Grief Counseling, GG, AU Taken In 'Verse, PG
Title: Grief Counseling, Taken In 'verse
Author: Piratelf
Rating: PG
Fandom: Gilmore Girls
Genre: Gen AU
Disclaimer: I do not own the Gilmore Girls, Luke Danes, Dean Forester, Tall Cesar or Small Cesar. I am not a grief counselor. I am not a member of the ADEC, ACA, APA, MHA or NAMI. I have watched several episodes of Dr. Phil, though!
Beta: Nadnewraid
Xposted to: deanfest_2007, gg_fic, narcoleptics
Author's Notes: Neither Luke nor Dean was put into a situation this emotionally intense during the series, as far as I can remember. They were however in situations where they were, or they dealt with people who were, upset, anxious, hurt, scared, etc. And I have extrapolated their behavior and responses from those instances. I was very conscious of trying to keep them in character, I hope you think I succeeded.
In terms of the Taken In 'verse, this story would take place not too long after Taken In.
Also, thank you all for your feedback! Even just one word is appreciated!
Summary: Dean wants to quit grief counseling, but he needs Luke's permission. Will Luke make the right decision?
“I don’t want to go to grief counseling anymore.”
Luke looked up from the clipboard he was using to check his inventory. “Hi, how was your day? Mine? Oh, not too bad.”
Dean ignored the jab at his manners. He put a piece of paper on top of the clipboard. “She said you have to sign this.”
Luke transferred the pencil he was using from his hand to his mouth so he could pick up the paper and look it over. It was very detailed, in rather small print, and at least one of the things he was signing off on was that the counseling center was not liable should Dean commit suicide. He put the paper down and took the pencil out of his mouth. “I’m gonna have to read this over.”
Dean flipped the paper over and pointed to the highlighted line at the bottom. “You just have to sign it.”
“I’m not gonna sign it until I’ve read it.”
“But if you sign it now, I can take it back before the office closes,” Dean told him, his tone getting slightly tense.
“Why do you want to quit counseling.”
“It’s a waste of time. Luke, just please, sign it now and we can talk about it later, okay?”
Luke slipped the paper under his list. “Yeah, I think you’re kinda getting things out of order, there. What is the huge hurry, anyway?”
“There’s not a huge hurry,” Dean shrugged, stepping back a little. “I just thought I could get it out of the way today and then you don’t have to worry about getting charged for next week.”
“I’m not worried about it.”
“Okay, whatever,” Dean sighed.
“What time is it?”
“Six thirty.”
“You don’t work tonight, do you?”
“No.”
“You going to Rory’s?”
“I don’t know. Probably not, she usually goes to Lane’s on Thursdays ‘cause I have this stupid thing.”
“Okay,” Luke made an X on his list and an X on the box he’d stopped at. “I’ll make us some dinner and meet you upstairs.”
“What are we gonna have?”
“Ummm,” Luke thought about what they’d made that day. He didn’t like to feed Dean cheeseburgers more than once a week. “Meatloaf or roasted chicken.”
“Either. What vegetables?”
“Green beans, corn or broccoli.”
“No carrots?”
“We’re making stew tomorrow.”
“Oh. Umm, not broccoli.”
“Got it.” Luke shooed Dean out of the storage room. As he closed the door Dean turned back to him.
“Hey, are there mashed potatoes?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Then meatloaf.”
Luke nodded, “set the table.”
“But you said you wanted to watch somebody take down that creepy guy you hate on Jeopardy tonight,” Dean reminded him.
“Then set the coffee table,” he whapped Dean with the clipboard and went into the kitchen to put their meal together.
Twenty minutes later he was on the couch with Dean, eating dinner and watching the creepy guy get his butt kicked on Jeopardy.
“Okay, Dean, why don’t you want to go to counseling?”
“Have you ever had meatloaf with a boiled egg in the middle?” Dean asked him.
“Yeah, my grandmother used to make it that way.”
“My mom did too.”
“Do you like it that way?”
“Not really. Me and my sisters would eat the ends and my mom and dad would eat the middle. I just realized it looks kind of weird to see middle pieces with out egg in them.”
“Interesting. So now you wanna answer my question?”
Dean put his plate down on the table. “It’s just boring and it’s a waste of time. It’s the exact same thing every week!” He put on a cloyingly sweet voice to imitate his counselor. “‘Hi Dean, how was your week?’
‘Fine.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I went to school and I went to work and I took Rory to a movie.’
‘What did you think about?’
‘Well, when I was at school, I thought about school, when I was at work, I thought about work, and when I was at the movie I thought about how much it sucked.’
‘And how did that make you feel?’
‘It made me feel like I wanted my money back.’
‘Is it difficult when things are gone and you want them back?’
‘Uh, not really, it was only ten bucks.’ And usually at some point like that she’ll stop talking and just sit there and stare at me! I mean, I don't even know if she’s just trying to freak me out or what?!”
Luke felt for the kid. Crap like that would drive him crazy too. But he didn’t have the issues Dean did, so he supposed he should probably try and keep him in counseling if he could. “I think she probably wants you to talk.”
“I know that!” Dean snapped. “I’m not an idiot! And I know she wants me to talk about - the fire,” there was just a slight hesitation before he said ‘the fire’. When he absolutely had to reference the event, he just called it, ‘the fire’. ‘The fire’ encompassed everything: the deaths of his parents and his sister, the loss of his home and his belongings, how things used to be. His past used to be divided by the family’s move to Stars Hollow. There was ‘before, when we lived in Chicago -’ and ‘since we moved here -’. But now it was ‘before the fire -’ and ‘after the fire - ’. Luke had noticed the habit, and he supposed the counselor had too.
“But I don't think about the fire!” Dean continued. He stood and began to pace behind the couch. “It happened, and it’s over and there’s nothing anyone can do to change it!” his voice began to increase in volume, Luke could see the heat of anger rising in him. “So what is the point of dwelling on it? I can’t be thinking about it all the time! I have stuff I have to do! I have school, and work, and I have to think about Rory and you and my grandparents, and plus, back at the beginning, when I WAS thinking about it all the time, she was all, ‘You have to live your life! You can’t just let the fire be the end of everything! You have to think about, like, before the fire, and keep your goals’ and all that! So I mean what the HELL does she want from me?!” He brought his fists down on the back of the couch.
