Title: What Dean Needs
Author: CelticForest
Dean has suppressed his deepest needs for so long he can barely feel them anymore. One escapes: he wishes that were true.
What he can do is cover over the void with a constant stream of attainable desires. The Red Queen runs as fast as he can toward selfish and shallow.
He lusts for that one waitress and some uninterrupted time in the back room. He orders a good burger followed by homemade pie. Sometimes he can sleep late in the morning, or take a long shower without running out of hot water. He makes time for the Weekly World News and the newest issue of Busty Asian Beauties. He reaches for a cold beer on a warm night.
He wishes he could just be the man with the cocky grin and the attitude to match, but that façade only fools fools.
He feels a rush when he has a good night at the pool tables, and money in his pocket. He grins when he outwits those who think they have authority over him; only one man has that. He guards the cassette tapes that replace his own feelings with the kind that music can create. He earns the sweat of a day working on his car, and loses himself in her powerful purr. The weight of a cleaned and well-oiled gun is welcome in his hand. The adrenalin before a hunt is intoxicating.
He reminds himself that there are rewards in his life.
He kills nameless Evil Sons of Bitches and pretends he doesn't know what "catharsis" means. He grasps at the disappearing wisps of a dream of wife, kids, a home. He travels an endless road, more away than toward. He saves people when no one else can, and wishes someone could save him.
He wants to look in the mirror and like the man he sees.
He needed a mother's love to grow up feeling whole. When she was taken, he was old enough to he remember what his father was like before. He needs more than a twisted shadow of that man in his life now, though he will follow what's left of him. He aches for the family he has remaining.
He reaches for both his father and his brother, but cannot hold the three of them together.
After years of silence, he finally has his brother back, and with him a glimmer of hope. He wouldn't admit it, but Sammy's rare smiles bring him joy. This time is cruelly fleeting, though; just a taste of what could have been. He must somehow save Sam from a power neither of them understands, because the alternative is unthinkable. Sam is his family and his life. Now, in this shack where he can't pull his gaze from Sammy's body on the stained mattress, he is dying too. This time, at the crossroad, he takes what he needs.
The price feels so low that the word "bought" hardly applies.
After years in Hell there is no want, beyond cessation of pain. After decades, not even that remains. He could not think in terms of a need to be raised from Hell, but relished the second chance it gave him. Now he wants nothing more than his brother back again. He needs Sam.
No, not this Sam. The one he knew.
He should be used to it by now. He doesn't get what he needs.