39. Autoclave

As has become his habit, these days, Dean bolts awake at about three in the morning and cannot for the life of him fall back asleep. 

He’s alone in his bedroom. Breathing hard. On his knees, again. The realization makes him press the heels of his palms into his eyes for a moment, makes him have to hold back something close to a whine. 

Cas had been here last night, of course. They’d made Dean a little pallet on the floor, the alpha helping him fold blankets and pillows into it with no judgement whatsoever on his face. In fact, he’d seemed rather keen on making Dean as comfortable as possible, going so far as to bring more blankets from the linen cabinet to pile onto the meager collection Dean had started. 

He’d sat right there on the floor with him as Dean had slowly drifted off, his hand in Dean’s own. 

Apparently, even that wasn’t enough to keep the dreams at bay. 

The last week has been hard. He falls asleep just fine with Cas there, lulled by the smooth rumble of the story he’s reading that night and his soft scent. But, come two or three in the morning, when he’s alone in his room, he’s found himself curled on the floor with his knees planted on the carpet more times than he can count. 

Dean had hoped that returning to the ground would mean he wouldn’t have a nightmare, at least for tonight. Had hoped that his brain would let him rest, had hoped that his decision to give stupid friggin’ therapy a shot would soothe his head enough that he would be able to sleep normally. 

No dice. 

He’d like to go back to sleep, of course. He knows he should, especially with the ass kicking of a day he’s got ahead of him. But he already knows that he’s not going to be able to drift off again. 

Shaking and sweat drenched, he stumbles out of the twisted pile of sheets and blankets and limps toward the shower. His knee, as it does most mornings, complains to him about its rough impact with the ground. He rubs at it with a frown as the shower warms up, intentionally not thinking about how knobby and stupid his legs still look. He’s got more weight to gain. 

The warm water does a lot to push the last of the nightmare from his brain, but not all of it. There are still shards and pieces floating around, snippets of the horror that had once been his life. He’s fucking tired of it. Tired of being forced to think about Alastair when he’s got Cas. 

Dean’s no stranger to nightmares, of course. He’s had roughly a million of them. But they never used to be this vivid, never used to leave him shaking and sweating and choking on fear. Before, they’d be these formless, impressionist things – hidden faces, shadows, hands reaching out and touching him from the darkness. Now, though, they’re photorealistic, vivid recollections of very real situations he’s found himself in, mixed with new fears that are worse than any of those. 

When he closes his eyes, he can still see Cas sitting there, in the little room in Hell he’d been trapped in so often. 

His legs had been crossed, his elbows leaned casually on the arms of the same chair he sits in to read to Dean at night. The warmth in his eyes that Dean has come to know had been gone, and in its place had been nothing more than a faint veil of disgust. He’d watched impassively as Dean struggled against the ties holding him down, watched as alpha after alpha took what they wanted from him. His only response to Dean crying out for help had been to turn away.

Dean swallows thickly. Takes a deep, shaking breath, and hooks his thumb through his tags as the water soothes him. Now that he’s awake, and in his right mind, he knows better. Knows that Cas would never stand by and let something like that happen to anyone, let alone to Dean. 

He scrubs and scrubs until he’s sure that his fear scent is down the drain. He knows that Cas knows he’s been having these nightmares, now, but he sees no reason to make the alpha all stressed out when there’s nothing he can do about it anyway. 

By the time he’s clean and dressed and ready for the day, a grand total of half an hour has passed. He doesn’t want to go back into his room right now, wary of the lingering fear scent that will be there, and so he carefully picks his way down the stairs instead. 

Ignoring the fact that it’s hardly pushing four in the morning, he brews himself a pot of coffee just so he has something to occupy his hands. It only takes him three or four tries to go ahead and turn it on, only takes three or four firm mental reminders that he is not stealing, that Cas wants him to do things like this, and that he is not going to be beat for touching the property of his owner and acting like a free person. And his hands only shake a little when he pours himself a cup.

What a goddamn improvement. 

Dean knows it’s fucking pathetic. Can’t even make himself a pot of coffee without being afraid, after months of effort. The therapist is gonna be so impressed. 

