Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/2628104.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Supernatural
  Relationship:
      Castiel/Dean_Winchester
  Character:
      Dean_Winchester, Castiel, Sam_Winchester, Missouri_Moseley, Gabriel_
      (Supernatural), Jo_Harvelle
  Additional Tags:
      Alpha/Beta/Omega_Dynamics, Omega_Dean_Winchester, Alpha_Castiel, Dubious
      Consent, Underage_Sex, Mpreg, AU, Non-Consensual_Spanking, Light_BDSM,
      Rape/Non-con_Elements, Bad_BDSM_Etiquette, Self-Harm, Collars, Basically
      BDSM, Drops_and_subspace, Angst_like_wow, seriously, Dean_isn't_treated
      well, Angst_with_a_Happy_Ending
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-11-16 Updated: 2015-09-11 Chapters: 9/? Words: 41366
****** Here I Am ******
by CaseMatthews
Summary
     Castiel's finally making his way home from what could possibly be the
     most boring Medical Conference he's ever had to live through when the
     scent of an unmated omega all but leaps into his path and demands his
     attention. So Castiel really can't be blamed when he follows the boy
     home and offers his own price for the little one, inadvertently
     adopting Dean's twelve year old brother for his efforts. Apparently
     mating with the feral little thing is almost more trouble than it's
     worth, except when it's not.
     Dean looks so pretty flushed and begging, it's practically
     impossible.
Notes
     Okay, fair warning right now, this fic isn't fluff and domestic
     bliss, okay? This is abuse and non-consensual, and Dean is miserable
     as sin for a fair damn chunk of this tale, so bear that in mind
     before committing. That being said, this fic is about working on
     mistakes (even HUGE ones like the whole mating fiasco) and I promise
     it ends with happiness and a fair amount of pay back. Also, Gabriel.
     WIP right now, and I'm also looking for a Beta, so if anyone could
     lend a helping hand on that level, I would be so damn grateful.
      
     EDIT:::
     Currently, and sadly, this fic is on hiatus. I'm in the process of
     editing it out and smoothing down jagged corners, so I apologise
     completely because it might take some time before I get on with it.
     Thanks to everyone for reading and for sticking with it even over the
     bumps and grinds, you guys rule.
See the end of the work for more notes
***** Found *****
Chapter Notes
     For sometimes spoiler-type warnings, please see end notes.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
 
Castiel runs out of gas.
Which is why he’s currently holed up in some back-board town in Kansas state;
why he’s holding back the roll of his eyes at some pimpled, virgin of a beta
behind the till of a gas-station; why he’s exasperated out of his wits; and
why, when the unmated, Greek god of an omega sneaks a trembling hand to a stray
tootsie roll on the shelf, Castiel distracts pimple-boy for enough time that
the boy can be on his merry way with nothing more than an interested smirk from
the alpha.
Pimple-boy notices anyway and the boy’s running—wide eyes (the brightest green
Castiel’s ever seen shining their way) shifting from gawping up at Castiel to
smirking gaudily at the till assistant—out through the door again and zipping
around the corner faster than either of them can register his bare-faced cheek.
It makes the corners of Castiel’s dried out lips (Missouri in summer, it’s
inevitable) tug into an impressed little grin. He inhales the air around him
and huffs it back out—pleased—when he finds the boy is most definitely unmated,
an omega, and the sweetest goddamn thing Castiel has ever been granted in his
entire life. Like fig leaves. A citrus-like edge though, because now the base
for the scent has high-tailed from the vicinity, Castiel can scent that
wonderful combination of lime and oranges—that tacky, unmated scent mushing it
up wonderfully. Unusual. Perfect.
It shouldn’t work, but by god, it does.
“Dumb fucking bitch,” the shop-assistant glares, eyes boring into the boy’s
invisible scent-trail, as though by staring at it would inspire the little
thing to come traipsing back in here with his hands held wrists together and
offer the stray tootsie roll in one perfect little hand. Castiel scowls
warningly at him (language) and slaps his card down on the table to earn back
the pimpled-one’s attention.
He smiles sheepishly at Castiel’s raised, unamused eyebrow, and scans his card
through. “Idiot,” he (Jackson, now Castiel has the incentive to look)
reiterates, as though Castiel isn’t glaring his blatant warning straight at
him, oblivious. “Been doing this for years, thinks I don’t know what he’s
playing at. Fucking Winchester’s, man. Next as dumb as the last, I’m telling
you. Just pure luck that this one ended as a hole, I guess. Not exactly hard to
trace his scent, you know?”
Mm. Definitely.
And as much as this moron’s been an utter insult to Castiel and this
‘Winchester hole’both, he can’t help but appreciate the knowledge Jackson’s
unwittingly given over.
So he smiles at the virgin and makes his leave, snatching his card back and
ensuring his smile isn’t a realistic one. Jackson looks utterly nonplussed by
the cold treatment, and he’s back to his car-magazine covered porn in seconds.
Looking at holes, Castiel would imagine. Disgusting insult it is.
Jackson’s right, however, and it takes Castiel barely twenty minutes to roll
his window down, scent along the roads and follow his omega-find straight back
to its freshly-stinking origin.
A small house—tucked neatly into your average, Kansas, suburban street—white
picket-fences all round and a neatly preened rose garden welcoming him when
Castiel steps from his rental car and makes his way to the scarlet red front
door.
He scents the air before knocking, inhaling the wonderful (strong here,
perfect) scent where he’s clearly been not five minutes ago, and relaxes into
the knowledge that the unmated omega is somewhere on the other side of that
door.
He knocks and waits patiently.
Bustling sounds from within with the distinct click of late-night television
being switched off, and some one—female—grumbles as they make their way to the
door.
A middle-aged woman answers, African-American, and for a second Castiel wonders
if he got the wrong house in first place. He dismisses that thought rather
rapidly when the fig-scent hits him full force for the second time (fresh now,
physical) and the curtain beside him on the front room window twitches and
gives way to one wide, too-green eye. He smiles, and the eye jolts back.
“Hello,” the woman greets, voice and betan scent twisted in tired curiosity.
“Can I help you with something, mister?”
Castiel turns his smile to her.
“Good evening,” he offers, hopefully looking sincere. And then suddenly…he’s
not entirely sure what he’s doing here. He just followed an unmated, slip of an
omega in his car by tracing his scent and here he is, stood on this doorstep
and looking little more than an utter weirdo and knot-head that can’t control
his needy hormones. Not that Castiel can blame them. The boy really does smell
fantastic. “I was at the gas station down the road,” he offers by way of petty
explanation. “A boy—”
“Dean!” she bellows suddenly, swinging the door open and storming back into the
house. Castiel follows hesitantly, and then with purpose when the scent of his
omega swarms him and echoes with a swaying strength. He follows the woman to a
wide entry-way filtering into a living room and stands there, awkwardly, until
Dean peers into view, a tuft of dark sandy hair making itself known over the
top of a red leather couch. His green eyed gaze flickers from the beta to
Castiel, widening with each shift and Castiel can’t help the dazed little smile
at such a childish gesture. He’s hiding behind a couch, for Christ’s sake.
“What did you do?” the woman shouts, gripping the scruff of his neck when she
gets close enough and hauling him into standing—the length of his denim clad
body slowly revealed; soft muscles beneath the fabric and splaying fingers
twitching as his body gives him up. Castiel’s alpha growls in the pit of his
stomach that this woman is touching him with such motherly familiarity (the
scent gives them swiftly away, let alone the hue of their skin) but he shoves a
stopper on the unhappy wolf and leans calmly against a wall.
A dark hand shoves itself into the boy’s back pocket and he yelps in the grip,
twisting ever so slightly beneath her, but reinstating himself with a
despondent keen when she tightens her fingers.
“You stealing again, boy?” she demands, revealing the stolen candy with an
angered, exasperated expression and holding it aloft like a captured string of
pearls. “How many goddamn times, Dean,” she mutters, and then with more volume
adds to Castiel, “He been bothering you, sir?” then to Dean, “You been
bothering this man? He’s an alpha, you get that,” hissed against his hair, “You
idiot.”
“He’s not been any trouble, I assure you,” Castiel sates, raising his palms in
compensation.
The woman smacks Dean’s backside (Castiel holds in the growl) hard enough for
him to jolt against the couch and for an echo of flesh on muting fabric to
enter the room, before animatedly returning to what Castiel will assume is her
seat. Dean glowers from beneath long lashes, before rubbing at himself and
sinking sulkily to her feet.
“Then what is it you want, mister?” she asks, now wary, but only just lowering
a hand to sate the petulant omega and thread fingers through his hair. He
forgives her quickly, apparently, because he’s mewling almost silently against
her black-clad shin in seconds.
Castiel sighs. Now isn’t that the question. “I think,” he starts, then thinks
better of it. “I’m interested in him. Dean, is it?” he asks.
The woman nods, eyes widened. Dean lowers his gaze in turn, but Castiel can see
the disbelieving glare light his features—the ruddy quality of a blush tilting
freckles into the light and Castiel revels in the bitty wave of discomfort he
exudes. Poor thing, so shy in the gaze of such an attention. He’s adorable, he
really is. Can’t be older than sixteen, bless him.
“You’re interested in him?” the woman asks.
Castiel shakes his head, clearing it, before perching on the blue couch
opposite them. “My names Dr Castiel Novak. I’m a cardiovascular surgeon in San
Diego, California. I can assure you, I have more than enough money to keep Dean
comfortably and pay any dowry price you see fit for him.” He smirks. “The
boy…interests me.”
The boy in question seems to take that to the extreme because he’s gawping
widely at Castiel from where he’s almost buried himself behind the lady’s leg,
clinging to the cheap fabric. He peers up at her with a desperately worried
frown, before narrowing his gaze back to Castiel.
Castiel can see him trembling, and isn’t that utterly precious?
“I…see,” she says, tentative. “My names Missouri. And yes, this…this is Dean.”
Her words are wispy, as though she’s barely paying attention, though her gaze
is rocket focused on a very clearly anxious Dean. Omega distress is echoing in
troves, and Castiel almost balks from it. If he were this boy’s mate or even
carer, he wouldn’t be paying attention either. So he offers Missouri her time.
It takes two minutes: Dean deflated somewhat when Missouri’s hand meets the
joint of his clavicle, nuzzling his nose against the ball of her knee and
vibrating his voice in a solid, nervous trill to offer proof of his discomfort.
Dean’s probably not even aware he’s doing it. The omega very greatly is.
Missouri’s better equipped at any rate, and she tugs him closer to her lap
until his whole top half is resting flat out against it. She strokes along his
spine and nudges the odd pressure point that makes him either relax minutely or
shuffle eagerly into her grip. Castiel will have to remember those, he’s sure.
He’ll need to calm his find.
“You want to buy him?” Missouri asks, and Dean huffs agitatedly at the
reminder.
“Yes.”
“Mmm,” she hums, noncommittally. Castiel knows it’s not a question of relenting
either—even if Dean himself doesn’t understand, Castiel would trust that
Missouri appreciates the boys biological need for an alpha. Considering the
state of the town, Castiel’s probably the best suitor he’s ever had.
“I’m sure he has other offers,” Castiel says, leaning closer. “And I’m sure
Dean wouldn’t enjoy being taken so far from his home, but I can take care of
him there. And I promise I will.”
Missouri’s expression darkens. “No one in this town is laying a damn finger on
him, I don’t care how much they offer.” She soothes Dean. “Better off with an
outsider, anyway.”
Dean huffs his discomfort at the notion, but he still doesn’t say anything.
Castiel wonders why exactly that is; he’s obviously not completely shy, he just
stole blatantly from a shop clerk.
“Anything you ask for, it’s yours,” he says.
“How’s fifty sound?”
Fifty thousand? Castiel glances down at the now utterly panicking boy and
smiles. Fifty sounds perfect.
“Sixty, and he’s handed to me entirely, no fees depending on offspring, no
contact I don’t allow. I won’t keep him prisoner, Missouri, but I am a
traditional alpha. If Dean belongs to me, he belongs to me.”
Naked in my bed with my collar and my scent marking up that tanned flesh,
Castiel thinks happily, scenting the air once again and reveling in the base
nudge it gives him. Plump with my pups and keeping for me.
Though now is not the time to get a knot.
Dean’s looking desperate now, focus whipping from Missouri to Castiel and back
again, crawling upright on his knees to peer eagerly up at her. She’s looking
sad but resilient, though, so he starts begging, keening through his words:
“Sam,” he says, heartbroken (wonderful voice though, perfect), “I can’t leave
Sammy, Mama, please don’t, please, I’ll…”
She’s apparently not offering the relent that Dean’s after, though, so he
huffily shifts his gaze to Castiel and starts again, “Sir,” he whispers, even
as his eyes narrow into a scowl. “I can’t leave my brother, okay? You don’t
understand, I can’t leave him now, he’ll never forgive me, Mama,” he turns back
to Missouri, “Not now, please. After last month, I can’t…I can’t leave him. I
won’t.”
The omega ordering won’t do, of course, but Castiel’s curiosity has gripped the
better of him. “What happened last month?” he asks.
Both sets of eyes stare over at him and, if it’s even possible, Dean’s pained
discomfort escalates and his face crumples unwillingly with an unhappy little
keen. Castiel should comfort him and he will. Just as soon as the boy is his
officially, he’ll knot him through his heat (it won’t be long now, Castiel can
almost taste it) and soothe words against his pink little ear.
“Blast from the past,” Missouri says, as though that explains anything. “The
boys had a little shock on Sam’s birthday…look, Mister Novak…I don’t think
it’ll do the boy well to leave his brother behind right now. As much as I want
him happy, I do, I don’t think splitting them’s gonna be a good way to go about
it.”
Castiel could order them, of course, take them to court. He could have his
omega in his bed (sobbing from a loss or not) within the next day, and he could
distract him with his heat and imminent pup’s anyway, he knows he could. But he
also knows the impact that would have on his little one. The shock that would
hit his fragile, needy system if he was forced to live without his brother
after apparently dealing so long being with him. Castiel can’t do that to him,
and he won’t. But he also will not leave Dean behind now that he has him, not
in a million years, so there’s only one thing to do.
“That’s fine. Sam can come with us.”
The look on Dean’s face is priceless and Castiel wonders if those lips would
widen enough to accommodate a knot. Probably. They can always work on it.
“Mr Novak, you don’t have to…”
“Nonsense,” Castiel says, waving Missouri off. “I want Dean happy, that’s all.
How old is Sam?”
“Twelve,” Missouri says, glancing towards the stairs as though if she wills it,
she can summon him. “Mr Novak, look, Sammy has school and friends here, he’s
real smart, I just don’t think…”
“I’ll help him with whatever he needs,” Castiel assures. “He’ll go to the best
schools in the city, he’ll make new friends and he’ll have his brother how he
should be.” Castiel shrugs. “He will go without want, because I will give them
both everything.”
No-one can argue with that. Except Dean apparently, he looks about ready
to—face ruddy with unspoken disagreements—but Missouri must have at least
offered the basic of training, because he doesn’t utter a peep.
Missouri sighs. “Dean, baby, go and fetch your brother, will you?” She turns to
Castiel, “I’m assuming you want them as soon as possible?”
“There’s a flight leaving before eleven, I would like to catch it.”
She nods gravely, glancing guiltily at Dean. “Go and pack, kiddo, tell your
brother.”
“Dean will not need anything with him,” Castiel intercepts, glancing where he’s
stalled by the stairs, wide eyed. “I will provide for you, Dean. As is
tradition, you will be entering my home with yourself and nothing else. I can
take care of you, omega.”
Dean looks like a chastised dog when he skulks out of sight upstairs, but
Castiel’s not worried. He will, after all, take very good care of his omega.
They return downstairs in under an hour—the sixty-thousand dollars cheque
signed and handed over; Dean carrying a suitcase that doesn’t appear to be his,
so Castiel doesn’t worry about a punishment—followed groggily by a smaller boy
(small, at least for his age) with a milky scent marred by the times of a pup,
which would explain the height. He hasn’t matured, but Castiel can already tell
he won’t be an omega. He’s too quick to meet his eyes.
“Hello,” Castiel offers, holding out a hand for the lad to take. He does, but
his eyes are on Dean.
“Hi.”
“I’m sure this must be confusing,” Castiel says, utterly unsure himself. “And
I’m sorry that this has turned up so late, but…” he sighs and glances at a
swollen faced Dean (Sam has wet patches on his shoulder, Castiel will remedy
going to his brother for comfort in the weeks to come). “You will want for
nothing, Sam. I will ensure both you and your brother are more than taken care
of. I’m sure Dean’s filled you in?”
Sam nods, shaggy hair ruffled into his eyes, and Dean nonchalantly pushes it
back. He doesn’t appear to have noticed his actions, and Castiel’s once again
appeased he didn’t split these two up. He has every right, but he’s not
heartless. Especially having met Sam, he couldn’t do such an evil thing to
either of them.
“Yeah,” he says slowly, before looking shortly, wearily over to Missouri. He
turns back to Castiel. “You won’t hurt him, right? You won’t hurt Dean.”
Castiel smiles. “Not without good reason.”
Sam nods.
The goodbyes are dry on the boy’s end—through sheer will alone, Castiel’s
sure—but Missouri’s sobbing all over them within the first hug. Castiel raises
a brow at her over Sam’s shoulder and she sobers up somewhat with a quick rub
to each boy’s head.
Dean’s trembling again by the time they get outside, and considering it’s the
middle of summer in Kansas, Castiel can safely assure it’s not from the cold.
It’s both exhilarating and gut wrenching to watch this little thing so
terrified over his fate when not even two hours ago he was smiling cockily
whilst stealing a candy bar. Castiel won’t have him cocky again, but he won’t
have him this despondent, either. The boy deserves more than that.
“Boys…” he starts, once Sam’s tucked in the back and Castiel has managed to
coax Dean beside him with suggestive noises and a very obvious hint in holding
the passenger door open for him. They’re on a main road and Castiel has opened
a window for the dark to offer something other than imposing alpha on them both
and to release himself with a very distressed omega. He wants to touch Dean. He
doesn’t really dare. “I know you won’t trust me for a while yet, it’s alright.
I know you will at some point. But for now I you need to understand that no
harm will come to either of you whilst you are at my home. Everything inside my
walls are for you to use—though I do insist you stay out of my study unless I
explicitly invite you in—but you aren’t prisoners. Dean, of course, will be
given an extra set of rules, but none will be cruel. They will be for your
benefit Dean, I promise. It’s okay.”
Dean shuffles closer to the door without responding, and Castiel turns off on
the roundabout.
“Can I ask you a question?” Sam chimes from the back about thirty minutes into
the drive.
“Anything you’d like.”
“Why am I here?”
Castiel eyes him in the rear-view and meets curious, narrowed hazel eyes
beneath a hem of soft chestnut hair. “It would have been cruel to separate you,
and considering how hard I’m sure this is on Dean anyway, I wasn’t willing to
hurt him even more. I’m sure you wouldn’t have been eager to watch him leave
with a strange alpha either?”
Sam shakes his head and the car falls silent again.
“What do you do…Cas?”
“Cas is fine. I’m a cardiovascular surgeon at the UC hospital in San Diego,
which is where I,” Castiel smiles, “we live.”
“Hearts, right?” Sam asks, leaning forward in his seat.
“Yes, hearts and the blood system,” to put it in extremely layman terms.
“Though I was a general surgeon for a few years before.”
“Why’d you change?”
Castiel shrugs and understands what Missouri meant about Sam being a ‘smart
kid’. He’s very inquisitive, that’s for sure. Castiel never really gave much
thought (in the two minutes he had to think on it) to bringing up a twelve year
old boy outside of feeding him, but if Sam really is a clever boy and Dean’s
really that good at caring for him, it shouldn’t be too much of a challenge.
Hopefully.
“Pay, mostly,” Castiel says, cringing. He understands how that makes him look.
“The opportunity arose for me to begin studying, and I took it. It’s a
difficult job, but I don’t regret it.”
“Yeah,” Sam hums. “So you’ll, uh, be going to work soon, huh?”
“Actually,” as luck would have it, the universe is working well today, “I am
returning home from a hospital conference in Missouri. After this I have two
weeks holiday, so I will be here for all of Dean’s heat and enough for you both
to settle in, and ensure you manage school alright.”
Dean flinches in his seat and hugs his legs towards himself, curling smaller.
Castiel smiles fleetingly at him, offering sympathy. He would offer his scent,
but he’s not trusting Dean enough that he won’t simply attack him and drive the
car from the road they’re currently driving.
“Oh,” Sam says in a dawning realization. “That’s why you were in Kansas then.
Just passing through?”
“Yes,” Castiel agrees. “I boarded a flight to Kansas international and I was on
my way to return the rental car for the flight. We missed the one I was going
to get, but I think it was full anyway.”
“Sorry,” Sam murmers.
“It’s alright, Sam. This way we’re more likely to get seats all together.”
Silence for ten more minutes and signs for Kansas International start appearing
along the roadside.
“Dean hates flying,” Sam says.
Dean scowls round at him and growls, baring his teeth. Castiel levels him with
a warning look before he snaps the aggression off and mewls huffily at him, but
Sam’s already leaning forward and poking his head through the middle of their
seats. “You are, though,” he insists, nudging at his grumpy brother. When Dean
ignores him, he edges closer and rests his nose against Dean’s elbow. “I was
just saying.”
“We can drive, if you’d prefer Dean?” Castiel offers, going slower now they’re
so close, just in case Dean really is against the aeroplane situation. “It will
take a lot longer—you might be in heat on the road, but…”
But the omega shakes his head glumly and pushes his brother off, offering them
both a hopeless, stubborn little glance, before glaring back through the
window. His emerald eyes trace a plane soaring above them, just taking off, and
he says loosely, “S’fine. Flying’s fine.”
It’s not, apparently. The second they make it through customs, Dean’s smelling
like Castiel’s just stolen him straight from his nest with the threat looming
of rape and murder. People stare and Dean looks about ready to pass out from
the unwanted attention and fear of what’s about to happen. When Castiel offers
his scent and tugs a twitching omega to his throat, it just makes it worse for
a few tough minutes, before Sam flicks him and Dean relents his comfort with a
keen, sinking into Castiel’s chest.
It feels unbearably good, having him so close, and Castiel wonders idly just
how close to his heat Dean really is. An alpha offering himself ignites heats
(Christ, especially the Mating Heat) like that, and if they don’t get Dean home
now, they’re all screwed. There’s enough alpha’s on the plane to make this a
real problem. Castiel would hate to bite Dean without the comfort of a heat and
his alpha’s knot.
Dean’s practically in Castiel’s lap by the time they take off, and their
departure and flight is filled with murmurs of ‘poor little thing’ and ‘Christ,
have you smelt him?’ and Castiel has never spent so long on a plane glaring at
strangers.
Too many flight attendants offer something or other to take Dean’s edge off,
but Castiel denies each and every one. He will not be mating anyone with Omega
Sedative pills in their system. He wants Dean even slightly aware of Castiel’s
knot, for god’s sake.
Dean curls Sam close when they walk to Castiel’s Lexus RX, and pulls pleading
green orbs on Castiel when he nods to climb beside him in the backseat. He
relents only because Dean still smells utterly wrecked.
Dean’s in heat, inevitably, by the time they pull up to Castiel’s drive. He’s
all but rutting himself against the leather seats about as subtly as he can
manage whilst holding in desperate pants and heavy keens, Castiel assumes
because he’s still curled beside his brother. He’s sure Dean wouldn’t enjoy
fingering himself open with Sam sat right there, even if his body’s torturing
him for it.
Castiel makes quick work of showing them his home. Actually, all he offers is
Sam to explore whilst he’s taking care of Dean upstairs, and he nods Sam to his
new bedroom far enough away that Dean’s screams won’t be heard.
The omega’s too far out of it to register his brothers departure outside of
glancing into Sam’s new room, and he’s leaning heavily against Castiel by the
time they make it to their own.
“There we go, omega, good boy,” Castiel supplies, soothing breathes into Dean’s
hair. The boy keens and rubs his ass against the meat of Castiel’s thigh where
he’s walking behind him—Castiel almost stops breathing when the slick melted
through Dean’s jeans rub against his own.
The boy’s undressed and trembling unsurely in the middle of Castiel’s bedroom
within seconds.
Castiel watches and wonders.
He’ll have to get a new bed. His current one—angled in the center of the room
with only the head against the wall—will never do at keeping his omega happy
and satiated. He’ll need curtains, at least, covering the whole of the bed;
Dean will need to scent mark the room once his own scent is back to normal.
Once he smells like Castiel’s and not some unmated little pup.
Oh god, his hole will be the perfect shade of pink, all glistening in the lamp
light and fresh…
Dean interrupts him with a saddened expression and a high-pitched whine.
Right. Back to the now.
Castiel strips his own clothes off to offer his omega a sense of composure and
animalistic instinct, and Dean rewards him by offering his own pale throat,
vibrating in a suggestive trill. Castiel grins at it from his meters away, and
motions for him to come closer, urging with his hands.
When Dean still looks unsure about it, shuffling on his delicate little feet,
Castiel concludes something, and moves towards the bathroom beside him,
beckoning Dean on.
He goes quickly.
Chapter End Notes
     WARNINGS:
     Dean is practically kidnapped, guys. Castiel takes him from his home
     kicking and screaming with the only consent being from his guardian,
     who he thought he could trust.
     Also, the start of his heat.
***** Mate *****
Chapter Notes
     For sometimes spoiler-type warnings, please see end notes.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
Dean’s surprisingly pliable once Castiel gets him in the water. Perfect, dozy
little noises keep making their way from his throat and erupt wetly against the
underside of Castiel’s clavicle, dampening him. He was right, by the way.
Dean’s mouth? Sensational. Miraculous. By god, it’s perfect.
“Good boy, hmm?” Castiel prompts lazily, the water heavy as it drops from his
questing arm, arching the sponge up to Dean’s god-like face. The boy bows into
it and emerald eyes flutter into hiding as he purrs his content. Castiel pushes
his hair back, and marvels at how docile the little thing is. Barely any work
at all, coaxing him into the bath, straddling Castiel’s lap and rutting into
the bend of thigh to hip. Of course, he displayed the expected roles of jolting
in surprise when Castiel reached a hand out for him; keening a startled little
noise when his knee slipped haphazardly on the bottom of the porcelain tub and
his nose collided sharply with Castiel’s shoulder but…he’s been the picture of
obedient omega once Castiel palmed a hand to his sternum. Once Dean’s nose made
its way (gently) to his newly appointed alpha’s throat. Yes, he was ideal after
that.
“Can…can we…” comes a wondrous, timid voice against Castiel’s chest, and those
giant peepers appear again to flit between one blue eye to the next. Castiel
smiles for him and urges his query to go on. “Empty.” He says instead, dropping
back to his alpha’s flesh, sucking in a sigh and breathing it out there, warm.
“Fill me?”
And how is any alpha supposed to deny their omega that?
“Since you asked so nicely,” Castiel supplies, somewhat cheekily to the poor,
desperate little thing (his hips are still undulating against Castiel’s own, he
probably doesn’t even know he’s doing it) seemingly latched like a barnacle to
him. Not that that bothers him, of course. It’s good to know his omega’s safe
and close and perfectly happy to be so.
A high pitched whine echoes the air when Castiel slithers two fingers to rest
against the leaking, flushed little pucker of a hole between his omega’s legs,
and a timid little cock juts up wantonly against his hipbone. Dean’s hands feel
as delicate as a baby birds wings when they attempt for a grip on Castiel’s
biceps, until one trails warmly down through the water the cling desperately to
Castiel’s hipbone. Nails dig into his flesh, and he moans back at the boy.
Castiel only rubs at it first; one hand resting on the smooth of flesh between
ribs and hip. Flush beneath the water, that magical slick dissipates before it
can proclaim any kind of footing at all, floating off, viscous, into the water.
That doesn’t stop Dean whining at him though. Doesn’t stop his pelvis rocking
back into Castiel’s fingers.
So, because he’s soft and Dean is irreplaceable, Castiel offers the boy one
finger and leaves it at that…well. Not quite ‘leaves it’. It’s pad ruts into
the softened channel just a little (holyfuck, so tight) pulsing gently in out,
in out, just so he can edge that little deeper every time and inch towards his
omega’s goal. Dean practically cheers him on in a serenade of chitters and
whines. High pitched keens bitten off into Castiel’s throat. Not literally of
course. The poor omega wouldn’t dare mark his brand new alpha so close off the
bat; not without an alpha mark on his own skin first. Lucky for him, the poor
thing won’t have to wait long. Castiel intends to reward him.
“Tell me, sweetheart,” Castiel murmurs into the heavy air. “Tell me how it
feels.”
Omegas are obedient little things, there’s absolutely no doubt about it. But
shove them into a heat (amatingheat) and obedience isn’t just a trait any
longer; it isn’t something they’ve been taught by a strict society to do. It’s
a need. A burning, aching need deep down within them—coiling promisingly right
where they need it most; the heat in their loins. And yes, alright, they do
grow an edge of timidness not all of them might feel outside of heat (they need
self-protection somewhere along the line)—but what a lot of alphas don’t
understand is that right now, omegas are designed to feel good. Every little
amp up from their already docile personality feels like peace on earth once
they’ve been submerged into a heat; every little command obeyed, every soft
touch their alpha awards. Christ, considering what they spend their week doing,
Castiel should think so, they get pleasure from it. Libido goes up, pain goes
down; sensation sky rockets. Obedience offers security. Dean’s lucky Castiel
knows that. And is more than willing to assist it as well as he’s able.
And just like example number one, Dean pants his reply like that to Castiel’s
neck, “Good, good,” he says, rutting both closer for friction against his pink-
stained cock and back for Castiel’s finger to enter deeper. “No-one’s…ever
touched me before,” he pants. Like that’s not blaringly obvious, but Castiel
rewards him with nudge to the prostate anyway. Dean keens in reply, his lips
curved in a crude smile against his clavicle where it’s slid. He nibbles
haltingly at the skin there. “Never ever felt so good, alpha. Warm and, and,
and soft.”
Poor thing. Castiel’s caught between hoping non-heat Dean forgets this
particular scenario, considering how humiliated he’ll inevitably be; and
remembering everything and blushing his annoyance out at Castiel, ruining his
beautiful face with a petty scowl.
“Safe, little pup?” Castiel asks.
Dean moves his lips upwards until he can nuzzle at the edge of Castiel’s own
and spread them in a dozy grin. Castiel smiles back. “Yeah. Feels real nice. C-
can we always feel like this? Don’t like feeling scared--makes me smell
all...weird, I think. S’what Sammy says, anyway. You feel real safe, Cas-
ti...Cas…”
Castiel presses a kiss to his cheek. “Cas is perfect, sweet-boy. And I’m glad,”
he adds a second finger and Dean thrashes in the water, “I can make you feel
good. I’m glad you feel safe. Would you like me to knot you Dean?”
Big green eyes blink up at him then, and Castiel’s entire left side feels bare
after such wonderful ministrations. Dean keeps staring widely at him though, as
if he’s surprised. As if Castiel wouldn’t knot him with all this slick in such
an abundance. “Yeah,” Dean says quickly. He grins sloppily again. “Please.”
“Yes,” Castiel soothes, smiling. He palms a hand down the side of his omegas
pure little face, pressing a quick peck to his lips before retrieving his
fingers (revelling quickly in the haughty whine Dean gives) and offering his
boy a hand in standing. “Maybe the bed is a little more comfortable, hmm?”
Dean, apparently, agrees. He stands quickly, waiting still slightly submerged
by the water for Castiel to follow his suit and reach for an oversized towel to
wrap around his trembling boy, rub it up and down his arms and nearly have an
aneurism from the obscene jut of his penis. He helps Dean from the tub before
drying himself quickly on his own towel.
(He’ll have to buy Dean-specific toiletries the next time he goes into town—he
could take the boys with him, once the heat has cleared and Dean smells like
his. Maybe some slick pads for his next heat so he doesn’t leak all over
everything if Castiel allows him downstairs. Toothbrush, omega specific soap.
Dean can choose whatever he’d like; so can Sam. Clothes. Books. Everything they
want, Castiel will give them.)
The little omega spreads himself nicely (if not just a little unpractised,
which is wonderful by Castiel) out on the duvet quickly enough; his skinny
limbs tripping from beneath him in a haste that obscenely reminds Castiel of a
very sexy, knot inducing Bambi. It makes Castiel imagine Dean pressing slim
fingers into his own hole (he can’t imagine Dean’s pride stretches far enough
for him to ask his ‘Mama Missouri’ for a fake knot) and watching omegas
spreading out for their alphas on glammed up beds and dungeons (Dean would look
wonderful tied up), lying in some perfect alternative to Dean’s surrender right
now. Yes, Castiel wants Dean to remember this. Maybe later he can help the
little thing to correct it.
Right now, though, Castiel sidles up behind him and trails a hand over one soft
curve of ass. Glistening right in the crevice with newly forming slick that
smells like…like heaven incarnated. That wonderful sweetness enough to drive
any alpha to their knees for the boy, and by god, he will be on his knees. Once
his bite has taken and Dean’s long softened on his knot, Castiel will bow to
his knees and lick his boy spotlessly clean and coax the next layer of slick to
form. He will do that.
“How did you learn this pose, little one?” Castiel asks carefully, pushing two
thumbs into the dip of his ass’ cheeks and spreading them slightly, offering
Dean’s pretty pink hole (Castiel knew it) up to the air. Dean flinches from the
chill, but moans anyway. Castiel watches his fingers dig into the comforter.
“Saw it sometimes,” he says quietly, voice quick. Castiel watches the blush (oh
fuck, his omega can get embarrassed even like this, on his hands and knees
ready to be fucked—how adorable is that?) creep from the dip of his spine all
the way to his neck and brighten his ears with it. He’d follow it with his
fingers, but they’re still occupied by Dean’s bubbling little hole. “On videos.
And, and practice it in heat.”
There it is again, that obedience. Sure, Deans utterly mortified right now, but
beyond that, right where the pleasure lies, his base omega is panting and
rutting at thin air. It’s Castiel’s duty to show that to him.
“Did you have a knot, Dean?” he asks, though he already knows the answer. The
boy clearly hasn’t had more than a few fingers up here in heat. Castiel’s
guessing it hurt too much for that.
Dean looks round at him sharply anyway, letting that posture dip just a little.
Castiel offers a hand beneath his chest to right it, but he keeps on staring.
“No,” he insists, once he’s back where he should be. His head falls between his
arms. “I’ve never had any...an alpha…sir.” Oh good god above, “No-one’s knotted
me.”
Castiel shushes him above an internal litany of horny sobs. “Hush, my beautiful
little thing. I know no alpha has touched you, it’s alright. I simply meant in
heat. When you were in heat, did Missouri get you a knot to help you through? A
plastic one.”
“Oh,” Dean mutters, his body evaporating from the tense set of his muscles.
“No. Never asked, I guess. Tried other stuff, but…hurt with too much...in
there.”
Castiel coos him as he presses a  swift kiss to the scrawny meat of his hip.
“Baby, I bet it did. A few fingers can’t have been enough for a wet heat
though, can it? You must have been bursting at the seams.”
Dean nods his head, self-deprecating and desperate. Castiel smiles at him. “We
can remedy that, can’t we, little bird? Climb up the bed for me, sweetheart, I
can give you what you need.”
Dean does, and Castiel wonders if obeying so instantly felt as good as the
books all say it does. Dean’s rolling his hips by the time Castiel crawls up
behind his perfect little backside, so he’ll guess it’s close enough. Maybe
later he can ask him.
“S’it gonna hurt, alpha?” Dean mewls beneath his breath. “Always hurt before.”
Castiel’s alpha spits at the thought of his little dove keening in desperation
on his own duvet, desperate for a deeper release but unable to achieve it from
pain of all things. He shouldn’t be in pain. Castiel won’t let him be.
“Initially, maybe,” Castiel says, lowering to press soft kisses to Dean’s
freckled back. Dean whines. “But I won’t let it for long, alright? I’ll make
you feel like heaven, sweetheart, I promise. Do you want me to use my fingers
first, Dean?”
Hopefully not. Omegas usually balk at the idea of fingers or false knots being
the things that break their virginity seal—at least outside of heat, of
course—much preferring the base pleasure of their alphas cock splitting the
way, then their knot sealing the deal. Their teeth signing it off.
“No,” Dean rumbles out. “Not right with fingers,” and Castiel’s alpha soars.
“Knot me?”
“Fuck, yes Dean,” Castiel growls, rearing up. His hips meet with Dean’s and his
cock slides along his boys dripping cleft. “We’ll go slow, alright?”
Dean nods.
Slow. Slow and calming for his delicate little bird, of course. So Castiel runs
his hand through the abundance of slick excreting from the pitiful little thing
before him, rubbing the quality of it through his fingers for a second, before
coating it over his cock and teasing the slit. Just because he can, really.
Because if something doesn’t offer him release any second, he’ll knot thin air
and what use will that be? None. Not for his desperate little dove.
Castiel does go slow, but by Dean’s pained whine, it doesn’t make much of a
difference. His hands are rooted as gently as they can be on his boy’s hips as
he guides his cock where it should be, massaging his thumbs into the rigid jut
of bone, before he nudges just the head, nothing more, to the opening. It’s
only when he pushes in, just that inch, just until the catch of his head pulls
on Dean’s sensitive rim, that Dean’s arms give out beneath him and he starts
whining. Castiel presses his thumbs to the pressure point at Dean’s tailbone,
which seems to sooth him just a little, until he starts moving again.
“Dean, little one, do you need me to stop?” he’s trembling the poor thing.
Castiel keeps his head inside (it won’t do to goback on their process), but
leans forward and whispers his words in Dean’s ear.
“No,” the boys says stubbornly. “No, no, do it, please.”
Castiel kisses the nape of his neck, a promise for when Castiel knots him.
“Tell me to stop, little bird. Ask me and I will.”
Dean nods.
As strategy goes, Castiel just tries to push in as far as Dean’s body will
allow him before pulling out a little and trying again. He gets through about
three solid thrusts before Dean’s air collapses from him and another keen
echoes into the air. He doesn’t stop, though. He trusts Dean (in this state now
more than ever) to let him know if the pain is bad enough for Castiel to stop
his ministrations of his new love. When he peers down, a spot of blood has
leaked onto the top of Castiel’s penis, but that’s not unexpected. So he lowers
one hand—the other still firmly on that pressure point, ensuring Dean stays
relaxed—and thumbs around his swollen opening, already darkening from that
precious pink. The poor thing moans again, but Castiel thinks it’s more a
consideration of what he’s feeling rather than full out pain. That’s a start,
isn’t it?
It takes another four or so thrusts before Dean starts to smell happy again,
beneath the cloud of tenseness and heat. Another two, and Castiel’s whole
length can be buried, right to the slowly knotting hilt, and Dean starts
mewling out happily, tiny chitters croaked into the air.
It’s not long after Dean starts whining for more that Castiel’s knot really
begins to form, starts catching against the rim and eliciting little hitches in
his boy’s breath. But when it starts to grow too big to just pump in and out,
that’s when Dean’s fuss really kicks up. And that’s exactly when Castiel
doesn’t need him to.
“Won’t…won’t go in, alpha, stop it,” he cries, voice rough with pain and
tears—still edged in pleasure though, which is what Castiel clings to. “Hurts!”
“Hush, Dean, shh, baby,” Castiel soothes, petting him down as he forces just
that little extra into the clamp that is now suddenly Dean’s body. “It’ll feel
good in just a second, calm down for me, little one.”
“No,” Dean sobs. His body must be aching with the refusal of submission and
trying to expel the knot, no matter how much he’s really craving it. “Please
stop it, please don’t…”
“Dean,” Castiel finally snaps. The boy goes limp beneath him. “The longer you
struggle, the longer it will hurt you. Now I have asked you to obey me, little
bird, and that is exactly what I expect you to do.” His hand is taut on the
back of his omega’s neck—he’s not entirely sure when it got there, somewhere
between getting irritated with the boys insistence and snapping at him—but it
seems to be working well enough. He, of course, smells aggravated by the
insistence (wild, wonderful little thing he is), but his limbs do soften some,
and his channel loosens just enough for Castiel to push entirely inside. Dean
doesn’t make a murmur but Castiel knows he wants to.
Castiel waits, reluctantly, for the boy to finally start pulling him inside,
rather than exclude him, for his channel to get with the program and assist
Castiel’s knot in orgasm they will both enjoy so long as he’s in properly. And
when Dean finally, finally ruts back into him, Castiel comes loud and long,
spilling his seed into the boy and plunging his teeth into the soft meat of his
neck. Dean howls, but then he’s coming too, and everything explodes tenfold.
The little dove sleeps, after that. Still knotted, he curls against Castiel’s
chest when he turns them and chatters his dreamy little breaths.
                                -*---[—Ω—]---*-
They move Dean into another spare room once the beta’s come in to fix up the
main bed. The little omega spends the vast majority of his first day in there
scenting at everything like a timid little pup, glaring daggers at Castiel
between mewling on his knot, and enjoying the hell out of his little brother.
Who barely leaves his big brother’s side unless he’s sleeping, fucking his
alpha or showering stubbornly without Castiel. Which won’t do, of course. Not
once his heat isn’t marring his judgement, Dean will not behave like he rules
the roost once Castiel has a right to hold precedence over a clearly thinking
young boy. The second he comes round to himself officially, Castiel’s forcing a
lesson or two to stick.
Sam, on the other hand, is perfectly amiable (much to Dean’s annoyance). He’ll
help Castiel in the kitchen, letting the alpha in on Dean’s favourite meals so
he can at least try to appease the impossible thing; and he’ll nod silently if
Castiel comes into their space having sensed Dean’s need again, leaving them to
it. As much as Dean seems to be appalled by his baby brothers ‘betraying’
actions, Castiel can’t help but be pleased by them.
Dean’s heat breaks on the exact same morning as Sam’s first day of school.
Castiel insists he stay in bed—maybe get himself accustomed to the main
bedroom, now that his scent is back to normal (and amplified with Castiel’s,
thank you) and he can mark it to his heart’s content—but he just shakes his
head sullenly and crawls into the front seat of the car, dressed in nothing but
Castiel’s jacket (at least he’s not stubborn enough to deny his latent heat-
need for that) and the now washed pair of jeans he arrived in. Maybe this
weekend they can all go into the city and pick out some more clothes? Dean
especially. Once Castiel lets him have that indulgence back again, of course.
Dean doesn’t walk with them to take Sam into the building—Castiel insists and
Dean doesn’t seem too bothered considering the way he’s curled so tightly into
himself—but he does kiss his brother on the cheek out the window.
Once Castiel gets back outside—sure Sam’s settled, of course—he’s half
expecting to find an empty car. But Dean’s still sat in there, fiddling idly
with the zipper on Castiel’s jacket, utterly ignoring his alpha the second he
re-enters the car; although he must sense he tension because he does glance
over just slightly when Castiel starts the engine, and his limbs do flex into
the windbreaker stubbornly. But Castiel’s waiting until they return home for
this punishment.
“Take off your clothes, Dean,” Castiel demands, the second Dean’s toe steps
past him over the threshold and the door’s locked behind them. He ushers Dean
into the living room. “Now.”
The boy looks utterly traumatised, jade eyes darting around like Sam might pop
up and make some excuse to save him from big bad, angry alpha.
“But I’m…” he says, voice taut. He hugs the jacket closer to him. “I’m not in
heat anymore and I’m…I’m sore,” as if that could stop Castiel anyway, if that’s
what this were about. Silly child he is. “I’m not doing anything with you.”
Castiel takes that ominous step closer, and Dean startles away, feet scampering
like a slightly less sexy Bambi. “I have no interest in your hole right now,
Dean. Take of your clothes. I won’t ask again.”
Emerald orbs widen in seeming understanding, and Dean manages to get his body
safely behind one of the couches, clinging to it, before Castiel can order
anything again. “You promised,” he whines, voice wet. “You told them you
wouldn’t hurt me.”
“No, Dean,” Castiel growls. He stays exactly where he is because Dean doesn’t
deserve Castiel’s attention to play ‘stalking’. Castiel isn’t playing a game
with him. “I promised I wouldn’t hurt you without good reason. You’ve been rude
to me, in my own house, Dean. I’ve been putting up with it during your heat. I
allowed you to come today because Sam was nervous about his first day and he
wanted his brother. And now, Dean, I’m fed up. Take. Off. Your. Clothes.”
Castiel can feel the hummingbird pulse of his own little bird’s heart from
here, his own perfect mate. But he will be punished now, otherwise he will
never learn.
“One,” Castiel counts. “Two.”
Dean bolts, which isn’t surprising. Legs it in the direction of the stairs, but
if he’s really naïve enough to think that the alpha wouldn’t catch him, then he
needs to read up on his biology. Alphas are predators. Their sixteen year old,
mated omegas are their prey. He barely makes it three leaps before Castiel’s
wrapped around him, yanking the frail frame of his omega to is chest, holding
him as still as the little thing will let him, all flailing limbs and reluctant
cries. He’s sobbing by the time Castiel’s unzipped his jacket.
“Get the hell off o’ me!” by the time Castiel moves onto his jeans. And the
second Castiel wrestles him down to lay across his lap on an armchair, he’s
sobbing unrelentingly against the leather arm and twisting about in his alpha’s
grip. “Please, please, please…” he heaves.
“Hush,” Castiel orders harshly. He wheedles his hand up to the boy’s clavicle,
where he saw Missouri palm to force the omega into calming, pressing against
the bone and relaxing somewhat when the boy does too. “I will not use rape as a
punishment, Dean, not ever. But I will punish you. Until Saturday, you will
kneel by my side, and you will be naked, do you understand me?”
“Fuck you…”
“Quiet. Any more obscenities and I will extend each one by a day, understood?”
Dean growls, and Castiel taps his bare backside smartly, inspiring a solid
yelp. “If you obey me, Dean, we won’t have a problem. For God’s sake, little
one, if you respect me, we won’t have a problem. But right now, you’re barely
welcome inside my house, omega. Now I’m not willing to be without my mate. Are
you?”
There’s a bitter pause there, before Dean groans out beneath him, voice mashed
by the leather chair, “No.”
Castiel smiles, only willing to do so because he knows the stubborn mule
stretched over his lap can’t see him and take control over that smile. Instead,
for Dean, he rubs over the mark he just struck, before slapping down another.
Dean cries out. “Wait, wait,” he pants, trying once more to twist in Castiel’s
grip. The alpha growls, but he barely relaxes back. “Just wait, please. Don’t
hit me. I’ll be better, okay? I’ll fucking obey you or whatever, just don’t hit
me, please. I’m sorry.”
Another ringing slap. Dean jerks forward and whines. “Please!”
“Relax, Dean,” Castiel insists, pushing the boy’s head down. He slaps again,
the other cheek, and Dean yips against it.
“How the hell,” slap, “can I relax when you’re,” slap, rub, “ow! Fucking doing
that, fuck,” slap, “please stop it!”
He’s crying after the seventh, and Castiel wonders whether it’s the pain
(unlikely, he wasn’t slapping him hard) or the humiliation; the shame of being
admonished by his own alpha after not even a week in his home. The latter,
Castiel presumes.
And he’s trembling by the tenth, but quiet. Curling into Castiel by the
twelfth, fighting through the slaps to burrow his face against his alpha’s
shirt and sob there, shivering to his heart’s content. Castiel stops then. Once
Dean’s given in his outrage for the time being (Castiel’s not ignorant enough
to believe it’s anything more than a temporary offer of pain release) he tucks
his little monster close again, and offers his throat for scenting. Dean
complies, of course, dampening his skin as he goes, face stained in tears. But
he doesn’t complain or say anything really.
And when Castiel goes and picks Sam up a few hours later, he leaves Dean to his
scent-marking in the main bedroom, curling his way into the sheets and leaving
behind the citrus and fig-leaf scent.
Which is good. The boy’s learning.
Chapter End Notes
     WARNINGS:
     serious dub/non-con warnings for Dean's heat. Somewhere in there is
     also full on non-con because Dean says explicitly 'NO'.
     non-consensual spanking as punishment.
***** Hatred *****
Chapter Notes
     For sometimes spoiler-type warnings, please see end notes.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
Dean Winchester once thought hatred was a concept he was vastly familiar with.
I thought he hated flying even more than he loved Sammy; he thought he hated
their Dad and Uncle Bobby for ditching out and abandoning them. He thought he
hated…a lot of things. Shitty town, crappy gender, no one giving two fucks
about them, but since then Dean has learned that he was wrong about all of that
stuff. Because hatred? That’s exactly what this is.
Trembling from fear in his new bed that reeks of alpha and him and this stupid
damn bite throbbing on his shoulder? That’s hatred. His ass, throbbing like it
is and burning and the shame lacing its way through his entire body? Hatred.
Some smarmy alpha dick who clearly thinks he can just…just buy his way through
life and not give two shits that some people don’t have money and some people
don’t want to be ruled be an alpha and not all goddamn omega bitches are
actually bitches or fucking sluts and that some people want free will just
because they don’t want spanking over said smarmy alpha dick’s laps just
‘cause…fuck, just ‘cause they don’t know the rules and what’s expected and
Dean—
Dean can’t live like that. He’s pretty sure, actually, that he can’t handle
this.
Society says he should. The world says that, yeah, actually, good little omegas
should be able to take petty little hits to the ass when they’re bad, and they
should be able to just know and obey without having to be asked and it should
all just be one big natural process, but who do they think makes up these
rules, huh? Fucking alphas. Dumb fucking alphas like this one who think they
understand omegas because when they fucking buy one, they already know the
rules and regulations and they know what their mates expect of them.
Yeah, well. Dad didn’t teach Dean. Uncle Bobby couldn’t stand when Dean sunk to
his knees like school told him to or when he made ‘weird whiny noises’ on the
rare occasions the man ever gave him praise—hell, neither of them could handle
Dean’s sickly sweet smell.
Mama was the only one who cared and listened. She was the only one who calmed
him when he panicked. She was the only one who made any kind of fuss (pointless
thought it always was) when the alphas at school touched him or taunted him and
threatened that Dean would enjoy them whether he liked it or not which didn’t
even make any sense—but Mama was the one who kicked up the fuss. She was the
one who pulled him out of the shitty damn school when the principal just
laughed in her face and she never even…suggested that the reason why was to
find Dean a mate and even though he considered that might be a possibility and
it made him have nosebleeds he was so terrified—she never did it. And Dean
relaxed. He convinced himself that she never would, that he was safe with her
and a dowry was just some far off threat he never had to worry about.
He was wrong. Society was right.
Alphas win again.
The thing is, though…Dean’s thought about having a mate since he first read
about what one was as some naïve little pup. He used to dream about them in
heat and get wet and mewl for a soothing touch and warm hands and wet lips
telling him he was wanted, finally.
No one ever hurt him in his dreams though. No one ever told him he had to obey
and he had to kneel by their side as some sort of contorted punishment. No one
took away his clothes.
But he shouldn’t be surprised, right? Ever since he presented people have
treated him like some wilting flower; trampling straight on top of him because
they couldn’t care less or offering to hold the weight he needs to carry
because they think he’s never going to be strong enough to hold it. Dean…Dean
could hold his brother though. Dean could always sleep in a bed that didn’t
have a canopy before and he could take his Dad’s drink away when he passed out
on the couch and he could take the broken arm he once got for those efforts. He
could take the unhappy betas for angering at his obedience and he could take
the strain it took to defy any instincts and build some up of his own. And Dean
could handle being passed around, unwanted, and he could soothe his baby
brother when he asked Dean if it was all his fault, and whether he could just
stop being so babyish.
Dean can handle things, okay?
He’s learnt.
He’s obeyed.
He’s…he’s been punished.
But this…this is permanence and permanence tastes bitter and painful and wrong
and not how Dean dreamt of it at all.
Permanence feels like warm hands that soothe him when he cries after making him
sob in the first place.
Permanence smells like mated and alpha and that vague familiar scent of…that
ocean or coastal something scented candle that Mama used to light in his room
after a bad heat or a nightmare or whenever he crawled to her room for warmth
and comfort.
Permanence feels like shit. And Dean hates it.
And you know, maybe the worst thing isn’t all of that; maybe it isn’t losing
the only person that ever seemed to really understand Dean and maybe it isn’t
this new threat that thinks this should all just be a piece of cake for him.
Maybe it’s just that Sammy doesn’t actually give a shit. Maybe…Christ, maybe
it’s that Sam talks to the alpha-threat like Dean’s not stood right there and
it could definitely be that he rolls his eyes at Cas-Casti-something when Dean
groaned at his next heat-wave and didn’t want to be fucked six ways from Sunday
again. Dean thinks it’s definitely to do with Sam. That Sam doesn’t care that
this is hurting him more than he thinks he could ever explain in words; that
Dean is more scared than he was when that alpha stripped him that one time and
Dean couldn’t stop crying for two weeks solid—or when Dad went mental and kept
yanking at Dean’s wrist and screaming at him and Dean had to spend the night in
hospital and wear a cast on his arm for six whole weeks.
Sam knows fear from him; he’s scented it and moaned about it on him, told him
it’s distracting and Dean needs to just forget about it. He’ll say that again
if Dean told him how bad this situation is. He’d say “Cas isn’t bad, Dean,”
again like yesterday and he’ll roll his eyes and palm at Dean’s hair. He’ll
just say “You need an alpha, Dean, you know you do,” the same way he did when
Dean came sobbing to him that night at Missouri’s and told him Mama was happy
to just sell him to some stranger.
And Dean doesn’t care that it felt like rightness when those teeth sank into
his flesh.
He just…he just doesn’t care.
So he stays on the bed when he hears the stupid expensive car (he misses the
Impala like no one would believe) pull up outside the bedroom window and Sam’s
gleeful little voice threading its way through the unobstructed glass. At least
that sounds good, right? Dean should be grateful—ecstatic—that Sammy’s okay
with all of this. And it sure sounds like he’s enjoying his new school after
the first day, and that’s great, isn’t it? Definitely. Dean just…isn’t feeling
himself right now.
“Dean!” the alpha’s voice echoes up the stairs and into the bedroom and Dean
flinches from its onslaught, but he doesn’t move. He shuffles in the soft grip
of the blankets beneath him and he nuzzles deeper into the down, but he doesn’t
run to the door, fly down the stairs and leap into his alpha’s arms like the
bastard expects him to, because that’s not Dean. That’s not the omega he paid
sixtythousanddollarsfor and maybe he should have thought about that before
splashing the cash. Asshole. Overcompensating for the size of his kno—well. Not
entirely true, because actually his knot is more than big enough, thank you
very much, but he’s overcompensating for something, that’s for sure. What with
his fancy-ass car and gigantic house and spending so much on a runt of an omega
like Dean. Dick. Deserves debt for taking such little care of his money when
other people like Mama (not anymore, she’s sixty grand up so at least Dean
could give her that and not Dad or Uncle Bobby) need it bad.
“Deeaaan!” Sam calls probably from right beside the alpha; voice impatient and
happy and that brings Dean’s attention up at least. Then again, if he’s stood
beside the life-ruiner, how much attention can Dean really afford to give
because they obviously want him downstairs and, really, there’s no way he—
“Dean, stop sulking and come down!” …oh. Right. Dean’s, uh…Dean’s overreacting.
Of course he is. “Cas says he’s gonna make tacos!”
Dean suddenly hates tacos with every fibre of his being and he fucking detests
Cas. But if Sam’s asking him…he should go downstairs. He shouldn’t really leave
Sam with that monster—he’s already wimped-out enough that he actually let the
man drive Sam without him there and he shouldn’t be leaving him under that
threat. Besides. Sam’s going to want to talk about his day and Castiel
shouldn’t be the one to hear it. Dean’s his brother. It’s his job.
Huh. Cas didn’t even ask Dean if he was still in school, did he? He just
assumed Dean would be his fulltime fuck-toy, didn’t he? Typical.
Dean’s so very fucking screwed.
“Dean,” and if Dean ever heard a damn warning, that would be one and he’s up
off the bed and scampering to the door before another threat can worm it’s way
into his bones and leave itself there to rot.
He doesn’t even consider his nakedness until Sam’s finally in his view and he’s
back and staring at him all wide-eyed, cheeks more than slightly blushed and he
averts his gaze. Which is dumb, ‘cause…they bathed together barely a week ago,
and now he’s weird with Dean’s bareness? Weird timing, Sammy…
“Dean,” he sighs, rolling his eyes again and pinning the wall behind Dean’s
head with a world-class bitch-face. “What did you do?”
…what did Dean do? What did Dean do? Dean didn’t do fucking anything—it’s this
bastard, this total asshole standing a few metres behind Sam that did something
and if Sammy were there when they…when they had their disagreement, he wouldn’t
be asking what Dean’s done, he’d be shouting at Castiel and stealing his phone
and hiding Dean in the bathroom and calling the police or at least Mama or Dad.
He’d understand that this guy is damn crazy and he’s making Dean walk around
naked. It’s…fucking barbaric!
And Dean doesn’t even care that he’s gaping at his little brother or that there
is no way that Castiel can’t see the way his bottom lip’s totally not trembling
and that he’s already been crying from the redness of his eyes. He doesn’t care
because…this isn’t Dean’s fault.
He doesn’t…fuck, he doesn’t understand.
He wants Mama.
He wants his home.
“Dean and I had a little discussion is all, didn’t we, little one?” Little one.
Dean’s not fucking little but he’s definitely flinching away when the ominous
alpha-ass takes one step too many towards him. He’s gonna hit him again, isn’t
he? “We came to an agreement and Dean clothe-less was a part of it. So far he’s
doing very well.”
Sam shoots him a glare and Dean can physically feel a fist ploughing straight
into his chest and he wants to tell Sammy and assure him that Dean didn’t…he
didn’t do anything! No one told him how he should act and Castiel never laid
down his rules, how the hell was Dean supposed to know?
He can’t. He can’t do this.
“Sam, would you take the bags into the kitchen for me? I would appreciate a
quick chat with your brother, if that’s alright.”
Nope. No, it’s not alright, fuck you—
“Sure,” Sam says. Fuck. He leaves the hallway after shooting Dean a second
warning glare and collects a few paper bags to take with him; disappearing
round the corner in too soon a second.
Dean doesn’t look up at the alpha. Doesn’t know if he’s actually allowed to,
but that’s barely the point. He doesn’t want to.
“Look at me, Dean,” the bastard says, and isn’t that just damn typical. Dean
doesn’t want to, he doesn’t want to—he does, though. Because Sam really doesn’t
need to see him bent over a chair and spanked, if only because it’s utterly
mortifying. Maybe because it kinda hurts him and pissing an alpha off is a bad
idea.
His eyes are just as blue as Dean thought they were and when Dean sucks in a
breath, he can scent the ocean and the coast from that damn candle. He’s a head
taller than Dean when he’s standing…fuck, this close and his hands are warm and
callused when they run a ‘soothing’ path up Dean’s biceps. Dean shivers and he
doesn’t care.
“Good boy,” he says quietly, and Dean could murder the rush of appeasement that
floods his chest, but he does ignore it well. He holds the alpha’s eyes because
he’s been asked to, but…it’s a lot harder than he expected. It’s almost aching.
“Are you cold, sweetheart?” he asks calmly.
Dean could say yes in a heartbeat, he knows he could. Maybe Castiel would give
him a blanket or something and at least that might offer some sort of barrier
between his flushed skin and prying eyes and he’s saying, “Yeah,” stubbornly
before he can remember that he really shouldn’t lie to a mate.
Azure eyes narrow and Dean winces again, flinching from the sudden grip on his
arms. “Are you, Dean?” he asks again and Dean wonders if there’s a possibility
of him throwing up, before deciding that, yes, actually, he very well might.
So he shakes his head in appeasement and tries to slow his throbbing heart as
it jackrabbits in his chest, stammering out a quick, “Sorry…s-sir, I just…I
don’t like—”
“Hush, little bird,” he soothes again, and suddenly Dean’s face is chocked full
of alpha neck and coast-scent and a pale blue shirt collar. His breath catches
jaggedly and he wonders when it might be that he’ll be able to breathe again.
Not yet…shit, not yet. He can’t even fucking move. “I know you don’t like being
so bare, but it wouldn’t be a punishment if you did.” A quick thumb swipes over
Dean’s cheek and the breath he was just struggling to catch is whipped away
again, “It’s alright to cry, little one,” he soothes. A hand palms across the
small of his back and his legs stop working. Lips press where he thumb just was
and Dean recognises that he is…actually crying. Not sobbing, but his eyes are
watering and he rarely lets them do that—maybe because…because his Alpha Mate
told him it was okay to do? Maybe. Oh god.
“Hush, baby, it’s okay,” and Dean’s against him completely. Being held upright.
Held…standing. He still smells like mate and Dean doesn’t know exactly what
that smells like, but that’s what this alpha is and…it feels right, as much as
that pains him to admit. He knows this is where he belongs, but that doesn’t
mean it’s where he wants to be. “Good boy, Dean, you’re doing so well for me, I
know it’s hard, it’s okay. Hush, little bird, hush. Shh.”
Dean’s not making a sound, but the hushes and the shh’s don’t stop for even a
second as Dean lets his body go all loose and embarrassing and he sags down
against his alpha. He shoves his face against the offered neck because…just
because it smells really nice and Dean’s aching and he needs some sort of
comfort because his omega’s kicking up one hell of a—
Oh.
That…feels…real good. Yeah. Real, real good. Dean didn’t…he didn’t really get
all that before, but the hand now palming against his spine and those nimble
fingers pushed deep into his mussed up hair…feels right. Maybe even better than
Mama, which Dean hates to admit, but it kinda does. ‘Cause this scent right up
in Dean’s nose and it’s the scent of the ocean and it feels like mate and good
and maybe Dean stays against Cas’ side when he walks them to the kitchen and
maybe he sits at his alpha’s side when he plonks Dean down into the stool and
yeah, whatever, his nose stays buried in Castiel’s ribs when he’s cutting up
onions and cooking the meat.
Sam pats him on the head, but Dean doesn’t pay him much attention. Because—
Dean doesn’t know. His head’s all fogged and the only clear thing is the warmth
awarded to him and the scent of his mate. That’s all that matters, right?
Dean’s just…tired.
Chapter End Notes
     WARNINGS:
     Dean's POV, so prepare for the angst. He's scared shitless. He's
     confused. He hates his new mate.
***** Collar *****
Chapter Summary
     For sometimes spoiler-type warnings, please see end notes.
Chapter Notes
     WARNINGS:
     something akin to a panic attack on Dean's end, major angst from our
     boy.
“What do you think, Dean?”
…stupid fucking shop anyway who has a whole building just for omega crap it’s
ridiculous and mortifying and a waste of damn money—
“Dean.”
—and collars should not be for humans they should be banned and all DOGS ONLY
written right on the side where everyone can see and dumb asshole alphas with
big blue eyes should be arrested and their omegas should be allowed to go back
to their families or change their fucking gender—
“Is he okay?”
—and stupid sales assistants with freaking blue hair wouldn’t be allowed to
sell collars like it’s a fashion statement because certain people are betas and
wouldn’t understand the implication and certain people shouldn’t be wearing a
collar anyway so clearly she’s fucking stupid—
“He’ll be fine. First collar; I’m sure it’s a little overwhelming.”
—and overwhelming is one giant understatement because Dean’s not overwhelmed
he’s fucking terrified of the hand all steady and warm on the nape of his neck
where a piece of impersonal and fuck-ugly fabric is soon going to take
ownership; of that length of tall and sturdy alpha pressed tight against his
side and smelling all right and painful and it’s not freaking fair because this
can’t be happening and Dean can’t do this, he can’t do this, he—
“Hey, sweetheart no, don’t do that to yourself, it’s okay. Shh, Dean, it’s
okay. Good boy.” Yeah, good boy. Good pet, goooood little Dean, let’s get you a
collar and maybe a leash too, huh, go the whole nine yards because I’m gonna be
treating you like some mangy mutt from now until your final breath, little one,
even though you’re sixteen and really not little, you know, by any fucking
stretch.
God, the omegas in the school yard would get one hell of a kick outta this,
huh? Maybe it’s good, moving so far away. Least Dean doesn’t have to worry
about bumping into someone from high school or, god forbid, anyone he knows.
Prancing around in a damn collar, what the hell?
Oh, yep, here he goes again, not breathing. That’s what, his eleventh time
since the whole spanking fiasco? Yeah. Eleven. Typical.
“Sam, would you take him outside for me, please?” Castiel asks, and fucking
dismally, his hand leaves Dean’s throat bare once he retracts it and his body
leaves a stupidly cold patch when he pushes Dean a little towards his brother.
Dean yips, but it’s a far sight from the pained whine he has to stop himself
from giving, so he’s counting that as a win. Besides, Dean wants to be rid of
this dick; it’s his stupid-ass-demanding-needy omega that needs him.
Sammy spins on his heels slightly with a frown, turning from the little pink
bottle of massage oil in his hands to stare over at them for a second before
placing it down again, and practically skipping on over to take precedence over
his totally lost and pathetic big brother (big brother) who’s just stood in the
middle of the stupid floor trembling and sucking in breaths like a complete and
utter freak.
“Yeah, sure,” Sam replies. “We’ll just be on the steps.”
Dean curls into Sam once those blissfully familiar hands demand ownership on
his wrist—tucking himself into that slim neck when he starts pulling Dean away
from their most dangerous foe yet. He yips out his thanks into Sam’s ear as
they move further and further from the threat and Dean can protect Sam better
from all the way out here, he knows he can. And holy fuck, does fresh air feel
good on his skin and the stares don’t matter anymore because Dean can barely
see them anyway, what with the way his eyes are watering. Doesn’t matter ‘cause
Sammy’s here now, right? Gonna make ‘em better, Dean totally knows…
Only…Sam stops, once they’re just outside of the shop. He pauses on the steps
for a second, glaring round at a few nosy pedestrians, before he starts tugging
Dean down next to him, like they’re going to sit here and wait for that
monster, right at their perfect opportunity to run, what the fuck—
“No, Dean,” Sam says sternly, tugging at his wrist harder and fucking
threatening to pull his perfect scent away until they’re both just sinking to
the concrete steps and Dean’s whining like some kind of animal and Sam’s
pulling him to the familiar crook of his shoulder and stemming his inevitable
tears. Fucking…they could be running right now! Sam even has that money Cas
gave him (enough for two bus tickets, right?), they could get out of the
city—out of the state if they wanted to!
“Sam, please,” Dean starts, begging into his brother’s shirt collar. He coils
closer and pushes their limbs tighter together, tucking their bodies where they
should be, where they were before that bastard came along and ruined them both.
“He’s still inside, we could go. Go back to Missouri. He hurts, Sammy, please.”
And, once again, it’s Dean who gets looked at like he’s crazy. Sam going all
wide eyed and staring like it’s Dean who’s in there buying a collar for some
underage, uneducated omega who is seriously not consenting to any of this.
Yeah, o-fucking-kay.
Sam yanks his hands away from Dean’s grip, after that. He huffs out and glares
over at Dean like none of that stuff is true—like Dean’s shoulder isn’t still
throbbing from the bite that’s nearly a week old now and his knees aren’t
completely killing him from all that kneeling without so much as a blanket
keeping him from the cold, hardwood floors. Oh God. Not Sammy, too.
“You really don’t get it, do you?” Sam says. Dean lowers his gaze and yips. No-
one’s touching him now and it hurts. “Mama sold you, Dean. What d’you think
will happen if we just turn up on her doorstep? It’s the first place Cas’ll
look.” He huffs out a sigh and stares up at a palm tree just opposite them,
highlighting a store that looks like it’s for omega-specific clothes. Right.
‘Cause they don’t have enough of them around. “He wants you, Dean. And he wants
me too, ‘cause he knows we won’t leave each other. Who else can we say that
about?”
“He hit me,” and Dean’s voice is nothing more than a whimper, and it’s painful.
It’s humiliating. “He wants me to wear a collar. Doesn’t let me wear clothes.
S’embarrassing, Sammy.”
Sam rolls his eyes for the billionth time since they were dragged here, but he
does reach out an arm and tug Dean to him again, and at least Dean can relax
into that one. Least he can nuzzle his nose against his brother’s throat and
insight an amused little giggle.
He sighs into Dean’s hair. “It’s Saturday now. Cas said the punishment only had
to last until today, and he says you’ve been real good, so it doesn’t have to
last any longer. He said he’s proud of you, Dean. Gonna make us burgers again
tonight, just for you. And he’s buying you clothes, so he won’t keep you naked
anymore.”
Dean scoffs against the frail skin, digging his fingers deeper into the
stupidly soft fabric of his brothers brand new cashmere, cable knit jumper that
still smells ridiculously new. “Yeah, and he’s buying me a dog bed.”
Yeah, and wasn’t that fun. The damn alpha ended up ordering him five, fucking
even said Dean couldn’t look at his decisions ‘cause it was supposed to be a
surprise, and how stupid (and terrifying) is that? Smiling, smug bastard, like
Dean needed more reminders of his place in the world, now he’s being made to
sleep on the floor—as of tomorrow, of course, next day delivery for good little
Dean. Oh, Christ.
“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Yeah. Dean’s heard it enough. Sam’s told him
more than once. “He’s doing all that—buying you all this stuff ‘cause he thinks
you’re worth it. He knows you’re worth it. You were bad, so he punished you;
you’re the omega, he’s the alpha, and you need him. God, Dean, why don’t you
just give him a chance? He’s doing all of this for you, you know.”
Right. Yeah, Dean did something in some distant past life that was worthy of
this punishment, for sure. This pain. Humiliation.
His brother thinking he actually deserves this.
But he doesn’t say anything more. Sam’s looking down at his creased little
figure like he’s expecting some apologetic revelation to come pouring out of
his mouth, but Dean just tucks lower, closer, and he mouths sadly at the brand
new fabric at his brother’s ribs. Nuzzles it with his nose, until the spare
hand currently leaning Sam back against a step moves up and starts running
through his hair. Dean purrs for him in gratitude, but he doesn’t say anything
else. What’s the point, right?
They stay like that for God-knows how long, before Cas comes swanning on out,
and Dean’s dumped back to him again. He’s tired, though, so when Sam coaxes him
into standing and nudges him softly back towards his alpha, Dean simply blinks
up at him, peers timidly down at the newest plastic bag swinging merrily in his
grip, before their chests are pressed together and he has their combined mated
scent blocking up his nose.
“Good boy. Good pup, come on.”
And they head to the omega clothes shop across the path.
Dean gets new clothes. Stupid soft ones from cooing sales assistants that tease
Cas about him being a handful. One’s that retain scent easier, so all Cas has
to do is scent-mark it for a bit, before handing it over to Dean and leaving
for the day when he has to go back to work. And all Dean has to do is throw it
in the blender and sprint upstairs to have a scent-destroying bath. Perfect.
They get Sammy books. For school, but reading ones as well.
Dean gets fucking slick pads and shampoo.
Sammy gets a new backpack and a bookshelf.
Dean gets a purple knotted dildo (Sammy’s still safely freaking out over by the
books).
Sammy realises all he has to do to get stuff is ask politely.
Dean realises he has never detested his gender more in his entire, miserable
life.
***** Beds *****
Chapter Notes
     For sometimes spoiler-type warnings, please see end notes.
     But if you react badly towards anything like self harm, then read the
     notes to know what this chapter entails.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
Dean wakes up to a kiss. He knows it’s a kiss because he can scent his alpha
when he sucks in a breath; he can feel the stupidly familiar, ridiculously firm
body (for an asshole of a surgeon) pressed up against the entire length of his,
and he has a quick second of not breathing from the mouth currently sucking up
his air, so…a kiss. A fucking…stupid one.
“Mmphh,” he whines dumbly, his eyes flickering wide for a second—taking in dark
lashes pressed against flushed, tanned cheeks—before he finally gets enough
wits about him, and lifts his hands as some weak kind of hey, asshole, back the
fuck off, without having to actually say it. Not that he could, with the
bastard attached to his lips and all. Moreover, the chest is firm and bare,
when he presses his palms there; and now that he thinks about it…there’s some
definite interest prodding into his bare hip.
Shit.
Turning his head works for about a second, soft huff-slash-groan noises pulsing
into the air do nothing for the damp lips now trailing their way to Dean’s
earlobe, tracing his jaw line. His hands are stalled and his wrists get gripped
and held and fucking what the hell is he supposed to even do, huh? He can’t…he
can’t exactly deny his alpha, can he? His mate? It’s wrong, for one, against
his duty as the omega half. Let alone the fact that Dean’s pretty sure he spied
a freaking spanking paddle (good holy fucking Christ above) in one of the bags
yesterday. He doesn’t exactly have a real varied choice here.
Fucking crap.
…oh God. Yeah, definite interest. A body climbing atop his own, pressing down
into the length of his, shoving a thigh between two of his own, a whole new
familiar length of something pushing itself into Dean’s hipbone.
Oh God, he wants to…he wants to knot, doesn’t he? Outside of a heat, when Dean
can offer his real consent, when he doesn’t have the throbbing need of a new
potential mate breaking down his thoughts. They haven’t, not since Dean was
released from that week. Castiel was pissed, to begin with; deterred from
Dean’s sour moods, but now…he’s gotten over them, apparently. He thinks…he must
think Dean has too. Holy fuck, he’s really going to do this, isn’t he? Shit.
Shit, shit, shit, shit.
“God, Dean,” the alpha pants into Dean’s ear. He rolls his hips and Dean
whines. Fuck…fear, it’s fear isn’t it, this dread bubbling inside? Dean
can’t…he can’t do this. The beds (they’ll be here today), the collar (fuck
knows when he’s planning on gifting Dean with that little treasure), the new
clothes and the canopy. He could deal. He has to deal. But this—fuck, it’s just
too much. It’s too much. “Sweetheart, it’s okay,” Castiel (please, sir, please)
whispers like it’s their dirty secret, pressing his words against Dean’s
throat. “Relax, little one, it’s alright, now, I’ve got you. I’ll make it feel
so good for you, Dean, I promise. Good boy,” and there it is, that jolt.
Familiar with the praise, but Dean can’t decide if the jolt is a good one or
bad. Right now, though? It’s the fucking devil.
“Please,” Dean breathes into the air, the white of the canopy bed blurred above
him as he wriggles beneath the weight of the universe. He wrestles to get his
hands free, “sir, I don’t,” want this, can’t do this, “please, alpha, please.”
But it’s mostly an unintelligible whine.
And either the alpha simply doesn’t hear him, understand him, or is completely
fucking ignoring him, because all he answers in reply is, “Fuck, Dean,” around
a guttural moan (it’s not a growl, please God, it’s not a growl) and that hard
length presses tighter to his bare hipbone.
Dean may or may not throw up.
Every possibility, right? Could possibly be likely.
Dean’s not hard, and he’s not slick. He’s not writhing beneath his alpha
because he wants him, or he can’t control his need—he’s writhing because he
can’t consent, even second hand, to this. His being, excluding his whimpering
omega, won’t let him. Christ, he won’t let himself fall so far. He can’t.
“Stop,” he whispers, but the word cracks against his tears. He chokes for a
second, and tries again. “Stop; alpha, sir, please.” Better, but his voice is
too hollow. Maybe that just means something. “Please don’t do this.”
Castiel hears him this time, Dean knows he does. Hands flutter unsurely against
his wrist-bones for short, terrifying second, lips halt damply against his
temple. Slowly, like a deadly freaking animal, the body rises up from his own,
and giant blue eyes stare down at him, all seeing. He frowns with dark brows,
his lips part with quick, horny breaths, and hands release Dean’s wrists  to
press themselves into the mattress bordering Dean’s ears. Dean gulps at the
attention, which is kinda dumb, considering he was really getting more of that
before.
But this…this considering, confused tilt to Castiel’s head…fuck, it’s so very
different.
“Dean?” he asks, and at that, Dean lets his eyes slip closed—cancelling him
from the white cocoon of the canopied bed, those deadly eyes and mussed to hell
hair. “Little one, look at me, please.”
Fucking hell.
He’s frowning, still, so that hasn’t changed. Dean should just turn over now,
shouldn’t he? Present his bare, dry ass for the taking and wait for Castiel to
either plunder inside him or fetch that black leather paddle. Make him bleed or
bruise, whichever one tickles his fancy.
…Christ.
“Sorry,” Dean tries, though he figures out himself that it counts for nothing.
A whispered apology isn’t going to stench the pain, is it?
“It’s alright,” the alpha says instantly, shaking his head like he’s surprised,
dipping his brow down lower. “You don’t have to apologise, pup, it’s okay. Will
you tell me what’s wrong?”
What’s wrong? What’s fucking wrong? Well, how about the shitty wakeup call,
huh, ‘cause that was wrong—how about the stiff cock still nestled up against
Dean’s thigh and hipbone, because that sure as hell isn’t wanted. Or maybe it’s
the bed and the collar and the paddle and those eyes and Sammy not giving two
shits or dog beds and patronization and no one caring or that dumb fucking
bite, kneeling at his side and living without clothes for too long, Dad
ditching them and Bobby running at one sight of Dean whining. This fucking
gender shit. His gender. Fucking…everything!
But Dean doesn’t say any of that, of course. He just ducks his head swiftly,
tucking his eyes to pool safely at Castiel’s tanned, early-morning-scruff
throat, and sucks in one giant, debilitating breath.
He says, quietly, “I’m…I’m not wet. M’sorry.”
And waits for the pain. That coast scent of alpha to zip from arousal (still
echoing into the air) to anger, and the slap of leather or a strong palm.
Instead, Dean feels a soft breath push across his lips. Delicate surgeon-
precise fingers dance their way across his cheek bone; Dean flickers his eyes
up to a softly smiling face. A traitorous asshole of a face, but soft all the
same.
“You’re scared, sweetheart, and that’s okay,” he says soothingly, trailing his
fingers to the dip of Dean’s clavicle and inciting that familiar pulse of
calmness and zips of muted pleasure as he presses into the joint of Dean’s
bones. Damn Missouri and her displays of affection, this fucking alpha
shouldn’t know how to do this. Dean melts into the pillows anyway. Fuck. “You
beautiful little thing. My perfect, rebellious little mate.” Wait…now Dean’s
perfect for being rebellious? That’s some backwards, twisted, fucking
terrifying knowledge right there, fuck. “I haven’t touched you like this since
your heat, Dean, you must be feeling the need, hmm?”…no. He…he fucking hasn’t,
okay? He’s not wet and he’s not hard, he totally hasn’t been feeling anything.
He hasn’t. “I have, little one. I want you every second I lay eyes on you.” A
press of lips to his forehead and Dean floats for one quick second. “Thought
about it yesterday,” he mutters into Dean’s flushed skin. “And every single
second leading to this one. I’ve thought about you tied to me in the bath,
sweetheart, sleeping on my knot and purring out your pleasure.” Oh…God.
Feels…feels good. “Tasting you, Dean. I miss your slick on my tongue, little
omega, your perfect little cock pulsing into my mouth,” shit, shit, shit,
Dean’s not getting hard, he isn’t, “coming and calling out my name. Mmm,” he
groans softly and mouths his way down to Dean’s chin. And Dean…he’s rutting his
way into his alpha’s stomach. Hard. Aching. Shit.
“Alpha,” Dean gasps, slick starting to pool into the sheets. So fast, it almost
hurts—
“Feel so perfect. So obedient. Beautiful in my collar.”
…ah.
Dean stops moving, after that. He stops writhing against the alpha, stops
pushing up into him. He lets his arms flutter their way down to the bed,
resting his entire body perfectly for his alpha’s taking, but he doesn’t react
when the alpha claims it. He doesn’t even flinch when his softening dick’s
sucked into a damp, hot mouth. Maybe he scoots his hips higher when three
fingers wrestle their way into the softened muscle, but that’s only because he
doesn’t want the pain.
He shifts from Castiel when the cloud of fear starts looming once more, and he
turns himself and he presents, and he braces himself for the pressure of the
cock. His mates cock.
He doesn’t cry when Castiel fucks into him.
He doesn’t cry when the knot starts to form and that familiar pain Dean thought
would start receding over the times they tied starts to swell. He doesn’t even
cry when Castiel’s come floods his insides with his seed.
In fact, he manages to hold off all the damn way until his own orgasm hits him
like a freight train. Until he spills out against the sheets and stains them,
Castiel palming his dick and mouthing at his mark, ass clenching around the
knot attaching them. Only then, collapsing into the pile of his own worthless
mess, do the tears finally come.
Castiel simply kisses them away.
                                -*---[—Ω—]---*-
They only venture back downstairs once Dean’s dressed in clean, soft jeans; a
brand new, washed, oak green Henley; and a light brown, chunky knit cardigan,
that he thinks, oddly, makes him look like that Frank guy from Everybody Loves
Raymond. He rolls the sleeves up whilst Castiel’s busy with his own pale blue
shirt, though when he turns back, he doesn’t notice. Dean couldn’t care less if
he did, to be honest. He still smells like alpha come.
The beds arrive during their breakfast of pancakes, with Dean sat beside his
alpha for once at the table, a socked foot resting solidly between his ankles.
Dean keeps eating when Castiel presses a sugary kiss to his forehead—dragging a
quick hand through his hair—and tells both him and Sam to ‘please, continue’ as
he goes and answers the door.
Sam looks at Dean like he’s about to explode. Dean ignores him.
The betas that come in, hauling cardboard packages between them, glance at Dean
with interest for quick seconds, before apparently reminding themselves of his
place in this house, and slamming their attention down, shuffling awkwardly
with the containers. Dean ignores them, too.
“Outside?” one of them asks Castiel—a shorter man, stocky with cropped red
hair. He motions to the French doors leading to the patio, and Castiel nods
with a smile. He unlocks them for the man, before directing the other two into
the kitchen.
It takes the four of them twenty minutes. Dean eats everything on his plate in
that time, and he accepts the blueberries from Castiel’s fingers; whines
dutifully at the push of fingers through his hair. But he’s not paying
attention, not really. He’s just…there.
Fuck knows, right?
Castiel shows the betas the door. Sam smiles happily when Castiel offers to
show them the beds (some built in or constructed, apparently, which is
ridiculous, but Dean doesn’t say so), holding a hand out for Dean to clutch to.
He does. But he keeps watching the floor.
The first bed is in the living room; dragged there whilst Dean was eating
stoically, attention fixed on the half empty bottle of syrup. And it is, for
all intents and purposes, a dog bed. Donut shaped and backed by a roll of
fabric and stuffing, it’s just basically…a fucking dog’s bed. Dean doesn’t “try
it” like his alpha suggests. He doesn’t “dude, just see what it’s like” how
Sammy tells him to. He does, however, whine (unwillingly, thank you very much)
into the tense air and tuck up as some kind of pathetic compensation against
his alpha’s side. He does nuzzle against a soft throat in begging and he does
huff his sorrow against warm skin. Castiel rubs a hand between his shoulder
blades. He doesn’t make Dean try it.
The next bed he’s escorted to is the one out in the garden and it does kinda
look like a lounger—white mattress-cushion thing, and a dark wicker basket
holding it. It has a canopy, though, white and wired that curves above it to
both keep the sun from the bed and the rain, Dean thinks, if it were turned the
right way. They don’t bother asking Dean to try that one. Sam just smiles at
him.
Dean ignores him.
“And in the kitchen,” Castiel says, voice nothing but amiable, guiding them all
into the greyed out room (like most of this fucking place). “So nothing can
drop on you,” and he laughs.
It’s under the island. Dark blue pillowed, with cushions up against the back
and one side. Built in. Grey. Hell.
Dean hums. They move on.
There’s one in Castiel’s study—flat and dull like a mattress, but easily big
enough to curl up on. Like the rest of them, Dean supposes. No springs, though.
Dean’s apparently not worth the trouble.
“Sweetheart,” Castiel prompts, chuckling as he pulls Dean closer. “We can work
up to these, I promise.” Yeah. Fuck you very much. “I want you happy, little
bird, and I want you close. Good boy, puppy, good boy.”
Sam leaves them to it when they start climbing to the third floor. Dean can
understand why—he’s never been up here either—but it doesn’t stop the thud of
apprehension (fucking fear, asshole) from echoing into his chest, or the wisp
of a yip to edge into his throat. Castiel holds his hand. It seriously doesn’t
help.
“I wanted to introduce you to this room today, Dean,” he says almost
clinically—in something Dean could almost consider calling his ‘Doctor Voice’.
Or, you know, would if he actually gave a steaming shit. They wait by one of
the two doors up here, white and clean and the same as all the fucking others.
Dean looks to his black socked feet. “I would like for you to think of this
room as a sort of…sanctuary, all right?” Mmm. Sure. “You’re safe in this room,
little bird, I can promise you that. This room means safety. It means that I
will always be with you, and I will always take care of you, okay?” he waits
for a second, eyeing Dean meaningfully until his omega nods like he has no
fucking idea, and he smiles. Dean goes back to looking at the door when Castiel
pushes it open. He goes back to eyeing up the floor when the flush of fucking
baby blue echoes back at him.
Jesus fucking Christ.
“Come on, sweetheart, you can come in, it’s all right. Come on, pup,” but the
coaxing is fucking mute, because it’s the tugging of Dean’s hand that drags him
into the damn place—the fingers digging into his wrists that insight the ugly
growl of a noise from his throat and the sight of the fucking cage tucked into
the corner that drags it, full force, out into the air. It’s everything that
makes him push Castiel.
“Fucking…” he gasps, eyes swinging from his mate (Jesus Christ, he’s stuck with
him, he’s trappedforever) back to the blue cage in the fucking corner beyond
the bed without pillows or comforters or blankets—just a blue fucking sheet in
the white walled room and a skylight and Dean will not—“No. No!”
The stairs are longer than he remembers from two minutes ago, and they take
hours for him to plunder down them, millenniums for him to race down the second
set to the living room. He can hear Castiel, but it doesn’t matter. He won’t do
this.
Not this.
Please.
The hands that pull him to a stop are strong, just as strong as they were on
that day, just as strong as they’re going to be when they strip him again and
shove him to the mattress. Rape him. Abuse him. Neither would be a fucking
surprise. Ticked both of ‘em off, huh?
Sam’s there, and he’s crying. He’s watching on at his thrashing brother
screaming into the living room, their alpha gripping him to a standstill. Dean
doesn’t stop though, because Sam’s made his position clear.
“Dean!” Castiel snaps, but Dean fucking forces through that need inside of him,
the urge to obey like nothing else and he gags on it, but he doesn’t give in.
He doesn’t stop. He can’t. Not anymore. “Calm down, now! Stop!”
Dean stops when the hand grips like a vice to the nape of his throat. He pants
against it and he rolls his eyes back, but there’s nothing he can do to fight
biology. Not this kind, anyway.
“Dean, please,” Sammy says, almost too quietly to hear, but Dean catches it
anyway. “Stop it. You’ll just hurt yourself.”
“Hurt myself?” Dean gasps, writhing in the grip of death currently choking him
and he glares daggers at his ignorant baby brother. “He hits me! He bought me a
cage, Sammy! Fuck you. Fuck both of you!”
“That. Is. Enough.” And it hurts Dean.
But it’s not enough. Not yet.
“What are you gonna do?” Dean spits into the air, squirming in the grip to face
the bastard that’s breaking him. “Rape me again, huh? Beat me? Go ahead. I
fucking hate you. I hate you. I hate you!”
Everything goes black again when Dean’s pulled into a chest—shoved to a strong
throat and held there by the grip on his nape, blinded by the hand slipping
over his eyes. He can feel the fight drawn from his body. He can feel the
horror overtaking him again. The fear. The pain.
“Enough, little bird,” and Dean rumbles with the voice against the alpha’s
chest. Wipes his tears across the stiff collar of a pale blue shirt (like the
cage, the room, and the cage he’ll lock you into, the cage, the fucking
cage)…“No, Dean, not again, calm. Hush, now. Calm down.”
Dean twitches in the clutch of the murderer. The life ruiner. But he sags
without the choice awarded to him, and he calms because that’s what his omega’s
telling him to do. And with those fingers at his pressure points…omega’s taking
the hell over.
“Told you he wouldn’t like that,” Sam says, and then it all makes so much sense
and Dean’s bubbling up with hysterical laughter. Choking himself on that
scented skin.
Sammy planned it all along. He knew what they were all planning, he fucking
knew it. Probably made it all up himself. Wanted Dean out of the picture so
when he matured an alpha, he could go back to Bobby and Dad and they could love
him like they weren’t capable of doing with Dean, not like this, not like the
animal Sam wants him to become.
Not anymore.
“Sam?” Dean mutters, but the traitor still hears him.
“Yeah, Dean?”
“Fucking hate you, too.”
Dean’s whipped away from the strained, awful comfort of the chest and the neck
like that, dragged into the fresh air and held there by fingers at his chin,
tilted into the air and glared at by one seriously pissed off alpha.
And maybe that brings everything into perspective.
And maybe Dean whimpers.
“Quiet.” He’s scary, huh? He’s gonna make Dean bleed, isn’t he? “You will go up
to that room, do you understand me?” He forces Dean’s head into a nod and Dean
whines. “You will go up to that room, you will lie, face down on that bed, and
you will wait for me, do you understand?”
—can’t hurt, gonna bleed and cry and sob and it’s gonna be so bad, gonna be
real, real bad—
“Hey!” and Dean’s tears are starting again, though Dean’s unsure when they
stopped. “Do. You. Understand. Me?”
And Dean nods. Nods because he doesn’t have a choice.
And when he starts towards the stairs again, tail between his pathetic fucking
legs, he hears Sammy crying into Castiel’s shoulder. But he doesn’t turn back.
He doesn’t fucking dare.
                                       Ω
Dean doesn’t make it to That Room, as it turns out.
He gets about half way there, stands at the foot of the last flight of stairs,
and he freezes. And he sobs. And he’s never wanted sweet nothing more in his
whole entire life.
That’s where Castiel finds him. Curled up on the third step because that’s all
he could manage, and he collapsed through the sheer uselessness of it all, and
wouldn’t Daddy be proud of Dean, huh? Wouldn’t Bobby want him back? Pathetic
bastard he is.
“What are you doing?” Castiel asks, and he stands over Dean with folded arms.
“Stand up.”
Only Dean doesn’t think he can. He doesn’t think his legs will hold him—he
doesn’t think he can make it up the rest of them, not like this.
“Please,” he hisses into the carpet, tucked as low as he can and still eye the
alpha. He’s glaring. Azure eyes crystal hard. And Dean thinks he might chuck up
the pancakes, and that would be worse, wouldn’t it?
“Don’t play the omega card with me Dean, I would seriously advise you against
it. You’re obviously mature enough to tell your child of a brother that you
hate him, hmm? You’re obviously not shy enough to avoid screaming at me. Stand
up, omega. Face me like the alpha you seem so sure you are.”
Oh God. He’ll beat him then. Beat him to the ground and it’ll either kill him
with some sort of agonising relief, or it’ll leave him broken. Utterly and
completely, broken.  
But…is that bad?
Sam doesn’t care about him.
His lifelong mate wants to beat him into a bloody pulp.
He’s expected to willingly just crawl into a cage.
Does it really all matter?
Dean’s legs struggling beneath him give him some sort of answer, though.
Shaking limbs propping him into standing offer some sort of remark, and he
trembles as he watches the man, shivers against the imaginary chill as his eyes
meet burning blue.
He whimpers when he’s dragged back down the steps. He yips his failure when
their bedroom comes into view, when the door is thrown open and he’s pulled in
after it.
Dean can practically taste the man’s fury when his jeans are ripped from his
hips and he’s shoved from their pool at his ankles. His cardigan and shirt
aren’t bothered with this time, though, and he’s thrown to the bed, face down,
pinned there by one firm knee to his ankle and this is worse than before, this
is bad, so bad, fucking the worst thing that could ever—
Dean freezes like a startled cat when he hears the familiar whoosh of a belt
sliding from the fabric of his trousers.
He takes it back.
This is the worst thing. The worst thing in the world.
“You promised!” he spits into the duvet, squirming beneath the harsh weight of
that fucking knee. Castiel pauses in his motions, but the belt slips off with a
resounding zip. Dean chokes on his own horror. “You said…you said you wouldn’t
use rape as a punishment, you promised.” He gasps as the weight shifts,
changing until hands are pushing him instead, white hot at the small of his
back. “Castiel. Alpha. Please,” and he’s trembling like a madman, shaking from
his body. “Please don’t. I could never…I wouldn’t ever forgive you. Please.”
Not just Dean frozen in the moment, not just him with baited breath.
He’s about to fight, he thinks, when the hand turns softer against his spine.
When the other joins it, palms soothingly (fucking would be if Dean didn’t
know) against the flesh just below his ass, rubbing at the joint between thighs
and cheek. Dean shivers into the bed sheets.
“I would never hurt you like that, little one,” comes a soft voice, and Dean’s
swells into the air in a bitter sob. How did it ever come to this, huh? The
hell did Dean ever do? “Shh, Dean. I would never do that to you. You are my
world now. I will keep you, and I will adore you, and I will raise our pups
with you.”
“Fuck,” Dean whines.
 “But I will not have you speak like that to me, or to your brother, in our
home.” He breathes out a sigh and Dean can feel it ruffle inside the mess of
his hair. “I will punish you now, Dean, and I will punish you again tomorrow.
When I return from work, I want you prepared on the bed, understood?” Dean
nods. He can’t think. “Good. Hush pup, that’s good. I’ll just use my hand,
alright? I won’t use the belt, it’s okay, it’s okay. We’ll go quick, puppy, and
you can stay up here after, if you want, yes? You can do whatever makes you
comfortable once we’re done, I promise. Will you kneel up for me, Dean?”
No. No he won’t, he can’t, he’s aching and it won’t let him—
But he does. He does because his alpha’s asking him and his omega wants to
comply. Fucking stupid ass thing it is.
Shit. Shit fucking shit.
The first slap isn’t a surprise. Dean could hear the ruffle of the shirt as his
arm rose, could sense the air thickening as Dean sucked a quick breath in
before the war, tensing enough so that the resounding SLAP of his stupidly huge
hand lands on harder muscle. Still hurts like a bitch, but…fuck, whatever.
“Count for me, little one. Thirteen tonight and thirteen tomorrow. Count,
Dean.”
“Wahha,” and that did not sound right. Pathetic, holy fuck. He tries again,
shuffling on his elbows, “O-one.”
“Good. Keep going, good boy.”
Fuck.
“Two.”
“Louder, puppy, there’s my good boy.”
“Please…” Dean jolts forward, face pressed flat against the sheets, need
pulsing deep, residing inside him as the next fucking five come in quick
succession, five separate declarations of Dean’s failure, of his lack of
everything and everyone, of no one and no brother, no Sammy, no nothing.
Dean’s sobbing by number eight this time.
He tries to speak but he can’t by number twelve, tries so hard to push the
number from his lips, drag it from his belly and just say it, but he can’t. He
fucking can’t, because it’s raw and bad and his lungs are too fucking occupied
trying to breathe.
“Say it, Dean.”
He shakes his head, shoving it back and forth because he can’t. Fuck, please,
he can’t breathe.
“Two more, little one, you can. You have a way with words,” and he’s mocking
Dean and he can’t take it, he can’t do it, please, please, please, “I know you
do. Come on, Dean. Say it.”
Dean flinches about seven times from imaginary slaps, cries out into the white
blur of a bedroom each and every time, until finally he screams the, “twelve!”
and his flinch is real, because it hurts.
“Say it, Dean, and this is all over. I’m not even going to hit you again, just
say the word and I’ll soothe you, alright? One word. Say it.”
“Thir…th…” but it’s not working and it’s not worth it. Dean collapses into the
bed because he’s not being struck again. It’s over. The pain, the
embarrassment, it’s all gone until the next time Dean fucks up again. Until the
alpha wants his outlet, drags him to The Room upstairs and beats his ass bloody
before locking him in the cage.
“Say it pup, and we can move on. I want to help you Dean, I just need you to
say that one word, alright? Please, Dean, come on.”
“Jus’go,” he slurs, pressing deeper into the comforter. His tears soak into the
fabric. “Pleasss. Go’way.”
Silence, again, but Dean’s not paying attention. He’s throbbing once more,
ringing from the sensations of it all, horrified by himself, terrified of his
one mate, the one person who’s supposed to look after him and keep him and love
him like that Shakespeare once said. Like he was taught in school. Like he
never thought could happen to him.
He was right though, wasn’t he?
 
The next time Dean looks up, Castiel’s gone. Darkness pools into the bedroom
from the window, and it presses in around him—shoves its way into the gaps of
the drawn canopy curtains and fucking grabs him by the throat and squeezes.
Crap. Where the hell is Castiel?
The clock says it’s eleven twenty three, so Sammy’s long since gotten to bed.
Jesus, did he sleep? He doesn’t feel like he did. He missed lunch then, and
dinner. Not that he’s particularly hungry, but he’s feeling their absence.
Dean waits thirty three minutes before the ache grows too much, and the
blackness of the bedroom draws in on him.
Dean finds his scent beyond the locked (fuck) door of the spare room.
He scrambles against the wood for a second, pulling at the silver handle and
mewling for the attention his omega is desperate for.
He sinks to the ground because he has to.
He hisses his pitiful “thirteen,” because nothing else matters.
Dean sleeps, because somehow, this is better than nothing.
                                -*---[—Ω—]---*-
Dean wakes back in their bed to the curtains being drawn and an alpha, tall,
tanned and slender, dressing himself in the door to the wardrobe. He’s watching
Dean, but he’s not smiling. Hands are swift as they fix his tie, swifter still
as they tuck in his shirt—which is stupid, ‘cause doctor’s wear scrubs and
stuff, right?
Dean curls into a ball when he walks towards the bed. Dressed for success
indeed, and he’s infinitely terrifying when he leans closer, presses a
threatening hand (fuck, please, please) to Dean’s forehead and whispers his
words into his ear.
“On this bed, ass in the air, understood?” he demands, and Dean’s nodding if
only for the placation of the fear. His eyes are wide, he can feel them. His
hurt thumps inside his chest. “Good. I’m taking Sam to school now, but I’ll be
home before him. Three o’clock, Dean. I’ll see you then.”
And then he’s gone.
And then Dean’s left…just left. Abandoned, right?
Bad thing? Not sure.
Good? Yeah. Probably.
Nine o’clock passes pretty easily. Ten, maybe a little stiffer, but bearable.
Eleven, twelve and Dean’s pacing the entire house, scent marking to make it
feel even slightly like his—rubbing against doors and chairs and avoiding The
Room like the plague.
One finds Dean whining at the foot of the stairs for the second time in less
than a whole day—he’s not really sure why.
Half one finds him in the bathroom, two finds him in the bath.
No hot water, but maybe Dean just doesn’t turn it on.
Starts getting muggy, in his head.
Starts getting numb.
Dean doesn’t even scent Castiel’s panic when he finds him an hour later.
Doesn’t understand the strain in his face, the tautness of his words as he’s
carried into the bedroom.
Doesn’t understand, “Fuck! Dean, come on, little one, please don’t do this,
it’s okay, it’s okay—just breathe for me Dean, breathe for me, come on,” but it
doesn’t really matter.
Last thing Dean thinks he can remember is whispered, painful words. Hands in
his hair, towels rubbing at his numb flesh.
His tongue’s numb when he mumbles the, “Thirteen.”
He doesn’t care.
Chapter End Notes
     WARNINGS:
     Okay, guys, so this is pretty much NON-CON from Dean's perspective.
     He says no. He says don't. He smells of terror and he's trembling
     while Cas kisses him but he lies and says he doesn't want to have sex
     because he's not wet. Cas has sex with him anyway.
     Non-con. I've added it to the main tags.
     WARNING #2:
     Suicide attempt. Dean suffers through something similar to a sub-drop
     and a panic attack and he goes and has a nice long bath in freezing
     cold water. HE DOESN'T DIE BUT HE DIDN'T ENTIRELY WANT TO LIVE
     ANYMORE, EVEN SUBCONSCIOUSLY.
***** Scream *****
Chapter Notes
     For spoilery type warnings please see the end notes.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
Dean’s eyes feel particularly (abnormally? Ugh) heavy as he starts to peel them
open, his throat offering an involuntary and embarrassing little mewl thing
into the air before he’s finally even slightly able to come into himself.
Christ; that spanking must have taken more out of him than he thought because
he feels fucking horrendous.
…and numb. Really, really numb. Huh.
“Dean? Hey, buddy, you awake for me?” …well, who the hell is that? A chick.  A
chick who knows his name, but…Dean doesn’t know any chicks aside from Mama and
that doesn’t sound like her—and yeah, Dean’s never calling her a chick again.
Weird. So, a stranger-chick then. A stranger chick who knows his name and who’s
real close if the volume of her voice is right and ow, actually, she’s loud. 
And nosy. Stupid and nosy and loud and Dean wishes she’d sshhh for a second,
‘cause he’s…tired. Yeah. Tired. And numb. And wrong. Fuck. “Dean? Hey, no, no,
kiddo, I want you to stay awake right now, okay? Yeah? Come on, just keep those
peepers open for me and you’re golden, good boy.”
“He’s still not shivering, Jo,” and that’s another voice and he’s angry again,
angry with Dean and he still needs to spank him for yesterday and-and thirteen!
Thirteen, please, please—
“Hey, hey, shh, puppy, just calm down and chill out for a second, okay? You’re
okay, kiddo, I promise,” but not okay from him because he hurts and he built a
room just for punishing Dean and he wants to hurt him, he gets off on Dean’s
fear scent and he likes it, he likes hurting him, please— “Cas, just…fucking
back off for a second, okay? You’re freaking the crap outta him. Just go sit
over there.”
“He’s my mate.”
Please, please, please, please, please—
“Cas! Now!”
And there’s a pressure on Dean’s forehead and noises like movement and when
Dean finally musters up enough courage to actually open his eyes…it’s blurry.
But there is a girl…a woman standing over him with blonde hair a fuzzy halo
above her pale face, surrounding her. And Dean can see the distorted edge of a
blue glove slipping just into the line of his sight—that tacky feeling of latex
sharp and bitter when it jolts slightly on his skin. They’re moving, Dean
thinks. And there’s noise. Worse than loud voices; piercing almost. Rhythmic
and evil and ouch.
“Yeah, there we go, kiddo, you’re doing really well for me, huh? Good boy,” she
says, and Dean’s sight clears just enough for a pink smile to hover into his
vision.
Ugh, Dean does not feel good.
 “W’ssss’happennin’?” he asks, eyes fucking weighted or something because it
shouldn’t be so hard to blink, right? Everything’s fuzzy and confusing and no-
one’s letting him sleep. He thinks he needs to just sleep and then…he’ll be
okay, right? If this woman’s not letting Him near Dean, then she’ll be good,
won’t she? Dean hopes so. He’s pretty sure he needs that right now.
“You’re in an ambulance, kiddo,” she says slowly. “We’re on our way to the
hospital.”
“…Oh,” Dean says intelligently, peering up at her smiling face and frowning
slightly in confusion. A hospital. Castiel works at a hospital, right? Uh-oh.
“Hey, don’t worry about it. We’re gonna get you warmed up any second, okay?”
Warmed? Well, Dean’s not particularly cold, actually—although, now that he
thinks about it, he is kinda stingy. Is that what cold feels like now? Stingy?
There’s a specific sting under his armpit though, and another on his finger.
Not fun, and he doesn’t think he wants to heat that sting any.
“You breathing okay?” she asks again, and duh. He’s talking isn’t he? But he
nods anyway, ‘cause she seems nice. She sent him away. “Good. Ash, you wanna
fine tune his oxygen a little? I think it’s playing with his responses a bit.”
“Sure thing, boss,” comes another voice—and when Dean turns there’s a dude with
a mullet in the same blue shirt as the girl. It’s still all blurry and grey and
white in places, but if Dean blinks enough he can make those details out. And
he thinks they’re betas. Scratch that, actually. He hopes. Omegas can’t work
on-call, and alphas…well, let’s just say Dean shudders to imagine. He doesn’t
want a stranger whacking at his bare ass—even if right now he can’t feel it.
“You’re doing so well, Dean,” she says once more, drawing his attention back to
her pink lipped smile. “We’re nearly there, okay, and I know not much is
getting through right now, but everything will make sense soon, I promise. Just
keep an eye open, and we’ll get there quicker, yeah?”
Yeah. Cool.
Static sounds then, a terrible buzz of noise that has Dean flinching in his
little cocoon…wait. He’s wrapped up…in what? The hell?
The noise stops as Dean starts contemplating what the hell’s going on, and that
hand on his head leaves him, barren and colder and wrong and bare to him. He’ll
be punished again. He’ll be beaten and raped.
“UCSD, this is medic squire, eleven twenty-two, line number zero nine six,
paramedic Harvelle.” Too many words. “We’re about ten minutes out from your
location with a sixteen year old male found unresponsive and mostly submerged
in freezing bath water for approximately…Cas, how long was he in the water?”
Oh no, don’t fucking ask him, he’s only there if people talk to him, he’s only
around if he’s acknowledged, please, please, don’t talk to him, please—
“I don’t know,” and fucking fuck.
The latex hand’s back. And a beeping, high pitched and gaining frequency pulses
into the van—mellowing out again as the lady’s hand gets deeper and deeper into
his hair. Dean ignores the beeping once more, once it goes all boring and
beep……beep…..beep again.
“Estimate, dude, come on. You’re the one that found him, professional guessing
here.”
Mmm, latex feels nice now. Kinda weird still, like she’s pushing into his head
through a sponge or something like that—distant, really. But his omega is
fucking ecstatic for the wanted contact after being so deprived for the last
however long he’s been held captive with Him. He’s taking fucking anything
right now.
“His lips were blue, if that helps. I’d say about an hour.”
Ugh, it’s fucking him again. Seriously, just kick him out please, straight onto
the road and into oncoming fucking sixteen-wheelers. Dean’ll stay with blondie
and mullet-man.
“Approximately an hour. At this time, he’s conscious, alert, slightly
disoriented. Last vital signs we have are one-twenty over eighty-eight blood
pressure—last core temperature we got was about ninety with an increase from
eighty-seven when we first found him. Again, we’re about ten minutes out. Any
questions, radio back, over.”
“Heart rate’s back to normal,” the other guy says, mullet dude with the oxygen
or whatever that means, and he comes back into Dean’s limited view with a smile
and a wink spared for the omega as he reaches over and takes something yellow
back from the girl.
“I think it’s a fear thing, to be honest. His scent’s returning to normal,” she
pauses, mulling something over for a second before fiddling around with
something near Dean’s face. Near his nose? Weird. “What d’you say, Cas, is his
scent back to normal yet?”
Oooh, she sounds pissed. Please be at Castiel, please be at Castiel…
“…I wish you could have met him under better circumstances.” Go. Away. Please,
please go away, just fuck off and leave, alright? Mama can come fetch Dean, and
Bobby can drive Dad and they can all beat the shit out of Cas together, yeah?
Yeah. Please, just…please.
…maybe Dean can have Sammy back?
Dean doesn’t feel his shivers, but when he looks down at the orange cocoon
enveloping him (he must look suspiciously like really weird moth chrysalis) he
can see it convulsing around it’s blur, jarring along with that beeping thing
that’s picked up again and it’s irritating and embarrassing, but he can’t stop
it…and he can’t breathe. Perfect, just fucking brilliant.
“Ash, mask,” the female says, and seconds later, the thing from under Dean’s
nose is removed and he really can’t fucking breathe—before a mask is secured
over his head (lifted gently when Jo helps him) and the breath pours back into
him, invading his lungs. It helps little else, but it is better, he guesses,
and when his vision is blacked out with soft little, “Shshshsh, good boy, it’s
okay, sweetheart, it’s alright, just stay with me, yeah?” not much else
matters. He doesn’t think he stops shivering, but the heart beat machine
soothes a little. Dean thinks he’s mostly back to himself now.
“Jo…if I’d known just how bad he was, I would have—”
“He tried to kill himself, Cas,” the female—Jo?—hisses into the empty air that
Dean’s not a part of anymore and it feels awesome. “I refuse to believe you, of
all damn people, didn’t notice a sixteen year old omega on the verge of
suicide. Your own damn mate.”
Dean whimpers, he thinks. Well, he thinks it’s him. Probably, considering he’s
the only one really capable of honestly expressing his feelings that way, and
he can’t believe Castiel The Alpha would ever stoop to that sort of level. Even
if he likes it when Dean makes noises like that.
“I didn’t…I didn’t click onto it. He was scared, but never…never depressed, I
don’t know—”
“I’d say there was some level of depression working here, wouldn’t you? Damn
blind alpha. And what the hell happened with his brother? I thought he was
working with you on the whole soothing thing.”
Castiel clears his throat and Dean whines pitifully. “I think we might have
been too focused on the end goal and lost sight of Dean’s present. It must have
seemed like a team-up against him.”
“No fucking shit, you moron,” Jo whispers, and then she’s close again and Dean
can relax…well, as much as he can whilst his body’s still convulsing. More
stings are starting to edge into the numbness now, his other armpit joining
with his throat and chest—even his groin’s starting to feel it, and that same
finger feels biting as the others join in, accompanied by his toes.
“I don’t want you near him until he’s completely coherent, you understand me? I
mean it Cas, not until he’s back on exact form, okay? Okay,” and Castiel must
have nodded, because the oxygen mask is being adjusted and her face is back
where Dean can see. “How’s everything feeling right now, pup? Any stinging
yet?”
Dean nods because it’s starting to hurt just that inch too much, offering a
tight, “C-c-can you…m-m-m-make it st-stop, please?” and that sounded weird.
Still not feeling that cold though, but maybe…maybe that’s after. Just aching
and burning right now and maybe he’d take the cold instead, given the choice.
Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
“We can get it done and dusted as soon as your settled into the hospital, okay?
And then you can sleep as long as you need, I promise. You’ll be more than safe
there, I swear it buddy.”
But Dean shakes his head because that’s stupid. Castiel is in the same
ambulance as them, he’s on his way to the same place and he’ll do it once Jo’s
not around. Dean still needs that last half of his punishment for being so
hateful towards his carers. His baby brother, and his…his mate. Jesus.
“Shh, pup, you’re gonna be perfect. I promise.”
                                -*---[—Ω—]---*-
They put this heated lilo thing on top of Dean once he’s ‘safely’ inside the
hospital, jabs an IV into his hand to put this weird heated fluid into his
blood stream, and heat him up like a lizard on a rock with tons of damn lights.
Everyone bustles around him and he stays with it while they’re still telling
him to as the stinging turns to uncontrollable shakes again, the shakes
devolving into aches and finally everything is simply numb again. Not the same
kind, but it’s a relief to be out of it. The dark skinned lady tells him he can
sleep now, if he wants to, and he’ll be wheeled into his private room “thanks
to that handsome mate of yours” for a break of the bustle of the UCSD. Dean
doesn’t register them moving him from bed to bed, he’s already too far gone.
Next time he wakes, though, it’s dark again, and he can smell that distinct
scent of familyandsecurity. And it lulls him back to sleep.
                                -*---[—Ω—]---*-
Dean wakes to the smell of food, and that is rarely a bad thing. Before he can
actually master the cracking of his eyes though, he breathes in for a second,
letting his mind imagine lumpy pancakes sizzling on Mama’s grill back
home—syrup stained in splodges around Sammy’s chubby cheeks and purple jelly
gripped in tiny fingers. When Dad was just letting them visit his funny friend,
as opposed to dumping them there for good. When everything was…perfect.
…But that was a long time ago.
Dean flickers his eyes now instead, flinches at the onslaught of artificial
light, but manages to keep them open—long enough to sniff out the source of the
scent.
And to find Jo sat beside him. Smiling. Huh.
He’s almost surprised he remembers everything to be honest, given his recent
exploits into the inner workings of his mate’s hospital, but none of it
cascades back to him on an onslaught and it’s not some huge surprise. It’s
just, kinda, right there, really. Not that he lets himself dwell, of course.
Not with the—beta, he was right—sat right beside him. Holding a McDonald’s box.
Grinning like a madwoman.
“Morning, pup,” she says brightly, and Dean peers timidly to the garish
hospital light with one brow raised, because according to that, it’s still dark
out. Not early enough to be awake, anyway. She laughs happily, and something
inside Dean’s omega perks up slightly, inching forward from its corner of
pitiful despair to sniff around at the new comer. Dean manages to hold back
from doing the same. Pretty much. “Yeah, okay, but technically it is morning,
so I’m right.” She holds up the box like a chest of priceless silks and
brandishes it, nodding at the illustration of pancakes. “Dude, McDonald’s says
morning, I’m agreeing. You hungry?”
Mm. Definitely. Dean can’t remember the last time he was fed back at Castiel’s,
thinking maybe—the pancakes, ironically. Christ, that was at least, what, two
whole days ago? Nearly three? Jesus, he damn well should be hungry then.
“They’ve been feeding you on the IV until about an hour ago,” she says, nodding
at the needle still nestled into his hand. Mm. Not too hungry anymore, to be
honest. That’s fucking disgusting. Jo laughs again, and it isn’t until she’s
holding that same hand that he realises he must have grimaced at the sight of
the damn thing, which is totally warranted, by the way. It’s gross. “So,” she
drawls, pulling back his attention. “You hungry? We have the works, McMuffins,
pancakes, hashbrowns…so Dean. You a sausage man or an egg man?”
Dean picks egg, just because he wants the sausage. It’s not really conscious,
he guesses, he just…does. And he eats the pancakes when Jo cuts them up for
him, and he nibbles on a hashbrown because she tells him to. He doesn’t speak
much outside of answering medical queries, but he listens to her talking about
everything and nothing under the sun, and he starts to forget why he’s sat
where he is in a hospital bed; who exactly it is that’s feeding him and
conversing with him. In fact, he forgets all the way up until she stands to
leave as the artificial light turns itself off and the room is filled with a
pretty yellow. He forgets until she turns in the doorway to smile at him and he
can’t take it and he says it:
“I didn’t try to kill myself,” before squirming and flushing beet-red
instantly, shuffling down until he’s pooled himself at the bottom of his make-
do bed chair with half the bed tilted up for him to eat. It’s nice now, he
thinks, coiling closer to the bent mattress. Something to push back into. “I
mean, I…I didn’t mean to try to…I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean to.”
Jo’s eyes turn soft again, big brown orbs wide and crinkled with softened skin
as she smiles sadly over at him. “It’s okay, kiddo,” she says, just as softly,
“No one would blame you if you did.”
And then she leaves.
                                -*---[—Ω—]---*-
Dean asks after his mate and brother the second the nurse comes in to check on
him twenty minutes later. She smiles all soft faced, patting him down onto the
newly lowered bad and soothing him with head rubs and soft sounds. It’s
infuriating and utterly patronising but, to be honest, it feels pretty fucking
awesome, so he holds back the growl and snappy remark he might have given
before this catastrophe, and he sits there like the image of obedience. He
misses contact. That’s not, you know, forced upon him by evil black-haired
mates or wrestled for from sappy little brothers.
Dean misses his brother. So fucking much, it hurts.
“Well, honey,” she says after a round of checking out his vitals. Her hand
leaves and it takes almost everything inside of Dean to stop himself from all
out freaking mewling. “I know Dr Novak is somewhere in the building, so it
wouldn’t be any bother to call for him. And as for your adorable little
brother,” she pauses to scrunch her face at him in a giant grin, “I think he’s
still entertaining himself with your handsome mate-in-law down at the canteen.”
“Mate-in-law?” Dean asks, dubious. What mate-in-law? Castiel has siblings?
Jesus.
She smiles down at him again, reaching out a stray hand to push aside his tiny
bangs. “Ah, our own Mr Gabriel,” she says, eyes slightly wispy as she
apparently daydreams for whoever the hell this guy is. “The Dr Novak himself
was here not long back too, and between you and me, you’re lucky you were dead
sleeping like you were.” And she grins again. Dean thinks she’s totally from
Minnesota. “So, puppy you want me to grab them for ya, huh? I know Dr Novak,”
she cups her words with the back of her hand in mock secrecy, “your handsome
one,” she whispers and winks, “is abso-possi-tutely dying to see you conscious.
You’ve had him worried sick.”
Yeah. Sick with something alright. Psychopath.
“Well, I’ll get them for ya, how’s about that?” and then she’s whisking herself
away, out the door and down the corridor before it squeaks itself shut.
And then Dean has the time to panic.
Castiel’s gonna be here any second, with Sam, with this freaking
Gabrieldude…maybe with the apparently infamous other Dr Novak, who the hell
knows, right?
Only Dean knows one thing, and he knows that for sure. Castiel still needs to
punish him. Dean wasn’t where he was supposed to be—and whether that was half
conscious after some heavy-Drop, shitty decision making  or not, he still
wasn’t where he was told. He was naked, sure, and Castiel carried him to the
bed, but that was not the same, and Dean’s pretty sure the alpha won’t count it
either, especially because it didn’t end with Dean’s ass on fire and
humiliation like a swamp drowning him.
So there’s only one damn thing for it, and maybe if Dean can be good; prove how
good he can be for Castiel, then the alpha can forgive him once they’re done
and coddle him like Dean didn’t allow last time. He needs that. He fucking
craves it. His mate. His partner. He feels fucking raw.
He’s wearing a hospital gown, so he shouldn’t have to take it off. He’s bare
underneath as compensation, and last time they’d done this Castiel had kept his
tops on, so he probably won’t mind the gown. Hopefully. Either way though, he
props himself seriously slowly up against the wall first, face against it and
ass angled toward the door, before manoeuvring back and down, onto all fours.
He knows his ass is on perfect fucking display, and he knows Nurse Minnesota
could walk back in and see his dumb little omega all out on display, but he
can’t worry about that now; because the only person this is meant for is
Castiel. The only person he needs to accept this and get the punishment over
with so he can have comfort is his mate. So nothing else matters.
Although Sammy’s eager little, “Dean!” as he slams through the door sends a
cascade of ice down his spine, Dean can’t move from this spot. Not yet. He
needs forgiveness. He needs his alpha. The confused little pup stops somewhere
near the door—Dean can’t exactly see him—and echoes his scent of relief and
sorrow out into the space, almost choking Dean with it. He doesn’t move. He
can’t move. “…Dean, what are you doing?”
“Castiel,” Dean says (whines). “I just…I need to talk to him, okay? Then, I…I
wanna talk to you too.”
“Well, ain’t that one sight for sore eyes?” comes another voice, a stranger
voice, but Dean doesn’t have time to pay attention to whom he’s assuming to be
Gabriel. They can meet later, once this is out of the way. This is more
important.
“Dean…Dean, you’re shaking,” Sam whispers, his voice a few inches closer. Dean
yips back at him in saddened reply, because he damn well knows he is. It’s not
the hypothermia (Jo said) anymore—not really—and he knows he’s uttering these
dumb little sounds into the air for no apparent reason, but he can’t worry
about that right now.He can’t. They need to understand that Dean needs his
alpha.
Just…just please.
“Hey, kitten,” Gabriel says, and Dean doesn’t like him already. “Now, what do
you need to talk to my brother about looking like that, huh?” …he’s an alpha.
Fuck. Fucking fuck.
“I…” Dean utters, but he can’t turn. He can’t, he just needs Castiel to see
him, to see how good he can be. He can convince Gabriel after, take the
punishment of disobeying him after. Right now, he knows Castiel will soothe him
once they’ve finished, he promised. He’d even let Dean stay in their room.
“Need Cast-tiel. Please, sir, can I just…I just need him.”
“You reek of fear, puppy,” he says, and he’s too close now, Dean’s going to
have to move to avoid him and that won’t be good at all, he needs to be
prepared. “You need to be soothed, you’re better off under the covers. Strict
orders to keep warm, right?”
“No, no,” Dean insists, shuffling lower to rest on his elbows and thighs.
“Castiel knows. He’ll know. I just need him.”
“Gabriel?”
Finally! Alphaalphaalphaalphaalphaalphaalphaalpha—
“Alpha…” Dean gasps, rutting higher again and offering his resentment as one
bare, maybe still slightly red, ass.
“Dean what are you…oh Christ, baby, no, no, no, it’s okay, it’s alright,” and
then he’s touching Dean, he’s actually touching him and everything in the world
feels good again and the dampness on Dean’s cheeks isn’t from tears, and the
whining like a siren isn’t coming from him…but he’s back. And it feels like the
best bitter-sweet relief he’s ever indulged in. He needs. Please.
“Thirteen,” he hastens to tell his alpha, righting himself once he’s realised
he’s collapsed again, sturdy on his all fours once more, but pushing one side
into his warm alpha because they both need that, Dean knows.
“The fuck did you do to him?” Gabriel hisses, and Castiel’s hand is on the
small of Dean’s back, pushing him down and offering hushes and whispers of
encouragement, so he must want…he wants Dean more comfortable instead of
straining on his hands and knees, he wants him stable. He’s being kind. He’s
being good and Dean wants him now. He goes without resistance, tucking closer
to the soft and perfect body perched on the side of the bed, tilting his ass to
offer the apples of it to his mate because that’s where he likes best. Dean’s
good, see? Dean’s so good for his mate.
“I’m…I’m fixing it Gabriel, just take Sam outside, would you? Please?”
“What does ‘thirteen’ mean?” Gabriel asks, and Dean whines because that’s the
reminder, the reminder of how bad he can be too, how wrong and stupid he is
when he’s not thinking properly, and he presses out another,
“Thirteen,” because Castiel might not have heard that first one. It’s okay.
Dean needs him to know, so he’ll just tell him.
“Gabriel, damn well leave it, will you? I’ll talk to you in a minute.” Mm.
Castiel’s so warm. So perfect.
“Not in a damn minute, Castiel. Now. What does thirteen mean to him?”
“Thirteen?” Dean tries again, not even daring to peer up just yet. He needs to
wait this out for now, bide his time. Wait for the strikes and then he can feel
wanted again.
“Dean?” Sam’s voice is pulled taut and it’s wrong. It’s sad and wrong and bad
and Dean did that. He should…comfort. But Cas is…oh God. Dean doesn’t know, he
doesn’t… “Cas, what’s wrong with him?”
“Sam, wait outside for a moment, will you? Gabriel will take you—”
“Now, Cas!” and Dean whimpers at that one because Gabriel might not be his
alpha but he’s an alpha all the same. He still has every right to discipline
Dean if Cas gives him permission. He’s under twenty-one. Mama sold him. He’s
fair game now. “What the hell does thirteen mean?”
“It was…”Cas starts, and Dean whines his apologies for the first time for being
so useless. For telling his own alpha to leave his own bedroom. Pathetic.
Useless. “The number of times I struck him. He needed to say thirteen for it to
be over, and he couldn’t manage it, so I…I left him.”
“You,” Gabriel starts, and that is fucking it, Dean is not leaving his ass out
in any direction of an angry alpha and he is crawling forwards and plastering
himself to Castiel’s back, mimicking Cas with one leg hanging off the bed, but
he tucks the other to his chest. Protection. He grips Castiel’s jumper in his
fingers and he prays. He prays for Sammy. Tiny Sammy trembling in his brand new
jeans and soft grey t-shirt. Shaggy hair too curled at the ends to look like
anything other than ‘pup’, and eyes too big to show malice or cruel intent.
Dean’s perfect little Sammy on the verge of tears because of him.
And Gabriel. Terrifying, leather-jacketed Gabriel. Angry, angry, angry Gabriel
glaring at Cas and Dean and exuding his rage into their small room and Dean’s
scared of him. He’s fucking terrified.
“You spanked him,” Gabriel spits, stepping closer. Dean ducks behind Castiel
shoulder and dips closer, burying into his alphas security because he’s
offering it and Dean’s omega…Dean needs. “You spanked him, made him fucking
count, and then you left him? You left him to sink into his own Drop and you
did absolutely fuck all about it? And you were fucking surprised that he
couldn’t handle it? What the fuck is wrong with you?!” He’s too close, too
close, please, please… Gabriel pauses in his pacing, lifting the hand that had
rubbed at his scalp for swift seconds to stare down at Castiel, “He thought you
were gonna hit him again, didn’t he? He’s been in hospital for two days, nearly
died from his own damn accord and he must be aching like one fucking bitch,” he
breathes out a sarcastic laugh and Dean flinches. He was wrong, he did wrong
and he’ll be hit again, they’ll hit him, “and all he cares about is pleasing
you? Well, I’ll tell you what, Cassy, you ever pull shit like that again? I’ll
take him away from you so fast you won’t even begin to think the word mate, I
can assure you.”
Take…take Dean away? Why? He wasn’t that bad, was he, he didn’t do too wrong,
he thought…he thought he was doing right just now, he thought he was being
good. Doesn’t that count for something? And he knows how bad he was before, how
disgusting he was screaming his hatred at his mate, his own baby brother, but
he was half punished for it, right? One more spanking and he’ll be off the
hook. He…he doesn’t want to leave. He doesn’t want to leave his good mate.
“Understand?”
Castiel nods.
“Good. Now fucking soothe him, will you? You’re still his damn alpha, brother,
do your duty. I’m taking Sammy for some ice-cream, and when I get back I want
him in your lap, okay?”
Lap. Lap’s good, that means spanking, like that first time, right? Yeah. Cas
can punish him good and proper now and then they can forget it, they can move
on and Dean can be good again.
Dean doesn’t register when Castiel stands. He doesn’t think to catch himself,
or halt the fall with the foot dangling to the floor. And when he slams into
the linoleum, everything’s…still.
Castiel’s moving above him, but it’s muted, slow. Dean thinks he’s bending down
to grab him from the floor and soothe him before the muted ache from before can
blossom fully into unadulterated pain in his tender body…but it’s like slow
motion. Sammy’s gasping, raising slowed hands to his mouth as it curls in
horror and he’s stepping closer. Gabriel’s moving with intent too, striding in
extended steps over to him splayed on the floor to join his brother, Dean’s
brother as they coddle him and ‘care’.
But they don’t…they don’t care, do they? Castiel has raped him and hit him,
he’s bought him a cage and a spanking paddle. Sam tells him to nut up or shut
up, and he doesn’t give a shit that Dean’s so close to the edge that the next
time he submerges himself in ice cold water, he’s not keeping his head above
level. Gabriel is a stranger.
And you know what Dean wants?
He wants to fucking scream.
So that’s exactly what he does.
Chapter End Notes
     WARNINGS:
     Aftermath of Dean's suicide attempt, he won't be back in the right
     head-space for a while, so bare that in mind. He's terrified of
     Castiel at this point, and he's blaming himself, even asks to be hit.
***** Trying *****
Chapter Notes
     For sometimes spoiler-type warnings, please see end notes.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
Dean spends the next few hours propped up, trembling, on his skinny knees in
the centre of his hospital bed; hands curled into the sleeves of his recently
procured, oversized sweater, and one plump bottom lip sucked in and chewed
between his teeth. It was only once his incessant noise had ceased bare hours
before, practically punched from his lungs that he’d pulled himself up there
with a defiance Castiel hasn’t gone a day without witnessing and now there he
sits, like an obedient and guilty animal simply awaiting his punishment.
Castiel’s practically certain he’s up there to simply keep himself from curling
on the sticky hospital flooring in that space between bed and nightstand, but
considering the only sounds uttered between red-bitten lips have been bitten
off whines, they don’t exactly have a way of knowing for sure.
The air’s polluted with Dean’s scent. No one speaks. The only sounds in the
room are Dean’s laboured little breaths; Castiel’s shifting in his plastic,
padded seat; the cars and odd ambulance noises from beyond the window.
And so Castiel starts when his phone buzz interrupts the stale peace of the
room’s air—Dean’s eyes barely even flicker, focused as intently as they are on
the fiddling motion of his fingers at woollen sleeves pulled low enough to
cover them. Castiel sighs beneath his breath, pulling the device from the
pocket as it turns silent, buzzing again, and again until Castiel pulls it to
his ear, pinching the bridge of his nose between his spare thumb and forefinger
as he huffs out an irritated, “Yes?”
“Don’t fucking talk like that in front of him, you think he needs to hear you
pissy right now? ‘Cause he doesn’t, Cas. Seriously. What’s he doing anyway, you
got anything from him yet? Has he eaten? I sent Donna up a second ago with some
food from the canteen, and no offence, lil’ bro, your hospital food sucks ass—”
“Gabriel,” Castiel snaps out an interruption, before becoming belatedly away of
piercing green eyes boring into him from the bed; a sharp slap of distress
pulsing into the room in the midst of a barely audible whine. “Excuse me
please, Dean,” he mutters after a short second of deliberation, lifting from
the cheap armchair and quickly finding his way from the room. The click of the
door shutting behind him releases his senses from his mates suffering, though
doing absolutely nothing for the turmoil still churning inside his own chest.
He can practically hear his brother’s words, that’s the least he deserves, the
very least, after everything he’s put his mate through in the past few hours.
Weeks. The practical child currently on suicide watch after an already failed
attempt in Castiel’s own home, in his bed, in—
“Cas! Castiel, for fuck’s sake!” comes a tinny call from the speaker on his
phone, and Castiel lifts the thing until it’s pressed into the side of his
face, hard edge harsh against his ear. Christ, it feels good. He makes a noise
of acknowledgement so his brother can cease his calling out and actually make
sense and fix this mess now, “you’re out of the room, right?” he asks, and
Castiel nods with a clammy palm to his forehead before remembering Gabriel
can’t actually see him.
“Yes,” he replies instead, moving backwards until the back of his skull can
collide harshly with a satisfying clunk against the plaster of the wall,
rolling his shoulder blades back to tuck there. “You were right, of course,” he
sighs. “I frightened him.”
Gabriel’s trademark huff is an audible representation of his hallmark eye roll,
and Castiel’s inner pup cringes back from learnt childhood experiences. Alpha
Gabriel is a terrifying Gabriel. Even an eye roll can shrink you back from
whence you came, and the following raised voice brings the shackles of
Castiel’s throat into full alert. “I’ll bet it fucking did,” cursing, another
bad sign. “You are one dumb fucking alpha, you know that?”
“Hey…what’s happening?” comes a clear enough second voice, and Castiel’s heart
drums faster at the high note of his omega’s pup of a brother, and he’s
reminded for the billionth time in the last few days just how much of an
oblivious bastard he truly is. How terrible a care giver he’s become, not
even…noticing the turmoil churning inside his own mates head, how disgusting
he’s apparently treated his life partner—the child he’s supposed to be
mentoring. Driving him to suicide. To not wanting to be near him so much that
he considered death a better option than another second under Castiel’s
guardianship. Fucking Christ, he drove a sixteen year old boy to suicide.
“Snap out of it, little brother, I’ve had just about enough of the moping,”
comes Gabriel’s bored voice, that irritating under beat of humour and sarcasm,
and Castiel can hear the mutter as he turns from the mic, “Yeah, Sam, I’m
aware, just gimme a minute…I know you do, bucko, I know. Just gimme a second,
and I promise…right, well…good,” before he’s back once more with a slightly
less threatening sigh and the offer of, “Talk to him while he’s eating, keep
him distracted, okay? Don’t order him to eat if he doesn’t want to, but
encourage it if he refuses. Just…talk to him, alright? Christ, let him know who
I am—I’m pretty sure after our first meeting he’s not exactly feeling
particularly brave about me just yet, so, you know, reassure him. Tell him
about Donna and Jo and Ash. About the hospital. Once his scent’s better, you
can move closer, give him something to touch. Again, do not go forcing anything
on him, alright? Go slow. Ask him. Tell him he’s alright, and if he asks about
punishment again, tell him a trip to the hospital was punishment enough for a
thousand upsets, okay? Cas?”
As if Castiel would actually spank him, when he was struggling to hold his own
weight on weakened limbs, as if he could actually do that…but Dean obviously
wouldn’t know that, would he? Especially this little thing they seem to have
now, one that cries ‘thirteen’ reeking of terror and distrust, the one that
falls to the floor and screams his voice hoarse, then practically shuts himself
down once he remembers his ‘position’. The one that fucking kneels on the bed
when Castiel encourages him to climb there on shivering hands and feet…The one
that Castiel was going to punish by beating him with a belt…like a slave.
Fucking…what the hell was he even thinking?Was he?
“I nearly beat him with my belt,” Castiel spits the admission to his big
brother, once again crawling to him for help like he does with every other
aspect of his pitiful little life. If only he’d fucking gone sooner to this
expert, asked questions, even scoured the damn internet for something more
important than pretty green collars and décor-suited beds for newly mated
omegas. “I had sex with him when he smelt like fear. I ordered him to the
Sanctum when he ran from it, when he was scared enough to lose control of
himself. I ignored him when he needed me. I lead him to attempt suicide.
Gabriel, I broke him. I bought him non-consensually from his life, and I
dragged him to my home against his will, mated with him against his will. I
clearly don’t deserve him. And he certainly did nothing to deserve me.”
There’s a weighted silence as Castiel pauses for that to really sink in, in his
own mind and his brother’s. Because…he never really thought of this whole thing
in that light—hell, he never even shone a light on it before now. Before the
attempted suicide of his young mate, and now…now that’s all that matters.
Castiel, abusive mate. Piece of shit alpha, that’s fucking him. Fucking…fuck.
What the fuck did he do?
“What do you want me to say Cas?” Gabriel replies in a resigned, disappointed
voice, and Castiel’s long-since-aged pup is whining over it. Disappointing any
member of his family had always tasted like death; disappointing Gabriel? Feels
like the fucking plague. “That you’re wrong? That uprooting a barley omega from
his nest and dragging him halfway across the country to a new mate, new
surroundings, new scents, was a good idea? That I think him forgiving you for
everything you’ve put him through is even an option right now? ‘Cause I don’t.
And you know that. I know you do. But right now, you do what you can, because
like it or not, he’s stuck with you now, and he damn well needs you. He needs a
familiarity because once a-fucking-gain, he’s uplifted from his surroundings
and thrust somewhere new—and there you are, smack bang in the centre, once
again. Comfort him, Cas. Soothe him. He fucking needs his alpha right now, and
when I get back up there he better damn well know who I am and what I stand
for, you understand me?” Castiel nods silently again, but his brother seems to
understand anyway. “Good. Wait until after the food arrives so he doesn’t get
smothered by that dumb scent o’ yours, alright?”
“I’ll take it into him when Donna arrives,” he assures, before offering a short
goodbye to his brother and young mate-in-law, and tucking his phone back into
his pants.
Dean’s lips were blue. He wasn’t even shivering—didn’t even react for a moment
as Castiel hauled him from the bath and swaddled him in towels and sheets. Not
until emerald eyes flickered open; full, trembling lips parted and the word
‘thirteen’ was uttered from between them did he flinch for even a second. He
fainted, after that, wouldn’t respond to Castiel’s calls and panic, flesh ice
cold to the touch, heartbeat indeterminable. He was practically dead to the
world and Castiel, and he, the damn surgeon, could do fuck all about it. His
boy was trapped in that severe state between life and fucking death and all he
did—all he could do—was stand there flapping about and practically screaming
for an ambulance.
They sent Jo, which was a godsend. She was fast and efficient, and Ash just as
much so, and Dean was on the stretcher and bared to nosy neighbours who’d heard
in passing about Novak’s new mate—the first glance they get of that angelic
face it’s unconscious and passed out on a stretcher—within moments.
And, Christ above, when those eyes had fluttered sandy lashes on thankfully
flushed cheeks, Castiel has never felt such euphoria in his entire existence.
Even when that heart monitor climbed to worrying levels, his omega’s heart was
beating in his heaving chest; and even though he got banished to the back of
the ambulance, his omega had enough mind in that pretty head of his to
understand that Castiel was bad to him. He was aware. Alive. Beautiful. He
hated Castiel, of course, and that is never a fun experience to live through,
but he was breathing. His beautiful boy was breathing.
An innocent number four days ago; the utter Bane of his existence since his boy
hadn’t managed it.  But the thing…the thing is, Castiel knows. He knows the
dangers of leaving an omega to their Drop after punishment, he knows that no
matter what the trembling things say, aftercare is imperative once the
punishment is followed out. You shouldn’t make them stew with worry over the
next time; they shouldn’t have to keep themselves collected after a spanking;
they should have mates to soothe them, assure them they are forgiven and all is
well. Dean didn’t receive that, of course. That terror of being struck with a
surprise like the ‘cage’, of being given a room he surely thinks of as a
punishment, had made him react like any human is prone to; panic. And for Dean,
that didn’t mean crashing into the nearest alpha he could get his delicate
hands on and sucking in that scent, it didn’t mean clinging to his own mate and
begging him for an explanation. Dean reacted differently, behaved rashly as
he’s apparently prone to do, but either way, he still panicked and he still
needed comfort.
Almost whipping him, shoving welts onto his skin for losing control, was not
comforting. Castiel didn’t comfort. He punished and Dean thought…he actually
thought Castiel would rape him. It was both sobering and disgusting at the
exact same time, but honestly, maybe the only thing that stopped Castiel from
withholding a comfortable seated position for at least over a week with the
whip of leather against his perfect little backside.
And, goddamn, he wanted to punish him.
Sam didn’t deserve that insult; the vile, untrue confession spilled from Dean’s
trembling lips, that’s true; but Dean has never deserved to feel horror in what
is supposed to be his space. His territory to nest in and Castiel was actually
naïve enough to believe the fear was simply from the change in atmosphere, the
stubborn nature of a young omega.
Castiel saw red.
He didn’t soothe his mate when he needed it most, and he didn’t appease him
when he came for it. He was cruel to big round eyes and the scent of distress.
He was…he was evil.
And he would never, could never, blame Dean for attempting what he did. He
knows that now.
God, does he know it.
“And what are you doing hanging around out here, huh?” comes a distinct,
Minnesotan voice, followed with it a clean, dull scent of beta and that awful
aroma of the cafeteria chocolate pudding, hamburgers and gherkins. Maybe
disgusting is a harsh word, but when you have to smell it every single day, it
definitely earns it’s stripes. Ugh.
“Waiting for you to bring the food,” Castiel replies amiably, taking care to
rid the bite from his voice and offer up a complacent little smile. Donna grins
back at him, handing over the tray.
“Well, here you go,” she says. “And tell that poor pup in there that Gabriel
says Sammy picked it all out for him. You tell him his brother’s still got him
right on the mind, you hear?”
Right. “Of course,” Castiel says, nodding slightly in dismissal for a few
seconds, before she finally gets the hint with a wide, understanding grin
before darting off back down the widened corridor.
Castiel turns to start opening the door into Dean’s room, heart hammering in
his chest, stomach roiling at the thought of food, when Donna stops in her
tracks once more and turns back. “Ugh, Cas? Another Dr Novak has told me he
wants to meet the little tyke while, and I quote, ‘Castiel isn’t still keeping
him under lock and key’. What should I tell him?”
…Fuck. Fucking…fuck.
Michael cannot see Dean like this, he would never understand, he…he’d simply
make it worse. He’d blame Dean for being weak, he’d hurt him…and for the first
time in Castiel’s life regarding Michael, he knows what he wants to do. He
wants to say no to his big brother.
“Tell him not today, Donna. Dean doesn’t need visitors,” he says, cracking the
door slightly and sucking in that exquisite scent.
“Righty-ho,” she calls, and then she’s gone. For good.
Castiel sighs, but says nothing else on the notion. Dean doesn’t need that
right now.
He’s exactly where he was ten minutes ago, knelt obediently in the centre of
the tilted bed—he doesn’t even have to jolt upright once his alpha enters the
room, he’s already as straight backed as can be. Castiel smiles at the
inquisitive eyes tracing him, low beneath long lashes, but the boy simply
removes them again, sinking them back to his now still fingers—still coiled up
in the soft fabric of Castiel’s old sweater.
Castiel sighs silently, and moves to place the tray on the side table,
manoeuvring it until it’s over the bed and the food is practically beneath
Dean’s nose. He glances in it’s direction for scarce, tense seconds, before
darting his soft gaze away once more, to the window sill now apparently, eyeing
up the line of paint.
Castiel smothers a not-so-subtle cough into his fist, but he gains no
attention. Dean simply huffs in a jolting sigh come yawn, before resolutely
focusing on the potted plant bare metres in his limited distance.
“Dean,” Castiel tries, skirting any dangerous nicknames until he’s truly
discovered what the omega responds well to. Until he has learnt his pup inside
and out. With consent. The boy doesn’t even glance his way though, so he tries
once more with, “Dean,” a little more alpha, until those orbs hover over to him
again. He blinks heavily and Castiel smiles. “Are you tired?” he asks, but the
boy simply shrugs after a long second, scanning Castiel’s body with worn out
eyes. “Alright. Well, Dean, I would like for you to eat something, keep your
strength up,” he says, aiming to keep a hold of his puppy’s attention.
“Doctor’s orders,” he jokes, though it gets no reaction beyond a slow glance at
the dull looking food. Castiel blanches slightly at the phrasing once he
realises, quickly reinserting, “Advice. Doctor’s advice. Though I do strongly
recommend it. I could retrieve something else for you if you’d like? Gabriel
said Sam picked this for you, but if you don’t fancy it, I could easily—”
“This is fine,” comes a scream-hoarse voice, and slim fingers sneak out from
beneath the crisp edges of an oversize beige sweater, moving to pick idly at
the hamburger, before settling heavily on the carton of milk.
“You aren’t being scrutinized right now Dean, just so you know. You don’t have
to kneel for me here.”
And another flood, damn tsunami of guilt flushes over Castiel when that god-
like face of his turns up to him and simply blinks. Like he doesn’t believe
him. Like he’ll be punished if he moves even slightly. Christ.
“Your back must be sore by now, little one,” they just come out, “why don’t you
rest for a little while, just while you eat, and if you want to go back to
kneeling—if that’s where you feel comfortable right now—then that’s what you
do. Alright?”
Inch by inch he slinks his legs from under him, eyes glowing as they stare at
Castiel, milk carton clutched in white knuckles, before he settles onto his
reddened backside and crosses his legs Indian style in front of him. Castiel
smiles his praise and nods for him, assuring.
“Good boy,” he says, beaming internally when his boy goes slowly back to
piercing the straw into the hole. Clever little mite he is, so perfect and soft
and smooth…
No. Not now, not yet. Not for a long time. God.
Dean pokes at the hamburger once more, once the milk has been sipped, picking
it between his hands and raising it slowly to his bite-swollen lips.
“I’ve never discussed Gabriel with you, have I?” Castiel asks after his first
bite, aiming not to distract him from the food, even if he is trying to from
something else. The boy peers up at him and shakes his soft head. “Well, as I’m
sure you’ve gathered, Gabriel is my older brother. One of four alpha siblings,
actually. Michael, the eldest, is also a doctor. He has ownership of two
omegas; Elijah—his primary, and Sophia—his secondary.” Castiel eyes his own
solitary omega to deem a reaction from his mate-in-law having custody over two
young omegas, but Dean seems…resigned. Fed up of everything really, so Castiel
simply sighs and carries on, watching Dean take another small bite from his
burger as he explains further. “Lucifer was second born,” and Castiel smiles
when Dean’s ears perk up slightly at what he assumes is the name. “We were all
named after angels,” he explains, “and the biblical Lucifer was first an
angel—the bearer of light. Not that it fits my brother, but it has an
explanation none the less.”
Dean’s soft lips quirk slightly at that, a quick pulse of humour joining the
perfect current of his scent, before it disappears once more and he goes back
to his food, picking at the tomato placed in a separate segment on the tray.
Castiel carries on, “Lucifer has custody of one omega, a young girl called Meg.
I think you’d like her, actually. She’s very, uh…feisty, so to speak. He’s also
mated with a beta called Lilith, and they both work and live in New York, as
corporate lawyers. Actually, I think Meg might be pregnant, if the family
rumours are correct. God help them, is all I’ll say,” and Dean smirks just
barely again, but enough for Castiel to grin for him. Not that he looks up from
a lettuce leaf currently being nibbled. Castiel carries on.
“And then there’s Gabriel—no omega’s, no children. He works as a social worker
for damaged omegas—saved from abusive situations or assisted in newly mated
circumstances. He’s very good at his job. He cares about omegas maybe slightly
more than my traditionalist family would feel comfortable with, but he’s never
been interested much with family politics anyway. He would like to speak with
you, when your feeling up to it. We don’t have to discuss it right now, but…”
Dean’s hands have gone stock still clasped around the half eaten burger once
more, his eyes squeezed closed and his lips pressed thinly together. Castiel
steps in quickly, offering a remedy to that conversation and says, “It’s
alright Dean, we won’t discuss anything yet, I promise. It’s okay, just keep
eating.”
He does, though it’s slow going, tucking his teeth into the browned bun of the
burger and tearing a tiny section off before chewing on it carefully,
swallowing before Castiel actually starts to speak again.
“Good boy,” and Dean’s throat offers a short chitter. “Anna is the fourth alpha
in a row to our family, and I am the fifth. She works closely with the
government as an interpreter travelling a lot to too many countries to keep
count of. She can speak seven different languages. Her betan mate—Gadreel—owns
a bar just outside of Hollywood, and they have two twin girls, Marin and Margo.
We have a younger brother, an omega named Samandriel, who still lives with our
father at home.”
Dean finishes the hamburger when Castiel finishes explaining the foundations of
his family, and he moves back to the milk with a curly fry in his fingers as
Castiel explains Jo, Ash and Donna.
“She’s been a friend since I first started working here,” Castiel says of Jo,
smiling wistfully at the trying memory of their first meeting. “I think it’s
safe to say we didn’t get along right away, but after a while we began to see
more eye to eye. She has a relationship with an omega named Charlie—a girl she
met with through Gabriel. I think you’d get along with her too. She enjoys Star
Wars maybe even slightly more than you do,” which earns from Dean a snort of
appreciation, before he’s practically sucking on the end of a fry. “Ash is
married to his work, though not at the hospital. The things he can do with a
computer are abnormal, trust me. And Donna…she’s a very kind, slightly ditzy
nurse who has been with me since the very beginning. And she has a huge crush
on Gabriel.”
Another soft smile. At least he’s listening, right?
Dean’s moved onto the pudding now, seemingly disinterested in the remainder of
his food—at least four fries still on the tray, most of a slice of tomato,
chunks of the bun and nearly all of the lettuce. Castiel would tell him to eat
more, if they weren’t in this situation. He’d all but force the issue onto him,
maybe feed the boy himself if he refused, but for now, Castiel stays silent. If
he doesn’t eat dinner, they can put the IV line back into him. Maybe Gabriel
could convince him, or Sam.
Castiel waits for the omega to scoop into the bottom of the pudding cup with
the spoon, echoing the sounds of metal scraping plastic with mindless chatter
about the hospital: the old lady in his own wing who talks in her sleep about
oranges; his boss; his nurses. By the time Dean finishes the pudding, drains
the milk and pushes the table away to crawl back up to his knees, Castiel’s
decided that talking about this is currently inevitable. Dean’s now fed, but
the seemingly permanent stench of fear is still etched into his scent, his
hands have starting picking at his sweater once more and, Christ, he’s gone
back to kneeling.
He needs reassurance, and neither of them are in a position to trade that right
now, so the conversation is an inevitability.
Surprisingly, it’s Dean who brings it up first. Then again, the little mite has
always had a way of evading expectation, and opening his softened mouth and
asking, “Do you want to punish me now?” is his sure-fire way of doing it.
Castiel’s stomach drops all the same.
“No, little one,” because that didn’t seem like an issue when he offered the
nickname earlier. Dean’s shoulders slump slightly before the one closest to
Castiel hitches to his ear in defence, before he breathes in a deep breath and
lets it go in jolting little sighs. Castiel inches forward in his chair
slightly, looking up at his young charge. “And I don’t just mean not now. I
think we can call all of this punishment enough, don’t you?” Dean glances over
at him, eyes wide beneath lowered brows, and the gesture is so heart-breaking,
Castiel barely has a choice but to stand as slowly as he’s able and toe closer
to the bed. Dean shuffles over for him, still on his knees, and Castiel seats
himself—similar to before—with one leg propped onto the mattress, and the other
hanging over the side, holding him up. “We’ll wipe the slate clean of
punishment, yes?” Dean’s gaze shifts to the side and back again, that notch in
his brow saying he doesn’t quite believe. “Dean…” Castiel says, interrupted by
the short outburst of that hoarse voice—
“But that’s not the same. You…you said that spanking me was my punishment, this
isn’t the same thing. You won’t forgive me if you don’t…do it.”
He’s shivering again, limbs quaking at the edges as his gaze zips from the
white blanket to Castiel’s face and back again, his discomfort obvious as he
avoids contact and practically begs for a forgiveness he earned about the
second he begged Castiel not to rape him. The following spanking and threat of
the following day were simply follow ups of a punishment he had to carry out
because he’d already threatened it.
Castiel moves just an inch closer, edging to his little, underdeveloped omegan
boy as he offers a weak explanation, “You’re forgiven, little one, I promise. I
won’t be spanking you again because I deem your punishment already over.
Alright?” Dean nods after long seconds, but it’s still clear he’s not all
believing. Castiel lets it drop for now. They have more pressing issues—issues
that might make him see this clearer as of now.
“Sweetheart,” he tries, pushing a light hand onto his omega’s tense thigh and
squeezing slightly when Dean mewls, barely audibly, at the contact. “We need to
talk, don’t we?” Dean nods again, eyes slipping closed. “Good. Now are you
comfortable where you are right now? You don’t have to kneel if you’re doing it
for me, but if this is where you’re comfortable, I won’t move you.” Silence;
fluttering lashes over flushed cheeks. Castiel chuckles kindly and rubs his
hand against the thin, striped fabric of his pyjama bottoms. “Sweetheart, this
isn’t going to work too well if we can’t communicate. How about I move the bed
higher and you come sit on my lap, hmm? Would that be alright? Or is this
better?”
Dean gives himself a few seconds to consider his options, eyes wide now and
focused on Castiel’s wide hand splayed over his skinny thigh, before he nods in
decision, moves from the middle of the bed to hover over at the edge, and looks
up at Castiel expectantly.
“Lap,” he says, tacking on a quick “please,” as his eyes flit around again.
Castiel smiles warmly for him. The bed moves slowly when Castiel finds the
remote to move it until it’s almost perpendicular, as high as it can go, but he
settles himself as it does so. He coaxes Dean over and holds his clammy little
hands in his own as he clambers up to kneel over Castiel’s lap, thighs splayed
on either side of his own. Castiel palms his thighs once more when Dean takes
to clinging to his sleeves.
“Better?” and Dean nods. “Good, sweetheart. Now, Dean, would it be alright, do
you think, if we could speak as candidly with each other as possible? If I made
a vow that whatever is said in this room will never be used against the other,
would that be good?” Dean’s gaze jumps as high as Castiel’s chin before dancing
back to his fingers coiled into Castiel’s sleeves. “Hmm, sweetheart? I won’t
judge you or blame you for anything you tell me right now. I promise you,
alright? And if I do, I want you to tell Gabriel,” a quick decision but one he
needs to make nonetheless. “If something happens that you don’t like, I want
you to wait by the door for Gabriel and tell him the second he comes in, okay?
He won’t let me harm you. I promise. Alright?”
Long seconds roll past without a reaction beyond quick glances to the scruff on
Castiel’s throat, before he nods again, letting himself slump slightly, scent
tacky with slight distrust and embarrassment. Castiel squeezes his warm thighs.
“Good. Good boy. Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? When I found you at
the convenience store. Could you tell me why you were stealing the candy bar,
sweetheart?” A peak in the fear scent, but Castiel soothes him, “Hey, remember
what we said? Honesty. No judgement.”
Dean gulps—the jump of his Adam’s apple sharp as he shuffles on Castiel’s
thighs.
“…’cause I could,” he offers simply. “Sammy likes Tootsie Rolls and Mama
doesn’t like us eating things like that.” He pauses, smirking fleetingly before
saying, “Plus Jackson always calls me a hole and he gets in trouble with his
boss every time I steal stuff….stole stuff. I guess.”
Castiel chuckles. “Alright. What about after, when I came to your house. You
were clearly upset. I apologise for not asking your permission—for not living
in a hotel for two weeks whilst you went through your heat to get you
accustomed to me and say a real goodbye to Missouri. Moving so suddenly was
extremely taxing on you, wasn’t it?”
Dean offers a self-deprecating nod, and Castiel palms his knee cap. “I’m sorry
sweetheart. Tell me how it felt?”
“Mama just left me,” he says immediately, body tensing under his own words.
“She…she just let you take me and she never even mentioned selling me off
before, so…she didn’t want me.” And his mouth downturns wickedly, and his eyes
fill to the brim without spilling over. His lip begins to tremble. “No-one
wants me,” he growls.
“I do,” Castiel assures instantly, moving his hands around to cup steadily at
his pup’s hips, hold him close and still and warm. “I want you so much,
sweetheart, I don’t even know how to behave with it.” He sucks in a huge sighs,
“Alright, little one, it’s alright. How about I explain my side, hmm? If I tell
you why I did what I did, why I acted like that? Yes?” Dean nods distractedly,
staring down at his lap. “Alright. Well…when you were in heat, your brother and
I spoke. And he told me you were stubborn beyond reason—ignorant to you own
needs and desires if it became something you weren’t sure you wanted to do, so
we agreed then…we would try to coax you into it. You became rude in my house,
and I decided force would be a decent option to get you away from that, because
I didn’t know…I don’t know what you respond well to. Clearly punishment isn’t
it.”
Dean starts to shiver and Castiel goes back to rubbing in warmth. “From now on,
we’ll talk, yes? We’ll discuss every decision made regarding the other, and
unless a serious rule is broken, I won’t punish you in such a way again. Good,
little one?”
Dean squirms. “What…”
“Go on, sweetheart, it’s alright.”
“What are the rules?” he whispers, and Castiel’s heart beats from his damn
chest. “Sorry. I-I should know them, I should have figured them out, I—”
“No you shouldn’t have, Dean,” Castiel sighs, “because I never went over them
with you. I’m sorry, little one. This is my fault. The rules…the rules are, no
lying. No rudeness. Obedience, unless you want a discussion, and when you do
want that, we will go up into the Sanctum—the room upstairs?—and we will
discuss what you don’t like.”
Dean’s trembling turns near violent, and Castiel has no choice but to tug him
in closer, offer his throat and palm soothingly at his nape. “What is it,
sweetheart?”
“The Room,” he shudders out, shoulders hunched to his ears. “The cage, I
don’t…I don’t want to be in a cage. Please don’t lock me in it, I’ll be good
and follow rules, I swear, I’ll be real good for you, I—”
“Alright, little one, alright, shhshh,” but the trembling doesn’t stop and his
below breath begging barely ceases for a second. “The cage isn’t for
punishment, Dean, it’s alright. It’s like one of your downstairs bed’s, except
it’s enclosed and safe—similar to our canopied bed, yes? It has the same idea,
sweetheart, it’s not a punishment, it’s okay—”
“Maybe just get there when you get there, hmm?” comes another voice, from the
doorway when Castiel looks up, and Gabriel’s smiling sadly over at them.
Castiel nods his entrance, and Sam practically bounds inside, clambering onto
the bed and tucking himself up to Dean’s back almost instantly. He mewls for
his big brother, and Dean shifts to accommodate.
“Are you better now?” he asks excitedly, tugging at Dean’s wrist until his grip
falters on Castiel’s sleeve and Sam can mould his own fingers beside Dean’s.
“Dean?”
“Sam,” Castiel starts, but waits for a second when Dean finally lifts his damp,
reddened face from Castiel’s shoulder.
He sniffs slightly, peering up at Castiel for a second whilst frowning, before
staring back at Sam and Gabriel, gaze flitting between both. Seconds later he’s
in Sam’s arms with a ripped out whine, burrowing himself forcefully until the
pup ends up on his back, giggling breathlessly, unsurely as his brother
snuffles up harshly to him, offering a litany of taut, “I’m sorry, Sammy,
sorry, real sorry, don’t hate you, please Sammy, please…”
“I’m gonna go ahead and take that as a no,” Gabriel says quietly, raising a
brow at Castiel on the bed.
Castiel simply sighs. “We’re working on it.”
Chapter End Notes
     WARNINGS:
     Dean's terrified.
     Cas POV. They have a long needed discussion but it doesn't get them
     very far.
***** Drop *****
Chapter Notes
     For sometimes spoiler-type warnings, please see end notes.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
They stay in hospital for another two days—
Or, well. Dean does.
Castiel takes Sam back to the house to sleep in his own new bed during the
nights, leaving Dean alone in the sharply clean scent of hospital room long
enough for the fog that seems to have developed around him to dissipate
some—enough that by the time Castiel comes back the second day there isn’t a
burning need in Dean’s gullet to obey him and kneel. The humiliation of his
actions, in fact, keep his back stubbornly and fervently turned towards the
alpha when he reappears to explain to Dean that he’ll be returning to work
soon, and that if Dean needs him he should call for one of the nurses. Dean
ignores him, obviously. Dean ignores him with his face turned into the pillow
and he prays to hell that the flush of embarrassment on his cheeks isn’t enough
to taint his scent with the damn thing; enough to give the asshole any kind of
satisfaction.
Castiel presses kisses to Dean’s forehead—his shoulder and the backs of his
hands. He sits with Dean during his lunch and ten minute breaks, long fingered
hand resting on the dip of Dean's side. He tells Dean stories about Gabriel and
about how Sam seems to have taken a real shining to him (and that sure as hell,
resolutely pisses Dean off).
He brings Sam in when he can, when he finishes school and Castiel has the time.
Gabriel gives him a ride once (apparently he’s working a case within the
hospital which is why he’s conveniently around so much—fucking joy) but Dean
actually curls his lips back to offer up his thoughts on that little proposal
and they don’t do it again.
Sam sits with him on the bed and does his homework, chatters on about students
and teachers and this omega girl named Suzie who broke down in front of
everyone and had to have her Alpha father come save her from school ground
taunts. Shifty hazel eyes peer crookedly down at Dean with that one, fingers
fiddle within another new sweater, but Dean just rolls his eyes. Says well
that’s embarrassing, huh?
Sam’s smile is watery. Dean changes the subject.
It’s on the second day, when Sam’s just arrived, and Dean’s readying himself
for his dinner, before, he’s been told, he has to start packing (pointlessly,
it’s all shoved inside a duffel bag anyway), that he registers for the first,
true time since he woke up and ached for his alpha, that he has to return
there. To…to that fucking place.
To a cage and a spanking paddle.
To Castiel.
To Sam. His obedient little pup brother who only wants the best for you, Dean,
you know as well as I do that you need an alpha but I’m sorry, Dean, God I’m so
sorry.
And yeah, Cas hasn’t hurt him in the last few days, but Dean has been holed up
in his work place surrounded by people like Jo and Gabriel who hate the
traditionalist views of assholes like Dean’s Alpha. It would surely be some
kind of social suicide to strip Dean of his clothes and spank his ass purple,
right? So Dean isn’t damn trusting the asshole. Dean isn’t trusting him for one
fucking second.
“Uh, Dean?” Sam says, pausing in flicking through one of his abundance of
textbooks, one finger slotted in to hold his place as wide eyes peer up just
slightly at where Dean’s sat on the edge of the bed. Shaking his head a little
to clear whatever the fuck it is clogging his throat, Dean smiles at him on
Castiel's usual chair, however shortly. Sam grins back.
“How was lunch? Those little shits still giving you trouble?” Dean asks
quietly.
Apparently over the last week or so (evidently Dean wasn’t in the right mind
frame to be told) Sam’s been subjected to taunts from fellow pups at school
about one thing or another—Sam’s only ever elaborated on the little fucks
commenting on his height. One of them is an early developed alpha, the middle
school bully and ringleader of his little fucktard bandits. Cas says he’ll
speak to the school if it continues or develops into more than harsh words.
Dean said he should go in now, complain while it’s still happening. Sam thinks
they should both mind their own business.
“Not really, I guess,” the kid says, but his eyes sink low enough to avoid Dean
altogether, hovering around his fidgeting fingers on the peeling cover of his
textbook. Dean eyes him.
“Sam?”
He sighs heavily into the air, lifting his brows as if to say well I dunno, but
Dean’s already rumbling a soft growl in his stupid direction. Dumb kid needs to
speak up if that shits still happening. Dean could get Cas to defend him…he’s
pretty sure. Or maybe he could go to Gabriel.
Fuck. No, never mind.
“Nothing, really, it’s just…” he says, jolting quick little glances up at Dean
and skittering them away again. It’s just starting to piss Dean off.
“Sam,” Dean growls, hopping down from the bed. “What’d they said? Have they
hurt you? Touched you…shit, Sammy, have they touched you?”
With all the ‘small guy’ comments they could easily (stupidly) assume the kid’s
destined to be an omega—if they’ve put one scrawny fucking hand on Deans baby
brother he’ll fucking find them and rip their cocks straight from their bodies
the little shits, he’ll—
“Gross, dude, no,” Sam replies, scrunching his nose and abruptly halting Dean’s
murderous train of thought. “Nothing like that…well, they haven’t come anywhere
near me, trust me,” he mumbles all timid like. Then starts again with the
awkward fidgeting. He smells like deceit, the little turd.
“…Well?” Dean demands, arms wide.
Sam startles. “They just…they can, uh…they can smell you on me. So they make
comments, you know? Like…well, they say…they say…”
“Sam?” Dean prompts softly, feeling all of a sudden the fight drain from his
bones. Sam’s getting bullied because Dean’s a ‘cock-sucking-skank’, or at least
something along those lines. Maybe playground comments have gotten more
inventive over the last year or so; maybe they’re different all the way over
here in Cali. Probably not.
“They say they wanna…knot you, I guess. Which is pretty stupid ‘cause they’ve
never even met you, but I guess that doesn’t matter. And they say that
I’m…doing that, too. That I’m touching you, you know, like that. They’re making
everyone else believe it. Or I guess everyone already does.”
“Jesus, Sam,” Dean breathes, propping himself back to the bed.
Dean gets that he was bullied back in school for being what he is; that people
rubbed themselves up against him as some perverted scent marking thing; pups
and alphas and betas who shoved their hands down the back of his pants,
flattened him against the lockers and laughed when everyone just walked past
and ignored Dean’s growls. And Dean understands that he had to go through that
because of the card old mother nature dealt him, and he could deal, he really
could. But Sam…Sam’s still a pup. He’s still a pup who’s possibly the pup least
likely to be dumped into high school being stared at and called a hole, or a
whore. And yet these fucks still find a way to use the gender ‘omega’ and bully
people without them being marred by heats and slick and hormones. Sam’s
probably an alpha in the making and he’s being bullied because he smells like
omega; because his brother smells like omega. No matter what Dean does, people
get fucked. Sammy gets fucked.
Jesus Christ.
“Does Cas know?” Dean asks, cutting off whatever it was Sam was rambling about
whilst Dean was off having his marginal non-freak out.
The kid shakes his head a little to clear it, before saying, “Yeah, man. He
says he’s gonna go in on Monday about it. So it’s fine, he’ll sort it out,
Dean, please stop—”
“I can…I could get him to move you,” Dean says—he thinks he could, if he tried.
Cas likes Dean’s scent, he likes him knelt at his feet, eating from his
fingers. He likes Dean’s slick channel and he likes fucking it. Dean can be
good if it means Sam’s safe from the same threats he had to deal with. Sammy
can’t handle them, not this young. Not when he has Dean to deal with, too. “He
could move you to a different school and then I wouldn’t sleep with you
anymore, we wouldn’t have to scent mark or…or touch too much,” that could
work—he’d still smell a little like Dean but it won’t be so noticeable. “Then
they’d have nothing to say, you’d be fine.”
“What? Dean, no, jeese—”
“You have to be safe, Sam, they’ll hurt you and it would be my fault, you don’t
understand…”
Sam huffs with indignation, but he doesn’t fucking understand, if those shits
decide he’s fair meat because he smells even slightly like fuckable hole he’s
screwed for the next year and a half. Sammy’s smart. He doesn’t deserve that
and he doesn’t need that distraction. Not now. Hell, not ever.
“Dean, stop—”
“You kids okay?”
Gabriel. Fuck.
“Fine,” Dean says instantly, turning to face the alpha in the doorway, leaning
where he is against the doorjamb. Donned in his usual leather jacket and black
Henley and jeans and boots and that stupid fucking laminate around his neck
that says he can go wherever the hell he wants in the hospital. He’s smirking,
again. Asshole.
“Yeah?” he asks, all disbelieving smile and folded arms.
Dean glares at him for the one second he dares before zipping his gaze back to
the laminate flooring and allowing himself to practically vibrate in an angry
frustration. “Fine.”
“Alright, kiddo,” he says pleasingly, stepping further into the room. “You guys
both ready to head on out? Cas is in surgery ATM, doesn’t think he’ll be out
for a while so I’m taking you scamps home. What do you say, McDonald’s or
pizza, huh? Papa John’s?”
What…? No. No, Dean needs to speak to Cas now. He needs to sort everything out
with him because tomorrow’s Friday and that means Sam’s gonna have to go back
to that hell hole. Cas needs to pull him out now.
“KFC?”
And maybe…maybe Dean’s not ready to go back there just yet. Not with this
foreign Alpha and Dean doesn’t care if he’s Cas’ brother, or that Sammy likes
him or that he’s apparently this amazingly trustworthy social worker guy. Bully
to him for not owning an omega. No, wow, really. Everything’s just hearsay
anyway, how does Dean now if he’s telling the truth? What, he’s just gonna
start trusting everyone now, huh? Yeah. Fuck off.
“Sure, kiddo, KFC it is.”
Lock Dean in the fucking cage—‘for you, Dean, for your own good’, yeah Dean’s
own good, fuck you.
“You ready, bud?”
Jesus, if Gabriel says one fucking thing about Dean curling down for the night
into one of those damn dog beds he will seriously flip out.
Does Mama know? Does she know what Dean did?
“Dean-o?”
She’d be mad at him that’s for damn sure. The hell d’you think you’re playing
at, scaring everybody like that?! You damn fool, Dean Winchester! She’d spank
him with a spoon, he’s pretty sure.
“Dean?”
Dad wouldn’t give a shit. Maybe he’d be pissed at Dean for disobeying his alpha
in the first place, but otherwise he wouldn’t care. Bobby might be more sad for
Dean’s side of things, but even he wouldn’t give a shit, not really. Not at
all, actually, let’s be brutally honest. The only person who gives any kind of
fuck is Sammy and Dean told him he hated him. Dean was a complete dick.
No one really wants him anymore. Not really.
“Dean? Hello?”
Cas is gonna keep him because, hello, he just wasted like sixty grand on a
disobedient omega who accidently tries to kill himself. He’s stuck now.
“Hey, kiddo,” Gabriel says, resting a hand on Dean’s shoulder.
Stunned out of his headspace and dragged back into the hospital room, Dean
jolts and throws himself back onto the bed, crawling along his ass until he
whacks into the headboard with a sickening clunk.
Gabriel winces in sympathy with the stupid fucking smile on his lips like
freaking always and his hands are out and placating like he’s taming a wild
beast…Dean’s…Dean…spaced out again. Shit.
“I, uh…” Dean tries, reaching a hand back to the mess of hair at the back of
his head. Sam’s staring all wide eyed and shocked. Gabriel’s still just fucking
smiling. Jesus Christ, is this a condition? “Sorry.”
“Hey, no harm, no foul, kitten,” he says, the bastard. Like little one’s not
demeaning enough. “You ready to head off?”
Dean nods slowly through his glare, pushing himself into sitting properly,
before manoeuvring over the side of the bed and back into standing. Gabriel
holds hands beside him, close but not touching, when Dean stumbles slightly on
his feet. Another glare. Gabriel winks.
“You okay?” comes a wide eyed question.
Dean rolls his own, “Fine, Sam.”
                                -*---[—Ω—]---*-
They head out to the KFC a few miles out from Cas’ neighbourhood.
Sam leads Dean to a table where they sit for a few minutes, waiting for Gabriel
ordering them food in the queue, silent outside of hefty sighs and awkward
coughs whenever they glance up at one another. Sam knows Dean hasn’t and won’t
drop the bullying shit, and Dean knows Sam’s just gonna get pissy if they bring
it up right now, so they seem to both non-verbally agree to leave it for the
minute.
They get stares from a few other patrons. A young alpha—maybe fourteen, maybe
younger—sat with his betan family a few tables to Dean’s right stares about as
blatantly as possible at Dean, pressing his legs together beneath the table to
stave of his ugly fucking boner, Dean’s sure. The kid’s mom glares over at Dean
every now and then. Dean ignores her as best he can. Dean tries to ignore all
of them.
An alpha lady in a suit (about Cas' age, all sharp blonde bob and crisp white
shirt), tapping away at her Mac-book with a chicken wing in one hand, smiling
over in his direction and winking whenever she gains Dean’s attention. A few
betas in workman clothes—coated with concrete dust and
mortar—outrightly discuss how wet they bet they could make him, loud enough for
the people dotted around the restaurant to hear, for parents to turn in their
seats and narrow disgusted eyes at both him and them for daring to give betas a
reason to talk so graphically.
This. This fucking thing, this shit is why Dean doesn’t like going out, not as
a mated whore,not stinking up the joint with his distressand hisdrop scent.
This is why omegas as a damn whole avoid public situations like this, so they
don’t get harassed and spoken about like a piece of meat…or at least so they
don’t freaking hear it when they do.
Fucking….
It’s the last damn straw when he hears the mother behind him, with the mate and
the two young pups he saw when they sat down, when she loud whispers to the man
beside her, “…well, if he's so insecure, they shouldn’t have brought him out in
the first place then, should they.”
Dean slams himself into standing from the booth, sucks in a few breaths where
his feet are trembling on the ground, his thighs pressed harshly into the
tables edge and Sam’s wide eyes staring nervously up at him. Everyone’s
watching him now. Everyone’s fucking staring—he’s tall for an omega so young,
he’s maturing quicker than he should, big hands for an omega.
Fuck them. Christ, fuck this.
He storms towards the bathroom to the stream of tuts and head shakes at the
mouthy, disobedient omega, dirty little shit, how dare he be so rude.
“Dean!” Sammy hisses, but Dean’s far gone right now, he’s not taking this crap,
not today.
He just…he wants to go home.
And not to that fucking alpha scented shit hole Castiel has him living in, with
white rooms and dog beds and shit. Dean wants to go curl up in his real bed
back at Mama’s house. He wants to go outside and help her with the gardening,
sit inside her office with her hand in his hair, napping while she’s out there
in the pharmacy doing her thing. He wants his real scent back and he wants a
world where he could laugh at the omegas that stunk of alpha and roll his eyes
at them when they nuzzled into grips and mewled for attention, squirmed in
their seats wearing fucking collars.
Dean practically runs for the omega bathroom—all but shining clean, he bets it
rarely ever gets used. Fuck.
The reflection staring back at him looks like fucking shit in the pristine
mirror, bags beneath dull green eyes, pale lips matching pale cheeks. His hair
is limp to his scalp. He looks like he hasn’t eaten for a fucking week,
which…isn’t actually too far off.
His fingers are trembling when he glances down at them, curled and white around
the marble-plastic basin.
He can’t do this right now. Not with Gabriel and Sammy, not without Mama. Or
hell, even Castiel. At least that offers some semblance of comfort, even if it
is on a basely instinctual level—he would pull Dean down to his throat by the
scruff of his neck, all but force him to breathe Cas’ stench into his lungs,
rub a rough hand against his spine. He would make Dean relax, forget everything
but his alpha, make that scent drifting into the restaurants air something
better than fear and residual self-loathing. He would…he would be better than
this nothing that Dean has right now. Sam’s a pup. He can’t do shit to a room
full of pissy alphas and betas. No omegas. It’s late. No one to help him.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, kid,” comes a strong, angry voice,
and Dean’s hackles have risen like a fucking startled cat and he rears back
from the mirror, staring shakily at the man—alpha—stood in the doorway, filling
the entire space with his ill-fitting suit and bald head, stocky, tall figure.
Dean starts to shake. The man stalks forward. Dean starts to whine. “No, don't
you start that shit with me, boy,” he says, blocking Dean’s exit.
Fuck.
Gabriel…he must have seen. He’ll come in and he’ll save Dean, he’ll defend him,
he will, Dean’s gonna be fine, they’ll just—
“Making a scene like that out there; don’t you damn well know this is a family
restaurant?”
“You’re in the wrong bathroom,” Dean clips, because he can’t just fucking stand
here like some damsel in distress and he can’t…he can’t fight. All the man has
to do is throw one chubby fist into the air and bam, Dean’s out. And if that
didn’t work, two fingers pinching the nape of his neck will have him mewling
into a sweaty chest and don’t we all just fucking love biology?
Shit. Please, Gabriel, Cas…please.
“The fuck you just say to me?”
“What’s going on?” comes another voice—female, this time, beta. A smaller
figure, though no less overweight, emerges from behind the bulk of a man with
her hands on the hips of her cropped jeans and a flowery blouse. She eyes Dean
beneath a mop of frizzy hair and a flushed face, looking him up and down and
judging.
“This little shit’s giving me lip,” the alpha says, pointing a sweaty finger
into Dean’s face.
Definitely….definitely getting harder to breathe. Shit…he’s zoning out. That
head-space, it’s taking over, it’s hurting, fuck, please, he can’t—
“This is absolutely ridiculous—omega, where is your alpha right now?” she says,
like he’s six not sixteen. He’s not stupid.
“He’s…he’s…” at the hospital. He’s not here.
Red-polished finger tips snap inches from Dean’s face, impatient and irritated.
“Hey! Is he coming to meet you?”
No, he’s…Gabe said he was in surgery, he’s probably covered in blood and guts
and flesh right now not here with Dean, not here to defend him—Dean shakes his
head solemnly because he wishes probably about as much as they do that Cas was
here right now. How fucked is that?
“Jesus, don’t tell me that pup’s looking after you?” she says, shaking her
head. Dean lowers his gaze. God, he can smell himself. “You better start
speaking kid or I’ll have you arrested and spending the week in a shelter.
Where’s your alpha? Don't you have his collar?”
“He’s…” he’s gone, he’s not here, shit, shit, shit—
“Right, fuck this,” the alpha says—and then he’s fucking touching.
His meaty hand is around Dean’s shoulder, gripping to the fabric of Cas’
cardigan and pulling it and disfiguring it, Cas is gonna be mad, he’ll be
angry, he…
“Don’t…don’t touch me! No! Get off me!” he can’t breathe again, he needs to…he
needs to kneel for Cas and be held by him, he needs to be forgiven and touched
he can’t fucking, he can’t…
“Hey! Shut up,” the alpha says and he shakes Dean, knocks Dean’s head against
the door-frame and he drags him out of the omega bathroom and Dean can’t see,
it hurts, just…please!
“Now who the hell does this kid belong to?” the man bellows once they’re back
inside the restaurant, once all those fucking eyes are on him again and
everything is hurting him.
He’s Dropping. That’s what this is.
He needs his alpha.
He needs Castiel.
“Dean?!” Gabriel. Never been happy to hear him, see him storming across the
restaurant with a red face and balled hands, unless…unless he’s mad at Dean.
“Get your goddamn hands off of him,” he growls, all furious, terrifying alpha.
Dean drops to the floor in a heap of weakened knees when the meaty hand lets
him go. He slides towards Gabriel.
“I didn't mean...I tired to tell them, I tried, I swear,” Dean gulps in an
unintelligible whine and he fucking hates it. He hates this, this undeniable,
all consuming feeling of weakness, of fear and that overbearing demand of
obedience. “Cas…please, Castiel,” because he needs his alpha. Drops weren’t
like this before. Before he belonged to someone else.
“This is a mated omega,” Gabriel growls and his legs are in front of Dean,
defending him. Dean grips onto the denim and he doesn’t want to let go. “What
the hell do you think you were doing?”
“He was mouthing off at me!” the alpha yells and Gabriel’s small, he could be
hurt. Because of Dean. Because he’s useless. “What, I’m supposed to just let
some kid talk shit and do nothing—just ‘cause he can push a baby outta his ass,
huh?”
“We tried to ask him who his alpha was,” the beta lady says, cowed, now, in the
face of two angry alphas. Dean doesn’t blame her. "He was practically stinking
up the place smelling like Drop, and he's not wearing his collar, so we were
checking on-"
“This is an underage, sixteen year old omega who you have forced into a Drop.
What the hell did he say to warrant that?”
Dean tugs at the jeans in front of him, curls trembling hands around a calf and
presses his face into the back of a knee. “Please, just…s’go. Please.”
“Gabe,” Sam’s wavering voice whispers, from their table, he hasn’t moved. Good.
Not involved, good.
“Alright,” the small alpha snaps beneath Dean’s fingers and Dean flinches but
tucks closer all the same.
“'Scuse me, sir...I’m gonna have to ask you guys to leave,” another voice says.
Dean doesn’t look who.
He agrees with them.
“Yeah, fuck you very much, kid, we’re leaving, trust me. And you can back
yourself right up, buddy,” Gabriel growls, snapping his teeth. Dean leaks a wet
sob. “Sammy, grab the food, would ya? Shows over, assholes, that’s enough.”
Muttering begins where it was silent before and Dean curls closer, squirms
tighter when Gabriel steps away from him and out of his grip.
Dean freezes in the scant seconds before warm fingers curl into his biceps,
pulling him into standing and tugging him into a warm, unfamiliar chest.
“Alright, sweetheart,” he murmurs, just for Dean. “Up you come, good boy,
sshhh.”
Soft sobs echo sadly into the dark leather of Gabriel’s jacket, Dean’s fingers
tighten up on his arms.
Everyone’s staring at them as they walk outside, Sam flanking Gabriel’s other
side, gripping onto his free hand when he tucks Dean into his shoulder with his
eyes peering out like a startle cat. A few people are wide mouthed, staring at
them and glancing between each other. One boy, the new alpha, the one with the
boner…he’s videoing them on his iPhone. He’d have gotten the whole thing, he’ll
have Dean…breaking down. Again. They’ll be video evidence. Jesus Christ.
Gabriel mutters assurances all the way to the car, fingers in Dean’s hair. He
coaxes Dean into the passenger seat. He lifts Dean’s hand and puts it on his
own thigh, lets Dean grip onto the fabric. He tells Dean it’s okay when he
says, “I did....I tired to tell them 'bout Cas, but they...they got angry at
me, I didn't...didn't mean...”
“That was a Drop wasn’t it?” Sam asks from the back.
“Yeah, kiddo. It’s been a rough few weeks for the kid.”
Sam replies, but Dean doesn’t hear him. He’s already unconscious.
                                -*---[—Ω—]---*-
“Well, that was totally worth it,” Gabriel says after possibly the biggest
belch there ever was, beating his chest with a fist. Sam giggles and makes an
ew face.  Dean tucks his face into the man’s thigh so he’s not subjected to
actually smelling it.
“That was really good,” Sammy agrees. He balls up his stained napkin and throws
it into the bucket full of chicken bones and discarded corn cobs sat in the
center of Cas’ coffee table. They should probably clean up before he comes
back. Dean should…Dean should get up and clear this crap away. It’s his duty,
right? As the omega of the house?
“Buddy, you want some more chicken?” Gabriel asks, pressing his thumb into the
pressure point right there, behind Dean’s ear and fuck that feels nice. Dean
shakes his head just slightly at the offer of more food, but presses himself
back  into the warm, solid weight of the alpha’s stomach, head resting on the
joint of his thigh. He whines quietly at the pressure and the alpha chuckles,
pressing harder. Dean mewls for him. “You finished up, Sam?” Gabriel asks.
“Yeah, I’m done.”
“Good kiddo. You wanna go up and get started on your homework? Maybe if Cas
gets back at a decent hour we can all watch some crappy movie on Netflix, sound
good, bud?”
“Sure,” Sam says, scurrying into standing and wiping his greasy little mitts
off on his jeans. He turns as if to run upstairs before seemingly halting
himself, wide eyes floating back to Dean, curled beneath the blanket, staring
blankly at the navy carpet below him with his head rested on Gabriel’s thigh.
“You, uh, you okay, Dean?” he asks.
Dean glances up at him.
There’s a darkness under those hazel eyes too, a drooping quality  that mirrors
Dean’s own in a depressingly similar way. His lips are down turned on a pale
face, his hands are tense by his sides. He looks…worried. Upset, sad.
Like he doesn’t really need this fucking shit on top of everything going off at
school. Jesus. He doesn’t need Dean breaking down again—and sure, he didn’t
scream at Sammy and say I hate you again, but he sure as fuck doesn’t need to
see him like this either.
Dean blinks a few times dazedly at the pup just standing there and
staring—before he uncurls himself from Gabriel’s lap, pulling himself into
sitting properly, the blanket falling to his side. Dean moves along on the sofa
and he sits upright, pulling a leg under him as some semblance of normal. He
can feel Gabriel’s eyes on him but Sam’s all that matters right now.
Dean forces an eye roll, but it’s something. “Dude. I’m fine. Go finish your
homework, you little nerd.”
Sam scoffs. Gabriel playfully bats his arm.
Dean nods at him when the kid turns to leave again, gathering his hoodie in his
arms and skedaddling back up the staircase.
It’s silent in the wake of Sam. Dean loses any confidence he’d drilled on for
his brothers sake and deflates, picking at his nails as he feels the full
weight of an alphas gaze on him—not his alpha. It’s a strange, uncomfortable
feeling. Huh.
“We’ve never really had much of a chance to talk, have we?” Gabriel asks after
a few seconds, fingers back in Dean’s hair. It’s fine. Really. If he wants to
Dean should…he should totally let him.
Dean shakes his head.
“How about I start, huh?” Dean shrugs. “Okay, kiddo, so," he says, leaning back
into the arm of the couch and huffing himself there, taking up space, "Cas told
you the basics, yeah?” another nod. “Right. Well, like he said, I work with the
governmental Department of Omega Rights—fucking mouthful, huh?" He grins. "I
work on the ground, you could say, with the common people; in homes, with
families, you know. Most people call what I do social work, and I suppose
that’s pretty true. Basically, kiddo, I take badly placed omegas like you and I
remove them from their abusive situations if the threat is high enough and if I
have the jurisdiction to do so. If not, I work with them. I help them better
understand, or their alphas understand. I assist newly mated couples, like you
and Cas,” he rubs Dean’s hair. “I’m gonna help you two, sweetheart, okay? I’m
not gonna let him hurt you again, I swear to God.”
Fear wells inside of Dean unwittingly, painful and raw. A sob wells up from his
chest and tears are starting to swim in his eyes and he can’t…he doesn’t want
to do this. He doesn’t want to work at being mated, he just wants everything to
be alright, if not that than better than fucking this. He wants to love his
alpha because he loves him, not because chemicals in their bloodstream force
them into it. He wanted to be courted, to be kissed chastely on the cheek, on
the hand, become mated when the promise of the alpha brought his heat around,
didn’t drag it from his insides like a thief in the night.
“Aw, bub,” he says lightly, tucking Dean back to him. “You wanna tell me what's
swimming that head o' yours right now?”
“I didn’t…I didn’t want this,” Dean tells him, turning into Gabriel’s Henley,
shoving brusquely in to scent at his throat. “Mama wasn’t supposed to sell me
like…like cattle. She always promised she wouldn’t, that she'd never, not
without my say so...but she did. She did and now I’m stuck here with him,” Dean
growls. Fucking monumentally stupid, this guy is Castiel’s brother, but he just
doesn’t fucking care, not right now. Not when everything’s so fucking raw.
“That's some unfair fair shit, huh?” he whispers, rocking them gently back and
forth. “But I swear, I’m gonna help you. I won’t let him hurt you like that
ever again, you understand me? I’ll keep you safe, kiddo. You and Sam. I’ve got
you right now.”
“Please don’t leave him with me,” Dean bursts suddenly, sucking in sharp, hard
breaths, but he can't help himself right now, so fucking wasted.
“Please,alpha... He’ll hit me again—hurt me. Please. Please.”
“No, kitten, okay, I need you to breathe right now, he’s not near you, alrigt,
I’ve got you and I’m keeping you safe, you understand me? Dean, hey…breathe
with me kiddo, in…and out” Dean sucks in a heavy breath filled with the scent
of a foreign alpha, shoving it back from his lungs. He tries again. And again.
Until the only thing in his mind is Gabriel and the only thing within his body
is safety.
Ha. Some joke, huh?
He falls asleep like that, with Gabriel petting his hair.
And when Castiel returns some hours later, he takes Dean off him to a litany of
subconscious snarling, takes them both to the guest room and lays them all down
together. Dean falls back to sleep with the weight of his mate pressed into his
chest, his front; and the weight of a foreigner guarding his back, keeping him
guarded.
He sleeps…dreamlessly.
Chapter End Notes
     WARNINGS:
     Dean is treated badly in a KFC because he still smells like fear and
     Drop without his Alpha, he and Gabriel bond.
***** Shopping *****
The first time consciousness drags him into the early morning sunlight, Castiel
is bent down over their bed. His face is blurry up close, fuzzed up through
Dean’s sleep-lagged eyes, but he can still make out the alpha’s smile and the
closer he draws as fingers find their way into his hair.
“I’m headed to work, Dean,” he whispers softly, thumb rubbing at the edge of
Dean’s temple. “Gabriel will stay with you all day, so don’t worry about that,
alright?” Dean nods dazedly, not entirely understanding but offering his
compliance anyway. His eyes are practically drooping. “Alright,” Castiel
replies, still smiling. “Go back to sleep, sweetheart. I’ll see you in time for
dinner. Take out?”
Again, Dean nods stupidly. Castiel’s smile seems to grow some, but then Dean’s
closing his eyes as he looms closer, making a soft noise in the back of his
throat when toothpaste-flavoured lips press a kiss to his forehead.
“I’ll see you later, baby.”
And then he’s gone.
Dean’s about to whine out in injustice—he’d been warm just then, calmed in the
soothing cocoon his Alpha had made…but then warm arms are encasing him once
more, and he’s pulled back into a soft chest pressing against his spine, so he
soothes down pretty quick, to be fair.
Castiel’s fingers are cool as they drape along the back of Dean’s hand, but by
then Dean’s too far gone to notice him quietly shutting the spare-room door.
*
The next time Dean finds himself cognisant, there’s a distinct lack of warm
chest to manfully nuzzle into and a cold patch where it used to be. Dean
whines, digging himself back beneath the sheets.
Smells nice under here, he thinks dopily, snuggling himself lower. It smells
like alpha and mate and safety—that undercurrent of contentment that he’s
fairly certain only he could pick up in the nest of scents, but is there all
the same. Huh. That was a good night’s sleep.
“You awake over there?” comes a voice, and Dean sticks his head above the
sheets just enough for his eyes to spy out Gabriel, towel around his waist and
hair comb in hand. Dean might be embarrassed at the sight if the alpha hadn’t
already had quite the view of his own hand-slapped rear-end, so as it is he
doesn’t even react. Just shuffles a little further up the bed until his head’s
actually resting on a pillow.
Gabriel smiles, but then of course Gabriel smiles. “Good. Up and at ‘em then,
kitten, we’ve got a busy day ahead of us. The shower should still be hot, so
you wanna jump in while I sort out breakfast?”
Dean blinks, slowly pushing himself upright.
He doesn’t think…letting him shower shouldn’t be a big deal, right? That’s
like…basic. As in, of course Dean can shower by himself, he’s not mentally
disabled. But, and he hasn’t noticed this until right at this second, he hasn’t
showered himself in what must be at least a week. Which isn’t to say he’s not
clean, because he is—it’s just that through his stay in the hospital, it was
Donna and her washcloth and basin that kept him from rotting away…he hadn’t
even considered using a shower, and a bath was certainly out of the question.
And that was because they hadn’t trusted him. Castiel hadn’t trusted him to cut
out the whole ‘suicide-attempt’ thing, so he hadn’t allowed Dean to wash
himself. And Dean hadn’t noticed.
Jesus Christ. He’s whipped.
And not in the kinky way.
“Yo, buddy, it’s totally cool. I know you won’t try anything,” Gabriel says,
staple smirk still plastered on his strange-shaped face. “You’ve got the go
ahead, so, you know…enjoy yourself and what not. I’ll be downstairs when you’re
done.”
He disappears into the closet then, a duffle bag Dean’s going to assume
contains his clothes and stuff slung over his shoulder from where it stood by
the door. He doesn’t bother to shut it, just lets it swing back to an angle,
enough so the space inside is dark to Dean’s eyes.
Again, Dean just…blinks.
So they don’t think he’s going to try it again, or Gabriel doesn’t think he’s
going to try it again? Would he really try something like that…risk his
brother’s mate by going against Castiel’s orders? Doesn’t seem entirely likely,
but then Dean doesn’t know him. Dean barely knows Castiel, so who the fuck can
say, right?
Dean just goes to have a shower.
And doesn’t try to kill himself.
Not that he did before.
*
It’s nice, having solidarity again. A week in the hospital was a mess of
sleeping, busy-body nurses, visits by Jo, Gabriel, Sammy, Cas. So being allowed
even something as simple as a lonely old shower is…actually really nice. So
Dean does enjoy himself, yeah.
And as it’s the spare-room shower, he doesn’t use his usual, high-thread-count
towel (Dean didn’t even know that was a thing before traipsing after Castiel in
that Omega boutique thing) and the plain, boring old cotton one he wraps around
his shoulders is like a relief.
Castiel isn’t waiting for him outside, arms crossed and expectant brow raised
and waiting for Dean to rub his skin quickly before dropping it altogether.
Sam’s at school, so he won’t flush when Dean descends the stairs as bare as the
day he was born, or glance shyly up at his big brother like he’s nothing more
than some badly behaved animal. The only thing waiting for Dean that holds some
sort of trepidation is Gabriel, but Dean can handle Gabriel. He totally can. So
you know what? This is gonna be a good day. He can feel it.
So Dean brushes his teeth (“Ah, before breakfast, champ, you know the rules.”
Missouri was very strict on that), ruffles his hair with his fingers, before
wrapping the towel more securely around his waist and stepping back into the
spare room.
True to his word, Gabriel’s either somewhere else or he’s down in the kitchen
like he said, because the rest of the room is empty. Dean thinks if he
concentrates hard enough he can smell something cooking wafting from the ajar
door, but he’s not certain.
He’s on his way over, in fact, making his way towards Castiel’s proper bedroom
at the other end of the house when he notices the very thing he was about to
retrieve laid out on the foot of the bed all ready for him.
And as much as being dressed irks him, he’s not actually being dressed, and he
must admit, the simple jeans, Henley and khaki jacket resting on the sheets is
a step up from the cardigans Castiel likes him in. So he doesn’t grumble too
much when he wrestles them on.
A pair of white converse are sat on the floor next to the door, but Dean
doesn’t slip then on his socked feet just yet. Mostly, he wants to make sure
they are actually for him. And then he’ll only wear then out of the house.
Castiel always takes his off before coming in, and Dean isn’t in the business
right now of pissing him off again. So. No shoes it is.
“There he is,” Gabriel says loudly, waving a spatula at one of the high stools
tucked under the kitchen island as Dean comes silently stalking into the
kitchen. “Take a perch, kitten,” he grins.
There’s a place set—well, two, but the other’s on the opposite side and Gabriel
waved to this one—right above the alcove on the dog bed, Dean’s assuming
because it’ll be easier for him to get his legs under the table, but…Dean’s
gonna risk indigestion by eating sideways. Because he is not about to sit
anywhere near that shit.
Gabriel watches him with one hand on his hip and the other leaning against the
counter, but doesn’t say anything when Dean moves the placemat, cutlery and
orange-coloured smoothie thing over to the other end and drags the stool so he
can sit down. Just raises a brow. But doesn’t say anything.
Yeah. Dean can handle Gabriel.
“Corso uno,” he says, waving theatrically at the thick liquid in Dean’s cup. In
possibly one of the worst Italian accents Dean’s ever heard. “Il…smoothie-o,”
he grins. Christ. It’s infectious. “Bon appetite, mon cheri.”
“I thought that was French,” Dean says, ducking his gaze down in case the
remark doesn’t go down well.
“…aah, good eye, grasshopper,” he says, and when Dean glances up in surprise
his eyes are squinted to go along with another terrible accent. He grins like
crazy, all happy with himself and beaming when Dean surprises both of them with
a snort. He doesn’t feel embarrassed though. Because Gabriel’s whistling when
he goes back to the pan and the sizzling bacon. He doesn’t see Dean’s tiny
smirk-wide-eyed hybrid thing, but that’s okay.
“So, quid-pro-quo, kitten,” he says, flipping the streaky bacon rashers onto
one plate, French toast onto another, scrambled eggs on a third, and then
normal toast on a forth. He carries them over before retrieving one for each of
them from the cupboard and setting them down in front of them both. “Favourite
movie.”
“Uh…” Dean says dumbly, mostly staring down at all the food in wonderment.
Okay. So he’s hungry. And there is enough there to feed both of them, Sammy,
and Cas in one go. Christ. “I dunno.”
Gabriel nods blankly. “Wow. Inspiring.” Then he’s grinning again with an eye
roll. “Okay, movie that you like, go.”
“I, uh,” Dean stutters, angry with himself for not being able to come up with
anything. Gabriel’s being light-hearted, he can smell it on him and sense it
with his little lizard/omega hindbrain. He isn’t being pressured. He can damn
well do this. “I like horrors, I guess. And action. Anything with Chuck Norris
is pretty cool. And Star Wars. I like Star Wars. Episode Three.”
“Dude, obviously,” Gabriel says, nodding along. “Cool. Okay, you go. Ask me
anything. My brain is prepared.”
“Uh…what are we doing today?” Dean asks, pulling a few rashers onto his plate
slyly, peaking up every few nanoseconds to eye up the alpha. ‘Busy day’ doesn’t
sound like something this Dean would be interested in. Old Dean, now old Dean
would have jumped at the chance, mostly because it might have meant a day spent
with Mama or a visit with Dad and Bobby. New Dean…knows it means a day spent
doing something other than waiting for Castiel to return, like going outside or
cleaning the house. Nope. Not something he’s interested in.
“Good,” Gabriel offers, probably sensing Dean’s reluctance. “Well, bucko, you
and me are going out for the day.”
And then suspiciousness has faded because Dean’s staring up from his barely
filled plate to stare at Gabriel like he’s grown another head. He’s about ten
seconds from scoffing and saying, “Are you stupid?! Don’t you remember what
happened last night, huh? No. No way. Nu-uh.”
He refrains, though. Barely.
“I know, kiddo, but this is gonna be different, I swear. Besides, if you stay
inside just because of some fucktards then you’ll never get out of the house,
and I’m not letting you go all recluse on us, so. We are going outside today
and we are going shopping. It’ll be fun. I swear.”
“Because I wasn’t with my alpha,” Dean spits out like an angry cat. “They’re
just gonna be the same. I don’t want to.”
“I know, bud, and I’m all about respecting that. But I’m making a call here,
and honestly, I don’t want what happened last night—a fluke, I might add—to
change your mind about going outside. When I’m not around and you’re home
alone, I don’t want you staying inside the whole time. Even if it’s just to the
corner shop, you can’t rely on your alpha your whole life.”
A fluke?! Says the goddamn alpha.
And as if Dean wants to rely on his alpha. As if he wants to be fucking
terrified of stepping outside of his territory that doesn’t even feel like his
yet, scared to death of strangers and passers-by. Omega’s get taken like that.
Hell, that was how it happened for Dean. Now he has a mate, for fuck’s sake.
“Bud, I’m gonna be there the whole time,” he says, holding his hands up by his
head. “I’m not expecting you to go gallivanting off into the sunset all alone,
but right now I don’t want that fear setting in. I’m gonna show you that life
can be okay even if your alpha’s not there. Which, believe me, I know, sucks.
But just give me a chance, kitten. I swear.”
“And what if it happens again?” Dean murmurs, picking up a rasher with his
fingers and not minding the grease. Castiel would swat him for it. But as
Gabriel says, Castiel’s not here.
“We persevere and you get to ignore me for the rest of the trip. Hell, I’ll
give you one free slap, right here,” he points at his own maroon-shirted arm.
“Deal?”
No. No deal.
“…Fine.”
They don’t speak for the rest of the meal, but Dean does moan slightly at the
taste of fresh mango smoothie.
                                -*---[—Ω—]---*-
They end up going to a mall, much to Dean’s chagrin. Called Fashion Valley.
Seriously. Needless to say, Dean’s not exactly eager to go wandering off around
the damn place, even if the whole ‘outside mall’ thing is pretty cool. Better
than some stuffy old building packed to the brim with sweaty alphas, anyway.
Not that this isn’t. It totally is—the only redeeming feature is that it’s
outside. With a nice airflow.
Ugh, this is gonna be hell.
“So,” Gabriel says, clapping his hands together. “Where to first?”
They’re stood at the entrance right now, a long walkway of busy shoppers and
families and couples and children, between Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus. The
place is goddamn huge though—curving into the distance as far as Dean can make
out with the palm trees and lights, Macy’s right at the end. Shops line the
perimeter in stories, at least two, escalators travelling from one to the next,
hundreds of people mulling around, in and out of shops, chatting and laughing.
When Dean glances over, Gabriel’s staring at a map on one of those billboard
things, stepping closer once he has Dean’s attention and motions for him to
follow so he can get a good look.
“I’m thinking Omega Age,” Gabriel says, one long fingered hand rubbing at his
chin. Dean just rolls his eyes. “Right next to Prada,” he chuckles, voice
taking on a snooty quality, and when he turns to Dean he makes a face as if to
say ‘how posh’. Dean doesn’t react though. He’s counting the second Hispanic
Alpha in all of five minutes to have looked his way. Not gonna go well.
Something’s gonna go wrong. He can feel it. “What, not in the clothes shopping
mood?” Gabriel asks, following Dean’s gaze to the squat woman—with her very own
beta mate—just turning away with a flick of her dark curls over a square
shoulder. Goddammit.
“I don’t need any more clothes,” Dean grumbles, shoving his hands into the
jacket’s pockets. “Castiel already got me loads.”
“Exactly,” Gabriel drawls cheerily, taking Dean by his shoulders and aiming him
towards the centre of the place. “Cas got you clothes. But did you pick them?”
he doesn’t wait for Dean to finish grimacing to shake his head, just answers
for him, “No. Exactly. So, we’re starting over. Your choice, bucko. This is
your day.”
“Retail therapy,” Dean grumbles, rolling his eyes. “Yay.”
“That’s the spirit!” And then Gabriel’s steering him off god knows where and
Dean doesn’t even notice the bearded man leering.
*
“Now I’m gonna hazard a guess here and say you’re not quite done growing yet,
am I right?” asks the sales lady (Dean is going to kill Gabriel…how any times
did he have to explain, he can pick out his own damn clothes), tucking one arm
under her breasts and resting her elbow on the hand. She flicks long, bright
blue fingernails at him.
Dean shrugs. How the hell is he meant to know? How is anyone?
“Oh, I’ll bet there’s some inches left in you yet, little man,” she grins, all
fake tan and false eyelashes and dyed blonde hair. She’s not bad looking
though. Maybe if she avoided the tanning salons for a little while, went for
the old natural look, she’d be stunning, really. But…who’s Dean to judge? She
smells mated, so someone must find that all kinds of attractive. Which is cool.
Each to their own. “So. New wardrobe, huh? Must be pretty intimidating. But
don’t worry, babe, we’re gonna get this right first time, I promise. Now.
Underwear.”
Dean has underwear. Castiel bought him too many already, he sure as hell
doesn’t need more…but the woman’s moving away already, and her taloned hand is
dragging him with her. Gabriel better damn well be around, Dean swears.
On the plus side though, Dean hasn’t seen an alpha in well over five minutes.
And whenever he does, they’re too wrapped up in scanning the store or necking
their omegas or just being mated to pay him any mind, and for the first time in
Dean’s life, he hasn’t minded being in an omega-specific store. He doesn’t like
it, but he also doesn’t mind it. Which counts for something.
“Hey, kitten,” Gabriel greets again, appearing from behind one of the
bookshelves that actually holds sex toys, all neatly arranged and in pretty
colours. Now that’s fucked up. “Getting anywhere?”
“Oh, we’re just getting started, Mr Alpha,” the blonde lady says, batting
Gabriel playfully on the chest with the back of her hand and if Dean didn’t
know any better, is she…she’s totally flirting. Ugh. Gross. Really?
Gabriel grins back at them, raising a brow for Dean’s sake, before looping an
arm around Dean’s shoulders and pressing a chaste kiss into his hair.
“Alrighty, then,” he says, voice muffled against Dean’s skull. “Let’s do this
shit.”
*
“So the Henley is absolutely perfect,” Sadie says, lifting a grey—that looks
exactly the same colour as all the others—against him, resting it to his chest.
“You know what, I’m not entirely convinced there’s anything you can’t pull off.
But that green, babe, you’re a total knock out.”
Dean’s getting bored and hungry.
They’ve been stood in the same little changing room for the last, like, hour
and a half, just staring at Dean trying these damn shirts on and off—and if
it’s not shirts then it’s jeans, and if it’s not jeans then it’s some type of
underwear…people need to start getting to grips with the fact that omegas don’t
like stripping in front of strangers. And said strangers need to get over it.
Seriously.
“And I’d go round neck.” She adds that to her clipboard. “Next…uh…” she’s
looking through the catalogue, flicking through pages while Dean squirms out of
the third Henley in a row and shoves it onto the ever growing pile of discarded
clothing on the chair next to Gabriel. “Oh, I know the perfect thing…give me
just a sec, I’ll be right back.”
Dean watches her go in the mirror.
“Let’s just see what’s so perfect, and we can get out of here,” Gabriel says
quietly from his armchair, all soft gaze and spread limbs. “I didn’t think it’d
take this long to be honest with you, kitten. Hey,” he says, calling Dean’s
attention. “You doing okay?”
Dean’s shivering, actually. Which is weird. He’s not entirely sure why.
“Just…cold.” He’s not, though. There’s an AC in here, but it’s not too bad, not
enough to make him shiver.
Dean was doing good. He was being himself again, normal and dependant…he can do
this. Nothing’s coming back. Please.
Just for now.
“Here, put this back on, you don’t need to try on anything else,” Gabriel says,
handing him his actually shirt. “I think she knows your size by now.”
“Thanks,” Dean mutters. He slips back into the pale grey fabric.
About ten seconds later, Sadie comes swinging back into the squat little room,
sliding the curtain closed behind her. She hooks the underwear in her hands on
the knob on the wall, before turning to him and rubbing her hands together.
“Okay, so,” she starts, grinning at them both. “I know these aren’t exactly the
most practical things, but I’m thinking the mates definitely gonna enjoy them.
Just picture it, babe, your alpha’s off on his long, hard day at work and he
comes home, he just wants to relax, let loose…and there you are, taking his
jacket and suitcase, wearing nothing but these…now that’s a pay off.”
“No, that’s my baby brother,” Gabriel says, laughing as he stands.
Lingerie. She’s got lacy lingerie. Jesus Christ.
No. No damn way.
“Thanks and all, Sadie-baby, but maybe we should let those two pick them out
together, yeah? I sure as hell know I don’t want my brother’s mate’s lingerie
on my credit card.”
Sadie laughs, luckily, shrugging her slim shoulders as she lets them out of the
changing room. “Fair enough. But you keep these in mind for your next shopping
trip, okay? They keep comfort in mind, I swear.” She winks at Dean. He is way
beyond niceties. “You guys go have another scan around, I’m gonna rack these up
on the till for you.”
“Perfect. Thanks, doll,” Gabriel says, winking back. God. It’s been like this
for the past ever. Dean wants to go home. “By the way, kitten,” he mutters
conspiratorially once they’re back in the pale pink tones of the shop with
Sadie far enough away, his hand a light pressure on Dean’s shoulder, “I have no
problem with having my brother’s mate’s lingerie on my credit card, so if
that’s what you want, have the hell at it. I just figured you might not want to
be thinking about my brother in positions where you might be wearing panties,
but if I’m wrong, entirely my bad. You can pick out whatever you want.”
“I’m good,” Dean replies hastily, cheeks staining red. He is not—is not—going
to be in any position with Gabriel’s brother where he might be seen wearing
lace. Okay? Not fucking ever. Christ.
“Okay, buddy,” Gabriel says, squeezing his neck. Dean shrinks into the
pressure. “But you let me know if you ever change your mind.”
He won’t. Seriously.
“Damn, they look comfy,” he says suddenly, moving away to get a better look at
these fluffy blue things called Heat Slippers…because they’re in the Heat
section. As if any of this stuff would actually help.
“Gabriel?” comes a soft little voice from behind Dean, all smooth tones and
high pitch. “Alpha Novak.”
Dean watches quietly as Gabriel turns to the voice, eyebrow raised in
preparatory question before he sets his sights down on its owner and his entire
demeanour lights up. He drops the heat slippers like they burned him (ironic)
and lets them clatter to the floor in favour of offering a delighted chuckle
and storming towards—Dean turns to look—a small blonde boy. Not much older than
fifteen, surely, and he’s small, he’s tiny, but he’s so textbook omega it hurts
to look. Ear length, wavy hair the colour of melted butter and these azure,
wide eyes fixed ecstatically on Gabriel…but there’s a scar, stretched out
across the left side of his face, burns, Dean would imagine, reaching far into
his hairline and screwing up his left ear, but…he’s still beautiful. He’s
stunning.
“Scottie?” Gabriel beams, squatting his knees a little to get a better view
into the kid’s eyes, letting his hands come out to rest of either side of that
happy little face. “Geeze, kiddo, you grew up, huh?”
“You haven’t seen me in…over a year,” he speaks again, voice like serenading
angels to match that soft face. “You don’t look any different.”
“Aw, shucks,” Gabriel teases, cupping him playfully on the jaw. “You’re just
saying that. God, come here, you little rascal,” he says, standing straight
once more to allow the boy a spot against his stomach, his head nestling in to
the dip of his armpit. “You look good, angel,” he says, smoothing down that
fair hair. “Happy.”
“I am,” Scottie sighs, fine hands coming up to grip at Gabriel’s jacket.
“Thanks to you.”
Jesus…if Dean didn’t know better, he’d have said this whole thing was staged as
shit. Gabriel takes him out to show him how damn trustworthy he can be, and
this kid shows up with his soft blue shirt and tight jeans, and that
face.Staged. Seriously.
Especially when some Asian Amazonian lady comes gracefully stomping over; all
supermodel height and long black hair and stands behind the angel-boy stinking
of overprotective alpha—that is until she sees who it is he’s hugging. Then she
just grins.
“Gabe?” she grins, reaching over her mate—Dean’s assuming, they sure smell the
part—to clasp Gabriel in a hug of their own, brushing her wrist over his temple
in a familiar scent-marking gesture…one he doesn’t retaliate, thank God. Dean’s
only ever seen family do that, between alpha’s especially. This is weird.
Or set up.
“Mai,” Gabriel greets. “Stunning as ever.”
“Ever the charmer,” she replies, retrieving her omega and resting her arms over
his chest. The kid’s still grinning. “How are you?”
“I’m great,” he replies, beaming up at her. “You two seem to have settled down
well.”
“Mmm,” the giantess hums, nestling her nose into Scottie’s hair. He squirms a
little, but not from trying to run. He’s like a bundle of puppy, seriously.
He’s worse than Sam. “Very well. You did good, Gabe, I’ve got to admit.”
“Well, it is my job, so…” he says, trailing off. Only then does he seem to
remember Dean. “Dean, bud…this is Mai,” he introduces, gesturing to the
supermodel. She smiles slyly down at him, lips still partly covered by her
mates hair. “And this tiny thing here is Scott.”
“Hi, Dean,” Scott says, voice quiet where it was eager before, body once filled
with energy now stiff with discomfort. Dean can…understand. Well, actually.
“Hey,” he replies.
“We worked together a few years back now…I practically set them up,” he
explains, all but oozing pride in the statement, eyes fixed dolefully on the
pair.
“And this one…you smell mated, Dean, but surely not Gabriel,” Mai says,
laughing aloud. “This old spinster. How is it you know each other?”
“He’s Castiel’s luck, actually,” Gabriel offers, drawing Dean into him.
“Playing match maker still, are we?”
Gabriel smiles ruefully, glancing down at Dean with a sad simile. “No,
unfortunately. Cas did this one all on his own.”
“Then it must run in the family,” Mai smiles.
Scott goes slowly back to wriggling in her grip. “We were gonna go for lunch,”
he says quietly, reaching up to lace his fingers through Mai’s. “Are you gonna
come?” And he looks hopeful. He’s a timid boy, Dean can tell…the way he doesn’t
meet even Dean’s eyes, the fellow omega, his quiet words and twitchy
disposition. But he looks so goddamn eager at the idea of Gabriel joining them
for food, for even another few seconds spent with the man that Dean has to
wonder about their relationship, whether it’s always been entirely platonic.
Alpha’s can share, sometimes, right? Some fucked up trading thing…is that what
this is? Is that what Gabriel does?
Gabriel must sense Dean’s tenseness stiffening on his arms, because next thing
Dean knows he’s being tucked against a sturdy side and half hidden on what he
thinks must be instinct and he replies, “You know I’d love to, kiddo, more than
anything, but right now I need to get Dean-o here back home…in a few weeks,
once everything’s calmed at work, how about I stop by? See how Muchu’s doing,
huh?”
Mai smiles in return, sliding her hands up on the boy until they rest in his
hair, pushing it into manic disarray. She kisses his crown, nuzzling into his
scent. “That sounds perfect,” she replies for the suddenly sullen boy. “We look
forward to having you.”
And it looks like they’re about to depart, Mai offering Gabriel a half hug over
Scott again, Gabriel pressing a kiss to the back of his hand—both of them
nodding to Dean in goodbye—when all of a sudden Gabriel’s suddenly full of pale
omega, arms wrapped around his neck.
“I missed you,” Scott confides quietly, his face pressed into Gabriel’s throat.
“Please come visit. Okay? You have to promise.”
“Hey sweetheart,” Gabriel soothes, running soft hands over the boy’s sides. “I
promise. And I’m gonna bring Chinese, okay? Just you wait.”
“Traitor,” Mai murmurs, but she’s smiling too.
“Good,” Scott whispers conspiratorially, eyes squeezed shut. “I really don’t
like Japanese food.”
“Double traitor,” Mai laughs, reaching out for the boy once it’s clear the
whole departure thing is back on, tucking his slim form back into her chest.
“I’ll see you then, Gabe. It was nice meeting you, Dean. You’re welcome, too.”
“Thanks,” Dean mutters. He trails behind Gabriel as he moves away though,
catching a tiny snippet of,
“Alright, puppy, have at it. Just remember this is for the whole week, okay?
Pick something you’re not just gonna get bored of,”
And Dean flushes, scrambling back to Gabriel’s side.
They pay—Dean frowning at the price, raising two eyebrows as an ‘are you
serious?’, but Gabriel shakes off his hand and slides his card in anyway—and
then go shopping a little more, hitting up home stores and Macy’s and somewhere
that sells shoes so Dean can buy some leather hiking boots. The converse are
nice, but these…are really cool.
Then they head back home. Gabriel makes them lunch, then they sit outside and
devour the sandwiches, and Dean wants to know but he doesn’t ask about the
mates they just met. Gabriel doesn’t tell him anyway, so it doesn’t matter.
And after lunch, when Dean’s just finished drying and Gabriel’s wiping his
hands clean on a dishcloth…he says,
“Can you trust me for a minute, Dean?”
And Dean frowns. “Nothing sinister, kiddo, I swear,” he chuckles, shaking his
head a little at what must be the look on Dean’s face. “I just wanna show you
something for a few seconds…if you absolutely fucking hate it, we can stop
instantly, but—I’d like you to see something. If that’s okay.”
“…what is it?” Dean asks, drying his own hands.
“Like I said, this is your choice,” he assures. “But I wanted to show you the
room upstairs. Let you look around for a bit.”
The room with the cage, he means. The room where Castiel had planned on beating
him with his belt, where he was banished as punishment. The damn Room.
“Why?” Dean asks, shoulders hunching in defence of himself, eyes scanning lowly
along the marble flooring.
“Because I think it’s about time you knew what the point of it was—and for the
record, it’s never punishment, okay? Once again, Cas was so far outta line with
that shit, I can’t even tell you. So I want to show you what it means. For both
of you.”
Dean really, really doesn’t want to. He wants to forget every inch of that
space—have a brick wall installed at the foot of the stairs and just erase it
from his memories, but he knows…he can’t. For starters, Castiel would never let
him—if Gabriel doesn’t make him do this, Castiel will. And secondly, he’s not a
child. And it’s a room, for God’s sake. Dean may have acted all of twelve over
the last however many weeks, but he’s not, and it’s about time he starting
behaving that way. He can do this. He can be mature. He will.
“Okay,” Dean says, straightening his back. “Okay.”
For the second time this fortnight, Dean’s struck with a pounce of baby blue
the second the ominous door opens and the damn room is bared to him again. And
it’s not that bad, but everything—it’s like a cheesy movie, when that high-
strung music plays and they zoom in on the scary parts, like an electric chair
or knives or a fucking cage. Dean’s eyes jump around like fucking
crickets—narrowing onto the cage first (and okay, maybe it’s not made out of
rusting steel, but the bone structure is still metal, beneath the entire
coating of pale blue fabric, which is just as bad), and then the sheet less bed
(which isn’t sheet less, it just doesn’t have covers), then swings over to the
cabinet and chest of draws, and…an iPod doc, fitted with a chunky iPod. There’s
a little alcove bit, tucked beneath the slanted roof and skylight, just past
the chest of drawers, that holds some shelves chocked to the brim with blankets
and fleeces and sheets…warmth. They’d make a damn good nest though.
But it’s not…so bad. And yeah, the cage isn’t okay, and Dean doesn’t like the
thought of what those chests might hold, but on the outside, it’s not so bad.
“You can snoop once Castiel gets back, kitten,” Gabriel says, strolling into
the room. “He’ll be a hell of a lot better at this than I would be. Besides, he
knows where shit is. I haven’t a clue.”
“What’s it for?” Dean asks quietly, stepping closer to the doorframe so he can
hide behind it, just slightly. Subtly.
“It’s called the Sanctum,” Gabriel replies. He’s walking towards the shelves
now, dragging down a few blankets and carrying them over to the bed. “A lot of
omega households have them, actually. This is, basically, kitten, your
sanctuary. If you need to come here to feel safe, you do that. Maybe it’s in
your heat, after it, before it, maybe it’s nowhere near it and you need to cool
out a little, you can come here to do it. Castiel taking you up here for
punishment,” Gabriel pauses in the centre of the room, blankets draping on the
hardwood floor, “that was shit. Totally wrong of him. And you can rest assured
he didn’t get away with it.”
Dean shakes his head a little. Castiel was going to beat him up here, Dean
thought, lock him in a cage and leave him to rot, he was convinced…so hey, if
this room still freaks him out a little, it’s not all his fault. Castiel
threatened him.
“I don’t know about you, champ but I’m beat,” he says, laying out the mass of
blankets of the white bed. He snoops around in the chest then,
uncovering…pillows. Four of them. Huh. “Naptime?”
“’kay,” Dean whispers, tiptoeing closer.
The cage is on the other side of the room. Gabriel won’t be able to drag him
into it without him waking up, and then he can fight like hell and get away and
hope this alpha isn’t as fast as his own. He can do this. He’s not a baby.
And when Gabriel’s arms wrap around his own, and the nest of blankets becomes
his nest of blankets, well…nap Dean does.
End Notes
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