Ouroboros - Part 2
Fic title:Ouroboros
Author name:Gedry
Artist name:Counteragent
Genre: Gen
Rating:PG
Word count: 32,895
Summary:After Sam gets his soul back his relationship with Dean is rockier than ever. Secrets have piled up and tension is running high between the brothers. Their inability to get along causes problems for Bobby so he orders them to get help or get gone. Working through their problems is more complicated than they thought, and their therapist isn’t who she seems.
Session 3
“You know, I used to have a life,” Sam says as he looks out the window of Dora’s office. He has no idea where exactly he is, but he thinks he’s on the third floor of an office building, and for some reason that’s a little bit comforting. “Back when I was younger. The last time I was in therapy, I had plans. I was going to get married and finish law school. I was going to help people. I had this vision in my head of living in the suburbs and driving a nice car. It didn’t have to be new - I never cared about anything like that. But - it wouldn’t be stolen. I was going to fit in and be a part of the neighborhood watch, or something stupid like that. Jess and I were going to be happy.”
“Those aren’t your goals now,” Dora comments.
“I don’t have goals now.” Sam sighs. “But those things, those ideas about the future that I used to cling to so hard, to give me hope, aren’t even pipe dreams anymore.”
“Why is that?”
“I’m not normal,” Sam says as he turns to look at her for the first time since the session began. “I’m a monster. Doesn’t your file tell you that? A blood-addicted, demon-fucking vessel for Lucifer. Now, I’ve never lived in the suburbs, but I’m pretty sure that I’m the kind of guy they call the police about.”
“People change,” Dora says. “Dreams change.”
Sam huffs, “Dreams die, people become twisted and broken.”
“That’s how you describe yourself now?”
“It’s not the worst I’ve been called,” Sam shrugs. “Cracked, maybe. I don’t think I’m totally broken yet.”
“Is that a good thing?” She asks.
“Depends,” Sam answers. “It means I still care. But as long as you care, they can still hurt you. So maybe it’s a little of both.”
“What are you hoping to get out of our sessions together?”
It takes him a long time to answer. “I don’t know.”
“But you weren’t as resistant as Dean to the idea of participating in counseling.”
Sam snorts. “Look,” he says, “you’re new to the game, so I’ll explain it. Dean resists everything when he’s first exposed to it. I mean, a fucking angel pulled him out of Hell once, and when I asked Cas about it three weeks ago, he told me Dean didn’t want to come with him when he first got down there to rescue him. My brother’s a hard-headed dick. Just like our Dad was. The good thing about Dean is that there is a sure-fired way to get him to do anything you want him to do.”
“And that is?”
“Me.” Sam smiles. “If he really secretly wants to do it, then all I have to say is that I’ll do it, no problem, and then he’ll roll his eyes and tag along and say it was all his idea. If he really really doesn’t want to do it, then all I have to say is I think he shouldn’t, or tell him he’s chicken. Then he’ll do it, but he’ll bitch the whole time.”
“So by Dean’s lack of bitching, I can assume he wanted to participate in counseling,” Dora responds.
“Yeah,” Sam nods. “Dean hates himself. He has a lot of guilt for things he did, or things he didn’t do that he thinks he should have done. He needs help, and he wants it. I mean, he probably feels bad for all the time he couldn’t give me everything he thinks I wanted when we were kids, or all the time he thinks he let Dad down. Dean’s a mess.”
“You’re very focused on your brother.”
“When you head home tonight, I’ll be with Dean. When you get up tomorrow, I’ll be with Dean. You pick a time every day for the next two weeks and when you think about me, I’ll be with Dean. So yeah, I’m focused on Dean. There’s nothing else for me to focus on. It’s me and Dean in the car, me and Dean in the hotel, me and Dean running through the sewers. Me stitching Dean up after he’s shot. Me getting pie for Dean. That’s my whole life.”
“How does that make you feel?”
“How would you feel if your entire existence was an extension of someone else’s?” Sam asks back.
“This isn’t about me,” Dora explains.
Sam looks back out the window. “I hate it. I never wanted to be this.”
“And it’s your brother’s fault you are how you are?”
“Yes,” Sam answers. Then frowns. “No. I mean, of course not! Dean didn’t make me do any of the things I did that got me here, and half the things that happened, neither of us had any control over, either.”
“But you seem upset with him,” she points out.
“I am,” Sam admits. “A lot of the time. Maybe all of the time, underneath it all. But I love him, too. He’s all I have. Dean’s the only thing I feel connected to in the whole world, really. I don’t want to lose him. But I can’t stand him or the way he makes me feel right now.”
“How do you feel when you’re with him?”
“Like the biggest fuck-up to walk the face of the Earth,” Sam admits. “Like everything he does that hurts him, he does because he doesn’t trust me to do the right thing or make the right choices. I want to be pissed about that, but seriously? My track record stinks. So maybe he’s right.”
