"What's with the scarf?" Sam finally said, glancing at me.

We were standing on the far opposites of the big living room, where Sam usually liked to do read or just be on his laptop. I knew Dean was most likely in his room, cross. Well, cross was perhaps not the right word. Both of my brothers got so angry with me for not staying in the Bunker as they told me previously, that they refused to talk with me the whole day. Gladly they didn't know the whole truth. That spared me a lot more shouting.

So I… decided to… apologize. Starting with Dean seemed a good idea because he was the difficult part. Didn't go quite well. He told me that if I go somewhere completely on my own that way again, he'd tie me to a chair with belts. Fair enough. Sam forgave me almost immediately as if he had been waiting for me to do it. He even offered me coffee and I gladly accepted, sitting on the table across him and sinking in silence.

Furrowing at me at least fifteen minutes after that, he probably thought that I don't see the obvious concern on his face. Hell, I could feel it upon me. It always touched me how observant and careful he always was, but sometimes that was of pure detriment.

Especially in the moments like this one, when I tried not to draw any attention. My brothers were often annoyingly concerned about my safety, although I could claim that I was as dangerous as both of them and not a less prepared hunter. I was a Winchester after all, it was a bit of a professional distortion.

But there's always an exception.

I made a… rather big mistake yesterday. I went after a track, believing that it was leading me to a werewolf. It took me a week to find the source. And when I found it, my brothers were on a different lead. After I was entreated most calmly from Sam to wait until they're back and received a couple of intimidating warnings from Dean not to leave the Bunker, I got pretty angry. I had spent the whole week in watching TV and shifting from the one side of the bed to the other.

All this boredom was killing me while knowing that the world needed me. Instead of laying in my bed, I could make it a safer place and that has always been a prime purpose in my life. That's why I didn't listen to them.

I packed my things and went out. Cas was gone by the time, we hadn't seen him for days. I was fully capable of handling a werewolf by myself, I've done this before hundreds of times. So I wasn't worried at all. But I should have.

The early morning was chilly and I felt the air heavy as if it was about to start raining. The abandoned factory in the Emporia's outskirts was a perfect place for such creatures to gather. I reloaded the silver-bullet gun in my hands and went to see what's going on.

But as soon as I entered that factory I knew something wasn't quite right.

"It's 40 degrees in here. You sure you're ok?" Sam continued unobtrusively and I trembled, snapping out of my memories.

My eyes raised up to him.

"Yes," I smiled, not as deceivingly as I wanted to.

"Come on. Tell me what's going on." He insisted.

"Cas hasn't called you, right?" My eyes went down to my cup of coffee.

"Uh… no. Haven't heard from him since last week. Why?" Sam was more confused than ever.

"Good." I wrinkled, trying to keep him from detecting the painful spasms my mind was going through all over again.

I stood up, feeling that Sam wasn't going to stop with the questions.

As I swept into the factory, I heard laughter. It sounded wicked. My skin pricked by how unpleasantly it felt.

Not one laughter. There were at least half a dozen werewolves. If not more.

But how was that possible? The track convinced me it's just one. Perhaps two.

They attacked me. All at once.

I took down two of them, even a third one. But I didn't see the one behind me, I just heard him. It wasn't the pain of the nails scarring my neck that scared me. It was that it was too late to reload. I couldn't defend myself. I could do nothing. Then the blinding white light came. I knew that light. It was painfully familiar.

"I think I'll go to my room now." I thought out loud and headed for the door. "Thanks for the coffee."

The lights suddenly flickered for a few seconds before completely going out. My heart shrunk as the emergency ones turned on. They were illuminating with subdued light and it was somehow oppressing.

"What's going on?" I heard Sam ask behind mе, standing up.

Cas appeared before me and grabbed my hand, confusing my senses. Before I could feel how frightened I was, he had already taken me in my room.

