So, this chapter took several re-writes; sometimes it's hard to get Dean's particular brand of self-loathing right. Please lemme know what you think!

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Dean was prescribed a month's supply of Percocet but ran out after only two weeks. That led to them going to a shady-looking neighborhood where Dean walked into a house carrying nothing and ran out with a brown paper bag tucked under his arm. Sam never asked what was in the bag. Truthfully, that incident was just added to his growing list of things about Dean that he didn't want to know the reason for. Other than that unsettling outing and a few trips to other motels and diners, they moved around very little. Most mornings Sam went out jogging and then worked out in their room so he could stay fit during their time of not hunting while Dean slept for a few hours. In the evenings he usually went onto his laptop to look for demonic omens while Dean reliably sat nearby, quietly drinking and watching TV. A couple of times they went out to the bar where Sam hustled pool and soon learned that, even injured and drunk, Dean could still hustle with the best of them. Sometimes they had sex. Dean was never as rough with him as he had been the first night after he'd gotten out of the hospital, but the sex still felt unemotional and detached, like they were just two men using each other to get off and any effort made by Sam to make it a little more intimate usually went ignored. He knew not to take it personally; well, at least, not entirely. Dean was always like this when he grieved. Still, his behavior worried and frustrated him enough that when their dad's old friend Martin called their dad's phone with a job just a couple of days after the last of Dean's bandages finally came off, he leapt at the opportunity. He asked Martin for his location and said that they'd be there in the morning without first asking what they were hunting, how many people it had hurt, or if they needed to pick up any special items to kill it, then shut his phone, raced back to their motel, and burst into the room to tell Dean the news.

"It's about time!" Dean grumbled at him from where he was sitting on the bed. "I'm hungry as hell. Did you get my cheeseburger?"

Sam crossed the room and handed him the white take-out box he was holding. "Listen, I think I have a job for us."

Dean set the box down on the bed and looked up at him. "Great, what is it?"

"Well I just got a call from one of Dad's old friends. Do you remember Martin?"

Dean looked thoughtful. "Martin, Martin…wait a – is that the one with all that shit that went down in Albuquerque?" He shook his head. "Poor bastard."

"Yeah, well, he says he found something and he needs our help hunting it."

"Wait a minute. Didn't Martin check himself into a mental institution, like, eight months ago? Did he get out?"

Sam hesitated. "Not exactly."

"Oh no. No, no, no, no, no."

"What?"

"What? I'm not going into a nut house is what!"

"Come on, you were just saying that you're tired of just sitting around. This is something for us to do."

"Find something else. I don't want some shrink trying to psychoanalyze me while we're there."

"He's an old friend of Dad's and he's saved Dad's ass more times than we can count, it's the least we could do for him. And they won't psychoanalyze you. We'll just do the job and the minute we're done, we'll leave. It shouldn't take us more than a couple of days."

Dean kept opening his mouth like he wanted to argue, but Sam could tell he was relenting. Finally he threw his hands up in the air as a gesture of defeat and made a sour face. "What are we even going to tell them to make them wanna check us in?"

Sam shrugged. "The truth?"

"What? You mean we should just waltz in there and tell them about the apocalypse?"

"Come on, think about it, Dean. It takes a lot less time and it's gonna sound way crazier than anything we could come up with on our own."

Dean cocked his head to the side and thought about it for a moment, then sucked in his cheeks a little and nodded. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

