Author's Notes: So, here's the thing. In addition "Bitter or Sweet," the only other fic I have on this site (you should check it out if you like Dean/Cas, decent OCs in my humble opinion, or stories that are pretty much guaranteed to turn into their own 'verse) and my original stuff, I'm also working on a Criminal Minds/SPN crossover that starts shortly after Cas turns up in the hospital at the end of season five, completely human. Without giving much away, the Criminal Minds gang shows up for an interview and after talking to him, they believe that Jimmy Novak is just suffering from dissociative identity disorder. While writing that first scene, the idea for this little AU one-shot was born.

In this fic, I imagine Dean to be about nineteen or twenty. I picture him more like a young Jensen than the young Dean from the episode "After School Special" – think first season Dean, but just a couple years younger, like Jake Gray in Devour, and you've got a visual. Jimmy/Cas is about sixteen or seventeen. The reason I made him so young is because it's important to the story that his dad has all the control over his treatment.

A quick comment about AUs: To me, an AU isn't a get-out-of-canon-free card, an excuse to do whatever you want with the characters. In this little thing here, I tried to weave as many elements from the show in as I possibly could, and tie everything together with parallels in the show to the best of my ability. Jimmy is the only character to whom I feel I didn't quite do justice, but… my assumption is that the canon Jimmy hasn't had the experiences of the Jimmy I wrote into this story. And if he has, he's had a lot of time to adjust.

SUMMARY: Institutionalized for over a year, paranoid schizophrenic Dean Winchester meets the new patient, whose split personality makes him equal parts Jimmy and Castiel. Dean wants both of them, but Sam warns him that Castiel may not always be around.

CONTAINS: Dean/Cas-Jimmy, mental illnesses – some of which are mentioned quite flippantly, but… it's Dean. His smartassery in no way reflects my views of these very real and serious disorders.

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:

Exit seraphim and Satan's men

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead

-"Mad Girl's Love Song," Sylvia Plath

Dean sat across from Dr. Ellen, leaning back across the sofa with his legs crossed and arms resting comfortably on the arm rests, a playful grin working about his mouth. He could tell that she was fighting amusement herself – he always cracked her up. He continued to half-smile, waiting for her to break first, and gave a mental cheer when she did.

"Okay, Dean," she said, "it looks like neither of us is going to budge on this. Can we just agree to disagree?"

"Sorry, Ellen, no can do."

"Oh yeah, smartass?" she asked amiably. "Why not?"

"Because you just can't compare Led Zeppelin to Creedence. I'm sorry. Apples and oranges, doc."

Dr. Ellen laughed. "Well, Dean, you've officially wasted another hour of our time together, but god help me if I don't look forward to our sessions, kiddo. Although I have my weekly consultation with Dr. Alistair today, and he's gonna kill me if I can't throw him a bone as far as your meds are concerned."

"Hey, he's my pill-pusher, he should be the one figuring it out," muttered Dean. "What happened to doctor-patient confidentiality?"

"Alive and kicking," replied Dr. Ellen. "He doesn't get details, I just relay changes in your mood, Dean. Just like I've been doing for the past year. Dr. Alistair doesn't learn anything specific unless you tell him yourself, you know that. You wanna tell me why you get jumpy every time I mention him?"

"Dude creeps me out," mumbled Dean. "That's all. The way he talks and, y'know, the way he looks at me, like he wants to try me out on all these different happy pills just to see how I react."

"Dean, you know that's not true. Your hallucinations have improved a lot since we started you on the Haldol, haven't they?"

"Yeah," Dean replied reluctantly. "I haven't seen a hellhound in weeks. I hear 'em barking, though."

"Give the meds another little while," said Ellen. "In the meantime, go to dinner, kiddo. See you tomorrow."

"Seeya, doc."

Dean stood up and left Ellen's office, heading down the long, bleak hallway to the day room. Dinner wasn't for about ten minutes, but Chuck usually hunkered down in their table by the window long before anyone else even thought about food, so Dean usually went straight there from Dr. Ellen's office. Poor bastard had probably been there for twenty minutes already.

"Dean!"

Dean turned around to see his kid brother jog up to him. Sam was housed in the pediatrics wing, one of the older kids there, but he always snuck into Dean's hall, whose patients were usually between the ages of eighteen and around thirty, to sneak in a conversation. Dean wrapped an affectionate arm around his shoulders.

"Hey, Sammy. Got used to the cold mashed potatoes yet?"

