A/N: Very special thanks to happytide, Cleonie 'Jayne Mansfield' Quin, Lady Liesel, Lady Nerd, EmpireX, Ravenclaw992, KorroksApostle, jen, Zeny, Fan O' Fanfic, pourqouibella, Miss Magenta Lestrange, linalove, SaxonBandwagon, jeanwolverine52895, KnoKnayme, Clavis Salmonis, peskyparker, DearNoah, ElektraMackenzie, asharas, MaxT, and TymanTB for your reviews! I'm sorry I wasn't able to respond to your reviews personally; it's been one helluva busy summer. :L But I've got some time off before school starts again, so expect lots of update and lots of feedback. :D

I can't stress this enough: try to enjoy this update. You'll see what I mean. :S

Scythe

Chapter Seven

/

I couldn't believe what the fuck I'd just heard. Oedipus complex?

"This better have something to do with Oedipus meeting the Sphinx..." I said, my voice already in a state of great disdain. "And not that other part of the story."

Crane lifted his chin a little, his blue eyes flashing a little as he crossed his legs and cradled his hands in his lap. "So you're familiar with it?"

I snorted, looking at him a bit sideways. Who didn't know the story? "Well I am a history major, it'd be a sad sign if I didn't know that story."

"And what about it's feminine equivalent?" he asked, settling himself back in his chair but keeping his eyes very fixed on me. "The Electra Complex?"

"Electra..." I knew the name, it rang a bell from the Classical Myth class I'd taken during my first year. It wasn't a requirement, but it was interesting nonetheless. And then, of course, it clicked. Euripides, one of the famous tragedies. "The daughter of Agamemnon."

Crane tipped his chin and gave me a tentative little smile. "Precisely. When Agamemnon was killed, Electra and her brother conspired against their mother to avenge their father."

"I see..." I mused. I don't know why, but I relaxed a little. Maybe some of it was starting to come together, make a little sense. I pressed my lips together thoughtfully and curled my legs up under my chin. "So you think I should kill the Kraken and save my Dad before she has the chance to...what, suck the life out of him?"

Crane's tentative little smile was gone and he just stared at me, unimpressed as ever.

I, on the other hand, felt a little giddy. I laughed a little, thinking it through. "Christ, Dr. Crane, you may really be on to something here."

Crane breathed in sharply through his nostrils and then let it out in a sigh. I guess it wasn't exactly what he was getting at. Still, I couldn't help the smile that played on my lips. It was fun to turn his own ideas around on him from time to time.

"I think it's clear the feelings you're exhibiting are caused by an adherent loss of your father to another woman," Dr. Crane said, in a rather matter-of-fact tone, and he straightened up and regarded me very seriously. "So of course you have feelings of animosity towards her."

I snorted and frowned at him a little. "Yeah, but I'm not about to kill her so that I can move back in with my dad."

"No..." Crane said, agreeing, and then his expression became very grave, albeit attentive. He fixed me with his blue stare very intensely. It made me frown, and I could feel the frown hardening my features as I watched him. He seemed to deliberately take his time.

After awhile, Crane held out his hands, almost imploringly. "Because...in a sense, you've already found a suitable replacement for your father."

...

I uncurled my legs and sat forward. What the hell was he getting at? "...What?"

I watched Dr. Crane's face. "In Dr. Roberts."

I sat there, blinking at him, letting it all sink in, and then my stomach gave an uncomfortable churn, so much so that I had to lean forward because, for a split second, I thought I was going to lose my cookies all over his coffee table. "...Oh my god-"

Crane leaned forward, raising a hand, as if he was anticipating an onslaught. "Hanna-"

"So..." I was trying to put it together in my head, thinking he could have possibly had the gall to suggest something so fucking disgusting, but there was nothing else I could deduce from what he'd just said. I pressed my fingers to my temples to try to steady myself, keep myself from losing my shit. "So you're suggesting I'm looking for a new father...in Dean?"

Crane sighed a little, as though I had completely misinterpreted his meaning, but I was pretty sure I knew what he meant. "Hanna-"

I leaned forward, clasping the arms of the chair I was sitting in as I nearly sent myself right out of the chair. I scowled at him. "That's disgusting! I'm fucking Dean, I don't want him to be my...daddy!"