“Right about?”
“About me,” Sam sighs and swipes his hands over his face. “Maybe he’s right to treat me like a child. Maybe I need the supervision. The times when I’ve been away from Dean are the times that I’ve made the biggest mistakes. So, yeah, I hate the way our relationship always seems so stilted and he’s always in charge, but sometimes I think it would be worse if I took the lead.”
“You want more responsibility, but you’re afraid of the choices you might make,” Dora comments.
“Yeah,” Sam nods. “That’s it. Part of me would rather have no choices than risk making the wrong ones again.”
“And the other parts of you?” She asks “What do they want?”
“I want my brother to trust me,” Sam shakes his head. “I want Dean to love me again.”
“By extension, then, I should assume you want to trust yourself again, and you want to learn how to love yourself?”
“That’s a lot,” Sam snorts. “Think you can fill that order?”
“I’m just the waitress here, Sam,” She grins. “You’re the cook and the manager and run the register. It’s up to you.”
“Okay,” Sam shifts, sitting back in the seat more comfortably. “So where do I start?”
“I’m going to ask you to refrain from talking about your brother unless you’re relating a specific event to me,” she explains. When Sam raises an eyebrow at her she adds, “I think it’s easier for you to project your negative feelings about yourself by using Dean as a filter. I need a clearer view of how you really feel. Not how you think he feels.”
“So you’re saying Dean may not actually feel and think some of the things I think he does?”
“You would have to ask him that,” she tells him.
“But you see him, too,” Sam leans forward. “You have to know how he feels.”
“Trust me,” Dora answers. “Neither of you are ready for a couples session yet.”
“Ew,” Sam mutters as he leans away, but he chuckles when she laughs. “Okay, no talking about Dean. I can do that. What else?”
“How are you coping with the urges to drink demon blood?”
Sam thinks about it for a long time. “I don’t really have any. Not anymore. I used to have to white-knuckle my way through everything, but ever since Hell, there hasn’t been anything there.”
“So you think you’re cured?”
“Remission, maybe?” Sam huffs. “I’m terrified of it coming back. I don’t want Dean - I mean, I don’t want to be a liability again like that. I don’t like feeling out of control.”
“So what are you doing to prepare yourself for the possibility of its return?”
“Nothing,” Sam admits, shifting in his chair again. “I haven’t really wanted to think about it.”
“So that’s something we can work on together,” Dora notes, scribbling on her notepad.
“Okay,” Sam nods. “Yeah. What else do you have down there?”
“Addiction, co-dependency, shame and guilt, and isolation.”
“Co-dependant with Dean, right?” Sam asks. When she nods, he swallows. “I get that. Shame and guilt?”
“Sam,” Dora sighs. “Give me an example of something in your life that you don’t feel guilty about.”
He can hear the clock ticking while he sits there struggling to come up with something. Sam thinks it might have been five minutes before he blurts, “I started the Apocalypse, I’ve killed people, I lie to my brother all the time, I tried to kill the man who’s treated me like a son most of my life, I can’t even remember half the shit I did when I was soulless, and the crap I do remember is horrible. I also threatened my brother’s best friend, and that’s just the last four years. What don’t I have to feel guilty about?”
“Now you know why it’s on the list,” Dora points out. “And before you ask about isolation, it simply seems to me that you have no real emotional entanglements outside of your brother and Bobby. It must be very lonely.”
“Life as a hunter is like that,” Sam shrugs.
“Life as a hunter in general?” She presses “Or just your life?”
He doesn’t know the answer.
“One last question,” she says. “Where do you see yourself in ten years?”
“Easy,” Sam snorts. “I’m going to be dead before then, again, and it will stick this time.”
He didn’t even stop to think about it.
*****
Sam makes a follow-up for next week, and walks out the door. He finds himself back on Bobby’s porch suddenly, sitting next to his brother. Just like he was before he left.
Dean hands him a soda, and makes a point to not look him in the eye. “How did it go?”
“Weird,” Sam answers as he rubs a hand through his hair. “Uncomfortable.”
“Yeah,” Dean snorts. “I have to go back in three days, and right now I think I would rather be shot.”
They laugh. It’s a little forced, but pretty much everything between them is these days.
Sam takes a little bit of comfort in that. It’s normal for them now, even if it is uncomfortable.
“You’re going back right?” Sam can’t help but ask. As painful and embarrassing as this is for them both, he sees some potential in it.
“I’ll go,” Dean agrees. “I think maybe not liking it means it’s working.”
Sam’s momentarily stunned into silence, and Dean takes the chance to clink their sodas together before getting out of his seat and wandering off the porch and out into the yard.
Profound words from his older brother. Dean does that sometimes - comes out of nowhere with something you wouldn’t expect him to say. Sam sometimes writes them down, just so there’s proof later.