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Goddamn, was Sam ever right; the doc was already sizing Sam up for a big-and-tall straitjacket the minute he first mentioned the apocalypse. By the time the shrink called his receptionist to ask her to cancel his lunch, Dean was being shot a warning glare from Sam because of the ear-to-ear grin he was sporting. Alright, so messing with the shrink was kinda fun. Of course though, things became a lot less fun about ten minutes later when the nurse doing his physical had taken his blood pressure and then skipped the flirting and buying him dinner before making him pull down his pants and then jamming her finger in his ass. Unfortunately, even that had been the highlight of the visit compared to what came next with Sam trying to psychoanalyze him about his feelings over Ellen and Jo. What the hell? Okay, so he was willing to admit that things had been a little bumpy over the past month, but with everything that had happened, what else could he do? He knew if Sam had his way that the two of them would sit down with a box of tissues and cry about the whole thing while watching Steel Magnolias, but it wasn't his style. Ellen and Jo were gone and yeah, it was horrible, a fucking tragedy even, but how was sitting around and crying into his Haagen-Dazs going to help? He had a job to do. Just because he'd failed Ellen and Jo by not killing the Devil, that didn't give him the right to fall to pieces. And it certainly didn't give Sam a right to try and initiate some kind of therapy session with him. Besides, things were kind of normal between them. They still went out. He could still kick Sam's ass at pool with one hand tied behind his back. They were even having sex on a somewhat regular basis and he made sure Sam got off every time. So he didn't really see what Sam's deal was all of a sudden.

Still, as he sat in the rec room and stewed over the doc splitting him and Sam up in the group therapy sessions, he thought that Sam trying to psychoanalyze him was way better than having a bunch of stuck-up, lab coat wearing know-it-alls trying to do it. What did he mean that his and Sam's relationship was 'dangerously co-dependent?' Yeah, Sam was his whole world, sure, but that was different. They were…they were…SamandDean. They really were; most people had stopped bothering to take a breath between their names years ago. They were always referred to in the plural and if one of them was someplace without the other one hanging out nearby, people always became wildly concerned. It was never strange or unhealthy. It just was.

Alright, thinking about this stuff was just starting to make some unpleasantness that he'd been successfully repressing come back up and he needed to distract himself right now. He got up from his chair and in no time found a boxed checkers game, set it up, and was sitting there happily playing against himself when an attractive brunette in a lab coat who looked to be in her late thirties came up behind him and announced that she was his doctor. Great, they'd just gotten there and it was already time to have his grapefruit examined. He eyed her up and saw a cocky, predatory look in her eyes that reminded him a lot of himself. Well then, maybe he could keep her distracted by flirting with her for long enough to keep her from going all Good Will Hunting on him.

He shot her a self-assured smirk. "You're my shrink? Well, lucky me."

She smiled amusedly at him. "And you're my…" She opened her file. "Paranoid schizophrenic with a narcissistic personality disorder and religious psychosis." His eyes widened; that was a long list of crazy. She shut the file, looked down at him, and raised an eyebrow. "Lucky me."

He tried to maintain the smile but her response caught him off-guard and his face fell noticeably. Shot down in flames; well, that was the end of Plan A.

"Can we talk?" she asked as she pulled out the empty chair on the other side of the table from him.

He sat up straight and crossed his arms. Alright, down to business, then. He wasn't going to let this shrink into his melon, but he could still interview her for the case. First he just needed to take control of the conversation. "Yes. Actually I have some questions for you."

She sat down and stared levelly at him while maintaining her amused smile. "What a coincidence; I've got some for you, too."

He smirked confidently at her. "Well then, quid pro quo, Clarice," he said, moving his lips like Hannibal in Silence of the Lambs.

Her smile widened. "Okay, Hannibal; I'll go first."

Much to his relief, she asked him questions that were easy to answer and, okay, that maybe he answered a little exaggeratedly just for fun. How many drinks did he have in a week? Lately that number had been significantly elevated, so a lot. He wasn't sure exactly how much, but mid-fifties sounded crazy enough to make her happy. How many hours of sleep did he get a night? Counting being passed out drunk, probably four or five, but that sounded much less dramatic than three or four every couple of nights. When was the last time he'd been in a relationship longer than two months? Never. That one was true; he'd officially been with Sam just a week shy of that. He grinned and kept going until she broke out something that he, for some reason, was unprepared for.

"So, let's talk about your father."

Dean knew from the way her eyes lit up that his mask had slipped long enough for her to know that she'd struck psychological gold. "Why?"

"Honestly? I've never had a patient with such self-destructive behaviors like yours without having had a pretty traumatic childhood."

He slapped his smirk firmly back in place. She was eyeing him up, looking for confirmation of her statement and he realized that this was a game of psychological poker; he couldn't let her see his cards. Because he really, really didn't want to sit with anyone and talk about his crappy childhood, let alone some shrink in a nuthouse. "Is that so?"

