Coda to episode 8.17: Goodbye Stranger, Dean POV with light Dean/Castiel. #1 in the Hunter Plaid series.
"We're family. We need you." Blood slid down the back of Dean's throat as he looked up at the emotionless face of the angel. Cas was in there. He knew it, felt it.
"I need you." He choked through the pain.
Dean jerked, body violently flailing to consciousness in the crappy motel bed. Sitting up he quickly glanced to make sure he hadn't woke up his brother.
Thankfully he slept on, oblivious and snoring like a freight train.
Dean tried not to think too hard that Sam hadn't before a few months ago or that the noise had more recently been joined by a rattling in his brother's lungs.
"No more secrets. I can't take it." The older Winchester had announced as they put distance between themselves and Lucifer's crypt. Ordered, even as he sat in the driver's seat, the collar of his jacket drenched in his own blood and giving only vague details about what'd happened with Cas and the tablet.
It wasn't a secret, dammit. He just needed more time to wade through that muddled minefield himself.
"What broke the connection?"
Cas may have said he didn't know but Dean had a pretty good idea.
"I need you." The confession, so raw and visceral that even now it left him feeling like someone was crushing his chest.
The air of the room was suddenly too stale and reminded Dean of the ancient crypt, making it hard to breath. He snatched his jeans from where he'd dropped them beside the bed then quietly made his way outside.
The motel's near empty parking lot glistened from rain earlier in the night; the asphalt shiny and dark as he made his way over to the Impala. His baby's familiar form serving as an anchor the minute Dean leaned against her side, not even caring as wetness seeped into his clothes.
He exhaled wearily as he looked up at the sky, stars barely visible through heavy clouds that still loomed.
"I need you."
Every time he got too close to those three words over the last two weeks, a pain, new and raw tugged beneath his ribs. And that scared the shit out of him. Him, Dean Winchester, who'd literally been to hell and back and everywhere between.
"We're family. We need you."
There'd been no doubt in that declaration. After everything they'd been through, Cas was the only family, besides each other that he and Sam had left.
"I need you."
He did. More than he'd ever thought possible.
They'd fought, together, against and for each other. Every way imaginable and after it, the good and the incredibly fucked up bad, Dean knew he still wanted the angel by his side.
It was that, the pure, basest of needs that frightened Dean. The need that'd driven him to tear through all of Purgatory looking for his friend.
"Cas, buddy, I need you." By the stream in Purgatory it'd been easier, calculated to get his determined point across, but no less true.
In the aftermath of Lucifer's crypt, the desperate full meaning …to stay with me…to keep me driving on…love lay heavy between the words and Dean could no longer push them away.
"Fuck." He growled, wiping a hand over his face and closing tired eyes.
"Cas, I don't even know if you can hear this but I'm trying anyway. And just because I am don't think it means you're off the hook, you son of a bitch. We're going to have a serious sit down the minute your feathery ass shows up."
Dean rubbed his chest; unconsciously over the "empty hole" that Famine had once told him could never be filled. The spot now ached with something Dean still didn't think he was ready to stare at head on. Even though he felt the weight and wasn't completely freaked out, only 65%, by it.
I need you.
"I just need to know that you're alright while you're doing whatever the hell it is. And…" Dean sighed and opened his eyes, focusing on the bright buzz of the street lamp overhead.
"Wherever you are, man, I'm here. I'm here…" Fingers drummed a meaningless beat against the rain slicked car door.
"…if you need me."