All I saw was his angry eyes fixed on me in silence. They looked like two orbs of dark ink on the half-light and glowed with some kind of a dark emotion I could say I'd never seen in a human. That anger was different. Not the basic human one, simple and destructive.

I often caught myself deeply interested in the incredible complexity of his feelings. Not sure if my brothers had ever the time to pay attention to that, I was subconsciously dragged to that divinity of his. I was curious. There was radiating light gushing from him so vigorously and yet his vessel managed to contain all that within, like a shell. I could see only through the cracks, sometimes. Like now.

"Explain." He ordered me, letting go of my wrist.

His trenchcoat was gone. I remembered a couple of these beasts ripping it… My eyes sunk down on the floor. What if they ripped his skin instead?

"What were you doing in that place all alone?"

„Hunting," I replied. He didn't need to say how angry he was at me. The lights said enough.

"Alone."

"Yes."

"Why?" He struck me with another question.

I walked to the door, but the latch cracked, locking.

"Let me go." I furrowed, but nothing moved. "Cas."

Cas suddenly pulled my hand, forcing me to lean on him.

"Don't." I opposed faintly, his strength was way over mine.

His blinding white light scared them away. He wiped all of them. In the same moment, I realized what I've done. To my brothers and to him. I was positively dead if it wasn't for him. The worst part was that I got in my car and didn't let him near me. I didn't want to talk with anyone at that moment.

As much as I hated being wrong, this time, I absolutely was. I could think I'm capable of fighting battles all alone, but one had to learn to accept help from others. I've always thought I'm better on my own and all the others are standing in the way with advices and opinions.

Yeah, I was a Winchester and I could fight all kinds of monsters, on my own. But twelve versus one was on hell of a suicide.

"Do you know how I found you?"

"I haven' t even called you." My voice trailed off, heavy with tiredness.

"What's going on?" I heard Dean, at the end of the corridor, leading to my room.

"You thought... It was like screaming to me." He spoke in my hair.

I might have lost a moment or two. I didn't even remember thinking about him.

I didn't think I'd gather the courage to apologize... Not after fleeing into nowhere without even telling him about it.

„I'm so sorry, Cas." I tried to sound firm, but it came out as a whisper. "Thank you for saving me. I just… wanted to fight on my own for once."

There was a moment of silence in which I prayed his anger had passed. I was glad to find out that it had. Not fully, though. I could still feel it.

"I know." He sighed, his hand slid down to my neck, pulling the scarf away slowly. "Let me heal you."

I saw how he rolled up the sleeve of his shirt and carefully raised my chin. He leaned, caressing the sore incision with his thumb. I immediately felt better, but… he didn't move away.

"Cas?" I asked, meeting his eyes. They were troubled, as always. But so close, never. "What is it?"

I didn't understand. He peered into me as he was searching for something.

"Are you alright?" I took up again, quietly.

"You should let me heal you." He spoke evenly, his hand off my skin now.

A loud knocking on my door made me tremble.

"You okay?" Dean shout.

In the few second of confusion that my eyes parted the ones in front of me, before I could reply to either of them, Cas stepped back and disappeared.

My door unlocked and Dean rushed in, with a gun in his hands.

"What the hell?" He furrowed at my lonely figure. My eyes turned back to the air in front of me.

"It was Cas." I enveloped my body with hands.

"Cas? Seriously?" Dean sighed with exasperation, putting away the gun. "What's with this guy, taking down the lighting of the whole bunker like that… You know anything about this?"

"I might have… made him angry. Didn't think I made him that angry." I pondered. In fact, I had never seen him that angry, until now.

"Fine. Going back to my beer, if you don't mind." Dean left as quickly as he came.

I stood there in the silence for a while, wondering if I've read correctly through the emotion I just witnessed. Something about my missing scarf told me that I have.


A/N: Thanks for reading! Have some Castiel sexiness everybody. I really should've written hundreds of fanfics about him, but I'd need an aeon or two. Hope you like it!