Her smile stayed confident but there was an edge of sympathy in her voice as she spoke. "That's so. And, judging by the look you gave me when I said the word 'father,' I'm not too far off the mark. I know it might be hard to talk about it, but I promise you'll feel better once you do. I'm here to help you, Eddie and I promise that everything you say will stay between us. Did your father ever hit you or touch you in places where you didn't want to be touched?"

"What? No!"

"Okay. It says in your file that you have a brother named Alex?"

"Yeah." This time around he and Sam were Eddie and Alex Van Halen, his idea, of course; he liked the idea of posing as two kick-ass rockers who really were brothers.

"Did your dad ever hurt or tou –"

"No!" Dean cut her off right away. How could she even say that? He could handle the abuse accusations; after all, she hadn't known their father and she also wasn't the first to assume there had been some sort of at least sexual abuse going on in the house when he was a kid. Agent Hendrickson had even taunted them about it once as he and Sam sat handcuffed to each other in a prison cell a couple of years ago. But how could this woman even hint that he would let something like that happen to Sam? "Our dad never abused us!"

She smiled wide. "Sounds like no one messes with your brother on your watch."

He leaned back in his chair. "Something like that. Speaking of which, he's probably going to be getting out of his therapy session soon, so I'd better get going."

She lifted her arm off the table and pulled back her sleeve to show a small, dainty-looking gold watch. "He won't be out for a while yet." She set her arm back down on the table and leaned in. "Okay, how about this," she gestured to the board between them, "you and me, we'll play for stakes."

Dean raised a brow. That sounded interesting. "What are the stakes?"

"Every time I take one of your pieces off the board or get kinged, you have to answer one question I ask with absolute honesty, but if you do the same then I don't get to ask a question and if you win the game then I won't make you do any more therapy sessions with me. I'll just sign your sheet saying you did your time and that will be that."

He eyed her up distrustfully. "Can't you get fired for that?"

Her grin went as wide as the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland. "Somehow, I'm not worried."

He considered his options. He was pretty good at checkers; he and Sam had played it a lot when they were stuck in any number of crappy motel rooms as kids and although he wondered what made her so confident, it wasn't like she had spare checkers hidden up her sleeve or anything. Besides, playing a game sounded a lot more fun than just the two of them staring uncomfortably at each other while she tried to force him to answer questions. He cleared the checkers off the board, giving her all the red pieces while he took the black. After they had their pieces set up, she let him go first. He slid one of his pieces from the front row and looked up at her.

"So, it's Erica, right? Why did you decide to work in a loony bin?"

She moved her piece and looked at him with that same amused smile. "Mental Health Facility. And, I do it because I like helping people."

He moved his piece. "That sounds kind of flimsy."

"Well, why do you like going out and killing monsters?"

He grinned and shrugged. Okay, so she had a point. "Because I like helping people."

She looked down at the board and creased her brow in concentration for a moment before moving her piece. He could see what she was trying to do with lining up her pieces in a cluster like that; very good, but he was pretty sure he could still jump one of her pieces in a few moves. He moved one of his pieces and looked up expectantly at her. She moved one of hers and they continued to play as they talked.

"What I do is rewarding. Sometimes people really do get better and they can leave here and have a full life because of me. It's a pretty good feeling."

"Yeah, I know what you mean."

He jumped one of her pieces and took it off the board, then looked up at her and grinned with childish glee. She laughed and shook her head. "Not bad, Eddie."

Two moves later, she managed to double jump him and move one of her pieces to the other side of the board. She smiled smugly. "Okay, so that's two jumps and a king, I think you owe me the answer to three questions."

He grumbled as he moved another piece. "What do you wanna know?"

"What was your relationship like with your father growing up?"

