Summary: Withdrawn after an assault, pediatrician Dean is visited by handsome therapist Sam, a man with two shocking secrets. AU Sam/Dean slash romance. Warning: implied Alastair/Dean noncon.

A/N: This one started life as a vaguely Mills & Boone original idea and then morphed into a slightly 'different' but still pretty fluffy romance.

Conjugal Glue (Part 1: The Pediatrician) by frostygossamer

"Tell me about your hubby, sweetie?" urged the cute guy in her bed.

Lisa chuckled. "Now why would you wanna know about that dipstick, Gabe? Jealous?"

"Sure I'm jealous, sweetie," Gabriel responded. "Curious too."

"Well, like me, he's on staff at Welby Memorial," she explained. "And he's one brilliant doctor. I'll give him that. Just not much of a human being, is all."

"Oh really?" her companion commented. "And you work together?"

"Sometimes," Lisa agreed. "We're colleagues. Can't fault him as a colleague. Patients love him, co-workers love him, everyone in the whole damn department loves him, right down to the lowliest janitor. He knows everyone's name. Has time for everyone. The only people can't stand him are management, and me of course."

Gabriel smirked. "I don't think you could hate anyone, sweetie," he commented.

"Guess not. Not like it's his fault completely. In fact it's kinda mine, in a way. Me and his old college roomie Ash, that is."

"And how would that be?" Gabriel asked, taking Lisa's feet into his lap to massage them. "Your fault how exactly?"

Lisa sighed. "You see Dean lost his parents kinda tragically."

"Oh, bad luck," he commented.

"Yeah, bad luck. His parents were a couple pretty famous people. The Winchesters, John and Mary? Heard of them?"

"Oh yeah. I've heard of them, sure. They wrote those great books on health for the layman. John was a military surgeon and Mary was a psychologist, right? A real vanquisher of the inner demon. I read one or two on long flights. Hey, but didn't they both die in some terrible accident?"

"Uh-huh, house fire," Lisa nodded. "Right in the middle of our final year at Med School. Dean was devastated. That's where his drop-out ex-roomie Ash came in with his bottomless supply of uppers and downers. He got Dean through his finals, true, but he was never the same guy after that."

"Shame," Gabriel remarked insincerely.

"Gabe, I don't think he's been sober in years," Lisa continued bitterly. "Any sorta personal problem and he takes refuge in a bottle or pills. Dean's health is all shot to hell. Our marriage is a train wreck."

She sighed sadly. "If we'd had kids, well, maybe that could have saved it. But Dean can't get me pregnant. Not like we haven't tried, but there's something screwy with his, you know, sperm. Still, it's not like Dean hasn't been practising on every available female in the hospital."

"So that's why you two split? He was unfaithful?"

"Diligently. Yeah, well, there was only so long I could ignore it. And only so long I could put up with coming second to his job."

Gabriel grinned. "Well, sweetie, you're always gonna come first with me," he whispered.

~0~

Dean's new apartment was a cold, bleak little box within ten minutes drive of the hospital. It wasn't like he couldn't have afforded something better, even on thirty per cent of their communal property. But why the hell bother? He wasn't going to be there too much of his time. He expected to be in the hospital most of every day. He never felt truly happy anyplace else.

"Lisa would have had something wise-ass to say about that," he thought.

It was a bummer divorcing Lisa, just the same. At first she had insisted it would be amicable. But that was before she found out she was pregnant. With some other guy's kid! Then she reckoned that she was gonna need every cent she could get her hands on and her lawyers had leaned on him big time. Not that he really begrudged her. He would have given her the baby too if he could have, and that was the real bummer.

"Jeez, what wouldn't I have given to be a dad?" he thought bitterly.

In his heart Dean felt empty and lost. He felt orphaned. He opened the fridge and took out a bottle of beer.

"Hi, old friend, least you and your buddies didn't desert me," he quipped sadly.

~0~

Next morning, despite nursing a slight hang-over, Dean turned up as usual at Welby Memorial hospital. He grinned at the small crumpled guy pushing a janitorial broom around the hospital foyer.

"Hi, Cas," he said. "How's it hanging?"

"I believe everything is suspended satisfactorily, Dean," the guy replied.

Dean shook his head affectionately. "Cas, you crease me up," he declared.

A fond smile played around the janitor's eyes. Dean patted him on the shoulder and carried on up to Pediatrics to greet his patients.

"Hello there, Claire. Scheduled for 10:30, huh? Feeling lucky?" he joked.

Teenager Claire, a heart patient with a schoolgirl crush on the handsome doctor, beamed at him brightly.

"You're in a good mood this morning, Dr. Winchester" she giggled.