Luke’s first internal response was, ‘Whoa!’ Dean rarely cursed, and very rarely did he hit things. ‘Okay, Luke, pull it together, you’re the adult.’ “Dean, come here, sit down.”
Dean had stopped pacing. He was more wandering, back and forth now, with his arms hugging his body and his head down. The effect was sort of like a deflated balloon. “I’m not really hungry anymore,” he said in a quiet voice.
“That’s fine, just come and sit. Please.”
“I’m sorry I yelled,” he told the carpet.
“It’s all right.” Luke reached back and caught hold of Dean’s arm. “Just come back over here. I wanna talk to you.”
Dean complied, slumping down onto the couch.
“Good, okay.” Luke scooted a little closer to Dean’s end of the couch. “You can be mad, you know. About the fire. Hell, I would be! I’d be furious!”
“But I’m not!” Dean denied, all recent evidence to the contrary. “I’m usually totally fine, it’s just I go there and she is so damn irritating! And completely annoying! By the time I leave I just want to strangle something! I can’t stand her, and I don’t want to see her anymore!” His head came up and he looked at Luke, his hazel eyes were watery and pleading. “Please sign the paper, Luke? Please?”
Luke sighed. He was in way over his head with this guardian thing. He reached over and grasped the back of Dean’s neck. “Okay, kid, if that’s what you want. I’ll read it through tonight and then I’ll sign it.”
“Thanks,” Dean smiled, for a minute Luke thought he was gonna hug him, but then he just reached up and squeezed his arm.
“No problem,” Luke patted his shoulder and withdrew his arm. He looked over at Dean’s plate. “If you’re not gonna finish that put it in the refrigerator, so if you want it later it’s still good.”
“Okay,” Dean nodded and took his plate to the kitchen.
Luke went downstairs and let Tall Cesar and Small Cesar know that he’d be upstairs for the rest of the night, and to call him if they needed help.
He went back upstairs to find Dean sprawled on the couch, lazily flipping through the channels. He looked toward the door as Luke came in. “You forget something?”
“Nope, I’ve got the rest of the night off.”
“Yeah?” Dean seemed pretty happy about that. Luke made a mental note to look over the books and see if he could hire more help. He really hadn’t thought about the fact that, even though he was just downstairs, Dean was really alone most of the time.
“Yep,” he smacked Dean’s legs and sat down on the couch when Dean moved them. Then he reached over and snatched the remote control out of Dean’s hands. “Give me that! Don’t you have homework?”
“It’s done, I did it in the waiting room.”
“What about that report on Fitzgerald?”
“It was due today, I turned it in.”
“Oh, well let me know how you did on it.”
“Okay.”
“What are you up to this weekend?”
“I don’t know, I might work, unless Rory wants to do something.”
“I’ll pay ya twenty bucks if you wash and wax my truck.”
“I’ll do it, but you don’t need to pay me, Luke.”
“Sure, I do.”
“No, come on, that’s crazy.”
“You’re doing a job for me, so I’m gonna pay you. Why is that crazy?”
“Because, I live here. You built a room for me, you feed me, I don’t pay any bills or anything.”
“Yeah, but I get to boss you around all the time, it’s win-win.”
Dean laughed and shook his head. “I’ll do it tomorrow after school.”
“Nah, tomorrow’s movie night, isn’t it? Do it Saturday or Sunday.”
“Saturday, then.”
They watched TV in silence for a while. Then Luke turned back to the seventeen year old, “Dean, you do know you’re more than just a boarder, right?”
“Well, yeah, boarders don’t stay for free,” Dean laughed.
“True,” Luke smiled. “But you know, being your guardian, that makes us kinda like family.”
“I know,” Dean suddenly found a spot on his jeans just fascinating.
“I mean, not in place of your real family, but sorta like new family.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Well, I feel that way. It’s not like you HAVE to feel that way, I’m not telling you how to feel, but just how I feel.”
Dean looked up and smiled at Luke’s backtracking. “I get it, Luke.”
“Okay, good.”
“But I’m not changing my name.”
“No, of course not! I wouldn’t want you too.”
“Good. ‘Cause Dean Danes is just - no.” They both laughed.
“No argument here.”
Dean got up, took his dinner out of the refrigerator, and popped it into the microwave. Luke pulled the form from the counselor out of his pocket and straightened it out to read. It was a pre-printed form.
This is to state that the [minor] Dean Forester, has discontinued therapy against professional advice and without his counselor’s consent. The Hartford Counseling Center therefore has no responsibility for his continued mental and emotional health. You, the [legal guardian] absolve us of all legal obligations should the patient harm him or her self, harm others, discontinue medication, become despondent, neurotic, psychotic, need to be sedated, hospitalized or jailed.
The patient has been receiving therapy from Mercedes Moore, M.A. for a period of thirteen weeks.
The patient has been receiving [grief counseling].
The patient’s condition at the time of termination of his or her counseling is depressed with unexpressed rage at the loss of his family and home, overwhelming feelings of guilt, worthlessness, fear, a feeling that the world is unsafe and unfair. Intense internal emotional pain and anxiety. Denial of the grieving process. Obsessively concerned with maintaining full involvement in all activities pursued before the loss, doing everything ‘right’ and not being a burden. Maintaining false front of hypermaturity.
Luke turned the paper over.
Counselor comments: Dean has experienced a type of loss few people ever have to endure. The deaths of his parents and younger sister in a fire which also destroyed his home and all of his personal and familial belongings has left him devastated and lost with no emotional anchor or support. The fact that his immediate family had recently moved to a new town with no surrounding relatives or family friends only serves to compound his feelings of abandonment and desolation. The overwhelming power of these feelings, especially in a seventeen year old boy in the natural process of separating himself from his family, asserting his independence and forging his own identity, have caused him to simply shut down. He is numb to the effect of his own grief, and compensates by acting as if he has already processed, accepted and recovered from his bereavement. Meanwhile his unexpressed feelings are turned from sadness to rage, which is easier to deal with, but must remain internalized for the sake of appearing normal to the outside world. Dean does not have the tools, experience or maturity to resolve his feelings in a healthy way without therapy.
Counselor Prognosis: If Dean discontinues counseling at this time I feel he is highly likely to succumb to despair. I am most concerned about the extreme pressure he is subjecting himself to in order to deny and repress his feelings, maintain his academic, social and work responsibilities and behave as well as, if not better than, he did before the fire. He is at high risk for self-mutilation, addiction, and rage disorder.