"Umm," He twisted his lips and chewed the inside of his mouth for a moment, trying to decide whether or not he wanted to lie, but in the end decided to go with the truth; after all, she was willing to do something that could get her fired if he won. He cleared his throat. "As a kid I kind of felt like he was some sort of action hero, you know? I spent a lot of time trying to be just like him. I dressed like him, listened to his music, even wore an old ring of his. He's even the reason I became interested in cars; I asked him to teach me how to work on them just so I could spend some time with the guy. But, ah, other than that, weapons training, and giving out orders, he just kind of left me alone."

"Do you think your father was ever proud of you?"

"No."

"What about Alex? How was he with him?"

"He and Dad were always butting heads. Sometimes I think he disagreed with him just to disagree. Dad wanted him to learn bow hunting, he wanted to play soccer. Dad wanted him to come home right after school to do combat training, he signed up for the school play so he'd have to stay after and rehearse. Dad wanted him to stick with the family and keep hunting, he wanted to go away to college. Dad wanted him to come along on a hunt, he wanted to stay in the room, but if he didn't want him to come along on a hunt, then you couldn't keep him away." He stopped himself, realizing that he was starting to rant. "You know, that kind of thing."

She nodded and looked back down at the board, waiting for him to make his move. He waited for a moment before moving his piece; answering questions sucked. He began studying the board with each move, considering every possible move she could make that might take out one of his pieces if he wasn't careful enough, but in just six more moves she took another one of his pieces off the board.

"Do you resent Alex for always getting so much more attention than you because you think your father loved him more?"

He hesitated. "That feels an awful lot like two questions."

She smiled sweetly. "It's not."

"Well, first of all, I don't resent my brother. I'm proud of him. He's always known what he wants, and he goes out and gets it. He stood up to Dad when he was wrong and he wasn't afraid. I wish I could've…" He stared resolutely down at the checkered pattern on the board. "My dad saw me for what I was and him too. He's a survivor. When I'm gone, he'll find…" Someone else. He shut his mouth and looked down at the board. He'll find everything he wants.

She stared at him, open-mouthed. "You think you love him more than he loves you. And you think you deserve to be loved less."

He moved his piece, plastered on his cocky smile, and looked up at her. "That's a second question."

She looked down at the board, furrowed her brows together, and bit her lip in concentration as they continued to play. As the game continued, Dean had never known that a game of checkers could get so aggressively competitive. He was determined to get a free pass to those therapy sessions and, from the look on her face, she was equally committed to get to ask him the next question that was burning on the tip of her tongue. Over the next several turns he managed to jump one, two, three of her pieces and when he finally got one of his checkers over to the back of her board, he slapped it down triumphantly.

"King me!"

She smirked as she put another checker on top of his. "Game's not over yet, Eddie." With that, she moved her king in a way that he hadn't planned for and managed to triple jump him. "You shouldn't have been so focused on that one piece."

Dean rolled his eyes and waited for her to voice the last thing she'd said about love as a question. She leaned forward and looked at him until he met her eyes and then she sat there and held his gaze for several seconds before she spoke. "Are you involved in a sexual relationship with your brother?"

His eyes widened as he continued to stare, transfixed and searching her eyes for answers. How did she know? Did everyone just know? "Yes."

"Do you think your brother really wants that?"

"I…I don't know. He says he does, but sometimes…" He clenched his jaw. "I think it's what he wants right now." Until he wises up, he thought.

"And how do you think your father would feel about your relationship?"

"I think," his voice cracked and he paused and cleared his throat. "I think he would hate me. And I think he would have a hard time keeping himself from beating me. He'd probably say that I helped raise my brother and that he didn't raise me to be…" A child molester, queer, sexual deviant, user.

She nodded. "Let's explore that." She gestured to the board. "It's your move."

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An hour later, Dean walked with his head down, hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched as he headed down the hallway towards the room where Sam would soon be getting out of his group therapy session.

"Dean, hey!"

Dean turned around to look at his brother, who was eyeing him up with increasing concern. "You okay?"

"I just got thraped. So no, I am not okay. Tell me you found something."

Sam rolled his eyes and sighed. "Yeah, guy says he saw the creature." He shrugged. "We should talk to him. Wanna meet back here in an hour?"

"Yeah, sooner we take care of this thing, the sooner we can get gone; this place gives me the creeps."