Not today, though. Today he sits back in the chair and soaks up the late afternoon sun, enjoying the heat of it as the wind blows and the clouds move in the sky. He watches Dean wandering in an aimless circle with that pinched-mouth look he gets when he’s thinking really hard.
Sam wonders what he’s thinking about, wonders if Dean is as mixed-up and broken inside as Sam feels, and gets scared at the idea of it. If Dean is broken too, then they really are the blind leading the blind, here. That’s scary.
It’s the first time Sam’s thought of his brother as a human being in a very long time.
Session 4
“You’re asking about my Dad?” Dean stammers at the start of the session, and tries to ignore the horrible, sinking feeling that goes with the idea of talking about this right now.
“Yes,” Dora answers with a nod. “I want you to talk to me about your upbringing and how you feel it has impacted you as an adult.”
“Oh, fuck,” Dean moans as he rolls his head along the back of the chair he’s sitting in. “I don’t think I can do this.”
He’s a little shocked he even says that much about it, but he’s getting used to being uncomfortable here. When Dora doesn’t push, he sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose with his fingertips. “My dad raised us like soldiers. We ran in a unit. He had expectations, and we met them. It was rigid and unforgiving. We had to tow the line, or there were consequences.”
“It sounds as though you don’t approve of your upbringing,” There’s a question she’s asking in there somewhere, but damned if Dean can find it.
“I don’t know,” he settles on answering. “I mean, if you had asked me five years ago, I would have puffed up all loud and crazy and gone off at you for even thinking there was a possibility there was something wrong with the way Dad raised us. Hell, Sam and I used to fight about it all the time. I couldn’t even think it without feeling guilty.”
“And now?”
“Now,” Dean sighs and stares at the ceiling. “Things are different, now. I’m different now. I mean, I think Dad did the best he could with where his focus was. But looking back, I wonder if maybe he should have made different choices so Sammy and I could have had a life outside of hunting.”
“Why do you think he didn’t?”
“I don’t know,” Dean mutters as he sits up and looks over at Dora with a question in his eyes. “Maybe he was scared?”
“Are you asking me if you father was afraid?”
“I know,” Dean snorts. “It’s stupid. My dad, in my head, wasn’t really human. I never thought of him as a man with feelings and needs and fears. It’s only been recently that I started to wonder, when I look back, if there might be a chance that he was just scared to death of losing us and trying to make the world safer the only way he knew how. That maybe this mission to avenge Mom was more about protecting Sammy from what was coming. I have a different perspective now, and it drives me nuts. I’m questioning everything I thought I knew about my dad and sometimes, when I come up with a new answer, it’s uglier than the one I started with.”
“Explain that to me,” she presses.
“Like, I always just assumed that Dad and Sam had a strained relationship because they were so different,” Dean waves his hands around. “But they aren’t. Sam and Dad are a lot alike. I mean, we went back in time and we met him and he was just this young guy who worked hard and wanted to have a family and settle down. He was so secure in the world until everything just melted around him. He’s like Sam used to be. I always thought I was like my father. I listen to his music, I wear clothes like him, I fight like him, I drive his car.”
“But you’re finding out you’re less like your father than you thought.”
“That’s it!” Dean exhales as he slides back into the seat. “I’m not who I thought I was.”
“So who are you?” Dora asks with her head cocked to the side.
“I’m my mom,” Dean whispers. “I’m more like her than anyone, and it hurts so much to know that because she made all these wrong choices, and when I look at my life, I made them too. We both made deals that we shouldn’t have made, we both tried to get out and neither of us were successful at it.”
“You’re speaking of Lisa and Ben?”
“Yeah,” Dean picks at his t-shirt. “You want to know how I think my upbringing impacted me as an adult? I can sum it up by telling you all about that relationship.”
When she looks at him with her eyebrows raised, he groans.
“Okay,” Dean sighs. “I had this whole idea of a family my whole life. I wanted the white picket fence and the stable job and the kids and family dinners. I had a vision of it, and it was so strong I could taste it. Then I went there, because Sam told me to. I went there, and the relationship part that I dreamed about so much? I suck at it. I’m frigid and resistant and I lie all the time. Not even because I have anything to lie about, just because I’m used to lying. I don’t know how Lisa put up with me. We weren’t good together. I see it. I just didn’t want to fail at this thing I had so much hope for.”
“So you stayed because to leave would have been a failure,” Dora comments as she writes something down on her pad.
“No,” Dean admits. “I stayed for Ben. I stayed because I loved being a dad. I was good at it, too. We did homework together, I went to his games, made him breakfast, watched stupid cartoons with him. I got to do all the things with him that I did with Sam when he was little. I’m good at those things. It was comfortable.”
“So parenting is a skill set of yours,” Dora nods.