I sensed Dean was very close to a breakthrough in therapy, the first step in acknowledging his pain and beginning the grieving process in earnest. This made him very defensive and uncomfortable, which is why I believe he wants to discontinue therapy at this time.
I can only express my opinion that this is the worst possible action regarding his recovery and future emotional health.
I Luke Danes, [legal guardian] of the [minor] patient Dean Forester, have read and understood this form and agree to its terms. I give my permission for the patient to terminate therapy.
X______________________________________
Now Luke was sorry he’d promised Dean he’d sign. He should have known better than to do that without reading the paper first. Should he break his promise or would that do more harm than good?
Luke was so absorbed in the form he didn’t notice Dean finishing his dinner, washing his own and Luke’s dishes, putting them away, and calling his name twice.
“Luke!”
“Huh?! What?” he responded, startled.
“I’m gonna call Rory, okay?”
“Yeah, sure go ahead, I won’t need the phone for three or four hours.”
“Cool,” Dean grinned. He grabbed the phone and headed toward his room.
“Why do you have to take the phone into your room?” Luke stopped him.
“So when we start making kissing noises at each other you won’t have to run to the bathroom and throw up?”
“You and Rory don’t do that!”
“Not during our usual daytime, ‘I miss you, let’s confirm plans for the weekend’ conversations, but this is a nighttime, more romantic kinda thing.”
“Uh-huh. So how come I’ve never heard one of these before?”
“`Cause you usually work until ten.”
“I see, and when the sun goes down you completely lose any sense of dignity you ever may have had?”
“We even have humiliating babytalk nicknames! You nauseous yet?”
Luke shook his head in bewilderment. “You’re an embarrassment to men everywhere.”
“I’ve got a girl, I don’t need all the macho trappings.”
“Do you ever miss your pride?”
Dean held out his hands, weighing his decision. “Hmmm, pride? Rory? Pride? Rory? I’m good with my decision.”
“Make sure you close your door,” Luke growled.
Dean gave him a thumbs up and closed the door behind him.
Luke looked at the form, then at the bedroom door of the most mature, well-adjusted, self-confident kid he’d probably ever met, then back to the form. Apparently, this lady got her degree from a Draw Tippy ad! He signed the form and left it on the kitchen table for Dean to take with him the next day.
Three weeks later, he totally regretted it.
It was a normal Saturday in the diner, until Luke heard a continuous series of odd thumps from upstairs. The scene that met him in his apartment was so unexpected as to be bizarre. The kitchen table was covered with mail, Dean’s check book and pages of notebook paper. There were additional balls of crumpled paper littering the floor along with some broken pencils. Causing the noise was Dean’s fist repeatedly punching the wall as hard as he possibly could. The wall was spotted with . . . the realization brought Luke out of his shock.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing!”
“I can’t make this work!” *bam* “I Can’t Make This Work!” *Bam* “I CAN’T MAKE THIS WORK!!!” *BAM* *BAM* *BAM* Dean screamed at the wall.
Luke put an arm around Dean’s stomach and pulled him back. “DEAN! Stop it! Are you insane?” He got between Dean and the wall, took the boy by the shoulders and gave him a hard shake. “LOOK at me! DEAN! Calm down and look at me, now!”
Dean turned his death stare from the wall to Luke. It was scary-intense, his face was nearly purple and he was breathing like he’d just run a mile. “WHAT?”
“Sit down!” Luke pushed him down sideways into a kitchen chair, facing him and grabbed his hand. “My God, what is the matter with you? Look at what you’re doing!” he held Dean’s swollen and bloodied knuckles out to him.
“It doesn’t matter! Nothing matters!” Dean spit out.
“Dean, if you don’t start making sense in the next two seconds, I am gonna slap your face! Hear me?”
Dean huffed out a breath. He pulled his hand out of Luke’s grasp and turned to the table. He grabbed a bill and violently banged it down in front of Luke. “It’s this!”
“What is this?” Luke sat in a chair next to him. Before he could make heads or tails of the paper, Dean answered him.
“It’s the insurance for my bike, and Mom and Dad used to pay half and I’d pay half, and I know that probably sounds really spoiled, but we had this deal and I would watch Clara and make dinner, so it wasn’t like that. And now even if I don’t buy lunch, or Rory’s coffee, or take her out for the next month, and work every weekend, I still can’t pay it! And I still have to pay you back for all these clothes, and if I got a second job I’d probably flunk at least one class! And this is quarterly, so I have to come up with it all again in another three months! And there will be license renewal fees! And I can’t just never spend anything ever, because there are birthdays and Christmas and,” Dean stopped briefly and swallowed while tears filled his eyes. “I have to get rid of my bike!” He covered his face with his hands and he began to cry in earnest. “It’s all I have left and I have to get rid of it because I don’t know how to do this! I can’t do this! I’ve been trying and trying for two hours and nothing works and I -” he wiped his tears away angrily, “just can’t! And I don’t understand why this- I mean, I worked really hard for this bike! I did! And, and now, it’s all just for nothing! I have nothing! And it just - it just doesn’t seem fair! And I know, life’s not fair, but still, can’t something be fair sometimes? Because I keep trying and trying to pull everything together but every time I do, something else happens to just blow it all apart again!” He took a short breath, it seemed like the first one since he started speaking. “I don’t know what to do!”
“Dean,” it was probably the power or the magnitude of the emotions Dean was feeling that overwhelmed Luke and forced him to do what most would describe as a distinctly un-Lukelike thing. He stood and pulled Dean up into his arms and hugged him. “It’s okay, Dean, it’s all right.” He pulled back just enough to look the kid in the face. “What am I, invisible? You don’t have to do everything on your own. I’m here to help. Remember what I said about family?” He gave Dean a little shake. “Huh? Remember?”
Dean nodded.
“Good. Okay, now you are NOT gonna sell that bike! Got it?”
“But, I don’t-”
“GOT it, Dean?”
Dean bit his lip and nodded, “got it.”
“Attaboy,” Luke stepped back and took Dean by the elbow. “Now, lets get that hand cleaned up and see if you’ve broken anything.” He pulled him toward the bathroom. “Does it hurt?”
“It’s starting to, a little.”
“Yeah? Well that’ll probably get worse before it gets better.” He turned on the cold water to wash Dean’s bloody knuckles.
