Collection Of Destiel II

Poison and His Antidotes

"Have you told your husband about the feelings you had last session?" Dr. Keith asked softly as she mindlessly scribbled her pen against the clipboard perched on her lap.

Dean's eyes wondered around her office as he shuffled his feet nervously from where he sat and swallowed the lies he wished he could tell her. "I didn't."

"May I ask why not?"

"I'm paying you to." Dean sent her a smirk but her eyes never rose to meet his. Clearing this throat to pretend that joke never happened, he sat more upward in the chair and clasped his hands over his lap. "I was gonna. I had everything all planned on how to tell him... but it's so hard. I mean, I love him. I can't... I can't tell him that I..."

"That you don't feel as though you deserve to be with him?" Finally the therapist met his eyes with almost soft kindness. "Have those feelings changed in this past week?"

All he could was shrug, the answer seeming harder to get off his tongue than before. "Sometimes... other times I want to leave him because I know that he should have someone better. I want to pack my things so he can have a happier life. I know that the AA meetings are going well but... if I fucking crash the wagon again I will never be able to look in his eyes again."

"How long has it been since your last drink?"

There was no spit in his mouth to swallow. "Four years, seven months, and some odd days."

"How old is your daughter again?" This time the pen stopped scribbling and all attention was on Dean's anxious form.

"She's three and a half. And she's never smelt alcohol on me. I won't let her." Dean took in a deep breath and closed his eyes as his words started to pour from his lips. "They deserve so much more. Sometimes I can't fathom how perfect of a father and husband they need. They're both so perfect... so fucking wonderful that I know I can't be around them or I'll poison them."

"What makes you think-"

"Did I ever tell you about the first time I made Cas cry?" Dean's eyes started to burn from salty tears.

She shook her head with a frown slowly forming.

"Eleven months together. We were arguing about something fucking stupid and I called him an asshole... well more like screamed it in his face. I was shitfaced. I can remember his eyes... they were huge and watery and fuck everything it was the worst thing I'd ever seen. It was the last time I ever yelled at him. The last I ever swore at him. But I still drank after that. I'm fucking scum. I made a guy like that cry!" Gulping in a breath, Dean heaved his shoulders in a lame attempt to calm himself. "Every day I ask myself if today will be the day he realizes it. Realizes that there is someone out there who can make him happier, who will only ever make him laugh-"

"Dean." Dr. Keith's voice brought him back to Earth. "Breathe, okay?"

Taking in a few breaths, Dean nodded and opened his eyes to see her seemingly looking right into his head. "Doc, I'm sorry-"

"Don't apologize. I want to tell you something." This time it was her turn to take a deep breath. "The first time you ever mentioned your husband's name I saw the first and widest smile on your face. When you went on a rant about your daughter and showed me over fifty pictures of her on a blanket, I never saw so much light behind your eyes. Do you want my honest professional opinion?"

Dean was trying so hard to swallow the sobs that he could only nod.

"If you think that you're poison, have you ever considered your family as the antidote? In this metaphor it doesn't seem to me like you are harming them, but that they are healing you. You quit drinking when your husband got adoption papers. You learned how to French braid the day after holding your daughter in your arms for the first time. You love them so much you wish the best for them... and from what I've seen you are the best fit to those two people."

The session ended there, Dean too worked up trying to fight the sobs to continue.

ONE RIDE HOME LATER

"Sweetheart?" Dean's voice was raw from the crying he had done in the car the entire trip home. He knew his eyes were red and puffy and his cheeks were water logged but he didn't hesitate in finding the love of his life. "I'm home!"

"Shhhh!" Cas poked his head out from the kitchen with a lazy smile and a serious case of bedhead. "I just put Mary to bed. She has been a holy terror all day."

The younger man couldn't stop his heart from pounding at the simple scenario laid out in front of him. He thinks of what his therapist says, about him being the best fit, and realizes that maybe she is onto something. Dean watches his husband's eyes in the low lighting of a lamp and realizes that those eyes are his salvation, they are what he strives to look forward to in this life.

"Sorry, babe." Dean tiptoed carefully forward until he could wrap Cas in his arms and hug him tight enough to equal ten hugs. "I love you. You know that, right?"

"Yes, Dean." Cas chuckles before nuzzling his nose along the hairline on his husband's neck. "I love you, too."

Closing his eyes with the weight of the world in his arms, Dean still thinks he is poison... but he doesn't think he is harming his family. With a heavy sigh he brings himself to understand that the man in his arms and the girl under their roof is all he needs in life to become a better man.