He looks at the chair he’s supposed to be sitting in, and turns around with an angry huff.

Scowling down into the cup as he leans with his elbows on the counter, he taps the side of the mug gently. The warm liquid ripples every time he does so. Intentionally, he keeps his mind blank, pushing away thoughts of what today will bring every time they surface. And the minutes tick by. 

By the time he realizes that adding fuel to the fire of his already jangled nerves is a profoundly shitty idea, he’s already got four cups down the hatch and is working on a fifth. His hands are shaking when he comes back to himself – out of nervousness or caffeine overdose, he’s not sure. 

Outside, the wind blows, and a couple of leaves smack against the window above the sink. Dean jumps so far out of his skin that what’s left of his coffee splashes all over the counter. 

“Shit,” he mutters. He drops his cup into the sink with a huff and hunts down a towel, mopping up the mess and squeezing the dishrag out a few times. He rinses it out as best he can, draping it over the faucet, and hopes that Cas won’t mind the stain. 

Dean rubs at his eyes. Shifts back and forth, the weight on his knee still enough to make him wince. He glances back at a kitchen chair. Bites his lip. Checks the clock – it’s only five, and Cas won’t be up any time soon. 

He looks at the chair again. 

The wood creaks a little as he takes a seat. 

Even that small sound is enough to make him sweat. He grips the edge of the chair, closing his eyes, swallowing convulsively. Dean knows he’s got to look ridiculous, perched on the edge of the thing like it will dump him off and attack him the moment he lets his guard down. But his heart is racing. Racing. 

Just from sitting on a goddamn chair. 

Is he supposed to let Sam see him like this? Is he supposed to let Bobby? He doesn’t see how he can. Doesn’t see how cramming his way back into their lives will help them, doesn’t see how showing them just how broken and fucked up he is will do anything but hurt and disappoint them. 

And he doesn’t even want to think about John seeing him like this. 

He’s up and out of the chair before he can blink, stumbling away from it with his heart stuttering in his chest. It skitters back a few inches, nearly topples over, and he has to whip out his hand to grab it before it crashes down and wakes the dead. 

He’s shaking. Hard. Hard enough that when he pours a cup of coffee for his alpha, he spills it all over the goddamn counter, hard enough that he doesn’t even try to clean it up. He doesn’t know where his feet are taking him before he finds himself outside of Cas’s door, doesn’t know what he plans to do until he’s already knocking. 

Cas doesn’t take long at all to answer. He’s sleep mussed, hair sticking up in all directions, lines pressed into his face from his pillow. But he takes one look at Dean – his shoulders hunched, coffee held out in front of him like an offering – and understands. 

Slowly, he takes the cup. Dean lets it go, and doesn’t know what to do with his hands afterward, so he just stares at them. He’s not sure where Cas actually puts the coffee, but the next thing he knows the alpha is gently wrapping his arms around him and guiding his nose to his neck, his touch warm and sure. 

“You’re trembling,” Cas observes after a while, his voice sleep rough and slow. 

Dean opens his mouth to make a quip about how he’s just mainlined about a pot and a half of Castiel’s jet fuel, so it ain’t a surprise that he’s practically vibrating out of his skin, but the words don’t come. He just stands there. Breathes in sharp, short gulps of Cas’s musky, natural scent, wrinkling the alpha’s clothes as he clutches at him. 

Cas doesn’t push him to explain. He simply holds him, right in his own doorway, and rubs his hand up and down Dean’s back. Hooks his chin over Dean’s head and breathes slowly, his movements slow and sure. 

“It’s going to be alright, Dean.”

Dean’s breath hitches, and the fears he’s been shoving back down all morning rise to the surface like a flood, until he feels like he’s going to drown in them. “No it ain’t, Cas,” he whispers. “It ain’t. I’m – I’m gonna fuck everything up.”

“No, you won’t,” the alpha says calmly, his tone brooking no room for argument. 

Dean squeezes his eyes shut. “How do you know that?” he asks, because it sounds like Cas does know – he’s so sure of himself, so confident in the way he says it. 

