Obviously, I could use some therapy myself.

Therapy Sessions

Chess had really been hoping that he'd never see the Winchester brother's again. That he wouldn't ever have to deal with their craziness and danger and their horribly co-dependant relationship built on a broken childhood and traumatic experience after traumatic experience. Seriously, he could write a book on those two. Then again, no one would take something like that seriously. Chess wondered if he could psychoanalyze the brothers without including all the supernatural stuff, but he just didn't see it happening. Maybe he could write a psychological drama with demons and werewolves in it based on their lives. Except he really didn't think they'd appreciate that.

Chess was a shrink. The first time he met the Winchesters, he very quickly made it on their bad list by giving them a long list why they both should really get therapy, managing to guess all sorts of things about their lives just by observing their mannerisms towards one another and their overall behaviour (he was very good at what he did). He vaguely managed to redeem himself when he later helped them defeat the ghost by talking her into moving on into...wherever ghosts go. It was just a simple case of extreme OCD and ICD (impulse control disorder). So extreme that the lady actually stuck around after she kicked the bucket. Fortunately, therapy is much easier when all you have to do is convince the person that it's time to move on, even if the canned goods weren't stored just right.

Chess wasn't expecting to hear from the Winchester's ever again. But then a thing happened, something to do with a ghost and some kind of magical sickness and now Dean had anxiety. Like, really serious anxiety. And it was only going to get worse. It was Chess' job to keep him calm and relaxed so that he didn't literally die of fright while Sam took care of the ghost. Easier said than done, when you have a full-grown man frightened of his own shadow.

"Just stay calm, Dean" Chess told him soothingly. "You understand the situation. The fear isn't real. It's just the, uh, ghost sickness. There is literally absolutely nothing to be afraid of."

"You think I don't know that!" Dean shouted back. "It's freakin' ridiculous! Really! But y'know what, I really do have something to be afraid of! I mean, first of all, Sam and I hunt monsters! Who does that? Actual, live monsters! That can kill us! And then there's that whole thing with heaven and hell and God-damned Lucifer rising and angels telling me I gotta go do stuff and I have to do it because they pulled me from hell and I just don't! Okay, I don't!"

Chess tried to keep a neutral face. He had a vague idea of what happened, something about angels rising Dean from hell and seals breaking and the upcoming apocalypse. Chess had been planning on moving to Rome.

"Well, why don't you tell me about that," Chess told him. "The angels, what do you feel about them?"

"Eh, not much, just that they're dicks," Dean replied. "Well, I mean, I've only met Castiel, and he did save me from hell, but that guy is freakin' weird. He took me back in time to when my mom's parents were murdered! By the same demon that killed her and my dad! And I couldn't do anything to stop it!"

Well, this was new. Chess had certainly worked with people who've lost one or both their parents, in every way possible. He's never had to deal with a guy who had to face his parents...after they both were dead...back before he was even conceived in his mom's womb. How do you approach that? Dean was hyperventilating though, so Chess didn't have time to figure out an answer.

"Deep breaths," he instructed. "In through the nose, out through the mouth. That's it, breathe deep. It's okay Dean. Sam is taking care of it right now." He decided to put the therapy session on hold and instead do what he had been instructed to do: keep Dean calm. "I want you to think about your happiest memory," he said, nodding in satisfaction when he saw that Dean at least had his breathing under control. "Close your eyes, and picture that moment." Dean did as he was instructed, and Chess spoke again. "Can you tell me what you see?"

"I'm with Sam," Dean replied. That was a given. It it didn't have Sam in it then it wasn't a happy memory. Dear God those two have problems. "It's Fourth of July. Dad was out on a hunt. Just me and him. I stole some fireworks and took Sam out to a field where we lit them up. Sam was so excited" For a moment, Dean had a little smile on his face. But then his eyes screwed up and he shuddered. "Oh my God we could've burned the whole field down! We were lighting them and holding them in our hands! We could've died! We-"

"Dean!" Chess broke in, prompting his eyes to shoot open and look at him with uncontrolled fear. "This is a memory. Nobody got hurt. The field didn't burn down." Crap, he may have just ruined one of Dean's best memories. "There's nothing to fear. You and Sam had a great time, and nobody got hurt," he repeated, firmly. "Deep breaths," he reminded. If Sam didn't hurry this up then he was going to go insane.

