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And Dean thought the situation couldn’t get messier. Even went and did the dumb thing of saying it out loud. As if he couldn’t be feeling more emotionally frustrated.
Cas was back from the dead. Great! But before he died, he betrayed Dean in a way that he never could have expected from Cas, of all people. Not great. He also effectively broke his brother's mind which nearly killed him. Really not great. But in the end, after coming back from the dead, he saved him, but only by taking on Sam’s mental trauma himself and breaking his own mind instead.
Again, could not get more complicated.
And then, there Dean was, on his way back to Colorado to explain what happened to the wife—wife—of his best friend but maybe not best friend who was dead but apparently not dead.
Jesus christ.
The drive to Colorado wasn’t all that interesting in itself. Sam was more or less back to his usual self, which was great other than the fact that meant he was just going to try to give Dean impromptu therapy sessions the whole drive.
And Dean did not need to ‘talk it through’ with his brother. But he also had little interest in most of his usual coping mechanisms either. He was too drained from emotional whiplash to want to punch things, and his stomach had not stopped churning every time he thought about his current situation, so getting wasted was probably not a great idea, even for a bordering alcoholic like Dean. So really the only thing that sounded good was cranking up the volume on Baby’s stereo and zoning out on the drive through the early morning into daybreak, feeling the purr of her engine and the vibration of the asphalt under her tires.
By the time they got into town, it was mid afternoon. Dean dropped Sam off at a motel to finally get some much needed deep sleep, and Dean took off to find the nearest dive to sit and stew in his own thoughts. Alone.
He found a bar that was relatively empty, so he parked himself on a stool and ordered a few fingers of the cheapest brown liquor they had. He registered a few different bodies orbiting around him throughout the night, a few stopping in the stool next to his in an effort to gain his attention, but he really just didn’t have the energy to even entertain them. He may have come across rude but hopefully he’d never have to step foot in the town again so what did these randoms’ opinions matter anyway?
Out of all his runaway thoughts throughout the evening, Cas’ face was the one constant that was sticking in his mind. Image after image. Cas looking over his shoulder, blood and lesions covering his face as he apologized. Black goo oozing out of eyes with no light of recognition. The vacancy there as the leviathan steering his body walked it into the lake. The look of confusion when he looked up at Dean from the bottom of those stairs for the first time in months. The careful concentration towards his gentle touch as he untied and checked on Daphne. The look of pain and horror as his memories came back to him. That same look of pain and horror that somehow got infinitely worse when he took on Sam’s trauma.
After just enough alcohol to get his brain fuzzy but not so much that he’d start wanting to do something stupid like take Sam up on his therapy offer, Dean headed back to the motel to fall into a restless sleep as all those same scenes played over and over in his dreams.
-
Sam was still sleeping away when Dean got up the next morning, unable to stop from feeling a bit envious of the peaceful look on his brother's face. But Sam deserved it. He needed peace after everything he had been through the past few years. Contentment looked good on him.
After a cup of black coffee and some over cooked bacon at the diner around the corner, Dean deemed it an appropriate enough time to go have the conversation he drove all this way for, as much as he may have been dreading it. As misguided as she may have been, this woman kept Cas safe for the past months and Dean owed her an explanation for whisking her husband away and never returning with him.
-
The door opened inward to reveal the same beautiful women Dean hadn’t been able to shake from his brain.
“Oh, um, hi. Dean, right?” Daphne greeted, confusion clear as day on her face.
“Uh, yeah. Hi. Dean is right.”
“I’m sorry, Emanuel isn’t back yet.”
“Oh no, um, I’m not here for- for Emanuel. I was actually hoping to talk to you, if you have a minute?”
“Oh! Sure, sure,” she stepped back and held the door open further for Dean to finally step inside. “Is everything alright? Was Emanuel able to help you?” She led Dean into the living room and gestured for him to take a seat on the sofa while she situated herself in the arm chair across the room. The furniture had been rearranged since Dean was last there, presumably because the demon that took Daphne captive did a bit of redecorating of his own.
“Yeah, actually, he did help my brother. Sam’s doing much better now.”
“I am so happy to hear that, for the both of you,” she said with a soft and genuine smile. Dean could see why Cas sought refuge with her; she just had one of those faces that you couldn’t help but trust. Nothing but sweetness, if a little naïveness, in her eyes. “Can I get you some water, or tea? I have to apologize, we don’t have any coffee in the house.”