Dean hissed as the water hit his swollen skin.
“Sorry,” Luke said. He lathered soap in his hand, and used it to clean the wounds. “Can I ask what you were thinking, doing this to yourself?”
“I don’t know. Just frustration, I guess,” Dean’s voice was tight with pain. He was feeling it now.
“I get frustrated when a customer orders a turkey on wheat, then tells me after I’ve made it that they don’t want mayo. But I don’t smash my hand into a wall.”
Dean just shrugged. “I was upset.”
“This is gonna sting,” Luke poured peroxide over Dean’s hand. Dean grimaced and held his breath until the burn subsided. Luke patted his hand dry with a towel. “Doesn’t this seem a little extreme to you? Sit.”
Dean sat on the closed lid of the toilet. “I guess. I wasn’t really thinking. It kinda felt good at first.”
“Before you busted open your knuckles you mean? Can you wiggle your fingers?”
Dean wiggled them as much as the swelling would allow. “No, after that. Pretty much until you stopped me. I mean, it hurt, but the pain felt good. I know that’s weird.”
“Very weird. Does anything feel broken?”
Dean shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
Luke took gauze and steri-pads out of his medicine cabinet and began bandaging the hand. “We’ll put an ice pack on it and see what it looks like tomorrow. You know you don’t have to pay me back for the clothes.”
“I want to,” Dean answered.
“I don’t want you to.”
“I should.”
“Nope.”
“Luke, it’s a lot of clothes! They were expensive!”
“Did you pay your parents back when they bought you clothes?” Luke reached for the bandage tape.
“You don’t have to go that far with this family thing.”
“I’ll decide how far I want to go with this family thing.”
Dean shifted uncomfortably. But it wasn't physical discomfort. “I’ll wash the wall when you’re done.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Luke finished bandaging the hand. He pulled a bottle of pain reliever out of the cabinet and filled a glass with water. “Take this, it’ll take the swelling down, probably make it feel better.”
Dean swallowed the pills. “You should get back to work. I guess you probably heard that downstairs, huh?”
“I just heard some pounding, couldn’t tell what it was.”
“Oh. . . . that’s good.”
“It’s pretty soundproof up here. Let’s get some ice on that.”
Back in the kitchen, Luke and Dean sat at the table while Luke wrapped ice cubes in dishcloths and packed then around Dean’s hand. Then he picked up the insurance bill.
“A Suzuki, huh?”
“Yeah, somebody wrecked it over in Woodbridge, and their insurance company just wanted to total it, so I got it really cheap.”
“And you’ve got it running?”
“Oh yeah, there wasn’t really that much wrong with it. Insurance companies give up on something so easy.”
“Well, that’s cheaper for them.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“You’ve got a helmet?”
“Of course!”
“Seems like they’re charging you an awful lot for a rebuilt ’86 Suzuki.”
“My dad said it’s because of my age, and that I’m a guy.”
“I’m not really sure you need all this coverage, either.”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll check into that later. Now, let’s see what we’re dealing with here,” he pulled the notebook Dean had been using over to his spot and checked the numbers. It was interesting to see how much Dean was earning a month and how much he had going out. “You pay 5 dollars a day for lunch at school?”
“Yeah, usually, I mean that’s an average.”
“Pure extortion,” Luke shook his head. “Does it taste as bad as when I was there?”
“Probably,” Dean chuckled. “If you stick with the ice cream and chips, you’re usually okay.”
Luke looked pointedly up at Dean, “You eat ice cream and chips for lunch everyday?”
Dean dropped the smile. “No,” he lied unconvincingly.
“Hmmm,” Luke said. He looked back down to the paper and added some figures of his own. “Okay, you had a deal with your parents before, I’m gonna make you a deal now.”
Dean sat back in his chair. “Okay,” he said, a bit dubiously.
“I will pay all of the insurance for your bike, for as long as you follow all of the safety rules, if you -” Luke ticked the points off on his fingers, “show me all of your bills from now on?”
Dean nodded, “okay.”
“Start taking your lunch to school?”
Dean rolled his eyes. “Fine.”
“And go back to therapy.”
Dean’s mouth fell open in shock. His eyes showed betrayal. “Luke, no!”
“Dean!”
“No!” Dean stood up, cradling his hand unconsciously. “God! You know I don’t want to do that! You signed the paper!”
“You hurt yourself, Dean. I can’t ignore that and I won’t allow it. You need some help, kid.”
“No, I don’t! I’m fine! Why are you doing this?”
“Dean, look at that wall!”
Dean deliberately looked the other way, his lips pressed tight over his clenched teeth.
Luke walked over to him and turned him to face the wall he’d punched until he’d marked it all over with his blood. “Dean, you look at that wall and tell me that’s not a cry for help. Tell me that shows you’re fine. Tell me that would have ever happened before the fire!”
“STOP IT!” Dean jerked away from Luke. “STOP!” The tears were falling again now, and his hand hurt. Dean went over to the closest flat surface, Luke’s bed, and curled up on his side.
Luke ran his hands through his hair, walked over to the sink and rinsed his face. Dean still hadn’t moved. Luke decided to give him some room. He went over to the couch and turned on the TV with sound very low. He paid no attention to it, though. All he could do was second guess himself. Did he go too far? Should he have made the deal about the bike insurance and brought up the counseling later? Was this tough love or was he just being cruel? Should he back down on it? Was this helping Dean or pushing him further over the edge? Should he call Lorelai? Should he call the counseling center? Should he just keep his big mouth shut for awhile?
Dean got up after about an hour and stood in front of the couch. “Luke?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I go to a different therapist?”
“Sure, if you want.”
Dean exhaled and held out his undamaged left hand. “Deal.”
Luke smiled, reaching out to shake Dean’s hand, using his left as well. “Deal.”
Dean sat on the arm of the couch, at Luke’s feet. They both pretended to watch TV for a while.
“So, Monday I’ll send the check and make an appointment with another grief counselor.”
“A guy this time, okay?”
“Sure, absolutely.”
After a few more minutes of silence, Dean surveyed the wall, the mess of papers on the floor, and his own hand. “I bet you’re kinda sorry you ended up with me sometimes, huh?” he laughed a little.
“Nope,” Luke gave Dean a warm smile. “Not once. But it’s okay if you are. ”
“Nah,” Dean smiled back. “I’m good.”