“I know because you’re you,” he rumbles, the words vibrating against Dean. “And you don’t give up.”

Dean could laugh for hours at that. He doesn’t give up? What a crock of shit that is. Dean’s given up more times than he can fucking remember, at this point, has stopped even trying to fight a thousand little battles he told himself he’d never lose.  

He made himself so many promises, early on. Dean was going to escape years ago. He was going to fight tooth and nail against any alpha that ever dared to try and touch him. He was going to hold on to himself, keep his pride, keep his fucking dignity. Dean wasn’t ever going to beg. He wasn’t ever going to cry. 

“What a fucking joke,” he says, choking on the words as his voice breaks. 

Cas’s low warning growl is enough to make his legs go weak, as freaked out as he already is, and he nearly slips down to his knees right there in the hall. But Cas doesn’t let him – he holds him close, pressed tight against his chest, and Dean pushes his face into the crook of his neck so he can’t say anything else to piss him off. 

“You don’t. Give up.” Cas repeats, voice like iron. “Not where it counts. You are so much stronger than you give yourself credit for.”

Dean can’t agree, but he doesn’t want to disagree either. So he just stays quiet, shaking like a goddamn leaf because he’s doped up on caffeine and he’s scared fucking shitless for reasons he doesn’t even understand. 

Eventually, Cas lets out a long, calming breath, the tension fading from his shoulders. He holds Dean back by his shoulders, looking at him appraisingly.  “Have you eaten?”

Dean shakes his head, his voice still caught in a mousetrap somewhere in his brain. 

“Come on.”

Numbly, he lets Cas guide him into the kitchen, his hand caught in the alpha’s own. The man makes a beeline for the stove, probably intending to cook some eggs or something equally protein filled, and stops short. 

He’s looking at the coffee that Dean spilled on the counter. At the limp, stained rag dripping into the sink. 

For a moment, Dean is a little nervous. He shouldn’t have made a mess in the first place, and he definitely shouldn’t have left it for Cas to find. But Cas doesn’t say anything at all. He just stands there, staring at the little brown puddles with a strange look on his face.

“I’ll clean it up,” he offers, a little sheepish. “I just – I kinda freaked out.” 

Cas glances at him like he’d forgotten he was there, his face a little blank. And then something in his expression cracks. 

He stares up at the ceiling. Takes a long, steadying breath, his hand still wrapped around Dean’s. 

“Do you remember your first night here?” he asks, something a little fragile in his voice. 

Dean cocks his head to the side. “Yeah. Of course I do.” It would be hard to forget, he thinks. 

“So you would remember, then, that I very foolishly offered you a cup of coffee.”

Dean blinks. “Foolishly?”

Cas nods, a small smile on his face. “Balthazar had quite a few things to say about it. What was going through your mind,” he asks, his eyes still a little distant, “when I put that cup in front of you?”

Dean swallows. He’s not sure what’s going on – not sure why Cas suddenly wants to revive ancient history like this. “I – I mean. I thought it was spiked. Drugged. I didn’t know you,” he adds, flushing a little. “I thought you were gonna – well, you know what I thought.”

Cas nods again. “And when you spilled it. What about then?”

Dean blanches. He doesn’t want to think about that. Doesn’t want to remember the pure, blinding terror, doesn’t want to think about how his grip on his sanity slipped. A lot of that night is a blur, a mess of exhaustion and fear, and digging into it makes him nauseous. 

Cas must sense some of that, because he turns back toward Dean. Takes his other hand. His eyes are soft. Understanding, but not pitying. 

“I thought you were gonna beat the shit outta me,” he blurts, and while Cas flinches, he doesn’t tell him to stop. So Dean doesn’t. “I thought – I thought I’d fucked up so bad, Cas. And, I mean, you remember. I wigged out. I don’t even – I don’t remember a lot of it, I was freaking out so bad.” 

“All for a drop of coffee,” Cas says slowly, “on the carpet.” He squeezes Dean’s hands, and looks back at the counter. 