"No," Sam replied, wrinkling his nose. "And I never will. I still have no idea why they won't let me go home."

"Dude, you almost died in that fire. They just want to make sure you're okay."

"I am okay," sulked Sam, slapping on his bitchface. Dean rolled his eyes fondly.

"I'm sure, Sammy. You're about as okay as I am."

"Dude, I've never been as far gone as you."

The brothers shared a laugh as they continued to walk down the hallway, but the sound of footsteps – at least three sets – beyond the door separating the ward from the lobby made Dean pause, holding out an arm to keep Sam from advancing further. He didn't want the kid getting in trouble with the nurses.

"Get gone, Sam, I'll try and swing by later," he muttered out of the corner of his mouth. Sam got gone just as the double doors opened to admit two of the staff: Anna, who was all right, and Uriel, who would certainly have given him hell for sneaking out of pediatrics. Between them was a black-haired kid of about medium height, with piercing blue eyes in a face that surveyed his new surroundings quite calmly for someone who had just been thrown into the looney bin. He was dressed pretty damn well, wearing jeans that looked like they had been ironed (Who irons jeans? Dean thought) and a white polo shirt. A pristine white bandage had been wrapped around his right hand, reaching up almost his entire forearm, and Dean raised his eyebrows. So he was suicidal like Tessa, and this wasn't your run of the mill depressed kid who wanted to live just as much as he wanted to die, fucking around with a kitchen knife. For the bandage to nearly reach his elbow, he must have seriously meant business.

"Don't you have somewhere to be, Dean?" asked Uriel coldly.

"As you were, Chuckles. I'm just going to the day room." Dean half-squinted at the kid. Anna was content to just stand beside him to make sure he didn't try to bolt or anything, but Uriel was holding the scrawny bicep of the injured arm, which, to Dean, shouted, douchebag! But the guy's expression didn't change. He just glanced around the hall, at the various doors, at the paintings, at Dean, taking everything in and processing it, but not really reacting to it.

"Go ahead," said Anna. "Castiel, why don't you go with Dean for now? You'll have dinner and then meet your primary therapist, sound good?"

"I suppose," said the kid. The sound of his voice surprised Dean – it was low and gruff, whereas he had expected… well, not that.

"Do you mind, Dean?"

"Anything for you, Anna," he said, grinning. She smiled in return and gave Castiel a gentle nudge in his direction.

"Good, because he's your new roommate. They'll be moving his stuff in during dinner."

"Oh yeah? Could be worse, I guess." Dean turned and kept on his course for the day room, Castiel now at his side. "So, we're roomies, huh? So what's your problem?"

Castiel tilted his head. "I beg your pardon?"

"Dude, seriously? You're in a mental hospital, so what's your problem?" When Castiel didn't reply, Dean pressed, "I'm gonna take a wild guess and say you tried to off yourself."

"What, this?" Castiel held up his bandaged arm. "This was not a suicide attempt."

"Then what the hell was it?"

"I've been told that I suffer from dissociative identity disorder," explained the new kid. "Or… Jimmy does."

"Oh, you're one of those people," said Dean. "I think I met someone like that when I first got here, only she was pregnant and kept screaming every night that her other personality was the baby's father. Her name was like, Julia or something… It was creepy, actually. But what do you believe?"

Castiel tilted his head again, like a confused puppy who took itself extremely seriously. It was pretty cute, for a guy – Dean generally preferred girls, and most of the time when he did find himself attracted to a guy, the one in question was pretty effeminate, but Castiel was not. He was just adorable. Even if he did have a roommate inside his own head. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you said you were told you have split personality, so what do you believe?"

Castiel glanced at Dean with his shocking blue eyes. "I don't feel at liberty to say. Jimmy will tell you if he feels comfortable."

"Okay." After about thirteen months in the Hotel California, Dean had learned that the best way to react when someone said something crazy was to just go with it. He pushed open the doors to the day room, leading Castiel inside. The lunch ladies, as everyone called them even though no one that Dean knew of was still in high school, were bustling around behind the counters, getting the food ready. "Yo, Chuck, we got a guest for dinner. Meet my new roommate. Think Tessa's going to mind?"