Gilmore Girls Fan Fic
Author: Piratelf
Rating: PG
Fandom: Gilmore Girls
Genre: Gen AU
Disclaimer: I do not own the Gilmore Girls, Luke Danes, Dean Forester, Tall Cesar or Small Cesar. I am not a grief counselor. I am not a member of the ADEC, ACA, APA, MHA or NAMI. I have watched several episodes of Dr. Phil, though!
Beta: Nadnewraid
Xposted to: deanfest_2007, gg_fic, narcoleptics
Author's Notes: Neither Luke nor Dean was put into a situation this emotionally intense during the series, as far as I can remember. They were however in situations where they were, or they dealt with people who were, upset, anxious, hurt, scared, etc. And I have extrapolated their behavior and responses from those instances. I was very conscious of trying to keep them in character, I hope you think I succeeded.
In terms of the Taken In 'verse, this story would take place not too long after Taken In.
Also, thank you all for your feedback! Even just one word is appreciated!
Summary: Dean wants to quit grief counseling, but he needs Luke's permission. Will Luke make the right decision?
“I don’t want to go to grief counseling anymore.”
Luke looked up from the clipboard he was using to check his inventory. “Hi, how was your day? Mine? Oh, not too bad.”
Dean ignored the jab at his manners. He put a piece of paper on top of the clipboard. “She said you have to sign this.”
Luke transferred the pencil he was using from his hand to his mouth so he could pick up the paper and look it over. It was very detailed, in rather small print, and at least one of the things he was signing off on was that the counseling center was not liable should Dean commit suicide. He put the paper down and took the pencil out of his mouth. “I’m gonna have to read this over.”
Dean flipped the paper over and pointed to the highlighted line at the bottom. “You just have to sign it.”
“I’m not gonna sign it until I’ve read it.”
“But if you sign it now, I can take it back before the office closes,” Dean told him, his tone getting slightly tense.
“Why do you want to quit counseling.”
“It’s a waste of time. Luke, just please, sign it now and we can talk about it later, okay?”
Luke slipped the paper under his list. “Yeah, I think you’re kinda getting things out of order, there. What is the huge hurry, anyway?”
“There’s not a huge hurry,” Dean shrugged, stepping back a little. “I just thought I could get it out of the way today and then you don’t have to worry about getting charged for next week.”
“I’m not worried about it.”
“Okay, whatever,” Dean sighed.
“What time is it?”
“Six thirty.”
“You don’t work tonight, do you?”
“No.”
“You going to Rory’s?”
“I don’t know. Probably not, she usually goes to Lane’s on Thursdays ‘cause I have this stupid thing.”
“Okay,” Luke made an X on his list and an X on the box he’d stopped at. “I’ll make us some dinner and meet you upstairs.”
“What are we gonna have?”
“Ummm,” Luke thought about what they’d made that day. He didn’t like to feed Dean cheeseburgers more than once a week. “Meatloaf or roasted chicken.”
“Either. What vegetables?”
“Green beans, corn or broccoli.”
“No carrots?”
“We’re making stew tomorrow.”
“Oh. Umm, not broccoli.”
“Got it.” Luke shooed Dean out of the storage room. As he closed the door Dean turned back to him.
“Hey, are there mashed potatoes?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Then meatloaf.”
Luke nodded, “set the table.”
“But you said you wanted to watch somebody take down that creepy guy you hate on Jeopardy tonight,” Dean reminded him.
“Then set the coffee table,” he whapped Dean with the clipboard and went into the kitchen to put their meal together.
Twenty minutes later he was on the couch with Dean, eating dinner and watching the creepy guy get his butt kicked on Jeopardy.
“Okay, Dean, why don’t you want to go to counseling?”
“Have you ever had meatloaf with a boiled egg in the middle?” Dean asked him.
“Yeah, my grandmother used to make it that way.”
“My mom did too.”
“Do you like it that way?”
“Not really. Me and my sisters would eat the ends and my mom and dad would eat the middle. I just realized it looks kind of weird to see middle pieces with out egg in them.”
“Interesting. So now you wanna answer my question?”
Dean put his plate down on the table. “It’s just boring and it’s a waste of time. It’s the exact same thing every week!” He put on a cloyingly sweet voice to imitate his counselor. “‘Hi Dean, how was your week?’
‘Fine.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I went to school and I went to work and I took Rory to a movie.’
‘What did you think about?’
‘Well, when I was at school, I thought about school, when I was at work, I thought about work, and when I was at the movie I thought about how much it sucked.’
‘And how did that make you feel?’
‘It made me feel like I wanted my money back.’
‘Is it difficult when things are gone and you want them back?’
‘Uh, not really, it was only ten bucks.’ And usually at some point like that she’ll stop talking and just sit there and stare at me! I mean, I don't even know if she’s just trying to freak me out or what?!”
Luke felt for the kid. Crap like that would drive him crazy too. But he didn’t have the issues Dean did, so he supposed he should probably try and keep him in counseling if he could. “I think she probably wants you to talk.”
“I know that!” Dean snapped. “I’m not an idiot! And I know she wants me to talk about - the fire,” there was just a slight hesitation before he said ‘the fire’. When he absolutely had to reference the event, he just called it, ‘the fire’. ‘The fire’ encompassed everything: the deaths of his parents and his sister, the loss of his home and his belongings, how things used to be. His past used to be divided by the family’s move to Stars Hollow. There was ‘before, when we lived in Chicago -’ and ‘since we moved here -’. But now it was ‘before the fire -’ and ‘after the fire - ’. Luke had noticed the habit, and he supposed the counselor had too.
“But I don't think about the fire!” Dean continued. He stood and began to pace behind the couch. “It happened, and it’s over and there’s nothing anyone can do to change it!” his voice began to increase in volume, Luke could see the heat of anger rising in him. “So what is the point of dwelling on it? I can’t be thinking about it all the time! I have stuff I have to do! I have school, and work, and I have to think about Rory and you and my grandparents, and plus, back at the beginning, when I WAS thinking about it all the time, she was all, ‘You have to live your life! You can’t just let the fire be the end of everything! You have to think about, like, before the fire, and keep your goals’ and all that! So I mean what the HELL does she want from me?!” He brought his fists down on the back of the couch.