“No, no, thank you though.” They sat in silence for just a moment. Dean was doing his best to collect his thoughts, and Daphne was clearly waiting for Dean to be the one to start. When he didn’t, she gave him a light nudge.
“So, Dean, you wanted to speak?”
“Yeah, sorry, um, I’m just not exactly sure where to start.” Dean took one more deep breath and let it out a bit shakily. “Mrs…” Dean started before realizing he didn’t know her last name. She couldn’t have taken Cas’ because he had no memory and it’s not like he had one to begin with…
“Allen. Daphne Allen.” Her soft smile was back in place, encouraging him to continue.
“Mrs. Allen, what I’m about to say is going to probably sound a bit insane, and you may not believe it, wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t, but I thought you deserved an explanation.”
Daphne laughed nervously from her spot, drawing legs a bit closer to herself. “Okayyy…”
One more steadying breath and Dean was off. He told her about why the demon that captured her was so interested in her husband, why he had these magically healing powers to begin with. Her face paled a bit at the word ‘angel’.
Once Dean opened his mouth, he couldn’t really stop. He did his best to only tell her necessary information, figuring that the story of exactly how Sam’s psyche became so damaged in the first place and all the events that led up to it didn’t seem all that relevant to this woman who only learned about the existence of angels and demons in the past 48 hours.
“So, Castiel—Emmanuel—he won’t be coming back here. I- I don’t know if the Cas I knew will ever come back at all.” Dean quietly admitted to himself, really for the first time since Cas walked into the lake.
Now finished talking, Dean let out a long breath that he may have held the entire time, then he finally looked up to see Daphne looking back at him, but with glassy, distant eyes. She was clearly trying to digest the information, and Dean knew it was a lot, so he simply let her.
Through the progression of his retelling, she had slowly inched forward further on her seat, but now she shifted back and looked over Dean’s head at nothing in particular.
“Trust me, I- I know how it sounds,” Dean gave a self-deprecating chuckle, “I lived it and I don’t fully believe it most days, but I am very sorry you got roped into all this. I thought you deserved some answers… Or the truth at least. You probably just have more questions now,” Dean laughed again, a soft and slightly uncomfortable thing, trying to ease some of the tension that had crept into his own shoulders.
Daphne looked back at Dean, as if she just remembered he was still in the room. She met his eyes, seemingly studying them. The assessing look reminded him instantly of Cas, and he had to fight not to shift under her gaze.
After a few more moments of silence between the two, Daphne spoke for the first time in nearly an hour.
“Emmanuel-,” she shook her head, “I’m sorry. Castiel? Is that what you said?” At Dean's quick nod, she continued, “Castiel,” she said this time, as if trying to convince herself, “he used to wake in the night from nightmares, but never remembered a thing about them. He’d wake up sweating and struggling for breath, but by the time he’d settle, he couldn’t recall a thing about what had him so worked up.” Dean shifted in his seat, not quite sure where this was going or why she was telling this particular story, but he knew better than to ask, so he didn’t interrupt. Everyone processes differently.
“I could tell it was frustrating him. He was a surprisingly calm man, especially for one who had no memory. The only time I ever saw him get even the slightest bit worked up since I found him was on those nights we sat together, trying to help him remember anything. The nightmares continued for weeks, months maybe. It’s hard to know for sure. Either way, they were constant. It was wearing on the both of us.
“One night, he woke up quickly, out of breath, same as always. But this time- I didn’t think it was a nightmare. I could just tell right away, the look in his eyes was just… different. He was shaking but it was a frantic shake rather than a panicked shake, if that makes any sense. Anyways, he woke, still panting. I didn’t even have a chance to ask if he was okay or comfort him before he sprung out of bed and started searching the room. Eventually he came back with a pen and his secondhand Bible that was kept on his nightstand. I didn't know what was going on, I just sat and watched.” Daphne rose from her chair and quickly left the room. Before Dean could even contemplate if he was meant to follow, she was back, a worn Bible in her hands.
