Forty-five minutes after Castiel flew, Dean is sitting in silence in the Biggerson's parking lot, reluctant to go home.
Chuck might have told him he'd only get a few minutes, but a little part of him—a part he had tried in vain to stifle—had still hoped, desperately hoped, that he might be able to convince Castiel to come with him. To come home.
Now, he's cursing that part of himself for making him feel like shit.
He's imagining walking into the bunker to find Sam and Charlie waiting for him.
They'll ask him how did it go? and he'll have to explain to them that he barely said anything, that seeing Cas did nothing but make him miss the guy even more, and they'll look at him with pity. He can't handle that right now. He doesn't want pity, doesn't want condolences or sympathy or anything.
He just wants Cas. Here.
He realizes with a sinking feeling in his stomach that he still doesn't know what Castiel is even doing; why he's running, what he's done with the tablet, whether there's someone helping him. He thinks of what Samandriel told him; that there are still some angels who are on his side. He hopes Castiel knows that. Hopes that he's found them, that he's got some back up, some support while Dean is unable to help him.
Rain falls in through his open window, and he lets the cool water settle against his forearm as he closes his eyes and prays. Not to Castiel, this time, but to God, to whoever will listen. Prays that he'll be okay, that he's not alone, that he'll ask for help if he needs it.
The drops get bigger, icy against his skin, and he winds the window up.
He knows he should leave. Go home and deal with the pensive stares of his brother and the sister he never had, tell them he's fine, that Castiel promised to call. Pretend that he's okay with that. Fake it with a smile, like Frank had told him years ago.
Somehow, Dean doubts they'd buy it.
So, in an effort to it off for as long as humanly possible, he pulls open the glove compartment to sift through the cassettes, searching for a soundtrack to his misery.
Nothing feels right. AC/DC, Metallica and Motörhead are all too agressive and impersonal; Led Zeppelin is too focused on sex; Black Sabbath too focused on death.
He switches to the radio.
At first, it offers little help; jangly, saccharine indie on one station, trashy '80s synth-pop on another. As the static fades in and out and back again, he starts to feel like he might sit here forever.
Eventually, though, the soulful voice of Otis Redding fills the car, and Dean turns up the volume to drown out the rain. He regrets the decision immediately. The lyrics are too close, too fitting, and they settle in his chest like a lead weight.
His heart, his hands, his legs all ache with it. With something akin to loss, to love, and he tries not to read to heavily into the fact that the two feelings are so inextricably entwined in his head.
As much as he wants to, he can't seem to switch the song off. Just stares unseeing through the rain pouring over the windscreen and feels.
In a way, he thinks, he's almost glad they didn't get to talk about it.
It would have been rushed, and deep down he knows he doesn't want that.
When they do finally address this thing between them he wants to have time and, preferably, no agitated wait staff hovering nearby. Despite years of refusing to talk, he finds himself not only willing but determined to say everything; to catalogue the reasons, to put into words the feeling that roils in his gut, his chest, his soul until there is no doubt in Castiel's mind about how much he needs him.
What he wants to say deserves better than a few rushed minutes over luke-warm coffee.
He wants hours, days, months, years. Wants a lifetime.
But then again, he thinks about the feeling of Castiel's fingers against his cheek, trailing over the side of his jaw, grazing feather-light over his stubble, and he wishes he'd just blurted it out. Started that lifetime now.
He wishes he'd taken the touch as proof that Castiel still feels the same, proof that he understands what Dean had meant when he'd gestured between them and said this.
Better yet, he wishes that he'd mirrored the action; touched Castiel's face as he'd touched Dean's, moved closer until their toes touched, leaned in—
Sighing heavily, Dean rests his forehead against the steering wheel and wonders how long not long is going to be.
He finds his hand rising to his cheek in a vague approximation of Castiel's touch.
Should have just said I love you, he thinks, nice and simple.
Huffing out a miserable laugh, he sits up straight and rubs his palms hard over his eyes.
"Fuck my life," he mutters, and wonders how he got here.
So helpless, so far gone.
It's not until a few minutes later, when he finally starts the ignition and puts the car in reverse that glances in the rearview and notices the gas station across the road, it's neon signs glowing bright against the pitch-black Nebraska sky.
Though really, it isn't the gas station that gets his attention.
It's what stands in front of it in an island of yellow light on the roadside that fills him with what he's pretty sure can only be described as reckless abandon, and he pulls out of the parking lot a little faster than necessary before rolling to a stop beside it.
The heavy rain soaks him to the bone in the few seconds it takes for him to run from the car, and he shakes water from his hair as he squeezes into the graffiti-covered phone booth. Pulling the door closed behind him, he wipes the rain from his eyes and digs around in his pocket for change.
When he dials, he realizes his hands are shaking.
Even he isn't delusional enough to convince himself that it's just from the cold.