“I guess,” Dean shrugs. “I never really thought of it that way.”
“Sounds to me you have a lot of experience raising boys,” Dora explains. “You have skills you learned from parenting your brother that you were able to use while parenting Ben. You talk about it like you gained a lot of pleasure from it.”
“I did,” Dean smiles. “I was really good at that kind of stuff. That, and being with Ben again reminded me of when Sam and I got along. It was nice to be able to have some of that again, after I thought Sam was gone for good. It kept me getting up in the morning when I really didn’t want to.”
“How do you feel about it now?” Dora asks. “You no longer have contact with Ben.”
“That’s not exactly true,” Dean mumbles as he scratches at the side of his face. “Lisa and I are done, that’s true. But Ben and I still talk. He calls me a lot, and I send him stuff sometimes. It’s not the same, not even close to the same. But I…well, he’s important to me.”
“You love him.”
“I love him,” Dean whispers. “I wish he was mine.”
“Does that matter so much to you?” Dora asks. “The blood connection?”
“No,” Dean says after some thought. “I mean, Bobby’s like a second father to me, and he’s not related to us at all. So I guess it’s not a big deal. Ben feels like he’s my son.”
“Bobby Singer,” Dora comments. “He referred you to me. Why was your treatment so important to him?”
Dean lets out a startled bark of laughter before trying to explain it in a way that makes some kind of sense. “Bobby treats me and Sam like we’re his kids. He looks out for us, and chases after us, and follows us right to the end of the world like a real father would do. We forget that, sometimes. I forget how much he loves us, and I forget to tell him how much I love him. It would be weird.”
“Your relationship with his is very important to you.”
“Hell yeah, it is,” Dean says with wide eyes. “I don’t know what I would do without Bobby. That’s why I’m here. I mean, Sam and I fight all the time. We bicker about everything from the minute we wake up in the morning until the last thing we say before we hit the bed at night. It’s pretty much never-ending. So you can imagine how shocked we were one day when Bobby sits us down after a hunt that kind of went sideways and hands us your card. He says he can’t take the fighting anymore, and he doesn’t trust us to have his back anymore. I’m off my game, and someone’s going to get hurt. He says us we have to get help or to never call him again.”
“And your relationship with his is important enough for you to listen to his request.”
“I once got on an airplane and flew over the ocean to help him with the one thing he’s asked me for the whole time we’ve been together,” Dean answers. “I sold decades off my life in a card game to try and win his back. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for Bobby Singer if he asked it of me. Even this. I hate this. But if it will keep Bobby in my life, I will be here every time you tell me I have to be.”
“You love him very much,” Dora says.
“Hell yes, I do,” Dean nods.
“Does he know that?”
*****
That question sticks with Dean for the rest of the session and through his making a follow-up visit before he finds himself walking out of what appears to be Dora’s office and into the hotel he and Sam are staying in for the night.
Does he know that?
Dean wants to argue that Bobby has to be aware of it. He has to know Dean loves him just as much as he ever loved his Dad; that Bobby in his mind brings up feelings of safety and home and sweet, gruff affection that Dean can’t ever get enough of. How could Bobby not know that, to Dean, Bobby is everything family in the world?
It’s the only home he has.
“You okay?” Sam asks when Dean is still just standing there in the center of the room looking lost in thought.
“I don’t know,” Dean admits. “These sessions fuck me up, man.”
He sits down on the end of his bed and runs his hands over his hair for second before blurting “Sam, can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” Sam says as he closes the laptop and gives Dean his full attention.
“Do you think Bobby knows how important he is to us?” Dean stumbles over the words and holds himself back from blurting out the L - word in front of Sam, who he hasn’t said those words to in years.
“Of course he does,” Sam answers immediately.
“Have you ever told him?” Dean asks.
“This is what you’re talking about in therapy?” Sam asks with a twisted look on his face, like something stinks.
“Shut up, Sammy!” Dean snaps. “I’m being serious here. Have you ever told Bobby how you feel about him? I haven’t.”
“Oh,” Sam says softly. “I mean, I guess not. Not verbally. Though you guys say I tried to kill him for a spell that required a paternal sacrifice, so I guess he kind of knows how I feel about him, in a warped sort of way.”
They sit there is silence looking at the carpet for a long time before Sam adds, “He loves us a lot, I think.”
“He would have to love us to put up with all of this shit,” Dean snorts.
“We should maybe tell him,” Sam offers hesitantly, and flinches when Dean’s head snaps up from where it was hanging down to look at him. “I mean, I know it’s not our official way of doing things, but still.”
“Our official way of doing things is seriously fucked-up,” Dean says sadly. “You know that, right, Sammy?”
“Yeah, Dean,” Sam nods. “I do. But it’s good to hear you say it.”
“Well,” Dean huffs, “at least we agree on something.”