Crane settled his hands in his lap, looking absolutely defeated, as though his plan for an interesting conversation had failed miserably, and I sat back and fumed, with my arms crossed over my chest, not looking at him because I was pretty sure he would have burst into flames, the way I was feeling. I turned my attention out to the window, feeling furious and sick all at the same time.

I couldn't believe what he'd just suggested. I wanted to grab my backpack and storm right on out of there and not look back, maybe flip him the finger on my way, but I tried to calm myself down. I tried to convince myself that there had to be some merit to what he was suggesting; he surely wasn't just bringing this up out of the blue...

After a moment, Crane looked at me with his blue eyes, soft and yet impatient all at the same time. "Hanna, it's more common than you think, believe me."

"I don't care if it is common, it's disgusting!" I snarled at him rather quietly, dangerously. "Yeah, maybe I resent the fact my Dad is more devoted to the Kraken than he is to me, but I'm not looking for another daddy, okay?"

Dr. Crane's eyes were on me fiercely; he wasn't backing down. "Hanna, could you be compensating the loss of a nurturing father by having sex with a man who is old enough to be your father?"

My stomach gave another unfortunate lurch, and I shuddered quite violently and curled my legs up under my chin once again, not looking at him, trying to back myself up into the chair as much as I could. It wasn't true, it wasn't true. When I first laid eyes on Dean, my father wasn't...okay, so maybe he'd been dating the Kraken, but I wasn't...Dean didn't remind me of...I was attracted to Dean because he reminded me of a god, not because he reminded me of my father-

Suddenly I just wanted to disappear, and my stomach was so upset, and I felt so disgusting and rotten all of a sudden that I had the utmost urge to burst into tears and just sit there crying, staring out the window, not looking at Crane, not saying a word.

Crane must have felt it, too. I heard him sigh a little, but it wasn't aggravated, it was more...disappointed, maybe. As much as I didn't want him to say anything else, anything that might have made me feel worse than I already was, I knew he wasn't finished. I listened as he placed his notebook on the coffee table, and I knew he was leaning forward in his seat because I could feel his aura radiating off him.

"Hanna?" he began quietly, his voice soft and gentle, for the first time ever, but I still couldn't look at him. "It really is much more common than you think; from infancy, we bond to the parent of the opposite sex, and in certain periods in our development, that bond takes on a sexual nature in which we desire to possess the parent sexually."

I sighed so heavily, you'd think I'd just been told by a doctor that I had two weeks to live or something. I didn't care what he said, I was not looking to have sex with my father, and I was not fucking Dean just because I couldn't fuck my father. Jesus, the whole thing was just so repulsive and disgusting that I couldn't even think about it, it just made my stomach acid burn.

But at the same time, when looking at it from the big picture...Dean did resemble my father, on a level. They both had dark hair and dark eyes...Dean was conventionally more handsome and bigger than my Dad-

For the love of fuck, why was I comparing them?!

I buried my face in my arms, shaking my head. It wasn't true...it wasn't true...

"...Hanna?" Crane asked after a moment of silence had passed between us. "Are you all right?"

I raised my eyes to look outside his window, at the leaves turning orange on the tree, and once again I wiped my eyes and shook my head. "I think I'm gonna be sick."

Crane uncrossed his legs, the way a parent makes a run for the bucket when the kid's about to barf. "Can I get you something? Water?"

I didn't answer him, not even with a shake or nod of my head. I just stared out the window, at the sun on the grass, at the kids walking by, couples holding hands...holding hands with same-aged partners.

I sniffled miserably, pressing the heel of my hand against my cheekbone, fighting the urge to just break down and sob, god knows I wanted to. Instead, I just shook my head a little, and whispered. "Why the fuck am I even here?"

But, for the first time since starting therapy, the answer seemed far too clear to me.

Crane sighed, rather sadly, and though I didn't even look at him, I could feel the look he was giving me. Probably one of pity, one that said he didn't want to expose the truth to me, but he knew he had to, and now that it was done, he felt shitty...if the man was capable of feeling any kind of remorse.

