SPN FIC - Therapy
Rolling merrily along! Time for Asylum.
Whether Ellicott is actually any good at what he does, Sam has no idea; either way, he can’t solve this situation. He can’t unravel Dean.
Characters: Sam and Dr. Ellicott
Genre: Gen
Rating: G
Spoilers: Asylum
Length: 951 words
THERAPY
By Carol Davis
“This brother you’re roadtripping with - how do you feel about him?”
A small question, posed by someone aiming to be helpful. Small, and simple, and the answer is anything but.
Sam has never answered that question truthfully before. Not aloud, at least.
“I -“ he says softly.
Dr. Ellicott looks steadily at him, waiting. He’s proposed a deal: he’ll provide the information Sam needs, if Sam will answer the question. It’s a huge price to pay, just for information. If lives weren’t at stake, Sam wouldn’t consider answering it.
Or maybe he would.
“I love my brother,” he says.
“That’s good,” the doctor replies.
It seems important to get that on the table first, to set up that little bit of foundation. For some reason These truths shall be self-evident floats through Sam’s mind. But are they? Ellicott doesn’t know him, has never seen him before, with any luck has never even heard of him. Or Dean. Or Dad.
Sam looks steadily back at the doctor. If this were a stare-down contest, he’d lose, because his mouth contorts into a nervous smile. He’s giving up his brother - that’s what it feels like. If Dean had a clue what was going on in here, he’d be angry and ashamed. He’d feel betrayed. Dean talks to no one about himself, as far as Sam knows. His cards aren’t close to the vest, they’re stuffed inside it. That’s the wrong way to act, to think, to be. It’s not healthy. Dean’s not healthy. Emotionally.
Dean’s voice mocks him, inside his head. College boy.
“I feel…suffocated. Sometimes,” Sam ventured. “He doesn’t listen to me.”
“He’s your older brother?” Ellicott guesses. Off Sam’s nod, he continues, “We all fall into roles, Sam. Sometimes they’re set up for us, and sometimes we move into them of our own volition. How much older is -“
“Dean.”
“Dean,” Ellicott nods.
“He was four when I was born. Four and a half.”
“And he was told he was the big brother? That he needed to watch over you?”
Sam’s mouth twitches again. “In a nutshell.”
Ellicott gets up from his chair and takes a few ambling steps around the room. With very little body language, he occupies this space, owns it completely. That makes Sam think of the office he might have had, a small one with a nameplate on the door: Sam Winchester, Esq. The office he would have had if Dean hadn’t shown up at Stanford.
He could still have it, if he abandons Dean and goes back to school.
But if Dean hadn’t shown up at Stanford, he might be dead now.
“I love my brother,” he says again, but not as firmly as the first time. “But I wish…” His hands flutter. He shoves one of them through his hair, then knots them together in his lap and looks at Ellicott, who’s taller than Sam now that he’s standing up. Ellicott seems like all the others who’ve sat Sam down for a talk over the years: teachers, principals, his advisor at Stanford. Talking to them, answering their questions, has been a tap dance whose steps he’s learned a few at a time.
“Someone said, ‘You aren’t a man until your father says you are,’” Ellicott proposes.
“Mark Twain?” Sam guesses.
“Burt Reynolds.”
Sam frowns, scrunching up his face. It’s like something Dean would come up with. “The guy from Smokey and the Bandit?”
“He apparently has his profound moments.”
Because it seems to be what Ellicott wants him to do, Sam lets the quote roll around in his mind. It makes him ache for Dean. Makes him angry at Dad, angry at Dean. Angry at himself, a little, for giving in to Dean’s stubbornness. The things that flashed across Dean’s face four years ago when Sam said, “Come with me. Dean. We can both go,” are suddenly right there in front of Sam, like snapshots laid out on a table. Remembering that afternoon makes Sam’s stomach churn.
Dean’s not stupid. He could have gotten his own scholarship, if he’d tried. Maybe not Stanford, but someplace good.
“I want him to stand up for himself,” Sam says abruptly. “I want him to make his own decisions. Not the ones he thinks our Dad wants him to make. He’s twenty-seven years old. He’s good at what he does.”
“Which is?”
“A lot of things.”
“Maybe he feels frustrated too. Confined.”
“He’d never admit it.”
“Have you given him a chance?”
“I don’t mean admit it to me. I want him to admit it to our dad.”
Ellicott glances out the window, frowns at something, then turns back to Sam. “If you give him the opening - let him get his feet wet by talking to you - maybe that would give him the impetus to approach your father.”
Never gonna happen, Sam thinks, but he forces himself to nod slightly.
“Talk to him, Sam.”
“I try.”
It’s a gentle suggestion: “Try again.”
They’re both silent for a long, awkward stretch of seconds. Ellicott looks at Sam, steadily, his face almost impassive. He knows Sam’s not coming back, that this isn’t step one of a long relationship in which the doctor will, a little at a time, wield his magical healing powers. When Sam walks out the door of this office, he won’t be coming back.
Whether Ellicott is actually any good at what he does, Sam has no idea; either way, he can’t solve this situation. He can’t unravel Dean.
Maybe nobody can unravel Dean.
“Try,” Ellicott says.
Sam looks at his shoes, at the floor, at Ellicott’s shoes.
Then he lifts his head, offers Ellicott a small smile, and nods.
~~~~~~~~~~~~