Part 3
Author name:Gedry
Artist name:Counteragent
Genre: Gen
Rating:PG
Word count: 32,895
Summary:After Sam gets his soul back his relationship with Dean is rockier than ever. Secrets have piled up and tension is running high between the brothers. Their inability to get along causes problems for Bobby so he orders them to get help or get gone. Working through their problems is more complicated than they thought, and their therapist isn’t who she seems.
Session 3
“You know, I used to have a life,” Sam says as he looks out the window of Dora’s office. He has no idea where exactly he is, but he thinks he’s on the third floor of an office building, and for some reason that’s a little bit comforting. “Back when I was younger. The last time I was in therapy, I had plans. I was going to get married and finish law school. I was going to help people. I had this vision in my head of living in the suburbs and driving a nice car. It didn’t have to be new - I never cared about anything like that. But - it wouldn’t be stolen. I was going to fit in and be a part of the neighborhood watch, or something stupid like that. Jess and I were going to be happy.”
“Those aren’t your goals now,” Dora comments.
“I don’t have goals now.” Sam sighs. “But those things, those ideas about the future that I used to cling to so hard, to give me hope, aren’t even pipe dreams anymore.”
“Why is that?”
“I’m not normal,” Sam says as he turns to look at her for the first time since the session began. “I’m a monster. Doesn’t your file tell you that? A blood-addicted, demon-fucking vessel for Lucifer. Now, I’ve never lived in the suburbs, but I’m pretty sure that I’m the kind of guy they call the police about.”
“People change,” Dora says. “Dreams change.”
Sam huffs, “Dreams die, people become twisted and broken.”
“That’s how you describe yourself now?”
“It’s not the worst I’ve been called,” Sam shrugs. “Cracked, maybe. I don’t think I’m totally broken yet.”
“Is that a good thing?” She asks.
“Depends,” Sam answers. “It means I still care. But as long as you care, they can still hurt you. So maybe it’s a little of both.”
“What are you hoping to get out of our sessions together?”
It takes him a long time to answer. “I don’t know.”
“But you weren’t as resistant as Dean to the idea of participating in counseling.”
Sam snorts. “Look,” he says, “you’re new to the game, so I’ll explain it. Dean resists everything when he’s first exposed to it. I mean, a fucking angel pulled him out of Hell once, and when I asked Cas about it three weeks ago, he told me Dean didn’t want to come with him when he first got down there to rescue him. My brother’s a hard-headed dick. Just like our Dad was. The good thing about Dean is that there is a sure-fired way to get him to do anything you want him to do.”
“And that is?”
“Me.” Sam smiles. “If he really secretly wants to do it, then all I have to say is that I’ll do it, no problem, and then he’ll roll his eyes and tag along and say it was all his idea. If he really really doesn’t want to do it, then all I have to say is I think he shouldn’t, or tell him he’s chicken. Then he’ll do it, but he’ll bitch the whole time.”
“So by Dean’s lack of bitching, I can assume he wanted to participate in counseling,” Dora responds.
“Yeah,” Sam nods. “Dean hates himself. He has a lot of guilt for things he did, or things he didn’t do that he thinks he should have done. He needs help, and he wants it. I mean, he probably feels bad for all the time he couldn’t give me everything he thinks I wanted when we were kids, or all the time he thinks he let Dad down. Dean’s a mess.”
“You’re very focused on your brother.”
“When you head home tonight, I’ll be with Dean. When you get up tomorrow, I’ll be with Dean. You pick a time every day for the next two weeks and when you think about me, I’ll be with Dean. So yeah, I’m focused on Dean. There’s nothing else for me to focus on. It’s me and Dean in the car, me and Dean in the hotel, me and Dean running through the sewers. Me stitching Dean up after he’s shot. Me getting pie for Dean. That’s my whole life.”
“How does that make you feel?”
“How would you feel if your entire existence was an extension of someone else’s?” Sam asks back.
“This isn’t about me,” Dora explains.
Sam looks back out the window. “I hate it. I never wanted to be this.”
“And it’s your brother’s fault you are how you are?”
“Yes,” Sam answers. Then frowns. “No. I mean, of course not! Dean didn’t make me do any of the things I did that got me here, and half the things that happened, neither of us had any control over, either.”
“But you seem upset with him,” she points out.
“I am,” Sam admits. “A lot of the time. Maybe all of the time, underneath it all. But I love him, too. He’s all I have. Dean’s the only thing I feel connected to in the whole world, really. I don’t want to lose him. But I can’t stand him or the way he makes me feel right now.”
“How do you feel when you’re with him?”
“Like the biggest fuck-up to walk the face of the Earth,” Sam admits. “Like everything he does that hurts him, he does because he doesn’t trust me to do the right thing or make the right choices. I want to be pissed about that, but seriously? My track record stinks. So maybe he’s right.”
