A/N: I don't think you guys will ever know how grateful I am for you. All of you. Your views and reviews make this collection or stories into what they are. You help me search myself for the deeper truths to Castiel's and Dean's love for one another. It's all us that brings it to life, right? Without us, maybe that obvious and awe inspiring love wouldn't had been noticed or brought to attention. So thank you, so very much, for helping me bring their love out onto a word document at two in the morning.

He always loved him.

There was never a moment when Castiel wasn't in love with him; he had loved Dean from the moment he pried his soul from Hell. The thing was, he never knew. Castiel didn't understand what being in love truly meant.

Castiel knew love and the act of loving someone. He knew how to love like a brother or a son or a dear, dear friend. But to love like a lover? He didn't know what that felt like.

Always he wrote off the little flutters in his heart when Dean was even mentioned. Castiel didn't know what they meant; he just thought he wasn't in the greatest shape that day. When he saw Dean, heard his voice or even thought his name, a smile always came to his lips. He just thought it was because Dean was his best friend, the greatest he had ever had, and he enjoyed his company too much.

Sometimes he'd get weird looks or someone would say something to him like, "Does he know?" and Castiel would have no clue what they were talking about. Does who know what? Is there anything to know? It makes it sound as if he were hiding something. In fact, that's how everyone looked at him, as if he were hiding something.

That could just have been a lack of trust towards Castiel, but he had thought they'd gotten through that bridge already.

Every once and awhile, Castiel would ask Dean what was going on with everyone and ask why they were being so strange and Dean would simply reply, "I don't man. They're doing the same with me."

He's thought about it a few times, alone. Castiel hasn't been acting differently and nothing in his life has changed. It's always been this way, always. He has always been open about the way he feels, most of all to himself. Nothing is changing, nothing will change.

It wasn't until he was looking down at Dean's dead, unmoving body that Castiel realized what it was that he had felt, all this time. What it was that everyone pestered him about. The sad truth to it was that Castiel would never be able to tell Dean how he felt, never be able to hear the reaction. Sure, he could tell the voiceless corpse he loved him, repeating it over and over till he was breathless himself, but it wasn't the same. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Hearing Dean's voice, whether through voicemail or old videos, hearing his name again, would only bring tears and a cold sadness. Harsh and burning like a winter night. Never would his heart flutter when Dean was mentioned, it'd just stop momentarily.

Never will he see him again, not in life. Maybe death would bring that chance again.

He always loved him, without a doubt, word or chance of escaping it.