The counter that’s absolutely covered in coffee. Coffee that Dean spilled. 

He laughs when he gets it. He can’t help but laugh, honestly. Because, really, it is funny, this weird little mirror that he’s found himself looking into, this coincidental reflection of his first night here. 

Dean made a mess, and instead of cleaning it up, instead of freaking out and scrubbing it away and leaving no trace at all, he left it there. And then, he sought out the very same alpha that he’d been sure, what feels like eons ago, would punish him for that kind of  transgression. 

Dean made a mess, and he left it there, and Cas is looking pleased as punch about it. He smiles at Dean’s laughter, the edges of his eyes crinkling in a way that makes Dean’s heart swoop in his chest. In a way that makes him want to close the distance between them and press a kiss to his lips – the first kiss that he has ever wanted to give anyone. But, honestly, he’s laughing too hard, and for so long that Cas begins chuckling too. 

“You are growing,” Cas says, when Dean finally stops giggling and wipes the tears out of his eyes, “and ever changing, Dean Winchester. And all the while, you are regaining parts and pieces of yourself that never should have been taken from you in the first place. Before you doubt yourself, and your remarkable ability to heal, remember how far you’ve already come. And then trust that you will go farther.” 

Dean feels like crying. 

Instead, he looks up at the alpha. Puts a hand over Cas’s heart, and holds it there. “Without you, none of that would’ve happened.” He takes a breath. “Hell. Without you, I’d probably be dead.” 

The sadness that pierces Cas’s scent does so with all the subtlety of a broadsword. His jaw stiffens, and he puts his own hand over Dean’s, holding it tightly. “I’m sorry it took me so long.”

And even though that doesn’t make sense – even though Dean knows Cas had no idea he even existed before Hell burned to the ground – he really does look devastated. And for a moment, Dean thinks about what he might be like if Cas had found him a year earlier. Two years. Five. Thinks about what he would be like if Cas had been his first ever master, if he’d never had to fight through all the pain and misery that his life had become. 

But that’s not reality. And Dean’s not interested in looking back and thinking about what-ifs and maybes. 

“I’m here now,” he says simply. And that’s enough. 

“Are you sure, Dean.” 

Dean slumps further into his seat. The road flicks past them, mostly empty this early on a weekday. They’re getting close enough to the center that Dean’s palms have started to sweat a little. 

“Yeah,” he says shortly, worrying at his sleeves. 

Cas had cooked him breakfast, after their little heart to heart. Still jittery with caffeine, Dean had inhaled it, and they’d talked about the appointment and how Dean wanted to approach it. To Cas’s surprise – and, honestly, to Dean’s as well – Dean had decided that he wanted to talk to Benny alone. From introductions to the appointment itself. He's not exactly sure why he's decided that that is important to him, but for some reason, it is.

Maybe it's just that he wants to prove Cas right.

Cas, for all his talk about Dean being strong or whatever, has not been taking that very well. He’s been so worried about it, in fact, that Dean had insisted that they leave wildly early just to give the alpha something constructive to do. 

“Because, if you change your mind–”

“I’m not going to change my mind,” he says, a little impatient. Closing his eyes, he takes a deep breath, tries to reel himself back in. “You don’t need to be there. I’m going to be fine.” 

He can feel the alpha looking at him. His nose wrinkles as Cas’s scent curls into worry. The alpha grips the steering wheel a little harder than he needs to. “I just don’t want you to feel like you need to do this alone.”

Irritation fading, Dean softens. He reaches out and tugs one of Cas’s hands off the wheel, holding it in his own instead. He can feel the tension bleed out of the alpha almost instantly. “I know I’m not alone, Cas.”

As they approach the gate, the alpha blows a long, tense breath out of his mouth. He’s not sure when their roles flipped around and Cas became more nervous about Dean’s therapy appointment than Dean himself. “Good. That’s – that’s good.”

By the time they make it through Meg’s interrogation, park, greet Bess, and finally arrive in Cas’s office, the insane amount of caffeine that Dean inhaled has worn off. The adrenaline of walking through the center and taking the elevator probably helped chase it out of his system, and while he can’t say he misses the hand tremors, the fog that settles on him the moment they walk through the door is less than appealing. 