This went on for about another twenty minutes, and Chess was at his wits end, until finally, finally, whatever magic spell was over Dean suddenly broke, and he was back to his usual, obnoxious self, albeit looking quite embarrassed.

After is was all over, Chess made the mistake of sticking around. He wanted to learn a bit more about this whole 'ghost sickness' thing and how it affected a person's mental health. He stuck with Bobby, reading ancient texts and old lore while Halloween was almost ruined by a couple of witches summoning a really bad demon. After a charming explanation of what a dick the angel Uriel is, Chess finally decided to head home and hitched a ride with the Winchester's, since they were heading in the same general direction anyway. That's when he became a teddy bear's therapist.

"You've got to be kidding me," he groaned, because really, ghosts are one thing, but a giant, anthropomorphic, talking teddy bear? Not even to go into the major depression disorder, anxiety, catastrophic thinking, oh, and thoughts of suicide. He was dealing with a suicidal teddy bear. A teddy bear who was contemplating ending his fluffy existence, once and for all. Chess was beginning to think he needed therapy. Right after the Winchesters.

"So...um…" Chess was trying, he really was, but he honestly didn't know what he was supposed to do with a depressed teddy bear. And OH GOD WHERE DID HE GET A GUN!

"Hey, whoa there, let's, uh, let's not do anything hasty!" Chess quickly tried to talk him down. He was trying to talk down a teddy bear. With a gun. Did he mention it was a freakin' teddy bear?!

"There is no hope," the bear groaned dramatically. "No way to drown out the sorrow!" Obviously, the copious amounts of alcohol it consumed hadn't helped. Where it even went, Chess didn't want to know. It had also smoked through two packets of cigarettes, which made Chess wonder how it did that if it didn't have breath. Did it have breath? "I should just end it now, do the world a favor," the bear murmured, putting the gun under its chin.

"Hey, the world ain't so bad," Chess told him, trying for a smile, immensely relieved that the gun wasn't for him. "That girl, Audrey, really cares about you, y'know." This...this was weird. Even by Winchester standards this was weird.

"Yes," the bear admitted. "But not for long. I know how these things work! Soon, all Audrey will care about is makeup and boys and I'll just end up in the dump! I saw Toy Story, you know!" The bear started sobbing again. "There's nothing to live for! The world is full of horror and terror, and there's just no room for a teddy bear anymore!" Chess had to contemplate if he wanted to scream or not when the gun fired, blowing a hole in the bear's head and sending fluff everywhere. But then the bear moved and his sobs continued, as he discovered that not even death could give him release.

"W-well, um...yeah," Chess murmured shakily. He reached out slowly and gently gripped the gun. "Why don't we just put that down...yep, nice and calm, everyone's fine…" Chess managed to get the gun away and set it carefully on the ground. "Let's just take it easy," he said. "Y'know, Sam and Dean are fixing the problem right now. You'll go back to being a normal teddy bear, and then this will all be over." Chess wondered if this technically counted as encouraging suicide. But he was currently talking to a teddy bear who just blew his brain-fluff out, so he figured this was allowed. At this point, the only thing that would actually help this bear would be to cease to exist.

Chess wasn't completely heartless, however, so found needle and thread and went to work fixing the bear's head, ignoring it when it told him to just leave it. And, since Chess was feeling particularly bored, he even collected all the brain-fuzz and shoved it back where it belonged. The stitches were a bit sloppy, and he hadn't used thread that even remotely matched the bear's fur (to be fair, bright yellow just happened to be the first spool he grabbed) so it really stuck out, but at least the bear wasn't spilling its brains everywhere. It wasn't long after that that the teddy abruptly shrank and turned into a normal, inanimate, stuffed creature. With bright yellow stitching on its head. Chess ditched the Winchesters very soon after that.