After awhile, Crane straightened out in his chair, and spoke rather softly. "...Perhaps we should stop for today."

I just stared out the window, sniffling like a child who'd lost the only sense of real comfort she had. "Yeah, maybe we should."

/

I came home feeling exhausted, annoyed, and sick, and to my utmost displeasure, Dean was sitting in the living room reading when I came walking in the door. I'd desperately hoped he'd be asleep.

"Hey," he said, closing his book and uncrossing his legs to lean forward, as though he meant to get up, but he simply sat there and looked at me through his thick-framed glasses. "You're late tonight. You fail a test or something?"

I scoffed a little; he was even beginning to sound like my Dad. I let my backpack fall heavily to the floor and then winced when the noise hit my head like a gong. "I've been drinking off the effects of my session with Dr. DumbFuck."

Dean smirked a little, but he must have gauged by my overall disposition that I wasn't finding it too funny, because he stood up and looked at me with his eyebrows piqued. "Is he going into the whole Freud thing now? Killed your father to marry your mother type deal?"

I paused and stared at where I'd kicked off my shoes. What? How could he have guessed that? I straightened up and stared at him, scowling. "...What?"

Dean shrugged. "Y'know, the Oedipus complex, although in your case it'd be the Electra complex..." He trailed out and I watched as his facial expression changed slightly to one of confusion. I could feel the scowl getting heavy on my face; that must have done it.

"What?" he asked innocently.

"Okay, so..." I rubbed my temple to ward off the headache that was starting to burn in my head. "Does Crane call you up to tell you what I tell him or something?"

My voice sounded angrier than I meant it to be, but I was too appalled to care right at that moment. There was something just way too uncanny about how he guessed what Crane and I had been talking about earlier that day. How could he possibly have pulled that out of thin air based on how little I had said about the whole session?

Dean frowned and shook out his shoulders. "What are you getting so worked up about? It's like the most common thing the psychs talk about."

"Yeah well I don't wantto talk about it!" I snarled, furiously. "Bad enough I have to sit with Crane and talk about it while my head starts to gather blood and threaten to blow!"

There was something about the way Dean was looking at me that made me shake my head and walk towards the kitchen; there was something coming to surface and I could see it in his dark eyes. He knew I was accusing him of something...trouble was I didn't know what I was accusing him of. Furthermore I didn't even want to discuss it, so I went to the fridge and fished out a bottle of beer, listening to Dean's padded footsteps of his bare feet on the hardwood as he came up behind me.

"Hanna, what's the matter?" he asked, softly, his voice concerned but cautious.

I squeezed my eyes closed and sighed heavily, closing the fridge door and grabbing the bottle-cap opener magnet hanging on the fridge to open it. "Didn't I just say I don't want to talk about it? Jesus..."

"Calm down," Dean said, and I could tell he was getting a little annoyed. "I was only asking-"

"Well don't!" I snapped, turning towards him, wanting to bite his head right off.

"Why are you getting so angry?" Dean asked, frowning, holding out his arms as if to say what the hell.

"I'm not angry, I'm fine," I bit at him.

I didn't feel fine. I felt sick.

Dean took a step forward, reaching to touch my elbow with his hand. "I think you've had a bit too much to drink."

"Really," I laughed in disbelief after I'd swallowed a mouthful of beer, and I pulled my elbow into my body, recoiling from him as if his fingers were burning, and I could see the confusion line his face. "For Chrissakes, what are you, my fuckin..."

I stopped myself before it could slip out of my mouth. And then the words didn't have to, because the tears were suddenly pinching at my eyes and I pressed the heel of my hand into one eye to stop them from coming, and when I reached over to put the beer bottle on the counter, I stumbled over my lousy footing and nearly went crashing to the floor.

Dean grabbed me and held me up. "Whoa, careful-"

The moment I felt his hands on me and his arms around me, I felt my stomach give a sudden, disgusted lurch. Fighting back the tears I pressed my hands against him and shoved him away. "Don't, Dean! Just don't! Just leave me alone!"