“He just started sketching. Now he’s not exactly the best artist, but it was the only way he could get the image in his head out.” She began rifling through the pages of the book, and eventually found what she was looking for in the back half. She handed the book to Dean and kept talking as she crossed the room to the packed shelves against one wall. “He’d wake up every couple weeks and add another detail. Then it seemed like those dreams were getting more frequent, and thank Heaven’s, it seemed the nightmares were abating. It got to the point it was nearly every night he woke up to work on the drawings. Soon, he started drawing during the day. On nearly any piece of paper he could find.” Dean watched as Daphne pulled what seemed to be a pile of napkins and receipts and other miscellaneous bits of paper out of a folder that was in between books on the bookshelf. She returned and handed them to Dean.
He finally looked down at the drawings in his hands to see a set of eyes. The pair scribbled in the Bible were messy and frantic, as if you could see the artist’s urgency to get it out on the page. They were made up of both black and blue ink, and maybe even some pencil. Some of the lines were hard and scribbled, nearly breaking through the thin page of the book, while others were feather light, and barely visible over the text underneath.
The others Daphne handed him had varying levels of detail. Some were simply irises, some were just one eye or the other. It was clear on some that one detail was the focus of that drawing in particular; extra dark eyelashes on one, clear and defined wrinkles and creases in another. Dean was entranced by the lines, detailed and methodical, but also messy and rushed.
Cas did all these?
“He would say a certain detail just came to him and he had to get it out before he forgot again,” Daphne added gently, following Dean's eyes as they flicked and focused on one drawing then another. “It became something of an obsession for him. It seemed harmless though, if it meant he was remembering something.” Dean was vaguely aware of Daphne returning to her chair across the room. “The one on the bottom of the stack is his most recent.”
Dean pulled the slightly scratchy napkin from the bottom of the pile to the top. It was similar enough to the rest, though Dean noticed distantly that he could see an overall improvement in the art, clearly getting practiced at drawing the same eyes over and over. But this one, rather than being in the typically black, or even the occasional blue pen ink, had a bright pop of color in the irises. “He’d just figured out the eyes were green,” Daphne said softly. “He said he didn’t know how he forgot; it was like a fact of life now. The exact color of those eyes. He hasn’t been able to find the exact right color to depict them yet. Just grabbed a green highlighter I had sitting on my side table. Or..” Daphne paused, shifting in her chair as her next words were spoken down to her intertwined hands on her lap. “He hadn’t found the right color, I suppose." Dean stared at the neon green that filled the irises, so bright it felt the eyes were staring back at him.
Wait.
“We never could figure out who’s eyes they were meant to be. I thought maybe it was a family member or- or a wife he’d forgotten, or something.” She paused again, looking back up at Dean and staring right into his eyes again. “Like I said, he wasn’t the best artist, so it took me a moment to notice it, but…” she hesitated, seemingly unsure how Dean would react to her next words, “they’re your eyes. Aren’t they?”
Dean didn’t notice it at first either, though he did feel they were vaguely familiar, but now it was painfully obvious. The eyes staring back at him were his own. Dean began flipping through the drawings again with renewed insight. He saw it now and he couldn’t unsee it. The beginnings of crows feet he’d started to develop, the lashes that he spent years being insecure about after being told how ‘pretty’ they were one too many times. Cas had captured details about Dean’s eyes he himself didn’t even realize. Did he really have a freckle right there? Apparently.
Dean found his way back to the Bible with the original sketch. He studied them intently and now that he knew what he was looking at, he was completely amazed by how accurate it was after just a handful of dreams.
He stared and stared until everything began to blur. He blinked, but the blurriness only worsened. Oh. That’s because there were tears in his eyes. Now Dean was crying in front of a near complete stranger. Great.
He wiped the tears from his eyes as descretley as he could and glanced back down at the page in front of him. But this time, his eyes focus on something behind the right eye. A word had caught his attention. Dean read the verse in question.
‘Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.’
‘righteous man’
Dean read the verse over and over again. The prayer of a righteous man. That couldn’t be a coincidence.
“Did he draw on this page in particular on purpose? Do you know?” The question came out of Dean’s mouth much more frantic than he had intended, but if Daphne noticed, she kindly didn’t call him on it.
“Oh, um, sorry I don’t know. I assume he just flipped to a random page. Why? Do any of the verses mean anything to you? The Book of James, right?”