He leans against the wall with a sigh, closing his eyes. This day has already wiped him out, and he hasn’t even had his appointment yet. 

“Are you crashing?”

He opens his eyes. Cas is looking at him from his desk with one eyebrow raised, a pile of papers already in his hand. “You could nap on the couch.”

Dean glances at the offending piece of furniture, even more exhaustion seeping into him at the thought. It looks comfortable, but…

“Or – if you prefer,” Cas adds, a little too casual, “we could both nap on the couch.” 

Surprised, Dean raises his own eyebrow at Cas’s slightly red face. “If you wanna cuddle, just say so,” he teases with a grin, and Cas flushes harder. 

“I’m... a little unsettled,” he admits, shuffling the stack of papers and refusing to look up at Dean. "I am aware that you can handle yourself, but I... I am worried. Perhaps more than I should be." 

Dean’s smile fades. Cas smells embarrassed, and Dean hates that. He’s gotten so much comfort from the alpha, and he doesn’t want Cas to feel any sort of shame about asking for the same. 

“Come on, then,” he says, and Cas only hesitates a little before abandoning his paperwork to join him. 

It doesn’t take Dean long to get comfortable. He kicks off his boots, curls up on the cushions like a cat. Cas, in his silent, caring way, drops the blanket from the back of the couch over him. His arm settles easily over Dean’s ribs when he puts his head in the alpha’s lap, fingers intertwined against Dean’s chest. 

Dean takes a breath. Closes his eyes, and settles into the warmth of the alpha underneath him. He can feel Cas slowly relaxing, can feel the tension bleed from him as he takes in Dean’s intentionally calm, content scent. He'd like to reach up to Cas's neck, would like to rub his own against the alpha's and scent him as Cas has done so many times. He doesn't, though, because the mere thought makes his heart pound a little harder.

“You sleep, too,” he insists instead, tapping Cas’s leg with his other hand. 

The alpha hums. “I will try,” he says honestly, and that’s good enough for Dean. 

He drifts off, and as comfortable as he is with the alpha by his side, he hopes that convincing Cas to let him do this by himself won’t turn out to be a mistake. 

Dean is beginning to think that convincing Cas to let him do this by himself was a mistake. 

The alpha had left him leaning on the wall outside of the beta’s office very reluctantly, his face twisted up with concern. It had been clear that leaving Dean here by himself was the last thing he’d wanted to do. 

It had also been clear, though, that there was another omega inside the office – the alternating low and high pitched murmurs told them that – and the last thing either of them had wanted was to freak out whoever was inside with the scent of an unfamiliar – and agitated – alpha. So, with a lingering squeeze of his hand, Cas had retreated back to his office and Dean’s been sitting against the wall by himself for a good fifteen minutes. 

He’s early, actually. The appointment is not until three, but Dean hadn’t wanted to wait in Cas’s office for long after he’d woken up. So, it’s barely pushing a quarter past two, and he’s got forty-five minutes to try and develop a game plan for how he’s going to get through this. 

Except, not a minute later, the door to the beta’s office slams open. 

Dean flinches back dramatically, only just holding back the urge to bolt, but the person that stomps out of the office isn’t Benny. Instead, it’s Claire, the blonde kid he’d seen the first time he’d visited the center. She barely spares him a glare as she flings herself down the hall, but it’s enough to tell that her eyes are red and wet with tears. 

He opens his mouth to ask if she’s okay, but she’s around the corner before he gets the chance. 

“Well, that went well.” 

The words are quiet, sighed out under the man’s breath, and Dean doesn’t think he was meant to hear them because when the therapist peeks his head around the corner to look for Claire, he seems startled to see Dean sitting there. 

“Oh! You must be Dean,” he says. “Is that right?”

Dean swallows. 

He has found himself, once again, unable to talk. Benny is exactly how Balthazar described him – a big, hulking beta, muscles sculpted even under his button up shirt, a neat beard on his face. If it wasn’t for his nose telling him different, Dean would have clocked him as an alpha from a mile away. 

