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Niles’s new patient looks desperately out of place in his office, and he can’t quite tell if it was because the man is new to therapy or because he is new to the indoors. He wears a solid pair of work boots and worn jeans. His flannel is unironed, and there seems to be a stain on the collar. Is that…blood? Imagine, wearing a blood-stained shirt in public! But alas, his office is not a space of judgement. If Niles judged his patients a bit over a glass of chardonnay at home, well, that was his business.
He does wonder how a man who looks like he has never worn a suit in his life wound up in his office of all places. He had apparently paid in cash, which was unusual, especially considering Niles’s prices. One of the most expensive psychologists in Seattle, he thinks to himself proudly. The man’s hands are calloused and his arms and face seems to be covered in light scars. What manual labor job would pay enough for this? Maybe some kind of construction for high end homes? Or perhaps he was just desperate to see the best of the best. Either way, it was becoming clear that Niles would have to be the one to talk first.
“So, Dean is it? Tell me, what made you decide to come in today?”
Dean shifts on the couch, staring intently at his clasped hands for a moment.
Niles gives him a moment, then another. “No need to be intimidated, Dean. It’s clear that there’s something weighing on you heavily.” More silence. Well, maybe a touch of humor then. “Are you perhaps looking for recommendations for a tailor?” Niles tries to keep his tone light. At the remark, Dean seems conflicted before settling into a slight smile.
“Well, doc, you do seem to know something about that, uh, uppity fashion.” He clears his throat. “But no, I’m here… Christ, why am I here?”
“Ah, the age old question, if you’re referring to your purpose on Earth, that is. Is that why you made an appointment? A bit of existential dread?” Niles knows he is grasping at straws, but some patients needed a bit of goading to open up. He does not expect Dean’s eyes to flash cold at that.
“No. The guy upstairs has been pretty clear what my fucking purpose is.” Niles isn’t sure exactly what to do with that, so he makes a note of harsh feelings about religion on his notepad. “No, it’s everything after all the why are we here bullshit.”
“Well, start with one thing that’s been bothering you, and we can go from there.”
Dean starts wringing his hands again. “Uh, there’s my mom. Pretty fucked up stuff in that relationship, but she’s dead now, so I guess that’s not important anymore.”
Well, there’s a start. Niles intentionally softens his voice slightly. “Dean, just because your mother has passed doesn’t mean you can’t still be affected by the relationship in the present.”
Dean waves his hand at that. “Yeah, sure, but…” he shakes his head. “Maybe put that on the backburner for now, right? My dad too, like I know for sure he fucked me up, but maybe if we get a second appointment.”
“Whatever you’re comfortable with Dean, although many of my patients do find that working backwards from childhood trauma can shed light on how they handle their current issues.” Dean stays silent. “But if you would like to start in the present, then by all means, we can start in the present.” Niles waves his hands in front of him in invitation. Niles for a moment is reminded of his own father, a man who always grumbled before he could talk about his feelings. The image of Dean sitting in his father’s recliner with a beer in his hand flashes through his mind.
After about two and a half minutes of silence, Niles begins to feel almost as uncomfortable as Dean looks, but does his best to keep his professional air of composure. Dean finally starts, “So I have this buddy Cas.”
Niles nods, and gives what he hopes the lumberjack takes as an encouraging smile.
“We’ve been through a lot. Like, a lot a lot. But he always,” Dean looks like he’s in physical pain just getting out the words, “he always leaves.”
Niles nods and writes childhood abandonment issues? as he waits for Dean to keep going.
“Like, it’s not always his fault and he has a million responsibilities and a million better options than me but every time I just want to scream at him to stay.”
Niles isn’t quite sure where this was going. “Do you? Ever tell him to stay.”
“He doesn’t give me the damn chance half the time,” Dean says, voice picking up in volume.
“I need a little more context here, Dean. Who is this man to you? What do you mean when you want him to stay with you?”
“He’s just…he’s Cas! He’s my buddy Cas. We always have each other’s backs when one of us is in danger, when one of us is dying, but I want him to just, stick around when things are quiet too.”
Niles mind flatlined a little when Dean said danger. Who was this man, exactly? Where did he get all of those scars? Maybe he’s just talking about the dangers of tiling a particularly steep roof, but dying? Niles suddenly has an image of being shoved in a truck by a mobster, then interrogated for information about Dean’s therapy. Maybe he shouldn’t accept cash payments anymore. Maybe he should have all records of this man’s appointment wiped from the books, and ask him to leave through the backdoor and never bother him again.
He gets sprung back into the present when he realizes that Dean is looking at him expectantly. He isn’t sure that the man in front of him is some kind of back-alley ruffian, a mobster’s choice hitman, the top choice on the FBI’s most-wanted list, so for now he has to try to maintain a level of professionalism. He can consult his father and Frasier on the issue later. He clears his throat, regaining his composure.