Chuck peered up from his marble composition book. Besides Sam, of course, he and Tessa were Dean's closest friends in the place. The only person he trusted completely was his brother, but Chuck and Tessa only set him mildly ill at ease on a good day, and he liked them. It totally figured that his closest friends would be a twenty-two-year-old full-blown alcoholic with social anxiety and a clinically depressed hot chick who collected the Death Tarot card from all the decks she could get her perpetually cold fingers on, but Dean wasn't complaining. He hated to admit it, even to himself, but in the outside world, no one was trustworthy. Doing something as simple as walking down the street to buy lunch felt like a race through enemy territory, especially if he was having what Dr. Ellen so tactfully dubbed an "off day" and the eyes of the other pedestrians sharing the sidewalk with him turned black and stared as he walked by. Sometimes, and it felt so real that Dean had trouble believing it was just his mind, they would do more than stare, and go after him. It was because of those damn things that he had so many assault charges stacked up against him. But that was outside, and here, it was… well, not better, but Dean had been in worse hospitals. The patients were allowed to wear their own clothes instead of hospital scrubs, they were allowed hardcover books and privacy in the bathroom and phone calls without being eavesdropped on and, best of all, there were no demons in here. Dean did get that creepy-crawly feeling from Alistair sometimes, but he only had to see the dick once a week, so he supposed that could have been worse. And as far as nutcases went, Chuck and Tessa were actually a lot of fun.

"No, I don't think she'll mind," said Chuck. "So, who, uh, who are you?"

"My name is Castiel."

"So, is this your first time in a mental hospital?"

"Yes," replied Castiel. Dean frowned.

"Really? So you just showed up recently? Or, wait, are you the original personality?"

That confused head-tilt again. Though, to be fair, Chuck looked just as confused.

"DID," Dean said by way of explanation to his friend, who had closed his composition book by now. "Okay, let me put it this way – if I looked at your birth certificate, what would it say?"

"Oh. James Novak. Jimmy was… here first, I suppose."

"So when'd you show up?"

Castiel was saved the trouble of replying – Dean was really going to have to annoy him if he wanted any answers, it seemed – by the doors opening once again. In came most of the people in the ward, Tessa included. She immediately made for their usual table and sat next to Chuck, across from Dean as usual, looking from Castiel to her friends.

"Hi," she said. "Who's this?"

"Castiel," said he. He looked like he was beginning to get sick of being the object of everyone's curiosity. "I am here because of a split personality."

Tessa blinked. "Oh. Okay. I wasn't going to ask, only assholes like Dean and Chuck ask."

"Hey!"

"Oh, shut up, you know it's true." Tessa folded her arms on the table. "If you wanted us to know, you'd tell us in your own time."

"Tessa's big on 'going with the flow,'" explained Dean.

"And Dean's big on being a huge narcissistic prick," she shot back.

"You're unusually sassy today, Tess. They up your meds or something?"

Tessa shook her head. "No, I'm just in a good mood."

"Wow, creepy."

"I know, right?"

Chuck uttered a small laugh. Castiel still looked incredibly deadpan, which wasn't really an issue in itself until Anna came into the room to supervise dinner, the unspoken signal for everyone to get up and fill their plates. He remained sitting while Dean, Tessa, and Chuck stood to grab their food. "Hey," said Dean, snapping his fingers in front of his face. "Cas. Wake up."

Castiel frowned at the nickname, but didn't react otherwise. "What?"

"Food, man. C'mon."

"I'm not hungry."

Dean cocked an eyebrow. "You're not hungry? Maybe you should go sit with Ruby, then."

"Why?" asked Castiel, immediately turning on the defensive.

"Because when she's not playing with knives, she's chowing down on French fries and puking them back up."

"No, that's… not… that's not why," clarified Castiel. "I do not need to eat. Jimmy does."

Dean was by now thoroughly intrigued as Tessa grabbed his elbow, telling him not to harass the new kid before he'd even been here so much as an hour, and led him and Chuck to the food line. Most of the cases here were fairly straightforward, and Dean was pretty damn good at reading people, so he knew when to push Chuck to speak up and when to encourage him to stay quiet, when to rib Tessa about her many suicide attempts and when not to, but with this new kid – or these new kids, Dean wasn't even sure of how to refer to him, or them – it was a whole other ballpark. He was interested.

And his friends could tell.

"You're not gonna turn your smarmy flirtation on him," Tessa warned as the three of them filed into line with trays – all so very high school.

"Why not?"

"Well, for one, there's two of him," she pointed out.

Dean grinned, reaching for a cheeseburger. "Yeah, I know. Built-in threesome."

