Chapter Text
“Hello Samuel,” the lithe woman said as he entered her office for his first appointment. She wore a classic grey pencil skirt, white blouse and a short black silk scarf around her neck. Her hair was dark, neatly collected in a bun. Lips shining with pink gloss, light grey eyes beneath thick long lashes, a delicate, pointed nose. Except for the fact that she didn’t wear glasses, she looked like every porn cliché of a sexy librarian, Dean had ever drooled over. Sam couldn’t deny that she was very attractive.
“I’m Doctor Lily Tucker,” his psychiatrist continued, and Sam snapped out of his appreciation of her appearance to smile and shake her hand. She gestured towards a low soft-looking chair across a low table. “Please sit down, Samuel.” As he did, his eyes flicked to the box of Kleenex on the table. More clichés.
“Thank you,” he smiled politely. “And please, call me Sam.”
“Very well. So, Sam, this is your first time talking to a psychiatrist, correct?”
Sam wasn’t sure what to say. There was that time when his hallucinations almost killed him. Then there was that time when he and Dean went in together, for a hunt. And that time in Rockford. Dr. Tucker, Lily, seemed to guess the answer from his reluctance.
“Do you have any history of mental illness, Sam?”
“I, uhm, I might have some PTSD, I guess.” He couldn’t meet her eyes, but watched her nod peripherally.
“I see. Afghanistan?”
“I was a prisoner.” Muscles all over his body tensed achingly, Sam wanted to get up and leave. This was part of why he was here, but it was too fast, too direct.
“It’s okay, Sam. We won’t talk about it until you’re ready. Right now I’m just figuring out what’s troubling you. Is the PTSD the reason you decided to come here?” She really should have glasses, so she could peer at him over their rim, Sam thought, grateful for the reprieve.
“I… I guess.” It seemed like it was more than that, but it probably wasn’t. The nightmares, waking up sweaty and panting, the miniature panic attacks that even Dean didn’t know about, the feeling that he was being watched even in the shower. The expectation that something bad was about to happen, constantly staying coiled and ready for taking another hit. How many steps away from peeing his pants at the sound of a loud bang was he, really?
“Let’s talk about how it’s affecting you, then. How is life, Sam?”
She leaned back, a wide-eyed look of shock painting her lovely face, as his laughter echoed through the room; too loud and uncontrolled, a contrast to his otherwise calm demeanor. When he composed himself, coughing a little, he answered as best he could.
“I’m thirty-odd years old and I live with my older brother and our mother.” Sam scratched the side of his head awkwardly. “We, uhm, take care of the family business.”
“And the workload is manageable for you?”
Sweet Chuck, how had he ever thought this would be a good idea?
“It varies. Mostly it’s just desk work, which is fine. Sometimes we have to travel and sometimes we’re required to handle weapons.” Sam paused, unsure if what he wanted to say would make her call the police on him; but he needed help. “It’s not unheard of to end up in life threatening situations.”
“Really? And you’re okay with that?” Lily’s eyebrows were raised and she leaned forward, waiting for his answer. Sam took his time.
“It’s what we’ve always done.”
“Is it what you want to do?”
Sam closed his eyes. Once again it was down to that question. What he wanted. He had thought he knew; but his newest stint with being trapped and tortured and the sudden return of his mother, had him questioning everything.
“I think so. The work needs to be done.”
“If you could muster up a bit more enthusiasm I might believe you,” Lily said with a pleasant smirk. Sam chuckled.
“It’s been a rough couple of years. Actually, make that a rough decade. The job… it takes its toll on you after awhile. But there’s really nothing else I could imagine doing by now.”
Silence fell over the room, while Sam let his own words sink in. He really couldn’t imagine not hunting.
“I don’t want to stop doing what I’m good at,” he marveled, before his face fell. “What I want is to sleep at night. To be able to look at the people I love and not expect them to drop dead in horrible ways any moment. I don’t ever want to feel like I’m floating outside my own body or not really there, while I’m trying to do something important. If my heart rate would stop spiking and I didn’t feel out of breath at certain sounds and smells that would be really nice, too.”
Lily leaned forward in her chair and placed a careful hand on Sam’s.
“Thank you for letting me know exactly what you’re going through at the moment. No wonder you’re tired of it. But I can’t make it all go away just talking to you, you know that right?”
Sam felt a burning behind his eyelids as he nodded. He knew that dammit. But now that he’d said the words, admitted what sad state he was in, it hurt more. Her hand rubbed his gently, comforting.
“There’s medication that can help with some of the symptoms. If you’re willing to come back and talk to me regularly, maybe in a year or two, a lot of it will be manageable most of the time. You should know that with PTSD there’s always a risk of relapse, that will crave more time and treatment.”
The first tears slid down Sam’s cheeks and he stopped fighting them. For a few minutes he let himself grieve, as Mary had done after she and Dean brought Sam home, hurting and broken. She had locked herself in her room, and Sam had heard her sobbing, muffling her screams of rage and sorrow in a pillow.
Lily didn’t throw him a Kleenex or ask anymore questions. She got up from her chair to sit at the edge of his and spread her arms invitingly. He accepted the embrace, opened himself to her comforting touch in a way he couldn’t accept his mother’s; not when Mary was already hurting from what little she knew.
Time was nonexistent as Sam cried for the boy he had been. The four-year old that didn’t mind celebrating his birthday in a motel room with just his older brother and mac’n cheese for dinner. The six-year old reading Mark Twain and sharing the jokes with Dean. The nine-year old sleeping with a gun under his pillow. The twelve-year old waiting in the car while Dean and Dad finished off a monster. The seventeen-year old that filed applications for scholarships. The pre-law student with a ring in his pocket and smoke in his eyes. Being alone, so alone, Dad long gone and Dean in hell. The boy with the demon blood. Lucifer’s vessel, Lucifer’s bitch. And every time he got away, someone else, something new, came to claim him or Dean.
“I should be dead,” he whispered as his tears finally dried out. “This last year alone, I’ve been shot twice, on separate occasions, strangled, taken prisoner and tortured. It feels like I’ve spent more time dying or being tortured than I have being free.” He pulled away, surprised to see tear tracks marking the until now mostly composed doctor’s cheeks.
“Do you hug all your patients?” It was an attempt to lighten the mood, but only resulted in a mortified look from Lily.
“No. No, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have. It’s just… you looked like you could really use it.” Her cheeks turned bright red as she spoke. Sam let a hand rest on her shoulder.
“You weren’t wrong.”
“Can I refer you to a colleague?”
“What?” Sam’s voice sounded winded, as if he had just been punched in the gut, the air driven from his lungs. “You don’t? You won’t help me?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure if I can give you the professional help you deserve,” she said, her still tear stained cheeks bright red, her eyes downcast.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“God, no. Sam, you’re…” She never finished the sentence as she reached out a hand to tug a strand of his hair behind his ear, her fingers ghosting over his temple in a light caress. “Please talk to someone else about your problems and ask me out?”
She sounded as if she expected him to get angry or maybe laugh at her; much younger than her years. Her sudden refusal to treat him now explained, Sam smiled, broad and dimpled. She stared at that smile and her breath hitched.
“Tonight?” His voice was deeper, a little rougher than before. She nodded, and scribbled her address on a post-it. He pocketed it with a hungry expression that had her shivering in anticipation and leaned in to whisper in her ear.
“I’ll pick you up at eight.”
Leaving, Sam repeatedly touched his pocket containing Lily’s address. He had bawled his eyes out and she had been so attracted to him that she’d date him rather than treat him.