-0-

Chess had tried to avoid the Winchesters. He really did. But when Dean called spouting some nonsense about how he had to "come fix Sam because he's hallucinating Satan and literally driving him crazy…" Well, he couldn't really say no. For starters, they did save his life. And besides, Sam hallucinating the devil? And most likely the actual devil, seeing how they fought him not too long ago…

Chess needed to find different friends.

By the time Chess made his way to the correct hospital, Sam was all better, and now he had a crazy angel to deal with. Yep. And angel. Honest-to-God, real life angel. Of course, Chess had heard about them in passing from the Winchester brothers, but he didn't think he'd ever actually meet one.

Much less an insane one.

It was easy enough to get hired to the facility, and after some careful maneuvering, Chess suddenly found himself abandoning his old life and home to watch and -hopefully- fix a crazy angel with a demon as backup. Yep, his nurse was a demon.

Talking to Castiel was...interesting. Mostly because he got no response. The first three weeks consisted of annoying remarks from 'Meg.'

"What were your parents thinking when they named you?" she snarked. "Seriously, who names their kid Chess?"

"It's a nickname," he told her through gritted teeth. "My real name is Chris." He'd been going by Chess for so long that he didn't even bother with trying to go by anything else. He got the nickname after proving himself to be the supreme-nerd-master at chess in his sophomore year of his high school's chess competition. Not that he was going to tell Meg that.

"Mn, okay then Chrissy," she told him with a smirk.

"Don't call me that."

"Sure thing Chrissy." She grinned at him, and he glared. Castiel stared blankly at the wall. And then he blinked. It shouldn't have been that big of a deal, but the angel had not blinked for three weeks straight. At least, not on his own. In order to ward away suspicion, Chess and Meg laid Castiel down every night and closed his eyes to make it look like he slept. They also brought him food, but Chess was always the one who ate it.

"Castiel?" Chess spoke softly, hoping to get the angel's attention. "Castiel, can you hear me?"

Slowly, ever so slowly, Castiel moved his head half an inch, and looked at him. Chess let a small smile appear, but nothing more. He didn't want to appear too excited.

"Castiel, do you know who I am?" Chess asked next. "I introduced myself earlier, but you seemed a little out of it. I'm Dr. Carnes, but you can just call me Chess. I'm a friend of Sam and Dean. Do you know who Sam and Dean are?"

Castiel stared at him. And then, a single, breathless whisper. "Lucifer."

"Do you see Lucifer?" Chess asked him softly. "Do you see me as Lucifer? Castiel, I want you to understand this: I will never, ever hurt you. I just want to help."

Castiel lifted his chin hardly a millimeter, but it was probably the closest to a nod he was going to get. And then he went back to staring at the wall.

Chess didn't get another response from him for another month, and it was a very alarming response, resulting in Castiel blowing out the lights every other hour. On the other hand, he was much more chatty now, and Chess finally had something to work with.

"Do you still see Lucifer?" Chess asked him gently. He was using the time it was taking the Winchesters to get here to do as much as he could to untangle the angel's messed up mind. Maybe he could do some good.

"Lucifer's my brother," Castiel told him, very seriously. "I loved him very much. He was the most beautiful angel, you know. I was still a fledgling when he fell. He taught me how to fly."

"O...kay." The problem was, Chess knew full well that Castiel wasn't hallucinating or lying or creating some false-reality for himself. This just wasn't someone being crazy. This was a case of a lost, young angel who loved his brother very deeply, before he was cast into the pits of hell, and then, centuries later, being cast out from his family as well, not to mention all the smiting and god-complex stuff that Sam and Dean told him about. And this was before Castiel took Sam's crazy for himself. Chess mentally added Cas to the list of people who could really use therapy. At the moment, it consisted only of the Winchester brothers, and now him. Oh, and Chess himself as well, but that was neither here nor there.

"Let's talk about your family," Chess decided, since that seemed to be the bulk of the problem. "Can you tell me what it was like in heaven?"

"Well, I'm one of the youngest angels, you know. The very last to be created. I might even be the youngest, I don't know," Castiel explained to him. "Anael took care of me and the other fledglings who would one day be in her garrison. But Lucifer and Gabriel would play with us a lot. Lucifer taught me how to fly. He threw me off a cliff and I learned how. Gabriel was really angry after."