"Dean…"

"C'mon, Tess, gimme a little credit," he said. "I'm not gonna fuck with the guy. Or… guys. Whatever. You're getting your disorders mixed up, paranoid schizophrenic does not equal sociopath."

"Hating on sociopaths?" came a voice from behind him. Dean groaned inwardly.

"Meg, you're looking just as heartless as ever," he said, turning towards the petite blonde.

"And you're looking just as jumpy and broken as ever," she replied casually, leaning to one side. "See any hellhounds lately?"

"Slit any throats lately?" shot back Dean, but at the mention of the hellhounds he shivered involuntarily. Tessa left her tray to Chuck (by now, all three of them knew pretty much by heart what the others ate for each meal, since there was never much variety on the menu) and insinuated herself between Dean and Meg, folding her heavily scarred arms.

"Enough, Meg."

"Does it bother you that you always hide behind Tessa?" Meg asked, completely ignoring her. "You talk so tough and don't deliver, Dean, it's pathetic."

"Enough, Meg," said a different voice. Anna stood behind her, looking stern. Meg grumbled something under her breath that Anna pretended not to hear, but backed off otherwise. Smiling kindly, Anna turned to Dean.

"You guys aren't going too hard on Castiel, are you?"

"He's safe with us," replied Dean, only half-mockingly.

"Good. He's really too young to be here, but they ran out of room in pediatrics."

"I thought he looked kinda young," said Tessa. "He's still in high school?"

"Yeah, so try and make him feel welcome, guys, won't you? Especially when Jimmy shows up."

Anna left the Big Three, as Dean was so fond of calling them, once they had promised up the kindness factor around Castiel-and-Jimmy and Meg had sullenly agreed to leave them alone. Trays stocked (Dean grabbed an extra plate of fries under Tessa's disapproving eyes), they went back to the table, where Castiel sat, straight as a statue, gazing ahead at nothing in particular. Dean slid the extra fries in front of him, earning a quizzical glance.

"I told you-"

"Maybe you don't need to eat, but Jimmy does," said Dean firmly. "I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you showed up to protect him, right?"

"How did you-"

"I'm a people person. So if you're protecting Jimmy, that includes feeding him. Take my word for it. I bet you're so shrimpy because you don't eat when you're at the wheel."

Castiel's brows met, but he surveyed the French fries with an evaluating eye. Chuck and Tessa exchanged a smile that Dean had come to recognize as their joint oh-yeah-this-is-why-we-hang-out-with-him smile. He appreciated it; he knew that despite Tessa's gentle scolding and Chuck's awkward, stuttering, hesitant reprimands, they thought he was freakin' awesome.

Despite Dean's thoughtful intervention, Castiel insisted that the fries were simply not appetizing and he had no idea why people ate, outside of simple survival. When the dinner hour was up, Uriel came to the table to show Castiel to his therapist's office, and the rest of them went back to their rooms for phone time. In other hospitals Dean had been stuck in, "phone hours" usually meant "standing in line for the pay phone to talk to one of five people you're allowed to call for fifteen minutes," but here, the phones were in the bedrooms and "phone hours" were just a formality, since you could technically use make a call any time you were in your room, so long as it was before ten o'clock. Dean had been institutionalized before, but since this time around it was long-term, Bobby had been kind enough to front the cash to put him in the Haven Center, a private facility, instead of sticking him in the state mental health system to rot. It was only because of Bobby that Dean was in a mental hospital instead of jail like his old man. He really owed Bobby a lot.

He came into his room and wondered who had put Castiel-and-Jimmy's things in it, because they just tossed on their bed helter-skelter. Dean would bet money it had been Uriel. Shrugging it off, he phoned Bobby, but the old man had gone somewhere and Dean left him a short message – I'm doing good, everything's fine, Sam's doing good, got a new roommate, call you tomorrow, hope you're well. That done, Dean settled on his own, unmade bed and read his battered copy of The Stand until Castiel came back from therapy, looking quite the opposite of content.

"Hey, Cas," said Dean, dog-earing his page (he had never been to the Lincoln Tunnel, but this particular scene always gave him the creeps). "Everything cool? Who's your shrink?"

"Dr. Alistair," replied Castiel. Dean winced.

"He's a jackass. And kind of a creep, the way he looks at you sometimes… what?" he added, noticing a look of what was almost desperation cross Castiel's face. It looked strange on his features, scribed clearly in his blue eyes.

"U-um…"

Dean did not have to be a therapist to realize that he was no longer speaking to Castiel.