Work Text:
“Subject number 321-A. Patient is a male, Caucasian, in his mid-thirties. States his name is Dean Winchester, son of John and Mary Winchester. Patient, when found, did not have on his person any form of identification, and all attempts to acquire verification of his name and address, or medical records of any kind, have been unsuccessful.”
The only sound in the room was the small whir of a tape recorder sitting by James’s mug of tea. Most preferred the digital recorders these days, but he found comfort in the tangible turn of the reel, the solid click of its buttons.
“Hello, Mr. Winchester.”
His patient snorted, his eyes slightly hazy under the fog of tranquilizers, a color that reminded James of the cloudy translucence of sea glass.
“I told you before — stop calling me that, Cas. You never call me that.”
“Mr. Win— Dean. We’ve discussed this before. My name is Dr. James Novak. Do you know where you are?”
“Yeah, I know!” As in the past, Dean didn’t behave as though he were replying to James. There was never any eye contact held. His head whipped from right to left, floor to ceiling, as if shouting at someone hidden in the patterns of the Turkish rug, the twisted whorls of the wall paneling. “I’m inside some djinn nightmare, or some Gabriel-wannabe’s fucking idea of a joke!”
James sat, hands resting placatingly before himself. He didn’t carry a pad and pen as usual. The last time he did, it had ended with one male orderly being stabbed in the deltoid.
“So help me, Crowley, if I find out you’re behind this, I’m going to rip the smirk right off your face…”
Dean, if given the opportunity, would continue snarling for hours, spitting out names and accusations at people and creatures of fantasy.
“You still believe what’s around you is an illusion, then?” James’s prodding was neither accusatory nor sympathetic. It wasn’t his place to condemn or forgive, only evaluate. “That you’re not a patient at this facility, nor have been, for seven months?”
“I haven’t been here for seven months!” The tea spilled over the rim of the mug as Dean’s fists slammed into the table. “Two weeks ago I… I…”
Every time, it was the same. At this point, the patient’s strong will crumbled, his shoulders softly shook. Lines and shadows settled within the contours of his face, destroying his youth before James’s eyes.
“Go on, Dean,” James said softly.
“… I killed my brother. I killed Sammy.”
Seven months ago, the patient had been discovered by some construction workers coming in for an early morning shift. He had been lying unconscious in a warehouse that was scheduled for demolition, suffering from extensive cuts and contusions, unarmed and alone.
He had no wallet and no keys. What he did have was $35 in his left front pocket, and what one construction worker described as “a shitload of blood” soaking through his clothing (which included one henley, grey, and a pair of jeans).
The lab determined that the blood did not belong to Dean, but to a male somewhere within the same age range. Attempts to perform a DNA test to verify his claims of a sibling were consistently inconclusive. Dean had spent days on starched hospital sheets, fading in and out of consciousness, squid-like tentacles of wires and tubing in his skin, in the machines, telling those who watched that he was stable when in his moments of clarity he was certain he must be dead.
“Dean, your brother was never found. Neither living nor dead. We showed you photographs of the plot where you claimed your parents were buried, and the space was occupied by a family by the name of Shurley.”
“Fake,” Dean murmured. The fingers of his left hand had begun stroking the ridge of a thick, angry red scar that ran high on the inside of his forearm. “Maybe I’m the only real thing that’s left. Maybe I’m the one making you up. Fucking cracked. Finally lost it.”
James tried his best to keep his face neutral, but this was new. Never before had Dean accepted responsibility for where he was.
“Then you’re willing to consider that this life you’ve described to me — the hunting, the demons, the biblical fantasies come to life — were of your own creation?”
The patient bared his teeth. “No, that was real. This,” and he jammed his finger against his scar so viciously that James was certain the flesh would be bruised, “is real. It’s all of this bullshit around me that I’m making up! Or that someone else is making up for me! Maybe it’s my punishment for doing that to my own bro—”
“Dean, there is no Sam Winchester.”
James meant only to calm him, but his words had the opposite effect. He had insisted the patient not be restrained. That the drugs would be enough to keep him under control. He wanted Dean to feel comfortable, safe, during their session.
Now, as the other man leapt from his chair and knocked the table over in one violent movement, it was James who didn’t feel safe.
He fell to the floor under the weight of his patient, Dean’s knee ground painfully against his sternum, his fingers digging into the flesh of his throat. Their faces were close. He could count the hairs stubbled across Dean’s jaw, smell the bleach used on his issued cotton shirt.
He knew he would be dead before help could come.
James clasped his patient’s wrist in desperation, tried to see him behind the mask of terror and rage that had transformed his face.
“Dean… do you want to hurt me?” James’s voice had gone guttural, raspy, under the pressure of Dean’s grip.
The effect was immediate. Dean jerked his hands away from James as if he had been shocked, his eyes wide and panicked. He began what might have been an apology — Cas, I didn’t … not again — but the words stumbled over his lips until he bit the lower one bloody, dropped back to the floor, and began trembling with hushed, monotonous murmurs.
James rose and rapped his knuckles against the door of his office. Two men appeared, and without fuss or surprise, collected and ushered Dean out of the room.
“James, what is it?” A man in a suit every bit as crisp as Dr. Novak’s, but with hair longer and less tamed, stood in the doorway, eyeing the wreckage of the overturned desk. James had gone deathly pale, the blue of his stare electric against the dark shadows lying beneath. “Were you hurt?”
“No, no it’s just…” James swallowed, trying to smooth away the gravel that filled his throat. “He’s never met my eyes before. Not once in all these weeks I’ve been working with him.”
James touched the bruises on his neck and relived the recognition in Dean’s desperate face.
“But now, when our eyes met… He looked at me as if he’s known me for a lifetime.”