I meant to go storming out of the kitchen at that moment, but I was so drunk that all I could do was walk towards the table and catch the ledge with both hands before I sent myself crashing to the floor.

"Hanna-"

I snarled under my breath. Why wasn't he fucking getting it?

"Get a-way from me!" I snarled, pushing myself away from the kitchen table and going back into the living room, but I could feel Dean hot at my heels, probably to harass me a little more, and probably to make sure I didn't fall down flat on my face.

"Hanna, what the hell is going on?" I heard him growl at my back; he was getting angry. I'd only ever seen Dean get really angry once, and it frightened me, and I knew I should have been frightened then, but I was just so furious with him. I just wanted him to leave me alone, why wouldn't he leave me alone? "Hanna, I'm sitting here, you come home and you bite my head off, what did I do?"

I sat down heavily in one of the armchairs, pressing a hand against my forehead. My head was really starting to hurt at that point. "Jesus, Dean, I ask you to leave me alone, why can't you just fucking leave me alone? I don't even want to look at you right now."

Silence settled between the two of us right then. I could feel his eyes hard on the back of my head and I tried to ignore him, to mentally tell him to just let it be and go to his office, or go to bed, so that I could sit there in the dark, sober up a little, and think things over. But he wasn't going to go. Instead he came around to face me, and at first I thought he was going to bend down to my level to look me square in the eye, but he didn't. I curled back into the armchair as much as I could; his presence was strong and angry.

"...What did Crane tell you?"

I closed my eyes and bowed my chin so I wouldn't have to look at him. "Nothing-"

"It must have been something you two talked about," Dean insisted, and sat down on the edge of the coffee table, facing me. I could feel the anger ebbing off him. "What, did he finally come out and say we shouldn't be seeing each other? Cause it sure seems like that's what you're wanting to hear."

I rose my eyes and looked at him, my jaw hitting the floor, and he was sitting there scowling at me. Had he honestly said what I thought he said? That I wanted Crane to tell me that our relationship was unhealthy and that it needed to end, after everything we'd been through, after everything I'd been through, hiding the relationship from my father? From people at school?

I shook my head at him. I couldn't believe his gall. "God you are such an asshole. You think I want people to tell me this isn't gonna work?"

"Well it sure sounds like you and Crane have come to some conclusions," Dean growled.

I bowed my head. This was so, so fucked; I was suddenly so furious, I couldn't even look at him. I didn't want to look at him. I didn't want to look at him for the rest of the fucking night.

Hurriedly I got up, nearly sending myself crashing down to the floor, underestimating just how tipsy I actually was, and moved past Dean towards the coat hanger, where I struggled to actually get my coat unhooked, getting angrier and angrier.

"Where are you going now?" Dean asked, indignantly.

Finally getting ahold of my coat, I started to put it on, not looking at him. "Away."

I heard him stand up from where he sat on the coffee table, and every single step towards me just made me curl my fingers in my coat material.

"Hanna," he said, his voice sharp and annoyed. "You're drunk, it's 11:30 at night-"

He reached out and put a hand on my shoulder, presumably to get me to take my coat off, but I ripped myself away from him, going towards the door. The last thing I wanted was for him tofucking touch me.

"For chrissakes, Dean," I snarled at him, over my shoulder. "Just leave me alone!"

Again Dean came towards me, this time taking ahold of my arm. "I'm not letting you leave like this-"

Though his voice sounded a little softer, not quite as angry, I wrenched my arm away from him, turned on him, and was just screaming at the top of my lungs without even realizing I was doing it. "Don't! Just don't! Just leave me the fuck alone!"

I really was drunker than I thought I was, and I knew I shouldn't have left. But as I stared up at Dean, who looked at me with an expression mixed with anger and hurt, I just knew I didn't have the patience to put up with him for the rest of the night, or the next day, for that matter. There was no way I could stay there, not when I was feeling so, so angry.

Finally, Dean shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. "...Fine."

I grabbed my backpack off the floor by the door, struggled for a moment to turn the knob, and slammed the door as hard as I could on my way out.

//