Dean's phone buzzed, but instead of the expected text message, or email notification, he was greeted with a weather alert.

"Tornado warning in effect until midnight." He announced, although his brother was the only other person in the apartment, and his phone had buzzed at nearly the same time.

"Yeah, I'll pull my bike in. Did you ever buy that cover for the car? There's a pretty good chance of hail." Sam was reclining on the couch, his laptop across his legs.

Dean cursed. He hadn't ever gotten around to actually ordering that thing, which meant he would likely have to go bribe the shop down the street to let him park in the garage. He couldn't in good conscious allow the weather to get the best of his baby, and it wasn't like their cheap ass apartments were offering any kind of covered parking.

"I'll be back." He told his brother, grabbing his keys and heading out the door. Sam just snickered at his misfortune.

It was only a fifteen minute walk back to the apartment after securing the protection his car needed, but the sky was already darkening. The sun was almost fully below the horizon, and the swiftly moving grey clouds overhead were helping to snuff out the light even faster. Even as he stepped onto their lot the first drops of rain started to fall. By the time he reached the door, the wind was whipping through the spaces between the buildings.

Sam's bike was no longer on the patio, so Dean assumed he'd been gone long enough for his brother to finally finish up his homework and find protection for his own transportation. He couldn't help his own snicker at the idea of how ridiculous his huge brother looked when riding the thing.

"I'm back!" He announced as he opened the door, slamming it shut behind him to complete his dramatic entrance.

Sam just glared at him over the top of his ever present laptop. "Dude. The whole place is like seven hundred square feet. I do not need you to announce your presence."

"Maybe not, but I just braved the weather. I thought you should know I hadn't been carried away by any tornados." Dean plopped down into his favorite seat, grinning at his brother.

"It's not my fault you are obsessed with your car. I was just kind enough to remind you to take care of it."

"And for that, you shall be rewarded! How does pie sound? I haven't baked a pie in like a week!" Dean was actually fairly excited about the prospect, but the look Sam threw at him said that he should stay seated.

"First of all, pie is your thing. You know I don't care either way. Second of all, if the power goes out before your pie is done baking it'll be ruined. And I don't really feel like listening to you bitch about that for the rest of the night."

The eldest Winchester sent his brother a nasty look that may have come off as more of a pout. His brother was right though, so Dean reached for the remote instead.

It was nearly an hour later before the weather started to get bad. The wind speed had increased enough that the windows were making a whistling sound. The air was forcing it's way in through the cheap seals the apartments probably hadn't updated since the building had been built. The rain was pouring from the sky, slapping against the building, forced into violence by the wind.

Dean was distracted enough by the sound to mute the tv, before leaping up and peering out the window at the storm.

"It's getting pretty bad out there. I'm glad I paid that skeeze to let me park Baby at the garage."

Sam spared a glance at the comment. "How much did he charge you?"

"Thirty freaking dollars! And they weren't even using the bay! He was just being a dick. Worth it though. It looks nasty out there."

Even as he said it a siren sounded in the distance, and both of their phones buzzed again.

"Well I guess you weren't joking." Sam commented. He reached his long arm over the arm of the couch, unplugging his laptop from the wall.

Dean sighed as he went to unplug the tv and surround sound from the wall as well. It was fairly uncommon for a power surge to actually affect your electronics these days, but it had been trained into them since they were boys. Just as he was straightening back up that something truly surprising happened..

There was a knock at the door.

Dean shared an incredulous look with his brother. There was no way someone was outside in this weather, and everyone they knew was still in Kansas, anyway.

The knock sounded again, seeming more desperate this time.

Both brothers started for the door, neither quite knowing how to react to the odd situation. Dean threw the door open as he reached it.

The sight they were greeted with was even more surprising than the knock had been. There were two familiar looking men standing outside their door, soaking wet and clearly being shoved around by the high winds. Dean gestured them inside, even as his face turned suspicious.