“Right about?”
“About me,” Sam sighs and swipes his hands over his face. “Maybe he’s right to treat me like a child. Maybe I need the supervision. The times when I’ve been away from Dean are the times that I’ve made the biggest mistakes. So, yeah, I hate the way our relationship always seems so stilted and he’s always in charge, but sometimes I think it would be worse if I took the lead.”
“You want more responsibility, but you’re afraid of the choices you might make,” Dora comments.
“Yeah,” Sam nods. “That’s it. Part of me would rather have no choices than risk making the wrong ones again.”
“And the other parts of you?” She asks “What do they want?”
“I want my brother to trust me,” Sam shakes his head. “I want Dean to love me again.”
“By extension, then, I should assume you want to trust yourself again, and you want to learn how to love yourself?”
“That’s a lot,” Sam snorts. “Think you can fill that order?”
“I’m just the waitress here, Sam,” She grins. “You’re the cook and the manager and run the register. It’s up to you.”
“Okay,” Sam shifts, sitting back in the seat more comfortably. “So where do I start?”
“I’m going to ask you to refrain from talking about your brother unless you’re relating a specific event to me,” she explains. When Sam raises an eyebrow at her she adds, “I think it’s easier for you to project your negative feelings about yourself by using Dean as a filter. I need a clearer view of how you really feel. Not how you think he feels.”
“So you’re saying Dean may not actually feel and think some of the things I think he does?”
“You would have to ask him that,” she tells him.
“But you see him, too,” Sam leans forward. “You have to know how he feels.”
“Trust me,” Dora answers. “Neither of you are ready for a couples session yet.”
“Ew,” Sam mutters as he leans away, but he chuckles when she laughs. “Okay, no talking about Dean. I can do that. What else?”
“How are you coping with the urges to drink demon blood?”
Sam thinks about it for a long time. “I don’t really have any. Not anymore. I used to have to white-knuckle my way through everything, but ever since Hell, there hasn’t been anything there.”
“So you think you’re cured?”
“Remission, maybe?” Sam huffs. “I’m terrified of it coming back. I don’t want Dean - I mean, I don’t want to be a liability again like that. I don’t like feeling out of control.”
“So what are you doing to prepare yourself for the possibility of its return?”
“Nothing,” Sam admits, shifting in his chair again. “I haven’t really wanted to think about it.”
“So that’s something we can work on together,” Dora notes, scribbling on her notepad.
“Okay,” Sam nods. “Yeah. What else do you have down there?”
“Addiction, co-dependency, shame and guilt, and isolation.”
“Co-dependant with Dean, right?” Sam asks. When she nods, he swallows. “I get that. Shame and guilt?”
“Sam,” Dora sighs. “Give me an example of something in your life that you don’t feel guilty about.”
He can hear the clock ticking while he sits there struggling to come up with something. Sam thinks it might have been five minutes before he blurts, “I started the Apocalypse, I’ve killed people, I lie to my brother all the time, I tried to kill the man who’s treated me like a son most of my life, I can’t even remember half the shit I did when I was soulless, and the crap I do remember is horrible. I also threatened my brother’s best friend, and that’s just the last four years. What don’t I have to feel guilty about?”
“Now you know why it’s on the list,” Dora points out. “And before you ask about isolation, it simply seems to me that you have no real emotional entanglements outside of your brother and Bobby. It must be very lonely.”
“Life as a hunter is like that,” Sam shrugs.
“Life as a hunter in general?” She presses “Or just your life?”
He doesn’t know the answer.
“One last question,” she says. “Where do you see yourself in ten years?”
“Easy,” Sam snorts. “I’m going to be dead before then, again, and it will stick this time.”
He didn’t even stop to think about it.
*****
Sam makes a follow-up for next week, and walks out the door. He finds himself back on Bobby’s porch suddenly, sitting next to his brother. Just like he was before he left.
Dean hands him a soda, and makes a point to not look him in the eye. “How did it go?”
“Weird,” Sam answers as he rubs a hand through his hair. “Uncomfortable.”
“Yeah,” Dean snorts. “I have to go back in three days, and right now I think I would rather be shot.”
They laugh. It’s a little forced, but pretty much everything between them is these days.
Sam takes a little bit of comfort in that. It’s normal for them now, even if it is uncomfortable.
“You’re going back right?” Sam can’t help but ask. As painful and embarrassing as this is for them both, he sees some potential in it.
“I’ll go,” Dean agrees. “I think maybe not liking it means it’s working.”
Sam’s momentarily stunned into silence, and Dean takes the chance to clink their sodas together before getting out of his seat and wandering off the porch and out into the yard.
Profound words from his older brother. Dean does that sometimes - comes out of nowhere with something you wouldn’t expect him to say. Sam sometimes writes them down, just so there’s proof later.
