It wasn't long before Sam, Dean and Castiel were sitting in the Impala with a ten hour journey stretching out ahead of them. Dean had been hesitant on going on a hunt so soon, but he didn't bring his worries up as he knew Cas was more than ready to help. He just couldn't let his personal feelings get in the way of the job. He gripped the steering wheel a little tighter and stared straight ahead as he tried to sort out the practical thoughts about the hunt from the irrational worries for Castiel's safety in his head.

Dean had spent most of the journey in silence with the quiet hum of Metallica coming through the speakers. He was getting too much into his own head and he tried to shake his annoying thoughts away. He began to hear something above the music and he looked into the back seat to find Cas slumped and snoring. He smiled a little, Cas always looked so vulnerable and helpless while he slept. Dean looked back to the front and then wiped the smile quickly off his face when he realised that Sam was looking at him. Sam snorted with laughter.

"So are we getting seperate rooms this time?" he asked. Dean almost swerved straight off the road. He looked at Sam with panic written all over his face. He had been so careful to make sure that Sam and Bobby wouldn't find out about him and Cas until he was ready to tell them. He could hardly tell it to himself sometimes, he wasn't ready to admit that man-of-the-ladies Dean Winchester was in a relationship with his ex-angel, male best friend.

"What?" Dean asked, more like shouted, really. Sam laughed harder this time.

"We're not gonna fit three of us in a tiny motel room, Dean." Oh. Dean gulped. He had freaked out about nothing. Sam didn't know, he was just following his usual logical train of thought and, also as usual, Dean had drawn wild conclusions. He visibly relaxed and wished his heart would stop beating so loudly.

"Oh right, yeah." Dean replied while making a point to stare straight ahead.

"You okay, Dean?" Sam asked and Dean was sure he could detect the amusement in Sam's voice.

"I'm fine, man." Dean shrugged.

"You know he'll be fine, don't you? It's not like he's new to this and he can handle himself."

"Yes, I know, Sam. Why don't you try to get some sleep yourself?" Dean said without looking away from the road. Sam knew the conversation was over and he wasn't going to coax anything out of Dean now so he leaned his head back and shut his eyes.

When they finally arrived at their motel Dean was exhausted both mentally and physically and despite having spent the entire journey trying to tell himself that he was fine with letting Castiel take part in the hunt, he still hadn't convinced himself. He walked to the reception desk and threw a card on the counter and asked for two rooms with a less than polite tone. Castiel, who had slept the entire way and was now wide awake, tilted his head as he looked at Dean curiously. Dean sighed and grabbed one of the room keys and walked out of reception, Cas followed after exchanging shrugs with Sam.

Sam took the other key and watched Dean lead Cas to their room. Dean had been notably happier recently and Sam knew exactly why. He also knew that the reason for Dean's happiness was very adept in handling guns, knives, salt, holy water and absolutely everything else they could possibly need to use in any hunt. He could understand that Dean would be worried but he couldn't understand why he was actually angry at bringing Castiel with them. He decided he would have to bring it up and force Dean to talk about it because babysitting Castiel was going to be the opposite of effective in teaching him how to look after himself. But first of all, he needed more sleep.

Dean threw his bag down by one of the beds and collapsed on it while Cas closed the door. Castiel felt a little hesitant to ask the question he really wanted to. When his lips finally formed the words, they came out as a whisper.

"What was that?" he heard Dean say, muffled by his pillow. Dean sat up on the bed and looked over at Cas who was yet to step away from the door.

"You can come in, you know, this is your room too." Dean said in a pathetically jokey manner, he really was far too tired for that.

"Why are you so angry with me?" the question came out a little rushed and a bit too loud the second time. Dean sighed yet again and buried his face in his hands.

"I'm not." he said as he rose off the bed and made his way over to Castiel. "I'm just worried about you." Dean could see Castiel tense up and move away from him at that.