“It's-” Dean checked, “yeah it’s James. I- I don’t know. It's just, there’s a verse under the drawing that caught my eye. He- it’s hard to explain, and if you think what I just told you is crazy you’d have me institutionalized for the rest of the story, but the phrase ‘righteous man’ came up a lot when we met. Just- weird for it to be there I guess.”
“That phrase is repeated a few times throughout the Bible, but it's not too common, even less so in the New Testament. Perhaps it’s not a coincidence.” She gave Dean a soft smile for the first time since they sat down and it was oddly comforting that he hadn’t disturbed her too much.
Though, granted, even with all the talk of demons and whatnot, as a woman of faith, she probably found it oddly comforting to know she’d been cohabiting with an angel for months.
Dean’s eyes couldn’t lift from the drawings in his hands for more than a few seconds at a time until they felt pulled back down by a force stronger than gravity. He caught himself just as his thumb reached to start caressing the chaotic lines Cas had scribbled out. When he couldn’t even remember he was an angel, he remembered Dean’s eyes.
And didn’t that hit like a blow to the chest.
Were Dean’s eyes his last memory? Dean had been doing his darndest to not replay their last moments together, but he imagined his eyes were not quite as… happy as the ones Cas had drawn. But now that Dean was looking through them again, they were all a little different. The through line was definitely joy, but some looked like he may be laughing, some looked more mischievous, maybe. The one on the Bible page though, those were both the hardest to look at and simultaneously the hardest to look away from. Dean may be an expert at burying and denying his emotions, but he could have sworn those eyes betrayed… love.
As the realization hit him, Dean could feel his skin lighting on fire and his stomach dropping, along with the floor that went out from under him. God damnit. He wasn’t that obvious was he? He’s pretty sure Sam had an idea but at the end of the day he just liked to tease Dean about it; doubtful he genuinely believed that there was any f- anything there.
But how could anyone look at Dean and not see it if Cas’ drawing was anything to go by.
If Cas clearly saw it, does that mean he knew? Why not say anything? Did that mean he didn’t feel that same? Of course he didn’t; he was an angel. But was he avoiding the idea altogether because it made him uncomfortable that his friend looked at him that way? Granted, he wasn’t exactly the most adept at picking up looks and social queues. And Dean didn’t know if that made him feel any better or not.
Panic had fully risen and settled itself in Dean’s chest as he was confronted with the number one thing he avoided and buried deep down at all cost, literally staring right back at him.
“Fuck,” Dean said under his breathe.
“Dean,” Daphne spoke gently, reminding Dean once again there was another human in the room to witness his breakdown, “are you alright?”
Dean aggressively wiped his face with his sleeve to banish the tears that couldn’t seem to stop flowing now, started by just a pure build up of emotion and now fueled by the panic.
“Yeah, I’m sorry.” Dean wiped the tears from his face again. “This is all- I don’t know why I can’t keep it together.”
“Dean,” Daphne said again, a bit more firmly this time, “I don’t know everything that’s happened, but from what you’ve told me… You’ve been through a lot. Not just these past few days, but it sounds like it's been years of crazy, as you put it. It is completely understandable that you can’t ‘keep it together’.” She raised her hands to make air quotes around her last words in a move that reminded Dean of Cas so viscerally, he had to shut his eyes tight, which only pushed a new batch of tears onto his cheeks.
“You are allowed to be upset. From what you’ve said, it sounds like Castiel—he meant a lot to you.” She paused at that, and Dean could practically feel her eyes roaming over his face, waiting for a reaction, but he refused to meet her eyes. “I can't even imagine how you feel finding out that your friend is not dead as you thought, but then doesn’t remember you. That alone would be incredibly overwhelming to anyone.”
And Dean didn’t know if it was because he hadn’t slept well in weeks, or finding out Cas remembered him in this roundabout way, or if it was just a combination of the absolute shit show that was the past couple days finally catching up to him, but he found himself unable to stop his mouth from running away and speaking to Daphne more candidly than he has possibly ever talked to another human.
“It’s not even just that. Sure that fucking sucks- or, um,” Dean looked at Daphne wide eyed, not meaning to swear in front of her, but she didn’t clench her imaginary pearl necklace and kick him out, so he continued while he still had the steam.