Not today, though. Today he sits back in the chair and soaks up the late afternoon sun, enjoying the heat of it as the wind blows and the clouds move in the sky. He watches Dean wandering in an aimless circle with that pinched-mouth look he gets when he’s thinking really hard.
Sam wonders what he’s thinking about, wonders if Dean is as mixed-up and broken inside as Sam feels, and gets scared at the idea of it. If Dean is broken too, then they really are the blind leading the blind, here. That’s scary.
It’s the first time Sam’s thought of his brother as a human being in a very long time.
Session 4
“You’re asking about my Dad?” Dean stammers at the start of the session, and tries to ignore the horrible, sinking feeling that goes with the idea of talking about this right now.
“Yes,” Dora answers with a nod. “I want you to talk to me about your upbringing and how you feel it has impacted you as an adult.”
“Oh, fuck,” Dean moans as he rolls his head along the back of the chair he’s sitting in. “I don’t think I can do this.”
He’s a little shocked he even says that much about it, but he’s getting used to being uncomfortable here. When Dora doesn’t push, he sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose with his fingertips. “My dad raised us like soldiers. We ran in a unit. He had expectations, and we met them. It was rigid and unforgiving. We had to tow the line, or there were consequences.”
“It sounds as though you don’t approve of your upbringing,” There’s a question she’s asking in there somewhere, but damned if Dean can find it.
“I don’t know,” he settles on answering. “I mean, if you had asked me five years ago, I would have puffed up all loud and crazy and gone off at you for even thinking there was a possibility there was something wrong with the way Dad raised us. Hell, Sam and I used to fight about it all the time. I couldn’t even think it without feeling guilty.”
“And now?”
“Now,” Dean sighs and stares at the ceiling. “Things are different, now. I’m different now. I mean, I think Dad did the best he could with where his focus was. But looking back, I wonder if maybe he should have made different choices so Sammy and I could have had a life outside of hunting.”
“Why do you think he didn’t?”
“I don’t know,” Dean mutters as he sits up and looks over at Dora with a question in his eyes. “Maybe he was scared?”
“Are you asking me if you father was afraid?”
“I know,” Dean snorts. “It’s stupid. My dad, in my head, wasn’t really human. I never thought of him as a man with feelings and needs and fears. It’s only been recently that I started to wonder, when I look back, if there might be a chance that he was just scared to death of losing us and trying to make the world safer the only way he knew how. That maybe this mission to avenge Mom was more about protecting Sammy from what was coming. I have a different perspective now, and it drives me nuts. I’m questioning everything I thought I knew about my dad and sometimes, when I come up with a new answer, it’s uglier than the one I started with.”
“Explain that to me,” she presses.
“Like, I always just assumed that Dad and Sam had a strained relationship because they were so different,” Dean waves his hands around. “But they aren’t. Sam and Dad are a lot alike. I mean, we went back in time and we met him and he was just this young guy who worked hard and wanted to have a family and settle down. He was so secure in the world until everything just melted around him. He’s like Sam used to be. I always thought I was like my father. I listen to his music, I wear clothes like him, I fight like him, I drive his car.”
“But you’re finding out you’re less like your father than you thought.”
“That’s it!” Dean exhales as he slides back into the seat. “I’m not who I thought I was.”
“So who are you?” Dora asks with her head cocked to the side.
“I’m my mom,” Dean whispers. “I’m more like her than anyone, and it hurts so much to know that because she made all these wrong choices, and when I look at my life, I made them too. We both made deals that we shouldn’t have made, we both tried to get out and neither of us were successful at it.”
“You’re speaking of Lisa and Ben?”
“Yeah,” Dean picks at his t-shirt. “You want to know how I think my upbringing impacted me as an adult? I can sum it up by telling you all about that relationship.”
When she looks at him with her eyebrows raised, he groans.
“Okay,” Dean sighs. “I had this whole idea of a family my whole life. I wanted the white picket fence and the stable job and the kids and family dinners. I had a vision of it, and it was so strong I could taste it. Then I went there, because Sam told me to. I went there, and the relationship part that I dreamed about so much? I suck at it. I’m frigid and resistant and I lie all the time. Not even because I have anything to lie about, just because I’m used to lying. I don’t know how Lisa put up with me. We weren’t good together. I see it. I just didn’t want to fail at this thing I had so much hope for.”
“So you stayed because to leave would have been a failure,” Dora comments as she writes something down on her pad.
“No,” Dean admits. “I stayed for Ben. I stayed because I loved being a dad. I was good at it, too. We did homework together, I went to his games, made him breakfast, watched stupid cartoons with him. I got to do all the things with him that I did with Sam when he was little. I’m good at those things. It was comfortable.”
“So parenting is a skill set of yours,” Dora nods.