Benny’s pinging every single one of his alarms and he’s fighting a losing battle to act normal despite it. 

Benny probably gets at least some of that from the expression on Dean’s face. He nods slowly. “If you’ll do me a favor and wait outside for a little longer? Obviously, I’m gonna be able to get you in earlier than expected,” he adds, frowning down the hall in the direction that Claire had fled, “but I’d like to neutralize the air before you start.” 

Dean only half listens to the man’s words, still not able to reply. He’s too nervous to really understand them anyway, sweat trickling down his back, his hands in fists at his sides. He should have asked Cas to stay. 

Right now, it doesn’t matter that Cas and Balthazar have both vouched for this man. Doesn’t matter that he knows Cas has his best interests in mind. And while Benny is not an alpha, he sure looks like one – more so than Cas, even. A large reach and broad shoulders are things that Dean has come to associate with pain and suffering and after this week’s parade of vivid fucking nightmares and flashbacks, he ain’t really in the right headspace for any of this shit. 

He’s kinda glad, now that he thinks about it, that Cas ain’t here to see or smell this, because he knows he’s acting pathetic. 

Benny notices. Of course he does. It doesn’t matter that he’s a beta and can’t smell Dean’s anxiety – Dean’s sweating bullets and can’t look Benny in his face besides, tracking his movements like a terrified rabbit out of the corner of his eye as he sits on the ground with a friggin chair right next to him. This is going so well. 

Frowning a little harder, the man’s voice softens. “Give me about five minutes, and then we’ll properly introduce ourselves.” 

Dean manages to nod, but that’s about it. The door shuts behind the beta with a soft click. 

He struggles to his feet as quickly as he’s able to, and resists the urge to pace. He can hear the man bumbling around in the room, can hear the hiss of the scent neutralizing spray and the spritz of disinfectant. 

Dean swallows down his fear. Reminds himself that Cas trusts this man, and that Cas would never leave him alone with someone he thought might hurt him. It helps him calm down right up until the therapist opens the door again. 

Somehow, he looks even bigger now that Dean’s standing up – his shoulders practically touch either side of the door frame. He takes an automatic step back, and the man’s eyes track the movement. 

“Would you like to come in?”

Dean would very much not like to come in, but he figures he ain’t got much choice. So, ignoring every instinct screaming at him not to put himself alone in a room with a man like this, he woodenly steps forward. 

Too spooked to look around much, he makes a beeline for the couch that he assumes is for patients. Benny doesn’t say anything as he takes a seat. As much as Dean would like to be on the floor, he’s not gonna do that in front of the fucking therapist. Even if the soft cushions under him make his skin crawl. 

He realizes, belatedly, that Benny has been talking. He’s going on about what the session will entail, talking about what Dean can expect. Dean hardly hears him – he’s too busy trying not to take off running. 

“Dean, I understand completely if you’re not comfortable with me,” Benny says bluntly, interrupting his own speech abruptly enough that it yanks Dean out of his thoughts. He snaps his head up to look at him – the therapist is several feet away, sitting down behind his desk. “We’ve got an omega therapist on call who you can talk to instead, if you’d like. She’s booked up for a while yet, but she can still…”

He trails off, his brow furrowing as he takes in Dean’s frozen rabbit posture, the way he probably looks like he’s about to break into a full tilt sprint to get away from him. His voice goes soft. “I’m not going to hurt you, Dean.” 

That’s all well and good and everything, and if Dean were in the right headspace he knows he’d believe it. And he tries, he tries to get his shit together, but his nerves are still obvious enough that after another few seconds of awkward silence, the man gets up to leave with a look on his face that Dean can only assume is pity. Probably to go get Cas to come and rescue him. 

And that stings enough that Dean blinks and mentally slaps himself and scowls at him. His fear, abruptly, twists into anger. Anger at himself for being so obviously weak, and anger at Benny for enabling him and allowing him to be. 

Bizarrely, the man smiles at his dirty look. He sits back down. 