“Him not knowing me sucks, don’t get me wrong, but that’s not even the worst part. But I mean, before he died, or I thought died, he-,” he let out a bitter laugh, “he broke my friggen heart. He betrayed me, and my family. And they knew something was up, they knew it! But I defended him! I believed him when he told me it wasn’t true. Or, I suppose I wanted to believe him.” Dean scrubbed his hands down his face to feel more wetness on his cheeks, but was far past the point of caring now.
“When he walked into that-,” Dean hesitated, not knowing how many details he should give Daphne, knowing he was already pushing her boundaries of acceptance of the unbelievable. “When he walked out and I thought he died,” he continued, “I’ve never felt that kind of grief before. And I’ve lost more people than most can ever imagine, multiple times over, and I’ve never hurt like that. I don’t know if it was the betrayal that just amplified it, but I do know it nearly killed me. And it pisses me off that it did hurt so damn bad. I wanted to be mad at him. And I was! Hell, I still am! But at the end of the day he was still the best friend I ever had, so of course it was all gonna hurt like a sonofabitch. And then he turns around and sacrifices himself again just when I get him back! And seriously, I’m so damn grateful he’s alive, but I'm still beyond pissed at him. Plus another hundred, complicated feelings about this whole damn cluster- uh… mess that I can’t even begin to name. The whole thing is just so freaking complicated and I don’t know why I can’t just let it go.
“God, and on top of everything,” Dean let out a slightly manic laugh, “apparently I’ve just been this giant, neon, flashing sign of-,” he couldn’t help but stop himself, snapping his mouth shut, still unable to admit it outloud.
Dean finally let out a huge, shaky, tearful breath and folded in over himself, careful to not destroy the drawings that still sat in his lap.
The moment of silence lingered between them as Dean got himself under control again and Daphne presumably digested that emotional infodump. Finally, after a couple minutes, Daphne spoke up again, so incredibly soft, but also much closer that Dean expected.
“Maybe you aren’t supposed to let it go.” Dean lifted his head at the closeness of the voice to find Daphne kneeling just in front of Dean’s chair, nothing but compassion and empathy in her eyes. “Maybe, even though you have been able to lose others and let it go, as you say, you aren’t supposed to just bury this one and forget because it’s different. Because… Castiel is different.”
Dean’s face must have shown his confusion clear as day because Daphne shifted on her knees, gently laying a hand on one of Dean’s arms and changed tactics. “Castiel means a lot to you, doesn’t he?” When Dean did nothing but stare at her, wide eyed, she kept on as if he had given her an affirmative. “I can tell, even just from those drawings of his, you mean a lot to him as well, Dean.”
Dean sucked in a sharp breath because that was exactly what he was afraid of when he saw the illustrations. If a stranger who never truly saw the two interact could see it, how could anyone who knew them not see it. Panic filled Dean’s chest once again, but if Daphne noticed, she didn’t address it as she continued.
“We were married, and he never looked at me the way he looked at his drawings after a particularly vivid flashback. And the way you talk about him, even when you are mad, and sad, and scared…
“When we let someone get that close, it is scary. Because it’s dangerous. Because when we let down our walls, they get closer to our heart than anyone has ever been. And that is so nice; to have someone be close enough to just know you. In and out and up and down. But the closer they are—the less walls between them and our heart—the easier it is for them to break it. And those breaks are like no other.
“Sure, family can break our hearts, but it’s a different kind of heartbreak, isn’t it? We tend to build our walls around them, especially if they’re the ones to hurt us as we’re growing up, and we have to put up those walls after them. But to have another person break down those walls and climb inside because you allowed them to… That’s a whole other kind of vulnerability. One that comes with earned trust. And when that trust is broken, so are our hearts.
“But that’s okay, Dean. Of course, you can’t just forgive and forget. That trust—your heart—was broken. You’re allowed to be mad at the betrayal, and sad about losing him, and happy he’s alive, and mad he’s gone again, and all those other hundreds of feelings. But also, we have to try to be grateful we had someone that was close enough to cut that deep. And if you can, if you can find a way to heal enough, you should try to get it back. That kind of connection, that kind of bond, it’s truly special.”
Dean couldn’t help a snort of laughter at Daphne’s wording. At Daphne’s curious glance, Dean explained.
“Cas once said we had a profound bond.” Dean’s hand subconsciously found itself over where Castiel’s handprint had long since faded. Dean’s eyes found Daphne’s face again, scanning for any hint of discomfort or disgust, and genuinely, somewhat pleasantly surprised to say, found none. “Aren’t you supposed to disapprove? You know, the human and angel, man and man thing?”
