#and is now sampling from the vast ocean of fanfiction on ao3

[nym-wibbly]

"A part of him that's bigger than he likes just wants to beg, if he's got to. And that's not him. He doesn't do shit like that—except he has, for Cas, and would be willing to again right now. Just hit his knees and say that yes, it is stressful, and yes, they do struggle with it, and maybe it would be easier to just stop subjecting themselves to the same push-and-pull of complications they cradle between them, but he doesn't care. He doesn't care if they stay the exact fucking same, so long as they don't leave each other alone. He doesn't know how to leave Cas alone. "

Aching in the Absence of You by sobsicles on AO3 Explicit | Supernatural | Castiel/Dean Winchester | 95,000 words

I haven't even finished reading this fanfiction yet, not even halfway, and I'm heartily reccing it. I'd rec it just for that quoted passage alone. Talk about nailing it. It's one hell of a character study of Dean and his layered inner workings. And of the kind of monumental, anguished stupidity that two people can achieve by not having a conversation.