“You can call me Benny, if you’d like,” he says easily, in a soft southern drawl. “Dr. Lafitte is a damn mouthful.” 

He can tell that the man is trying to ease the tension, but it isn’t working. Anxiety is crawling around inside him like a colony of ants, and he resists the urge to drop down to the rug again as the beta examines him for a solid few seconds in the quiet room. The anger in him is growing strong enough to outweigh his fear, but he knows that won’t last long. 

“I hope you aren’t going with the silent treatment,” the man finally says, tapping his pen on a clipboard. “I got a lot of patience.”

Dean’s lip twitches upward in the beginnings of a snarl. He doesn’t like the way this feels. Like he’s pinned under a microscope. Like he’s being studied. He crosses his arms over his chest and stares the beta down even though meeting his eyes makes something squirm in his gut. He feels like he’s proving something to them both by doing so.

Benny chuckles. “You look like you’d have trouble fighting your way out of a wet paper sack, kid. The stare-down probably isn’t the technique you want to go for.”

His teeth are fully bared before he can talk himself out of it, and he feels all the more feral and pathetic for it. 

Benny whistles low, completely relaxed. "There he is.” Other than that, he doesn’t seem affected by Dean’s little threat display at all. It’s not surprising that he isn’t intimidated – Dean hadn’t really expected that. He had expected the therapist to snarl back, to snap at him for his disrespect, and it’s sort of a jolt that he doesn’t. 

It clicks, then, that Benny had probably provoked him intentionally. He knows what he’s doing. The thought makes him feel small. 

“Anything you want to know about how this is going to go? Any questions about me?” he asks, his tone cheerful, and it’s at odds with Dean’s attitude but he doesn’t care. Can’t afford to care, because the fact that he’s pissed is the only thing keeping him from bolting right now. 

He crosses his arms and says, sullenly, “Thought you were the one that was supposed to do the talking.”

Benny raises his hands in triumph. “He speaks!” It doesn’t seem to concern him that the only thing Dean has said is disrespectful – on the contrary, he seems genuinely pleased.

Not one to be taken in so easily, Dean just scowls at him. Benny simply shrugs and continues. “But, you’re right. I do have a lot of questions for you, so I think it’s only fair you start with any concerns you might have about me.”

On some level, Dean knows he’s being fucking stupid. Knows there’s no point in snapping and snarling at a man who seems to genuinely want to help him. But anger is an emotion he’s familiar with, one he feels easily, and even though so much has been taken from him he still has this. So he can’t pull down the walls he’s erected, even though on some level he realizes that he needs to.

“I don’t have any questions,” Dean mutters, finally dropping his gaze. It isn’t true, but he doesn’t want to give in to the beta’s attempt at conversation. He’s doing this because Balthazar wants him to, because Cas wants him to, because he wants to be better for Sam and for Bobby. But he’s pretty damn sure he’s beyond fixing, no matter what Cas says. 

“Castiel tells me,” Benny says, like he’s reading his thoughts, “that you’ve made a considerable amount of progress in the relatively short time that you’ve been with him.” 

He scoffs, hoping he sounds more nonchalant than he actually is. “He lied to you, then.”

The therapist cocks his head to the side, a little smile on his face. “How so?”

Dean falters. He’d expected the man to argue with him, or at least to chastise him for speaking ill of his boss. He hadn’t expected to have to explain himself. “Well, I mean – what’s progress?” he demands, crossing his arms. “‘Cause it sure as hell don’t seem to me like I’ve made the kinds of strides he says I have.”

Benny raises his eyebrows, angles his face down so he can stare at Dean above his glasses. He holds up a hand and begins to count off on his fingers. “Well, partner, shall we name a few things?”

Dean shrugs angrily. Undeterred by his petulant attitude, the man puts up his thumb, then his pointer finger along with it. “One, you’re looking me in the eye, and two, you’re speaking your mind. Were those things that you would have done a few months ago?”