Once the door was closed, so he could be heard over the weather, Sam addressed their guests. "Did you guys get locked out?"

This was a perfectly reasonable question that helped Dean place where he'd seen these particular men before. They had recently moved into the apartment right above the Winchesters'.

"Well, no. Not exactly." The shorter of the two looked a little uncomfortable as he answered. He seemed to be a little bit older than the rest of them, although he was certainly the shortest. He had dirty blonde hair that was longer than most men tended to wear it. It had nothing on Sam's hair, though. "It was my brother's idea to come down here."

The other man was nearly the same height as Dean. He had dark messy hair and a strong jawline that had Dean doubting the statement that the two were related. The taller brother glared at the blonde for a moment before turning his gaze to the Winchesters. The blue of his eyes made the already attractive man look all the more beautiful.

"During a tornado, it is advised that you retreat to the lowest point. We live on the second floor." Holy crap. The voice that accompanied that stern face was rather fitting, actually. Dean couldn't remember the last time he'd heard such a deep commanding tone.

It took Dean a moment to realize the other set of brothers seemed to be waiting for a response to that comment.

"Seriously?" It was the only thing he could think to say. The night was definitely taking a turn for the strange.

"I told him that it was weird to go knocking on stranger's doors because of a little storm…" The blonde brother paused in his mocking as a lightning strike caused the lights to flicker. "Or, not so little storm."

The thunder that followed rocked the entire building. The windows rattled, as did the walls. The dark haired brother's gaze shifted toward the windows, as he visibly flinched at the loud rumble that seemed to last too long.

"What is the central room in your apartment?" He asked, his gravelly voice adding gravity to the situation that Dean didn't think was really warranted.

"Uh, my closet I think." The eldest Winchester said, feeling completely thrown by the question.

"Can we continue this conversation in there?" Those blue eyes turned back to him, and they seemed to be pleading. The storm must have really been freaking the guy out.

"What?" It was really the only logical response to that question.

"Seriously, Cassie! You can't just barge into people's houses and ask to hang out in their closets!" The blonde brother seemed to be as weirded out by the conversation as Dean felt.

"The central room of the home is the safest place in the event of a tornado." The dark haired one informed them. He sounded as if he'd spent some time researching. "I would feel much more comfortable if we were to move to the closet."

Dean knew that he was just staring at the stranger at this point. The guy had to know how strangely he was acting. How could he not?

"Yeah, of course. Come on." Sam said kindly. Dean turned his incredulous gaze on his brother's back as he motioned for the stranger to accompany him toward Dean's own bedroom. The dark haired brother followed immediately as the blonde one cringed and gave him a tortured look.

"I'm really sorry about this." He said it with a disbelieving tone that made Dean accept the truth of the words. "He's never acted this way before. The kid wasn't even scared of monsters when he was younger! He jumped off the high dive before I did at summer camp, and I'm four years older. I can't even imagine what's going through his head now."

It was then that Dean realized that this truly was a big brother. He was weirded out, and didn't know how to handle his brother right this minute, but he was doing what was necessary. Even if he was embarrassed about harassing some strangers to find a place for his brother to hide in. This was something Dean could relate to.

"I'm Dean." He said, putting out a hand to shake, which was immediately gripped and pumped up and down a few times. The older brother smiled in relief.

"I'm Gabriel. That fucking weirdo in your closet is my little brother, Castiel." He dropped Dean's hand and shot a worried glance toward the hall as another lightning strike lit up the room.

"Fear makes people act strangely, sometimes." Dean offered, trying to make the other man feel more at ease, as Dean wondered what his closet looked like. It wasn't as if he'd been expecting guests in there.

Gabriel snorted. "Yeah the fear thing is weird, but the acting strange thing is not. Castiel is usually a little bit awkward anyway. Although, I can't imagine him demanding to go to a stranger's closet, normally. So, that's new."

Then the crash of thunder came, then. It felt as if the entire room shook, and as soon as it was quiet enough a voice called angrily from down the hall.