“Well, Dean, you mentioned that this man has a lot of other, um, obligations to attend to. Maybe if he can’t stay, that’s something you need to accept. Do you have any other important friends in your life who are more consistent?”
“Well, I have Sam, he’s my brother and my best friend, but—” Dean pauses and then mumbles out the next part in a rush. “But Cas might be more than that.”
“In what way?”
Dean now looks on the verge of vomiting. Niles eyes his carpet nervously. “You know, like, love and shit,” he mutters, his eyes shifting downward.
Niles nods. Maybe this problem is cut and dry. He’s helped a few closet-cases before. “Does your confliction come from Cas being a man?”
“I’m not—” Dean cuts himself off sharply and takes a steadying breath. “I don’t know, you know? It’s all just a big mess in that department. Growing up the way my dad was, and the way really everyone around me was, it wasn’t an option, and now my brothers all hippie liberal and there’s this guy that I, well that I feel something about, I just…it’s too much, you know?” Dean goes quiet for a moment, and Niles gives him the space to form the thoughts clearly running fast through his head. “I mean, I don’t know the rules on this whole therapist thing, but when did you know, doc?”
Niles blinks a few times. “I’m sorry, when did I know what?”
“When did you uh, you know. Get all,” Dean makes a vague gesture toward Nile’s person, then limps his wrist, then flinches at his own gesture and quickly curls his hand into a fist.
“Oh,” Nile says. “I see. You think I’m…an associate of Oscar Wilde.”
“I mean, ‘thought it was a friend of Dorothy, but whatever you guys are saying…” Dean starts.
“I can assure you that I am not that,” Niles says sharply.
“Really?” Dean’s eyes are wide. “I mean I just saw you and heard you talk and assumed, I mean unless there’s something else you, uh, are? Sam kept leaving a bunch of goddamn pamphlets around about pansexual and demisexual and genderqueer and all this stuff but I didn’t bother to get into the nitty gritty of it…”
“I have a very beautiful wife at home,” Nile says, a slight stutter forming. The audacity! “A very beautiful wife at home with very beautiful breasts that I enjoy very much, thank you.”
Dean is shifting awkwardly in his seat and mutters something, but Niles keeps speaking over him.
“You of all people should know that how a man dresses has no bearing on his sexual preference.” Niles is vaguely aware that he is wavering into what his wife ruefully refers to as the Crane brothers’ pompous fuckin’ Shakespeare voice, and he can’t find it in himself to stop. “You dress like some roguish lovechild of Paul Bunion and James Dean and swagger in here tracking dirt on the floor as if laying claim to the outdoors somehow cements yourself into the Manifest Destiny of American Masculinity, yet you’re absolutely desperate for this Cas fellow.”
At this point, Niles has risen from his seat and is walking between his desk and the coffee table in front of Dean, retrieving each framed photo of Daphne in his office and placing them in front of him. “And if you think that, what, because a man would rather wear a well-fitted suit than a blood-stained flannel, he is less of a man? Have you considered that I am more masculine than you because I am comfortable enough to admit that I prefers an aged wine to cheap beer and a night at the opera to whatever roughhousing hooligan antics brought about all those scars you’re covered in? In fact, I would be willing to bet my membership to the Peau de Lavande Spa that it’s your insecurities brought on by some Freudian daddy issues that cause you to pursue this idealized framework of what a proper man is to your own detriment!”
Now that all fourteen framed photos of Daphne are on display for Dean, he looks back at this client’s face, who is staring at him wide eyed, mouth agape. Niles anger suddenly gives way to terror. Sitting before him is a man covered in scars who apparently lives a dangerous life and looks strong enough to kill him with a single punch, and Niles effectively just called him a Nancy. They are both frozen in silence for what feels like an eternity. Finally, Dean rises to his feet.
“Oh my god, please don’t hurt me.”
Niles’s eyes clamp shut in fear, but he hears faint a chuckle.
“Fuck. You're right.”
A strong hand clasps Niles’s shoulder and he feels a surge of panic, but the hand gives two gentle pats. “I mean, if a pansy-ass guy like you can be straight, maybe it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. I mean, why am I so worried what anyone’s gonna think of me, what Cas is gonna think of me? I’m not even sure the little dude knows what gender is.”
Niles finally forces his eyes open, and sees Dean smiling and grabbing his coat from the hook. “Thanks, doc. I’m gonna go tell Cas that I’m in gay love with him or whatever. Say hi to the wife for me,” he says with a wink, then walks out the door.
Niles stands in shock until he is stirred by the ringing of his phone. He scrambles to answer it.
“Niles!” Daphne exclaims. “I had the most amazing vision! You’re going to meet a man today who’s bisexual. And even better, he’s been touched by angels. Isn’t that exciting?”