A little caught off guard, Dean loses his footing for a moment. He definitely hadn’t been this open with Dr. Barnes – he’d still been terrified out of his mind, sure that at any moment Castiel was going to… yeah. Still, reluctant to get drawn in, he shakes his head silently, leaning back into the couch like putting physical distance between him and the beta will keep Benny from seeing through him so clearly. 

Benny goes on. “Three,” he says, pointing his middle finger up along with the other two, cocking it like he’s firing a gun at the corner of the ceiling, “you’re actually planted on the furniture, which, trust me, is a more common issue than you might think.”

His scowl returns full force. “I’m crawling out of my skin up here,” he bites out. “How the hell is that progress?”

“You’re still up there, ain’t you?”

He can feel his jaw working. “I guess.” It doesn’t matter that he’s here, though. It’s clear that being up off the ground like a person is not something his body is able to handle, at least not without outside assistance. And even then he ends up on the floor half the time. He’s not going to pretend this is anything worth celebrating, not when it feels like he’s about to wet his pants just from being a foot off the ground. The blind panic he’d felt after trying to sit in a kitchen chair this morning still stings. 

Apparently oblivious to his inner monologue, Benny continues his list. “Four, you agreed to talk to me. In fact, just now, you overcame a considerable, gut-instinct fear to talk to me. That something old you would have done?”

Dean blinks. No, it isn’t. As a kid, Dean probably wouldn’t have talked to a therapist to save his own life – but even he can recognize that he’s damaged beyond his ability to cope now. And just a month or two ago, he would have refused for a different reason – terror, pure and simple. He can’t say it feels like a victory that he’s pissed enough to ignore his instincts, but… maybe it is.

Benny looks at him with raised eyebrows. “And that’s just the stuff that’s happening right now. We ain’t even gonna touch on the fact that you’ve been out in public and handled yourself with minimal issues, even though you probably shouldn’t have stepped foot off the property for another month at least. Definitely not gonna talk about the fact that you’re taking control back in your life physically, by organizing your environment, and mentally, by acknowledging and tackling your fears. And for God’s sake, we surely don’t want to bring up that you’re reaching out for necessary physical comfort and trusting the alpha giving it to you, despite you having about a thousand reasons not to.”

Dean can feel a flush start to creep along his face, each of Benny’s simple words like a physical blow. He hadn’t realized Cas had given the guy so much info, though he guesses he shouldn’t be surprised. 

He bites the inside of his cheek to stop himself from arguing, because the things Benny is saying are true. The thing is, he’d never thought of them as things he should be proud of; just as stuff he had to do. Do or die. And despite all the shit he’s been through, Dean can pretty confidently say that he doesn’t want to die. 

“Man, that stuff… that’s not me being some brave soul or something,” he bites out. “That’s just me trying to survive.”

The beta fixes him with a look, one that’s so intense that Dean has to struggle not to look away. “Trying to survive is one of the bravest things you can do in this fucked up world, Mr. Winchester.”

He blinks at the expletive, at the sound of his own last name, still so foreign to his ears. Benny’s tone softens. “But you’re frustrated, because you think you should be better than even that. Am I right?”

Jaw cocked, he looks away, not quite ready to admit it. It just doesn’t make sense to him. He’s safe here, and he knows it, believes it with both his heart and his brain now. Why can’t he act like it?

Benny seems to read his mind. “You’re thinking to yourself, ‘Well, I’m good here. Nothing bad is going to happen to me. So why am I still freaking out?’ Let me know if I’m on the right track.”

He doesn’t answer, but that very silence gives it away anyway. Benny shrugs. “Ain’t no shame in that, brother. Your brain’s moving faster than your body can keep up with, is all. You’re going to have to reprogram yourself, and that takes time.” He leans forward a little. “And patience, which I have a feeling is something you don’t have in abundance.”

Dean closes his eyes. “Never was good at waiting around,” he mutters, annoyed with himself for giving in and letting Benny see him. He knows that’s stupid, because this is literally the beta’s job, but he still feels far too exposed – and weak as hell for letting himself be.

“Well that’s good news, Dean, because there won’t be much waiting involved. This takes effort. It takes work.” 

He looks up.

“Work, I can do.”