Dean turned to rush back to his room for the next hour when he found himself suddenly face-to-face with a very attractive brunette woman, who looked to be in her late twenties. She smiled seductively at him, grabbed the back of his head and pulled him in for a kiss. Dean's first thought was, what the hell? Seriously, in all his life he had never encountered anything like this. Then a second thought entered his head; dad's sending her to me as a test. No. That was crazy. I should kiss her back, it's what Dad would want. His lips began moving against hers. No, this doesn't feel right. I don't want to kiss her; I want to kiss Sam. His shrink's voice then added to the cacophony in his head; do you really think your brother wants that? No. How could he? Look at how fucked up he was, for God's sake! The words swirled around in his head as she continued to kiss him; Dad, brothers, fag, love, want, proud, Sam, mine.

Finally she broke the kiss. "Hi."

"Hi," he said, still reeling from what just happened.

"I'm Wendy."

"Oh."

She gave him a lusty smirk and then slapped him on the ass as she walked away. Dean turned to face Sam and realized instantly that he'd made a mistake. Sam's face was calm, but it was a show for the other patients standing further down the hallway. His eyes said it all; he was beyond angry. In fact, he looked more jealous than he'd ever seen him in his life. Dean smiled happily. Sam really did want him. He shifted his eyes back to the retreating woman and then back to Sam, making a little show of it.

"Maybe this place isn't so bad after all."

"Dude, you cannot hit that." He still wasn't screaming, but the message was clear; if Dean went after her, it was all over between them.

Dean smirked and then shifted his eyes once again from Sam to the girl and back again and feigned a pained face. "Oh, so torn."

"Um, you know what? We should probably head to my room for a little bit; I have something to show you."

Sam grabbed his arm and tugged at him and Dean realized that even if he didn't want to go anywhere with Sam, he didn't have much of a choice. He grinned at Sam and shrugged.

"Sure Sam; let's go."

They walked down the hallway, away from the other patients and as soon as they were out of view of any people, Sam pushed Dean into a nearby closet, slammed the door behind them, shoved Dean against the wall, and took his lips in a crushing kiss so hard that Dean's head slammed against the wall from the force of it. He was feeling the power of Sam's anger and pain coming at him with enough might that it left his head aching and his lips throbbing and bruised.

"What the fuck, Dean? What do you think you're doing? First Jo and now this? Will you just go for any random slut who's willing to give you some pussy?"

"Hey! She kissed me! And Jo wasn't a slut or willing to give me pussy!"

"You're right Dean, she wasn't, and that only makes it worse! Damn it, you're supposed to be mine!" He moved his mouth down and bit Dean hard on the collar bone, definitely hard enough to leave a mark, and he was now rethinking his choice of trying to make Sam overly jealous because his brother was starting to scare him a little.

Sam grabbed him by the shirtfront and shook him. "Why Dean? Just fucking tell me why!"

"Why what?"

"Why aren't I enough for you?"

Dean's eyes widened in shock. That was really what he thought? "Sam…"

"Am I not good-looking enough for you? Do I suck in bed? Just tell me what it is!"

"Sam, no, that's not it. You're gorgeous and you're…" the best lover I've ever had, "an amazing fuck."

"Then what is it? Is it because I'm your brother? Is it because I'm a guy? What is so horrible about me that you have to go off and try to bang someone else?"

"I…" He grabbed Sam's arms and wrenched them off his shirt. "Jesus Sam, fine! Yeah, that shit bothers me, okay? There, I said it, are you happy?"

Sam's hurt look immediately had Dean wishing he could reach out, grab his last words in mid-air, and shove them back into his mouth. "Well, I have news for you, Dean; I'm a guy and I'm your brother and neither of those things is going to change. I want you, but I don't want to force you into something you don't want. If you don't want this…" Sam turned his head and used one of his hands to wipe a stray tear from his cheek. "Just think about it and tell me what you want to do, okay? I'll go out and find something I can turn into a lock pick and meet back up with you in an hour."

With that, Sam pushed out of the room, leaving Dean still up against the wall and staring after him in shock.