The still silence of the empty hotel room was shattered as Castiel and Dean both appeared out of thin air, panting and gasping in a bloody mess of tattered clothing and sweat.

'Dean,' Castiel breathed, as he helped heave the man onto the hotel bed.

Dean fell back with a grunt of pain and clenched his jaw to hold back any more signs of his suffering.

'Dammit, Cas, you shouldn't've come,' he growled at the angel.

Castiel threw him a petulant look as he stood at the kitchen sink pouring water into a glass. Dean pulled his shirt off over his head with difficulty as the material scraped over his open wounds. His glistening torso was peppered with shards of glass, his left eye was glued shut with dried blood and he strongly suspected his thumb and forefinger to be broken. Cas, too, was feeling his share of injury though it was not as severe. An angelic blade had sliced his forearm and the wound was bleeding profusely, but other than that his vessel was primarily clean save for where the material of his trench coat was burned through to his shoulder.

'Grab one of my shirts,' Dean pressed, wincing slightly as he looked down to pick the larger shards of glass from his pectorals.

'Excuse me?' Cas frowned.

'My shirt.' Dean pointed at his rucksack at the foot of the bed. 'Clean yourself up and put on one of those.'

'Okay,' said Cas warily, still frowning.

He placed a glass of water and the first aid kit on the table beside Dean before proceeding to shake his trench coat off. Dean's fingers paused on his chest as his eyes drank in the spectacle of Castiel undressing. Never had he seen the angel without his characteristic getup, and yet now a strange side of humanity seemed to prevail through the normal façade. The clothes came off, as did the mask.

When Castiel stood at the foot of Dean's bed in naught but his trousers a shiver of trepidation mixed with something else ran down Dean's spine. Cas's taught, sweaty torso shone slightly in the warm orange lamplight and all pain left Dean's mind as the desire to reach forward and touch the angel overwhelmed him.

Cas bent down to the rucksack and Dean averted his eyes, clearing his throat as he did so, and occupied himself with extracting a pair of tweezers from the first aid kit beside him.

'Let me help,' said Cas, and Dean looked up only for his jaw to drop.

Castiel stood there in one of Dean's baggy grey Led Zeppelin t-shirts, looking perhaps more angelic than he ever had done. The light in Dean's eyes did not go amiss.

'What is it?' Cas asked swiftly. 'Is this the wrong attire?'

'No, no,' Dean grinned. 'No, it's – it looks great.'

Cas's eyes softened as he looked down at Dean's smiling face and he leaned forward to slip the tweezers from his hand. Dean's fingers burned at Castiel's touch. The bed sank slightly as the angel sat beside Dean and began working to pick out the shards of glass.

'That encounter was too close for my liking,' Cas murmured, a frown creasing his brow. 'You were in terrible danger, and I was almost too late.'

'But you weren't,' Dean encouraged. 'I'm here and I'm fine.'

'Hardly.'

He could see the anguish in Cas's face as the angel studied his wounded chest.

'Hell.' Dean laughed humourlessly and looked up at the ceiling. 'For a moment there I thought I was gonna lose you.'

'It would take more than that to kill me. Don't worry, I won't ever leave you, Dean.'

It was then that Dean realised his hand was trembling. He exhaled deeply and closed his eyes to calm himself. It was not the adrenaline from the fight just gone but the shock of Cas's closeness, not to mention the desire pulsing rapidly through his body. He fought against the bulge throbbing in his jeans.

'You need to be more careful,' Castiel lectured gently, as he dropped bloody glass into the petri-dish at his elbow. 'I could not bear to lose you, either.'

'Dude, you've been alive for what – ten thousand years? If I die you'll just go on living your life.'

Suddenly, the angel's face hardened and he dropped the tweezers onto Dean's chest. His eyes blazed with holy wrath, his jaw clenched with unspoken outrage and his two strong hands clasped either side of Dean's face. He brought the man's head up close to his until the tips of their noses were but three inches away. Dean stared.

'Don't you ever say that again,' Castiel growled fiercely. 'I won't – I cannot ever let you die.'

And with that, the angel pressed his lips against Dean's bloody ones. The erratic, burning tension seemed to be cooled immediately and both Dean and Castiel, despite clenched hands, breathed each other for what felt like an eternity that passed too quick.

When they broke apart, Castiel's eyes were still sharp and hard yet his mind could not help but soften at Dean's unfathomably childlike surprise.

'I have given you everything that is in my power to give,' said the angel lowly. 'Not because I had to, but because I wanted to. Think about that next time you doubt me.'

And before Dean could even gather his thoughts to respond, the angel disappeared with a swirl of invisible wings.