"Gabriel! Get in here!"

Dean shared an amused glance with Gabriel before leading him to the suddenly very overcrowded closet.

"This is so weird." Gabriel commented, leaning back onto a pile of Dean's dirty clothes while nursing the beer Sam had provided them, after retrieving some towels to try and dry off a bit. "I'm really sorry about this guys."

"It's alright." Sam offered the other brothers a smile, although Castiel was in the corner closest to the center of the apartment glaring toward the door. "My first college girlfriend was terrified of tornados. She was much more obnoxious about the whole thing, though. I seriously thought about spiking her drinks with Xanax whenever a storm would hit."

Well that explained why it had seemed so easy for Sam to get with the program and offer Castiel the closet he'd been seeking.

The dark haired man took his glare off the door long enough to send it toward his nearly untouched beer instead with suspicion.

Sam chuckled before reassuring him that he would never actually do that.

"Besides, what are strangers for if not to burrow into their closets when the tornado sirens go off?" Dean grinned through his own sarcasm, still trying to find a comfortable way to sit. The closet clearly wasn't made to fit four fully grown men, and even with Gabriel being quite a bit smaller than the rest of them, and Castiel clearly trying to make himself as small as possible in the corner, it was still a tight fit. Sam's long limbs could barely stretch all the way across the space, his back pressed to one wall while his feet brushed the one parallel.

Sam sent him a glare before changing the subject. "So, where are you guys from?"

Gabriel seemed surprised by the question for a second before he appeared to realize that the Winchester brothers were uncommonly relaxed with the whole weather scenario.

"We're from Cleveland. Not really natural disaster rich territory." He shrugged a little, and spared a glance at his younger brother. He was clearly worried about the affect the weather was having on Castiel as the thunder clapped again.

Dean decided that what Castiel really needed was a distraction. "We're from Kansas. Even deeper into tornado alley. Texas is almost a break from that." He took a swig of his own beer, before reaching across the tiny space to poke the thigh of the dark haired man in the corner.

Castiel startled at the contact, but his attention was drawn, which had been Dean's intention. He turned those haunting blue eyes on Dean. "What does tornado alley mean?"

Dean chuckled a little at that. "I guess it's one of those things that doesn't mean much when you learn about it in school unless you actually live it. It's the valley between the American mountain ranges, well known for being tormented by tornados. I think Oklahoma and Kansas are the worst, but all the states in the valley get them pretty frequently."

Castiel's head dropped into his hands. "Oh god, Gabriel. We moved to hell."

It was almost midnight, and they hadn't heard much in the way of thunder for at least half an hour. Somehow, Dean had spent his entire Friday night in his closet with his strange new neighbors. They had finished off all of the beer in the house, and had moved on to the whiskey. Sam and Gabriel were in the kitchen, setting up the next round. Luckily, Dean didn't have to work the next day.

"Tornado season?! There is a whole season dedicated to this?" Castiel had certainly loosened up. It was hard to tell if it was from the booze, or from the fact that the storm had clearly moved on.

"You can probably expect about one of these a week for the next three months. Sorry to be the one to tell you." Dean tried to sound sympathetic, but growing up with tornado warnings and sirens desensitized you to the whole thing. If Castiel hadn't come in demanding to stay in their closet, chances were Dean and Sam would have still been in the living room finding some other way to entertain themselves.

Castiel looked away from the eye contact they'd been sharing recently. "Will you allow me to stay in your closet, when the storms come?" He seemed embarrassed to be asking, but it was one of those things that came along with irrational fears. The shame came afterwards, because the fear didn't really allow for it at the time.

Dean grinned at him, hoping to squash the humiliation before it even started. "But of course! Mi armario es su armario!"

"Gracias." The reply came with a shy smile that made Dean's heartbeat flutter. Well, shit. That was not the proper response for a straight man to have when an attractive male smiled at him.