Dean dully stares at the trench coat which is now neatly dry-cleaned and carefully folded into the corner of the trunk. He doesn't know what possessed him to do it after all this time. What's the point? It isn't like he can just present it to its owner. Dude wouldn't appreciate it. The thought makes his stomach churn.

He slams the trunk shut. He inhales loudly. He briefly wonders if he should leave the car here and walk back to the motel. It wasn't far and this wasn't his Baby anyway. He glances down. A chill from the cool metal climbs up througb his arm.

"Damn it," he mutters and gets into the car. 10 minutes, that is all it would take. He drove when he was pratically puking blood. Little alcohol can't hold him down.

He turns the corner as the motel comes into the sight. No cops, he feels triumphant. He glances around, looking for a parking space, and does a double take. The car comes to an abrupt halt, throwing him a bit forward in momentum. He quickly fumbles the buckle off.

"Cas!" He shouts to the figure under the streetlight, tearing out of the car. He thinks if he doesn't do something, this ghost would disappear like a whisper of sand.

The figure lifts its head. Sharp shadow recedes from his face and reveals bright blue eyes. "Hello, Dean," he rasps.

Dean's eyes burn. Fuck, you are drunk, he mocks himself, rubbing his eyes. As his desperate adrenaline fades away, he has to take a shaky breath in. With that comes a sobering relization. This is Emmanuel. "What are you doing here, man?" he asks a little gruffly.

The man in question cocks his head. "The manager was displeased with me when I stood near the door. He said I was chasing away the customers."

"No, dude," Dean says wearily. "Why aren't you inside?" Are you going elsewhere?

"Sam is asleep."

"And?"

"He needs his four hours. I'm waiting."

He thinks that this is a ridiculous excuse but the phrasing of the words trigger something in his head. Dean swallows. "He told you that?"

The man frowns. "I... no. I guess?"

Dean stares, mind going blank with too much thought. "You changed," he murmurs. He shakes his head at the other man's questioning gaze. "Hey, you want some drink? No, never mind. Let's have a drink."

He walks back to the passenger side of his car and grabs two bottle of beers from a box. He thought he would drink it tomorrow but why not? Sammy won't give him a bitch face when there is no evidence.

He plops down onto the curb near the lamp, leaning forward so he wouldn't bump into bushes. "Sit. My neck hurts."

Gingerly, Emmanuel complies. He accepts the bottle and opens it, mimicking Dean. It's both funny and sad to watch.

"I'm sorry," Emmanuel apologies.

Dean takes a swig. "For what?"

"I upset you."

The denial is at the tip of his tongue, but it doesn't feel worth it. It's both too true and too false to go anywhere near it. He focuses on the lukewarm taste of beer. Not the finest beverage I could have offered to an amnesiac, he thinks distractedly.

"How does your memory work anyway?" The question pops into his head and slips through his tongue, a result of double vision between a friend and a stranger he suffered through for days. "You just see something and remember?"

The amnesiac fiddles with the bottle, rubbing his thumb across the smooth surface. "I revisits moments of my life randomly. I don't know exactly when the incidents I'm seeing happened or why I acted in certain ways," he experimentally takes a sip, and lets the bottle rest loosely in his grip. "I find Castiel difficult to understand."

The fullname of the angel falls foreignly to Dean's ears. He looks up to moths flickering around the light. "Yeah, that makes two of us," he utters, feeling an odd camaraderie.

The silence between is not entirely uncomfortable.

"Dean," Emmanuel calls, breaching the night. He hugs himself slightly so that he has to look up to his companion. "Do you want me to remember?"

Dean freezes.

No. Yes. Maybe. There is no answer to the question. "I-," he starts, not knowing where the rest of the sentence would go. He has always been on the side of letting Emmanuel be when he argued with Sam, but with his inhibition lowered, he admits to himself that he won't be able to let Cas go. Sam didn't have to hand out logical reasons like potential information or safety measures to him. He would have readily grasped at any excuse to get the guy back. He hates that he's so needy and clingy at the vestige of his once close friend.

"Why do you want to know?" It comes out a bit defensively.

"Because I think you knew him best."

The set of blue eyes are neutral, waiting patiently for an order. Dean has to fight the chill running down his spine. His gut tells him that if he says yes, the man will go out of his way to do as he wished. An image of himself tipping the statue of an angel off the table in the Green Room flashes by. The guy is going to shatter himself all over again. For him.

It terrifies him.

"It doesn't matter what I want," Dean puts the bottle down, aware that he might drop it if he doesn't.

"Of course it matters."

"No, I mean," the earnest tone of it makes Dean falter a bit, taking him back to another moment, but he forges on. "You don't owe me anything, okay? You're not- a hammer, you don't have to follow what anyone says," as often as he got frustrated by Cas's stubborness in the past, the thought of wielding control over the guy makes him sick. He wants Cas to be Cas, not some twisted imitation molded by him. "What do you want to do? That's what matters."

Emmanuel averts his eyes. "I don't think I'm great at making sound judgements."

"What, you think I am?"

"Better than me, certainly."

Dean is incredulous. What is the world coming to? Dean Winchester, a great decision maker declared by the Angel of the Lord. Ha, what a joke.

"Trust me, you're only thinking that because you've forgotten some important details," he rubs the back of his neck as the guy looks less than convinced. "I'm not gonna list out all my failings here but we all mess up. No one knows what the hell they are doing, not really. We just choose and deal with the consequences."

"But some price is too high to pay. What if I choose wrongly again? Too many has already died because of me."

The dread and resignation in Emmanuel's voice is hard to bare. It's as if the guy believes that he'll destroy everything no matter what he does.

And that's incredibly unfair. This is an incredibly childis idea, but Dean can't help but get idignant. Why is Emmanuel only remembering the bad things? There is no angel in creation who has cut and bleed himself for humanity more than Cas. Why can't he see it?

"Then we'll find a way to fix it together," Dean almost snaps.

Emmanuel blinks at him, as if he didn't expect such vehement defence from him. Dean locks his gaze with the angel because this time, he is really here, listening to his decision.

After a long silence, Emmanuel softly says, "I want to remember," as if someone would come snatching his answer and tear it apart for being wrong.

"Okay," Dean simply nods. He has thousands concern for either choices before the guy, but damned if he was going to stamp on Emmanuel's tentative shine of will.

"I want to redeem myself, and I can't truly do that if I don't know," the amnesiac hesitatantly explains. "You would stop me if I turn bad again?"

"Yeah," it's hard to let the word out. His last attempt at 'stopping' his friend was nothing less than disastrous. He vows to himself that's never going to happen again. "But listen, if you're doing this just because of guilt-"

"You were my friend," Emmanuel cuts in gently. "I want to remember you."

And how do you reply to that?

Speechless, Dean ducks his head. He wants to say no chick flick moment, but even he has to admit that the ship has sailed long time ago. How does Cas always say these things in such a straight forward way?

He shakes his head, inclining his beer bottle. "Well, buddy, the next night out, we better get you better booze than this."

AN:

I started writing this fic with this scene in mind, having no idea that the characters would drag their feet so hard at the idea of talking. I'm happy that I fianally managed to make them sit down and talk :) Hope you enjoyed it! Please tell me what you thought about it