"Always in a good mood, sweetheart," he replied cheerfully, faking his best sunny smile, as always.

A pretty new nurse accidentally bumped into him on his way to the cafeteria.

"Oh hi, Dr. Winchester. Isn't it a beautiful morning?" she said, fluttering her eyelashes.

"Baby, it's always a beautiful morning when you're around," he answered, trotting out a familiar line. "Call me Dean."

"I'm Carmen, Dean. Carmen Porter. I'm new," she said, smiling coyly.

"Not for much longer, Carmen," he replied, with a naughty wink.

~0~

While he was sitting in the cafeteria, not really enjoying a nasty cup of coffee and a slightly leaden donut, his boss, the acerbic Meg, appeared by his table and flopped down across from him with a sigh.

"Morning, Meg," he greeted her. "Sorry, no babies on the menu today."

"Don't you 'Morning' me, Winchester," Meg spat. "I've just spent two hours trying to account for YOUR expenses last month. Plus trying to talk the Chief Administrator outta firing your ass, after what you said to him at the budget meeting yesterday. Damn it, Dean, if you weren't such a hotshot pediatrician you would have been out on your pert behind long ago."

Dean chuckled mirthlessly. "You need me, Meg," he insisted. "It's down to me that the department's survival stats are so high. Don't you forget that."

Meg grimaced. "Just take your eye off of the ball for one second, Winchester," she threatened, "and goodbye. Remember that."

Dean grinned. He finished his coffee and abandoned his donut.

"Just as well I'm a workaholic, huh?" he replied, standing up.

He went back to work.

~0~

The rest of the week chugged along as usual. When Dean arrived for work early Friday morning there was a buzz in the air.

Dean pulled Meg aside. "What's the scuttlebutt, Meg?" he asked, suspicious.

Meg glanced up and down the corridor conspiratorially then assumed a wicked smirk.

"There's a federal prisoner coming in today for an assessment. The Head of Surgery will be performing the op. Apparently," and then she leaned in and lowered her voice, "the guy will only be referred to as 'Alastair', and he's a very, very, VERY dangerous psychopathic serial killer. He was one of America's Most Wanted, been on Death Row for years."

"Ooh," Dean responded in mock amazement. "Just as well he's not my case. Me, I would probably leave a scalpel in the scuzzbag or something."

"Don't even JOKE," Meg retorted.

~0~

Dean returned to the ward and was getting on with his everyday paperwork when there was a sudden commotion. A group of nurses, including Nurse Carmen, rushed into the room Dean was working in alone, faces flushed and eyes big with fright.

"He escaped!" Carmen screamed.

Dean looked confused for a moment.

"The psycho, Alastair, he got away from the Feds and he grabbed a gun! Oh my God, he's coming this way!" she yelped.

Dean jumped to his feet. "You girls get outta here through the window. I'll hold him off until you're safe. OK?"

Carmen nodded, and she and the other nurses began to climb out of the window onto the balcony below. Just as the last girl's foot disappeared, there was a growl from behind Dean. He spun around.

Alastair was well over six foot of seething fury toting a loaded pistol.

"Now, friend," Dean began, trying to instil calm. "There's no need for anyone to get hurt."

The monster laughed. "You think?" he retorted.

He advanced a couple steps toward Dean, who took a couple steps backward, keeping his desk between him and the giant. The tall guy grabbed the corner of the desk, hauled it out of the way, like it weighed nothing, and kept on coming.

Dean glanced around vainly for something to defend himself with.

"Look," he said firmly. "You're never gonna get outta this place in one piece. May as well give it up to the Feds right now."

"Oh sure," the guy chortled and, rushing at Dean, he pinned him up against the back wall of the office. "Sure I could. But that would be so... uninteresting."

The monster pressed his body up against Dean's and cackled viciously. Dean gasped and struggled against the fiend's strength. Holding him with one hand around the throat, Alastair ran his other down Dean's chest and belly then snatched painfully at his crotch.

Dean gasped, "Lemme go, douchebag!" right in his ear. Panic was rising in the good doctor's chest.

"Hey, Doc, you wanna party with me, huh?" Alastair growled, menacingly.

"Son of a bitch," Dean hissed defiantly. "You touch me and you die."

The giant just laughed and proceeded to beat the crap out of him. Dean was no match for a demented maniac. Soon he was bleeding, bruised and broken, crushed into a corner of the room with no escape.

Alastair began to unbutton his pants.

"Now for the fun part," he drawled, with an evil leer.

An awful realization sent a shiver down Dean's spine.

"Oh shit!" he gasped. "N-no."

TBC

A/N: And here we draw a veil over events. Poor Dean, loss, addiction, sterility, divorce and now a fate worse than death! More tomorrow.