This was actually the very first episode I watched live, and I already shipped them but I will never forget sitting on my bedroom floor in front of my TV with my hands over my mouth and my heart in my throat during this scene. I think this is the most absolutely raw and broken and honest Dean has ever been with Cas, and this is what came out.
The script actually said “I love you” but Jensen changed it because he didn’t feel like it was true to Dean, and I have to say I feel the same way, because if I recall correctly the only time Dean has ever said “I love you” was to his mom in his heaven-memory. Dean just doesn’t say “I love you”. But you know what? “I need you” means so much more. You can love so many things and not need them. You can love things and let them go. You can love things and give them up anyway. This man has lost everything he’s ever loved at one time or another, and he knows how to live with nothing. For Dean to need something is the most powerful statement that he can make.
Dean doesn’t know what the fuck is going on with Cas right here but he believes in him, he believes that this isn’t Cas, that Cas wouldn’t do this to him. And we know that, we understand what’s going on, but Dean? All he knows that something hasn’t been right since Cas came back from purgatory, that he was suicidal, that he chose not to leave purgatory, that he had to spend a year searching because Cas kept running from him, that before that Cas was crazy and not-really-Cas, that before that Cas was married and didn’t remember him, before that Cas was dead, before that Cas was Godstiel and considered him an ‘ant’, that before that Cas betrayed him to work with Crowley, that before that Cas was different and suspicious and not really there, and before that he had gone off to heaven and never come back.
Just how long has it been since Cas was Cas and they were really together? It’s been years since Cas was just Cas and they could just talk without any baggage between them. And since then, Dean has seen Cas fuck off to heaven and probably, by his estimation, forget about him, had his faith in Cas broken, seen him turn into a monster and tried to kill him, watched him die and fallen into a horrible grief, found him again and watched him belong to someone else, lost him halfway to madness, lost him in purgatory, searched for him and found him only to lose him and blame himself for it. It’s been forever since Cas was just Cas, but through all that time Dean has learned what it feels like to lose him and lose him again, and again, and again, and again.
And he’s figured out that he needs him. That it doesn’t matter if Cas betrays him, if he’s not himself, if he’s broken, if he deserts him, if he lets go first. It doesn’t even matter if Cas kills him, because Dean isn’t begging for his life. He probably knows he’ll just come back even if Cas does kill him, but one of the last things Cas told him was, “I’m afraid I might kill myself,” and Dean believes in Cas, knows that Cas couldn’t live with having killed Dean.
He’s not even lifting a hand to stop Cas from killing him, he’s just pleading that after this, Cas won’t leave him again. That he won’t be gone again, because Dean can’t live with Cas being dead again.
Dean’s arm is broken, his face is bashed in, but there’s hardly even any pain in his eyes. It’s like there’s almost peace there in this moment, because he knows now, he knows this is true, that it’s one of the only true things he has. He looks up at Cas’s emotionless face and his raised sword and he loves him with his whole heart. He doesn’t care if Cas kills him. It’s just that if he does, Cas has to know first. He has to say it first. He has to say it out loud before he dies. He has to try to give Cas something to hold onto, so he’ll still be there when Dean finds him again.
He looks up at Cas and he just says I need you. Cas is beating him to death and Dean just gives him his entire heart.