It was Daphne's turn to let out a breath of laughter from her nose. “Well first off all, not all of us Bible thumpers believe in damnation for loving who you love,” Dean instinctively stiffened at the ‘L’ word, a denial on the tip of his tongue, but stopped himself. Daphne already read him like a book written in big, bold letters. What would be the point?
“Secondly,” Daphne continued, “as far as the angel/human thing goes, that really isn’t up to me to judge. I’ll leave that solely to the Man upstairs.” Dean couldn’t help the full laugh at the comment.
“Yeah, you know, I’m pretty sure that there isn't a single angel or other up there that would approve but that’s mainly because they’re all a bunch of dicks. Sorry to spoil the magic.” That made Daphne laugh as well, the mood in the room now lighter than it had been the entire time Dean had been in this house.
“Well, I met a pretty great one, so I’ll just go with the whole ‘not all angels’ approach.”
“Yeah, unfortunately, I think Cas truly is the exception. Every last one of them I’ve met, so far, are nothing like him.”
“Yeah, but you may be a little biased, right?” Daphne lightly teased with a playful smile on her face, and for once, Dean didn’t feel like denying his ass off then drinking himself into a stupor.
For the first time ever, and what could possibly be the last, he felt safe enough to admit the truth to himself and out loud, even in his own unspoken way.
“Yeah. Yeah, I probably am.”
-
Daphne and Dean chatted a bit more for another ten minutes or so, on relatively lighter topics, before he thought it was probably time to get out of the woman’s hair.
She insisted he take the Bible and the other drawings, seeing as it was him they were depicting.
Dean gave her his number, telling her if she even found herself in trouble, to give him a call.
They made it to the front door, Dean’s parting gifts tucked inside his jacket, nearly out the door before he turned back around.
“I’m sorry about all that. I was supposed to come here and explain to you and comfort you if need be, it was not supposed to be the other way around.
“How are you so damn wise anyway? I mean that was straight up, leather couch, therapizer, headshrinker stuff back there?” She laughed a bit at that as she brushed a stray hair behind her ear.
“My father is a pastor. It was a little annoying growing up when everything was a lesson and a sermon, but it’s made me quite the preacher myself, even when I don’t mean to be.”
“Hey, I am definitely not complaining. You make a hell of a better shrink than my kid brother or an empty glass of whiskey.”
“Well, that phone number works two ways, Dean. If you ever need another appointment with the doc, you know where to find me.” She smiled kindly at Dean as she reached out to give his arm a soft squeeze. “And hey, if you ever find yourself in my neck of the woods, don’t hesitate to come by. I genuinely enjoyed our chat.”
“Well you better be careful what you wish for. Most traveling we do is to follow a case, and I'd prefer to not have to save you again.”
“Point taken. Well in that case, I hope I don’t see you anytime soon.” Dean laughed along with her and turned once again to head out, before he turned abruptly, realizing he’d forgotten something incredibly important.
“Thank you, Daphne. Not just for today—I mean, yes, thank you for today, I enjoyed our talk as well—but for helping Cas all that time. I seriously can't thank you enough for keeping him safe for as long as you did. I-… You know how much he means to me, and honestly, knowing he was in good hands all that time really does help.” Daphne gave him another sweet smile, before suddenly pulling him into a tight hug.
“You’re welcome. I hope you’re able to work it all out. You deserve a break. Both of you.” She pulled away and stepped back, putting her hand on the ajar front door. “Good luck, Dean. And thank you for coming.”
“Heh, yeah, thanks.” And with one last slightly uncomfortable laugh and wave, he stepped out of the house, looked down the steps once again, almost wishing against all odds that he would find Cas at the bottom again. He felt a bone deep urge to see him right now. But he knew even if he could make all the way back to him, it wouldn't do much good with the state Cas was in now. And despite the thorough therapy session he just had, he was still pissed beyond belief.
As he walked down the stairs and towards the Impala, he could still feel the headache from the stress of the chaotic situation, but his mind itself was the quietest it’s been in weeks. The frustration was still there, but he could feel the fight had drained. Not to mention how taxing it was to talk through all your emotional problems and cry your eyes out for two hours.
God, could he use a nap now.