altar, glowing with joy and reciting their vows. The celebrations afterwards were filled with snowman themed, well, everything and several people considered it childish and cheesy. But for Dean and Cas it was perfect.