Luke’s first internal response was, ‘Whoa!’ Dean rarely cursed, and very rarely did he hit things. ‘Okay, Luke, pull it together, you’re the adult.’ “Dean, come here, sit down.”
Dean had stopped pacing. He was more wandering, back and forth now, with his arms hugging his body and his head down. The effect was sort of like a deflated balloon. “I’m not really hungry anymore,” he said in a quiet voice.
“That’s fine, just come and sit. Please.”
“I’m sorry I yelled,” he told the carpet.
“It’s all right.” Luke reached back and caught hold of Dean’s arm. “Just come back over here. I wanna talk to you.”
Dean complied, slumping down onto the couch.
“Good, okay.” Luke scooted a little closer to Dean’s end of the couch. “You can be mad, you know. About the fire. Hell, I would be! I’d be furious!”
“But I’m not!” Dean denied, all recent evidence to the contrary. “I’m usually totally fine, it’s just I go there and she is so damn irritating! And completely annoying! By the time I leave I just want to strangle something! I can’t stand her, and I don’t want to see her anymore!” His head came up and he looked at Luke, his hazel eyes were watery and pleading. “Please sign the paper, Luke? Please?”
Luke sighed. He was in way over his head with this guardian thing. He reached over and grasped the back of Dean’s neck. “Okay, kid, if that’s what you want. I’ll read it through tonight and then I’ll sign it.”
“Thanks,” Dean smiled, for a minute Luke thought he was gonna hug him, but then he just reached up and squeezed his arm.
“No problem,” Luke patted his shoulder and withdrew his arm. He looked over at Dean’s plate. “If you’re not gonna finish that put it in the refrigerator, so if you want it later it’s still good.”
“Okay,” Dean nodded and took his plate to the kitchen.
Luke went downstairs and let Tall Cesar and Small Cesar know that he’d be upstairs for the rest of the night, and to call him if they needed help.
He went back upstairs to find Dean sprawled on the couch, lazily flipping through the channels. He looked toward the door as Luke came in. “You forget something?”
“Nope, I’ve got the rest of the night off.”
“Yeah?” Dean seemed pretty happy about that. Luke made a mental note to look over the books and see if he could hire more help. He really hadn’t thought about the fact that, even though he was just downstairs, Dean was really alone most of the time.
“Yep,” he smacked Dean’s legs and sat down on the couch when Dean moved them. Then he reached over and snatched the remote control out of Dean’s hands. “Give me that! Don’t you have homework?”
“It’s done, I did it in the waiting room.”
“What about that report on Fitzgerald?”
“It was due today, I turned it in.”
“Oh, well let me know how you did on it.”
“Okay.”
“What are you up to this weekend?”
“I don’t know, I might work, unless Rory wants to do something.”
“I’ll pay ya twenty bucks if you wash and wax my truck.”
“I’ll do it, but you don’t need to pay me, Luke.”
“Sure, I do.”
“No, come on, that’s crazy.”
“You’re doing a job for me, so I’m gonna pay you. Why is that crazy?”
“Because, I live here. You built a room for me, you feed me, I don’t pay any bills or anything.”
“Yeah, but I get to boss you around all the time, it’s win-win.”
Dean laughed and shook his head. “I’ll do it tomorrow after school.”
“Nah, tomorrow’s movie night, isn’t it? Do it Saturday or Sunday.”
“Saturday, then.”
They watched TV in silence for a while. Then Luke turned back to the seventeen year old, “Dean, you do know you’re more than just a boarder, right?”
“Well, yeah, boarders don’t stay for free,” Dean laughed.
“True,” Luke smiled. “But you know, being your guardian, that makes us kinda like family.”
“I know,” Dean suddenly found a spot on his jeans just fascinating.
“I mean, not in place of your real family, but sorta like new family.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Well, I feel that way. It’s not like you HAVE to feel that way, I’m not telling you how to feel, but just how I feel.”
Dean looked up and smiled at Luke’s backtracking. “I get it, Luke.”
“Okay, good.”
“But I’m not changing my name.”
“No, of course not! I wouldn’t want you too.”
“Good. ‘Cause Dean Danes is just - no.” They both laughed.
“No argument here.”
Dean got up, took his dinner out of the refrigerator, and popped it into the microwave. Luke pulled the form from the counselor out of his pocket and straightened it out to read. It was a pre-printed form.
This is to state that the [minor] Dean Forester, has discontinued therapy against professional advice and without his counselor’s consent. The Hartford Counseling Center therefore has no responsibility for his continued mental and emotional health. You, the [legal guardian] absolve us of all legal obligations should the patient harm him or her self, harm others, discontinue medication, become despondent, neurotic, psychotic, need to be sedated, hospitalized or jailed.
The patient has been receiving therapy from Mercedes Moore, M.A. for a period of thirteen weeks.
The patient has been receiving [grief counseling].
The patient’s condition at the time of termination of his or her counseling is depressed with unexpressed rage at the loss of his family and home, overwhelming feelings of guilt, worthlessness, fear, a feeling that the world is unsafe and unfair. Intense internal emotional pain and anxiety. Denial of the grieving process. Obsessively concerned with maintaining full involvement in all activities pursued before the loss, doing everything ‘right’ and not being a burden. Maintaining false front of hypermaturity.
Luke turned the paper over.
Counselor comments: Dean has experienced a type of loss few people ever have to endure. The deaths of his parents and younger sister in a fire which also destroyed his home and all of his personal and familial belongings has left him devastated and lost with no emotional anchor or support. The fact that his immediate family had recently moved to a new town with no surrounding relatives or family friends only serves to compound his feelings of abandonment and desolation. The overwhelming power of these feelings, especially in a seventeen year old boy in the natural process of separating himself from his family, asserting his independence and forging his own identity, have caused him to simply shut down. He is numb to the effect of his own grief, and compensates by acting as if he has already processed, accepted and recovered from his bereavement. Meanwhile his unexpressed feelings are turned from sadness to rage, which is easier to deal with, but must remain internalized for the sake of appearing normal to the outside world. Dean does not have the tools, experience or maturity to resolve his feelings in a healthy way without therapy.
Counselor Prognosis: If Dean discontinues counseling at this time I feel he is highly likely to succumb to despair. I am most concerned about the extreme pressure he is subjecting himself to in order to deny and repress his feelings, maintain his academic, social and work responsibilities and behave as well as, if not better than, he did before the fire. He is at high risk for self-mutilation, addiction, and rage disorder.
