Need You More Than You Know

-12-

Notes: TW for murder (sort of?). 8x17 alteration (again, sort of?).

...He'd definitely been here before.

Dean wondered vaguely if anything he said could differ from what he'd already said the first time around. But though he knew he was living a rerun of a still-painful memory, somehow the same words were coming out. "Cas... This isn't you... This isn't you."

His reward was Cas hitting him again, and then again and again. Dean lost track after a while. "Cas," he begged, breathing shallowly. "Cas..." He reached forward for him desperately. "I know you're in there. I know you can hear me. Cas..." His voice broke. "It's me..."

Cas looked blankly down at him, like Dean was merely an ant and Cas was trying to decide whether killing him would be worth cleaning up the mess. As if there was nothing between then.

As if they hadn't spent a year together in Purgatory, watching the other sleep and making sure each other was safe in their slumber. As if during the times Benny kept watch, they hadn't woken up more than once curled around each other before awkwardly slipping away.

As if they hadn't spent years slowly growing closer and closer, both of them were too chickenshit to cross that last bit of distance.

"We're family," Dean implored, hoping Cas would think of Sam too, what losing Dean would do to his brother.

"We need you," he pleaded, giving up every ounce of fight. He wasn't really scared for his own life. He was scared for Cas, and what his death would do to Cas when he finally snapped out of whatever the fuck this was.

"I need you," he begged finally, laying his last card on the table. He couldn't say the other word. But if he could, he would have. He would have said it over and over for the rest of his life if he were physically capable, if that would break Cas out of this.

Cas's hand shook slightly. Dean almost breathed a sigh of relief, real life memories filling in the end of the scene. This was the moment the knife would clatter to the ground. It was over.

And then Cas's hand tightened back on the blade, and he pulled it back higher, hesitating for a moment. Dean's eyes widened. "No, Cas, please, don'—"

He never finished the word. But he never felt the pain, either. Somehow, though, the blade was in his chest and Cas was leaning over him, watching the life slowly drain away from Dean.