"Were there any angels your were particularly close with?" Chess asked.

Castiel nodded. "Uriel. And Samandriel. Uriel…" He frowned, looked extremely upset. "He was helping break the seals. He was killing angels. He-" Castiel's eyes welled up with tears. "Anael killed him. He was trying to kill me, when I wouldn't join him. I loved him."

"I'm very sorry that had to happen," Chess told him sympathetically. This mess just got worse and worse. "Why don't you tell me about Samandriel then?"

Castiel nodded and wiped his eyes. "Samandriel and I used to play pranks on the other fledglings. This was before we started training to be soldiers, of course. Sometimes, Gabriel or Lucifer would help us. One time, Michael intervened. He was very displeased. That was the first time I met him. I never met Raphael until he killed me."

Right. Sam and Dean mentioned that Castiel had died. Twice. (Though, to be fair, it wasn't nearly as many times as Sam or Dean. In fact, according to Sam, Dean's died over a hundred times)

"Stay focused on Samandriel," Chess instructed him. There were too many bad memories in Castiel's head. He needed to help filter them before they could tackle them directly. "You and him were close?"

Castiel nodded. "He liked to tell human jokes. I never understood them."

Very quickly, Chess discovered his problem: Castiel wasn't exactly insane. Sure, he had one hell of a childhood, a really messed up family, and so many traumatic events that by all rights he should be on the floor, sniveling and crying. Except Castiel was an angel. Angels worked differently from humans. Sure, Castiel had a dark past, but he didn't take like a human would. He took it like an angel would. So, no, Castiel wasn't really insane. The insanity was just a side-effect of Sam's crazy. And Chess had no idea how to help with that.

It wasn't a normal mental illness. It had no rhyme or reason, and Chess wasn't even sure how to classify Castiel's behaviour now. Mostly just loopy. He really like bees for some reason. It was exhausting trying to figure anything out about the angel, and when the Winchesters finally arrived, Chess had nothing. He was also done. He packed up his things and went home, leaving the brothers with a stern warning to never contact him again. Chess thought it was finally all over…

-0-

Thinking back, Chess still couldn't decide which one was weirder: being a therapist for a suicidal teddy bear, or being a therapist for an insane angel. The teddy bear was, well, a teddy bear, but at the same time, the angel was an angel. Both were completely and utterly ridiculous in their own right, but Chess could never decide which one was crazier.

This, however, definitely took the cake.

The Winchesters called again. Chess wanted to run away. But it sounded urgent. "Your skills as a therapist might actually decide the fate of the world," were Sam's exact words. Dean said something along the lines of, "If this gets screwed up then everyone's screwed." So Chess supposed, for the good of humanity, he'd jump back into the game one last time.

And that was how he found himself conducting a therapy session between (drumroll please) God and Lucifer. The fact that he had to coax Lucifer out of a locked room that was blasting angsty, teenage music did not help. The fact that God insisted he call him 'Chuck' was like the cherry on top. Chess could almost, almost imagine that this was a normal session. Except that their topic of discussion was how Chuck cast Lucifer from heaven into the fiery pits of hell for disobeying. Fun times.

"I hate you guys," Chess murmured to the Winchesters, and only got a cheeky grin and a slap on the back in response. Chess found himself asking Lucifer, "How does that make you feel?" while asking God if he, "Was maybe a bit too harsh?" and that he, "Should try to see the situation from, uh, Lucifer's point of view." The fact that each character got all smug and triumphant whenever Chess even mildly agreed with them was just another headache.

Finally, after an hour of arguing that just went in circles, Chess finally managed to get somewhere. Chuck admitted that he shouldn't have disappeared and should have listened better to his children. Lucifer admitted he may have overreacted just a teany bit, and also apologized for killing Gabriel. He added a moment later that Castiel also said he was sorry for killing Raphael and Balthazar and for opening Purgatory. Oh right. Lucifer was also, currently, possessing Castiel. Chess decided to deal with that one later.

"Lose my number," Chess informed the Winchesters when he finally left. "I'm serious this time." He didn't care if the freakin' world was about to implode, he was done with all this.