I sensed Dean was very close to a breakthrough in therapy, the first step in acknowledging his pain and beginning the grieving process in earnest. This made him very defensive and uncomfortable, which is why I believe he wants to discontinue therapy at this time.
I can only express my opinion that this is the worst possible action regarding his recovery and future emotional health.
I Luke Danes, [legal guardian] of the [minor] patient Dean Forester, have read and understood this form and agree to its terms. I give my permission for the patient to terminate therapy.
X______________________________________
Now Luke was sorry he’d promised Dean he’d sign. He should have known better than to do that without reading the paper first. Should he break his promise or would that do more harm than good?
Luke was so absorbed in the form he didn’t notice Dean finishing his dinner, washing his own and Luke’s dishes, putting them away, and calling his name twice.
“Luke!”
“Huh?! What?” he responded, startled.
“I’m gonna call Rory, okay?”
“Yeah, sure go ahead, I won’t need the phone for three or four hours.”
“Cool,” Dean grinned. He grabbed the phone and headed toward his room.
“Why do you have to take the phone into your room?” Luke stopped him.
“So when we start making kissing noises at each other you won’t have to run to the bathroom and throw up?”
“You and Rory don’t do that!”
“Not during our usual daytime, ‘I miss you, let’s confirm plans for the weekend’ conversations, but this is a nighttime, more romantic kinda thing.”
“Uh-huh. So how come I’ve never heard one of these before?”
“`Cause you usually work until ten.”
“I see, and when the sun goes down you completely lose any sense of dignity you ever may have had?”
“We even have humiliating babytalk nicknames! You nauseous yet?”
Luke shook his head in bewilderment. “You’re an embarrassment to men everywhere.”
“I’ve got a girl, I don’t need all the macho trappings.”
“Do you ever miss your pride?”
Dean held out his hands, weighing his decision. “Hmmm, pride? Rory? Pride? Rory? I’m good with my decision.”
“Make sure you close your door,” Luke growled.
Dean gave him a thumbs up and closed the door behind him.
Luke looked at the form, then at the bedroom door of the most mature, well-adjusted, self-confident kid he’d probably ever met, then back to the form. Apparently, this lady got her degree from a Draw Tippy ad! He signed the form and left it on the kitchen table for Dean to take with him the next day.
Three weeks later, he totally regretted it.
It was a normal Saturday in the diner, until Luke heard a continuous series of odd thumps from upstairs. The scene that met him in his apartment was so unexpected as to be bizarre. The kitchen table was covered with mail, Dean’s check book and pages of notebook paper. There were additional balls of crumpled paper littering the floor along with some broken pencils. Causing the noise was Dean’s fist repeatedly punching the wall as hard as he possibly could. The wall was spotted with . . . the realization brought Luke out of his shock.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing!”
“I can’t make this work!” *bam* “I Can’t Make This Work!” *Bam* “I CAN’T MAKE THIS WORK!!!” *BAM* *BAM* *BAM* Dean screamed at the wall.
Luke put an arm around Dean’s stomach and pulled him back. “DEAN! Stop it! Are you insane?” He got between Dean and the wall, took the boy by the shoulders and gave him a hard shake. “LOOK at me! DEAN! Calm down and look at me, now!”
Dean turned his death stare from the wall to Luke. It was scary-intense, his face was nearly purple and he was breathing like he’d just run a mile. “WHAT?”
“Sit down!” Luke pushed him down sideways into a kitchen chair, facing him and grabbed his hand. “My God, what is the matter with you? Look at what you’re doing!” he held Dean’s swollen and bloodied knuckles out to him.
“It doesn’t matter! Nothing matters!” Dean spit out.
“Dean, if you don’t start making sense in the next two seconds, I am gonna slap your face! Hear me?”
Dean huffed out a breath. He pulled his hand out of Luke’s grasp and turned to the table. He grabbed a bill and violently banged it down in front of Luke. “It’s this!”
“What is this?” Luke sat in a chair next to him. Before he could make heads or tails of the paper, Dean answered him.
“It’s the insurance for my bike, and Mom and Dad used to pay half and I’d pay half, and I know that probably sounds really spoiled, but we had this deal and I would watch Clara and make dinner, so it wasn’t like that. And now even if I don’t buy lunch, or Rory’s coffee, or take her out for the next month, and work every weekend, I still can’t pay it! And I still have to pay you back for all these clothes, and if I got a second job I’d probably flunk at least one class! And this is quarterly, so I have to come up with it all again in another three months! And there will be license renewal fees! And I can’t just never spend anything ever, because there are birthdays and Christmas and,” Dean stopped briefly and swallowed while tears filled his eyes. “I have to get rid of my bike!” He covered his face with his hands and he began to cry in earnest. “It’s all I have left and I have to get rid of it because I don’t know how to do this! I can’t do this! I’ve been trying and trying for two hours and nothing works and I -” he wiped his tears away angrily, “just can’t! And I don’t understand why this- I mean, I worked really hard for this bike! I did! And, and now, it’s all just for nothing! I have nothing! And it just - it just doesn’t seem fair! And I know, life’s not fair, but still, can’t something be fair sometimes? Because I keep trying and trying to pull everything together but every time I do, something else happens to just blow it all apart again!” He took a short breath, it seemed like the first one since he started speaking. “I don’t know what to do!”
“Dean,” it was probably the power or the magnitude of the emotions Dean was feeling that overwhelmed Luke and forced him to do what most would describe as a distinctly un-Lukelike thing. He stood and pulled Dean up into his arms and hugged him. “It’s okay, Dean, it’s all right.” He pulled back just enough to look the kid in the face. “What am I, invisible? You don’t have to do everything on your own. I’m here to help. Remember what I said about family?” He gave Dean a little shake. “Huh? Remember?”
Dean nodded.
“Good. Okay, now you are NOT gonna sell that bike! Got it?”
“But, I don’t-”
“GOT it, Dean?”
Dean bit his lip and nodded, “got it.”
“Attaboy,” Luke stepped back and took Dean by the elbow. “Now, lets get that hand cleaned up and see if you’ve broken anything.” He pulled him toward the bathroom. “Does it hurt?”
“It’s starting to, a little.”
“Yeah? Well that’ll probably get worse before it gets better.” He turned on the cold water to wash Dean’s bloody knuckles.
