Cas is getting sucked under in the water, and Dean sees it happening. Despair rises in him as he powerlessly watches him disappear beneath the surface. He knows it isn't going to end well this time. He knows it's too late.

Dean is twisting and turning in his bed, the sheets sticking to his skin from all the sweat. Images of Cas flash behind his eyelids, the memories playing in his mind like fragments of a badly edited movie, but always in the opposite order. They always start out with him going down under that water, and then everything else starts to come back, the whole flood of memories. The movie starts rewinding, the events play backwards.

Cas is standing in a ring of fire. Dean looks at him, noy knowing if he knows, let alone trust the person he is looking in the eye.

He wakes up, feeling even more tired then when he went to sleep. Before he had to see Cas again. Before he remembered what he looked like again. He can't always keep dry. He just pretends they're not there and lets them flow, rolling past his his nose, continuing their way to his chin where they drip off, land onto the pillow and become a wet place beneath his cheek and mouth. Then when it becomes too wet he turns to the other side and a new wet spot forms. He balances on the border of sleep and wake, every time he slips into a light sleep he dreams and when he dreams, Cas is there with him. That's what makes them so good. That's what makes him want to not wake up and keep living in the short time span of the memory forever. He would give a lot to just live in the memory until the end of days and never move on, never go past that one moment, that one ordinairy, insignificant afternoon somewhere in his life, where Cas was still beside him as his friend./p

Cas looking insecurely over the edge of his beer. He hasn't felt so good in a long time. Being here with Cas, doing something together, it feels good. They should have done this a long time a go, he thinks, as he takes a sip of his own beer. For the first time, he can see the value of his company. Not just as the angel who can fix their problems with a few fingersnaps here and there when they're in trouble.
"This is a den of iniquity. I should not be here," Cas says.
"Dude, you full-on rebelled against Heaven. Iniquity is one of the perks".

The bar, Cas and the moment fade away.
I see it now, Cas, it shoots through his mind as he opens his eyes and the memory gets replaced with the reality of the shady hotel room again. He wants so badly to relive that evening, sit there with Cas alive and well, but he would do it better. He would do it the right way this time, and let Cas know exactly how much he appreciated him.
I'm so sorry I didn't see it before.
He turned and the wet spots on his pillow have dried up a little bit, but the regret of what should have been but never was makes his eyes sting and a fresh stream of that moisty stuff he refuses to think of as tears almost wells up.

Cas suddenly standing in front of him when he turns around the corner. Without any warning, he's standing there. They are so close, he feels his body heat almost warming his own body. He stares down at those lips, swallowing nervously, disorientated by the nearness of the man in front of him for a short moment. Then he quickly recovers himself, never seriously taking the possibility into consideration. Cas must have some kind of special Angelic attraction power about him that makes people feel this way. It doesn't have anything to do with himself.

As Dean lies in the darkness of the hotel room, the night being so still and all-embracing out the window, he is fully aware of the truth he carried with him all this time but always pushed away, never being honest with himself. Words fail epically to say how much he misses him. Sometimes a rush of the wind makes him look up, hoping it's Cas. But of course it never is. Cas has gone to a place beyond, God knows where, at least Dean knows it's somewhere he can't reach him anymore. Never being able to see him again, and never having the opportunity again to pull him close to him and kiss him. At least know what it feels like, what he tastes like. Of all those times they had been close to it, with this thing in the air between them, which Cas didn't know how to act on, he never did it. He wishes he would have had the guts.

The wind blows against the window softly. He looks up automatically, but there's only the night sky staring back at him like a huge gaping hole. He wanted to believe he would see him again. He would lay like this night after night, only sleeping to slip back in memories, until that day appeared. No matter in what form, or in what way, if he would have to wait until his last damn grey hair, he would wait to see him again. With that thought in mind he fell back asleep.

The large doors open, and a figure with dark, ruffled hair in a long trenchcoat walks in, towards him. He sees two blue eyes.

The first time he ever saw them.

It seemed so long ago.