“I guess,” Dean shrugs. “I never really thought of it that way.”
“Sounds to me you have a lot of experience raising boys,” Dora explains. “You have skills you learned from parenting your brother that you were able to use while parenting Ben. You talk about it like you gained a lot of pleasure from it.”
“I did,” Dean smiles. “I was really good at that kind of stuff. That, and being with Ben again reminded me of when Sam and I got along. It was nice to be able to have some of that again, after I thought Sam was gone for good. It kept me getting up in the morning when I really didn’t want to.”
“How do you feel about it now?” Dora asks. “You no longer have contact with Ben.”
“That’s not exactly true,” Dean mumbles as he scratches at the side of his face. “Lisa and I are done, that’s true. But Ben and I still talk. He calls me a lot, and I send him stuff sometimes. It’s not the same, not even close to the same. But I…well, he’s important to me.”
“You love him.”
“I love him,” Dean whispers. “I wish he was mine.”
“Does that matter so much to you?” Dora asks. “The blood connection?”
“No,” Dean says after some thought. “I mean, Bobby’s like a second father to me, and he’s not related to us at all. So I guess it’s not a big deal. Ben feels like he’s my son.”
“Bobby Singer,” Dora comments. “He referred you to me. Why was your treatment so important to him?”
Dean lets out a startled bark of laughter before trying to explain it in a way that makes some kind of sense. “Bobby treats me and Sam like we’re his kids. He looks out for us, and chases after us, and follows us right to the end of the world like a real father would do. We forget that, sometimes. I forget how much he loves us, and I forget to tell him how much I love him. It would be weird.”
“Your relationship with his is very important to you.”
“Hell yeah, it is,” Dean says with wide eyes. “I don’t know what I would do without Bobby. That’s why I’m here. I mean, Sam and I fight all the time. We bicker about everything from the minute we wake up in the morning until the last thing we say before we hit the bed at night. It’s pretty much never-ending. So you can imagine how shocked we were one day when Bobby sits us down after a hunt that kind of went sideways and hands us your card. He says he can’t take the fighting anymore, and he doesn’t trust us to have his back anymore. I’m off my game, and someone’s going to get hurt. He says us we have to get help or to never call him again.”
“And your relationship with his is important enough for you to listen to his request.”
“I once got on an airplane and flew over the ocean to help him with the one thing he’s asked me for the whole time we’ve been together,” Dean answers. “I sold decades off my life in a card game to try and win his back. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for Bobby Singer if he asked it of me. Even this. I hate this. But if it will keep Bobby in my life, I will be here every time you tell me I have to be.”
“You love him very much,” Dora says.
“Hell yes, I do,” Dean nods.
“Does he know that?”
*****
That question sticks with Dean for the rest of the session and through his making a follow-up visit before he finds himself walking out of what appears to be Dora’s office and into the hotel he and Sam are staying in for the night.
Does he know that?
Dean wants to argue that Bobby has to be aware of it. He has to know Dean loves him just as much as he ever loved his Dad; that Bobby in his mind brings up feelings of safety and home and sweet, gruff affection that Dean can’t ever get enough of. How could Bobby not know that, to Dean, Bobby is everything family in the world?
It’s the only home he has.
“You okay?” Sam asks when Dean is still just standing there in the center of the room looking lost in thought.
“I don’t know,” Dean admits. “These sessions fuck me up, man.”
He sits down on the end of his bed and runs his hands over his hair for second before blurting “Sam, can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” Sam says as he closes the laptop and gives Dean his full attention.
“Do you think Bobby knows how important he is to us?” Dean stumbles over the words and holds himself back from blurting out the L - word in front of Sam, who he hasn’t said those words to in years.
“Of course he does,” Sam answers immediately.
“Have you ever told him?” Dean asks.
“This is what you’re talking about in therapy?” Sam asks with a twisted look on his face, like something stinks.
“Shut up, Sammy!” Dean snaps. “I’m being serious here. Have you ever told Bobby how you feel about him? I haven’t.”
“Oh,” Sam says softly. “I mean, I guess not. Not verbally. Though you guys say I tried to kill him for a spell that required a paternal sacrifice, so I guess he kind of knows how I feel about him, in a warped sort of way.”
They sit there is silence looking at the carpet for a long time before Sam adds, “He loves us a lot, I think.”
“He would have to love us to put up with all of this shit,” Dean snorts.
“We should maybe tell him,” Sam offers hesitantly, and flinches when Dean’s head snaps up from where it was hanging down to look at him. “I mean, I know it’s not our official way of doing things, but still.”
“Our official way of doing things is seriously fucked-up,” Dean says sadly. “You know that, right, Sammy?”
“Yeah, Dean,” Sam nods. “I do. But it’s good to hear you say it.”
“Well,” Dean huffs, “at least we agree on something.”
Part 3