Dean hissed as the water hit his swollen skin.
“Sorry,” Luke said. He lathered soap in his hand, and used it to clean the wounds. “Can I ask what you were thinking, doing this to yourself?”
“I don’t know. Just frustration, I guess,” Dean’s voice was tight with pain. He was feeling it now.
“I get frustrated when a customer orders a turkey on wheat, then tells me after I’ve made it that they don’t want mayo. But I don’t smash my hand into a wall.”
Dean just shrugged. “I was upset.”
“This is gonna sting,” Luke poured peroxide over Dean’s hand. Dean grimaced and held his breath until the burn subsided. Luke patted his hand dry with a towel. “Doesn’t this seem a little extreme to you? Sit.”
Dean sat on the closed lid of the toilet. “I guess. I wasn’t really thinking. It kinda felt good at first.”
“Before you busted open your knuckles you mean? Can you wiggle your fingers?”
Dean wiggled them as much as the swelling would allow. “No, after that. Pretty much until you stopped me. I mean, it hurt, but the pain felt good. I know that’s weird.”
“Very weird. Does anything feel broken?”
Dean shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
Luke took gauze and steri-pads out of his medicine cabinet and began bandaging the hand. “We’ll put an ice pack on it and see what it looks like tomorrow. You know you don’t have to pay me back for the clothes.”
“I want to,” Dean answered.
“I don’t want you to.”
“I should.”
“Nope.”
“Luke, it’s a lot of clothes! They were expensive!”
“Did you pay your parents back when they bought you clothes?” Luke reached for the bandage tape.
“You don’t have to go that far with this family thing.”
“I’ll decide how far I want to go with this family thing.”
Dean shifted uncomfortably. But it wasn't physical discomfort. “I’ll wash the wall when you’re done.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Luke finished bandaging the hand. He pulled a bottle of pain reliever out of the cabinet and filled a glass with water. “Take this, it’ll take the swelling down, probably make it feel better.”
Dean swallowed the pills. “You should get back to work. I guess you probably heard that downstairs, huh?”
“I just heard some pounding, couldn’t tell what it was.”
“Oh. . . . that’s good.”
“It’s pretty soundproof up here. Let’s get some ice on that.”
Back in the kitchen, Luke and Dean sat at the table while Luke wrapped ice cubes in dishcloths and packed then around Dean’s hand. Then he picked up the insurance bill.
“A Suzuki, huh?”
“Yeah, somebody wrecked it over in Woodbridge, and their insurance company just wanted to total it, so I got it really cheap.”
“And you’ve got it running?”
“Oh yeah, there wasn’t really that much wrong with it. Insurance companies give up on something so easy.”
“Well, that’s cheaper for them.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“You’ve got a helmet?”
“Of course!”
“Seems like they’re charging you an awful lot for a rebuilt ’86 Suzuki.”
“My dad said it’s because of my age, and that I’m a guy.”
“I’m not really sure you need all this coverage, either.”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll check into that later. Now, let’s see what we’re dealing with here,” he pulled the notebook Dean had been using over to his spot and checked the numbers. It was interesting to see how much Dean was earning a month and how much he had going out. “You pay 5 dollars a day for lunch at school?”
“Yeah, usually, I mean that’s an average.”
“Pure extortion,” Luke shook his head. “Does it taste as bad as when I was there?”
“Probably,” Dean chuckled. “If you stick with the ice cream and chips, you’re usually okay.”
Luke looked pointedly up at Dean, “You eat ice cream and chips for lunch everyday?”
Dean dropped the smile. “No,” he lied unconvincingly.
“Hmmm,” Luke said. He looked back down to the paper and added some figures of his own. “Okay, you had a deal with your parents before, I’m gonna make you a deal now.”
Dean sat back in his chair. “Okay,” he said, a bit dubiously.
“I will pay all of the insurance for your bike, for as long as you follow all of the safety rules, if you -” Luke ticked the points off on his fingers, “show me all of your bills from now on?”
Dean nodded, “okay.”
“Start taking your lunch to school?”
Dean rolled his eyes. “Fine.”
“And go back to therapy.”
Dean’s mouth fell open in shock. His eyes showed betrayal. “Luke, no!”
“Dean!”
“No!” Dean stood up, cradling his hand unconsciously. “God! You know I don’t want to do that! You signed the paper!”
“You hurt yourself, Dean. I can’t ignore that and I won’t allow it. You need some help, kid.”
“No, I don’t! I’m fine! Why are you doing this?”
“Dean, look at that wall!”
Dean deliberately looked the other way, his lips pressed tight over his clenched teeth.
Luke walked over to him and turned him to face the wall he’d punched until he’d marked it all over with his blood. “Dean, you look at that wall and tell me that’s not a cry for help. Tell me that shows you’re fine. Tell me that would have ever happened before the fire!”
“STOP IT!” Dean jerked away from Luke. “STOP!” The tears were falling again now, and his hand hurt. Dean went over to the closest flat surface, Luke’s bed, and curled up on his side.
Luke ran his hands through his hair, walked over to the sink and rinsed his face. Dean still hadn’t moved. Luke decided to give him some room. He went over to the couch and turned on the TV with sound very low. He paid no attention to it, though. All he could do was second guess himself. Did he go too far? Should he have made the deal about the bike insurance and brought up the counseling later? Was this tough love or was he just being cruel? Should he back down on it? Was this helping Dean or pushing him further over the edge? Should he call Lorelai? Should he call the counseling center? Should he just keep his big mouth shut for awhile?
Dean got up after about an hour and stood in front of the couch. “Luke?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I go to a different therapist?”
“Sure, if you want.”
Dean exhaled and held out his undamaged left hand. “Deal.”
Luke smiled, reaching out to shake Dean’s hand, using his left as well. “Deal.”
Dean sat on the arm of the couch, at Luke’s feet. They both pretended to watch TV for a while.
“So, Monday I’ll send the check and make an appointment with another grief counselor.”
“A guy this time, okay?”
“Sure, absolutely.”
After a few more minutes of silence, Dean surveyed the wall, the mess of papers on the floor, and his own hand. “I bet you’re kinda sorry you ended up with me sometimes, huh?” he laughed a little.
“Nope,” Luke gave Dean a warm smile. “Not once. But it’s okay if you are. ”
“Nah,” Dean smiled back. “I’m good.”
Gilmore Girls Fan Fic