"You don't have to be, Dean. I am perfectly capable of handling myself in any kind of confrontation. I thought I had proved that to you." Castiel spoke in a clipped tone, not meeting Dean's eyes.

"I know, I know. You did-have. You have proved that. I will still worry though, okay? You can't stop me." Cas looked up at Dean through his eyelashes and no matter how tired Dean was, he couldn't help but smile at how adorable that looked. Dean was still trying to get used to the fact that he associated words like "adorable" with Castiel but he was definitely getting to be okay with it. Cas smiled back and Dean put two fingers under Castiel's chin to lift his head up and then brought their lips together.

Dean and Cas had shared many kisses just like this one and Dean was starting to realise that he most certainly wanted more but he had no idea how to bring this up with Castiel. He knew that Cas had as much experience in that area as he had with driving or shopping. But those had been easy ideas to bring up, this was a whole lot different.

Dean was brought out of his thoughts when he felt the absence of Cas' lips on his own. He opened his eyes to find Cas looking at him sleepily and realised that he wouldn't have to worry about any of that tonight. They decided to make use of only one of the beds seeing as they were used to the cramped sofa at Bobby's house. They both fell asleep fast.

The next morning Sam and Cas were busy talking and looking at the screen of Sam's latop while Dean was throwing back cup after cup of coffee and rubbing his eyes in an effort to simply stay awake. As far as Dean could tell they were dealing with a werewolf. He had heard "3 vics...hearts missing...silver bullet" the rest was just noise.

"Dean! You with us?" Sam was waving a hand in his face and he reached out to swat it away.

"Yeah, I'm here." Dean opened his eyes and looked at Sam who snorted a little before looking back at his laptop.

"What did I just say?" Sam challenged and Dean groaned while putting his head back down on the table. "Yeah, that's what I thought. I said that we should go check out the bodies for ourselves. Yeah?"

"Yeah, okay." but Sam had a feeling Dean would have agreed to anything in the state he was in. "I'll get my suit." he stood up and walked towards his bag when he remembered that something good would come out of this hunt after all. He would get to see Castiel wearing his suit and trench coat again.

Sam led Dean and Cas through the building, flashing their badges and announcing they were Detectives Young, Tyler and Van Zant and then they were escorted to the morgue. Sam looked over the police report and the coroner's report before looking over the bodies himself. Apparently, Sam didn't trust anyone else to help him with his research but that was absolutely fine with Dean, he could just sit back and watch Castiel from a distance. It wasn't long before Sam concluded that, yes, it was most definitely a werewolf they were dealing with and Dean jumped up smiling because they already knew how to waste a werewolf. This hunt was going to be a piece of cake.

But Dean couldn't stop thinking about how wrong he had been when the werewolf in question had knocked the gun out of his hand and sent it flying too far for him to reach. Sam and Cas had taken seperate streets but it had to be Dean who had found the right one. Yep, it just had to be, he thought as he took off at a run down the street. He didn't get very far, however, before he could feel hands and claws grabbing him from behind and dragging him to the ground. He cried out as he felt white hot pain explode across his chest and he knew that he would lose a lot of blood from that. Dean kicked his legs out and the pain and anger he was feeling must have given him some extra adrenaline because the beast flew pretty far. He didn't have enough time to be proud of himself before he heard a shot followed closely by someone shouting his name.

"Cas?" his voice was gruff and breathy.

"Yes, Dean, it's me." the deep voice replied.

"Cas." Dean whispered this time before his eyelids felt heavy and pulled him into the dark.

I apologise from the very bottom of my heart for the delay in posting this. I really hate that I don't update often but my workload for school has got crazy seeing as exams start next month. But after that I'm done until September! So hopefully I can get to regular updates then.

None of these chapters have been beta'd but if anyone would like to volunteer to do that for me, it would be awesome. My best friend usually reads over things I've written but she has given up fanfiction until after her exams. She's a stronger person than I. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed!