Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/1057512.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Supernatural
  Relationship:
      Castiel/Dean_Winchester
  Character:
      Dean_Winchester, Castiel, Adam_Milligan, Meg_Masters, Anna_Milton,
      Samandriel, Zachariah_(Supernatural), Ezekiel_(Supernatural), Gabriel_
      (Supernatural), Missouri_Moseley
  Additional Tags:
      Alpha/Beta/Omega_Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, people_being_assbutts_to_omegas,
      rolism, Alpha_Dean, Omega_Castiel, Slight_underageness, Cas_is_17, Dean
      is_early_twenties, alpha/omega_smut, narrowly_avoided_sodomy, Sexual
      harassement, Angst, the_first_part_is_really_angsty, second_part_not_so
      much, just_gotta_soldier_on_through_the_first_part, Swearing
  Series:
      Part 1 of The_Universe_is_Ours
  Stats:
      Published: 2013-11-24 Words: 22622
****** To Touch the Sky ******
by fromthefiresofhell
Summary
     After being thrown out of the place he called home for seventeen
     years of his life, Castiel finds himself alone on the streets, scared
     and in heat. He meets a kind hearted alpha named Dean who offers him
     a place to stay, but Castiel soon starts to want more from Dean than
     a roof over his head and food in his stomach.
Notes
     Only beta'd by my own eyes. Any and all mistakes are a result of too
     many feels and too little sleep.
     *also I was going through this and I realized that some lines have
     been randomly deleted and all the italics has mysteriously
     disappeared. I don't know either.
See the end of the work for more notes
The Novak family was a line of alphas.
There were no two ways about it. Trace the family tree and you’d find alpha
after alpha after alpha. It made family gatherings a little tense, but after
centuries of practice, self-control was as much a part of their DNA as their
dominant role in society was.
So it surprised everyone when Castiel’s thirteenth birthday came and passed
without occasion.
His family assured him he was just a late bloomer, that he’d be sitting reading
a book one day when all of a sudden he’d feel the sudden rush of hormones hit
him like a freight train, but when his fourteenth birthday passed, and then his
fifteenth, the reassurances and pats on the shoulders stopped coming. He was
shunned at parties and events, choosing to hole up in his room and only come
down if it was absolutely necessary. Even then, his relatives would fake smiles
and leave lipstick on his cheek when they kissed it and tell him how big he’d
gotten, but as soon as his back was turned they’d point and whisper behind
their hands.
By the time he was sixteen, Zachariah had brought him to countless doctors and
therapists, all claiming they could “cure him.” They’d tried psychiatrics ( one
of which who was so bold to claim that the source of his neutrality was the
fact that he’d never known his parents), shamans, doctors, and even a few witch
doctors. Castiel had swallowed a limitless array of pills, medicinal teas, and
potions. His body had been poked, prodded, shocked, cut, massaged, and doused
in various liquids.
Nothing worked.
Castiel considered the fact that he was asexual, not assigned a specific spot
in the dominance ladder. He did some research on the matter, and discovered
that too much mating between the same role could result in children that were
neither alphas, betas, nor omegas. But by disclosing this information to his
uncle, he only served to make matters worse.
“If that’s true,” Zachariah had said, his voice sickly sweet and dripping with
simplicity, as if he was talking to a child. “Then why hasn’t it happened to
our family before? It would be wise not to fill that head with false
information, Castiel, you don’t have much space in there to begin with.”
When his seventeenth birthday came and went, Zachariah informed him that he
would be taking him to church to pray for his salvation. Castiel obliged
grudgingly, retreating to his room to put on a suit.
He was just shrugging on his coat when Anna flew into the room in a burst of
red hair and wild brown eyes.
“Castiel,” she panted, words hushed and glancing over her shoulder at the
doorway. “You have to leave! He isn’t bringing where he says he is!”
“Calm down, Anna,” Castiel said, grasping his sister’s shaking hands between
his own. “Tell me what’s happening.”
“Zachariah,” she stopped to gulp a few breaths. “I heard him talking on the
phone. He’s bringing you to an alpha construction camp, Castiel!”
It was like the all the air had sudden left the room. Castiel opened his mouth
a few times, trying to pull words from his throat that would be an appropriate
response.
“You must have heard wrong,” he finally managed to croak. Zachariah had never
particularly liked him, but surely he would never do this. He would never send
him to one of those awful places. They preached healthy change and acceptance,
but Castiel had seen what their “graduates” looked like. Their eyes were dull
and their skin was pale and he was sure that, under their crisp dress shirts,
countless scars littered the expanse of their chests.
“I didn’t! I swear, brother, I swear on my life. Zachariah asked me a few days
ago if you had any friends outside the family.” Anna’s eyes grew watery and her
bottom lip trembled. It was unlike her to show such emotion, even if she was a
particularly kind alpha. “I didn’t know why he was asking. I told him no! If I
had known-…” she stopped, sucking her bottom lip into her mouth and squeezing
Castiel’s hands in her own.
The cold knife of truth twisted in Castiel’s stomach. His uncle had betrayed
him. He was going to ship his own nephew off to a tortuous prison just to
preserve the Novak family name. A sick wave of nausea swept over him, forcing
him to stumble away from Anna and collapse onto his bed, putting his head
between his knees to steady the roiling of his stomach.
The nausea was closely followed by an overwhelming sense of dizziness. Black
pricked the edges of his vision and the world spun around him, only serving to
increase his queasiness. Castiel pressed his fingers to his temples and
breathed slowly, willing the sensation to leave. He couldn’t afford another
attack. Not now.
Inhale.
Exhale.
In.
Out.
Breathe, Castiel.
Breathe.
“Castiel!” The tone of his sister’s voice suggested she had been calling it
multiple times now. He raised his head slowly. “You have to go!”
“Where?”
“Anywhere but here.” Anna threw open his closet and pulled his duffel bag out.
She began ripping open his bureau drawers and shoving clothes into it, pausing
every once and a while to snap her fingers in front of his face to make sure he
stayed focused and didn’t descend into a black-out.
It as like the floor had been ripped out from under him and he was struggling
to stay on his feet, even though there was nothing to stand on. All his life,
his family had been the only thing he could really rely on, the only thing he
was ever certain about. He might have had no friends, but he knew he could
always come home and be read to by Michael or play catch with Hester.
Now, that had been taken away from him. He had no home anymore.
He couldn’t even find it in him to feel betrayed by his siblings. They hadn’t
known. Of course, he didn’t know for sure if they would’ve helped him even if
they did know, but his brain wasn’t really up to debating the matter at the
moment. Lucifer might have taken his side and protected him, but he was long
gone, run off a few years ago with his girlfriend to ride motorcycles and get
tattoos and drink beer.
Castiel doesn’t even know what happened to him. He might not have been as close
to Lucifer as to his other siblings, but not knowing if he lived or died was
torture. After he left, Zachariah never mentioned him again. All pictures of
Castiel’s brother mysteriously disappeared from the house that night, along
with any fragment, any scrap of a memory that was connected to him.
He could only imagine what will become of his name.
When the duffel was full of clothes, Anna shoved it into his arms and pulled
him up by the lapels of his coat.
“Here.” She pressed a thick wad of bills into his palm. “Don’t stay in town.
Don’t talk to anyone you know. Don’t go where there are a lot of security
cameras. Don’t try to contact us in anyway. Do you understand?”
Castiel nodded, incapable of speech.
“Good.” Anna’s eyes roamed his face and her expression softened, the hard lines
of her forehead and sharp line of her mouth relaxing. She reached up and wound
her arms around his neck, something she hadn’t done since Castiel was eight and
had broken his ankle on the playground. “I will miss you, brother.”
Castiel buried his face in her neck and inhaled her scent. Not that of an
alpha- his neutral nose couldn’t pick those pheromones u- but that of his
sister. She smelled like she always had, like home and warmth and the strange
underlying scent of oranges that Castiel never could quite pinpoint the origin
of. He breathed out a broken sob against her pulse and squeezed her tighter
before letting go.
“I should go,” he whispered. Anna nodded and cracked the door, peeking out to
check the hallway. Once she was sure it was clear, she beckoned him out.
Castiel was glad for the thick carpeting in their manor, the plush fibers
muffling their footsteps as the pair crept through the hallways. The silence of
the house seemed heavy, pressing down on his shoulders as he ducked behind
corners and pressed himself to walls. Every tiny sound, every swish of his coat
or squeak of the floorboards, sounded like a gunshot in the quiet.
The sight of the back door had never offered so much relief. Castiel let out
the breath he felt like he had been holding for the past few minutes and swung
the duffel up onto his shoulder. This was it.
“Castiel?”
Both Anna and Castiel spun around at the sound, eyes widening in fear. Instead
of the pudgy form of Zachariah, though, the doorway was filled with the slight
figure of Samandriel. The young boy glanced between Castiel, Anna, the duffel
bag, and back to Castiel again, a confused frown crumpling his face.
“What’s going on? Where are you going?”
Anna grabbed his shoulder, ready to conjure up an excuse, but Castiel hushed
her. He knelt in front of his younger brother and put his hands on Samandriel’s
slim shoulders.
“I have to leave, Samandriel.”
“When will you be coming back?”
“I won’t.”
“W-why?” The boy’s bottom lip started quivering, eyes growing round and glassy
with unshed tears.
Instead of answering, Castiel drew his brother in close for a hug, swallowing
the lump in his throat when Samandriel’s arms wrapped around his shoulders and
hugged him back just as tightly. Already, his eight year old body was
developing hard angles and thicker limbs in places Castiel was still lean and
slender.
"Can I give you something?"
Castiel pulled back to look at Samandriel’s face. He stared back with pleading
eyes.
“Castiel,” Anna hissed. “You really have to-”
“Of course.”
Samandriel sniffed and reached into his pocket, pulling out a long cord with a
smooth, green stone dangling off of it. The rock was almost perfectly round and
a deep shade of emerald green, sunlight reflecting dully off the black-flecked
surface.
“Here,” Samandriel said, and Castiel ducked his head to allow the necklace to
slip onto his neck. “Rachel gave it to me. She said it’s good luck.”
“Thank you, Samandriel.” Castiel briefly pressed his lips to his younger
brother’s forehead before standing up and hiking the duffel up higher onto his
shoulder.
It only took three steps to walk out the door and leave his whole life behind
him.
 
Castiel made it four hours before he collapsed. It was just all too much. The
anger, Zachariah's betrayal ignited, the gaping hole the loss of his family
left behind, and the fear of being alone for the first time in his life made it
feel like the air was made of lead.
He sat down with his back against a tree and dropped his bag beside him. It
took a grand total of six seconds before the tears swam across his vision,
blurring the forest around him into a puddle of messy color.
Once he started, he couldn’t stop. It just made the pain worse, but it somehow
made it better at the same time, so he curled on his side in a fetal position
and muffled his sobs against his sleeve.
That night, Castiel fell asleep in a bed of dirt with the sky for a ceiling.
 
Somehow, Castiel managed to survive long enough to make it out of Pontiac. Out
of Illinois entirely, in fact. A combination of hitchhiking, train riding, and
walking got him all the way to Kansas. He remembered Zachariah once telling him
that the last place he would ever want to live was Kansas.
Castiel couldn’t figure out why. It was nice, all rolling hills filled with
swaying wheat and corn and the occasional sunflower field that stretched as far
as the eye could see. If he was walking through a small town, sometimes people
would stop and offer him a little bit of money or the other half of their
bagel.
He gladly accepted their offerings. He was not above charity.
His shoes, shiny, leather things that he had chosen to go with his suit for
church, fell off his feet by the tenth day. On that day, Castiel went to a
laundry mat. His suit was a lost cause by now, torn and stained beyond repair,
but his trench coat could be salvaged. Never the less, he put all his clothing
in the washing machine, including the crumpled suit. He might not be able to
wear it anymore, but it might come in handy for something else.
When Castiel closed the washing machine door, his hand hovered over the button-
filled panel uncertainly. He had never had to do his own laundry, a maid always
did that, and he had no idea what buttons to press.
A feeling of helplessness suddenly overwhelmed him, punching him in the gut and
nearly forcing him to double over. He couldn’t even work a washing machine, how
the hell was he supposed to survive? He didn’t even know where he was walking
to, much less what he would do when he got there. The money Anna gave him was
quickly running out, spent on cheap diner food and rides on the train or in
trucks, and in a few days he wouldn’t even have enough left to feed himself,
much less rent an apartment.
He could feel his panic attack setting in, no matter how hard he tried to fight
it off. Here he was, in the middle of a laundromat, having a panic attack about
not knowing what buttons to press.
He was completely fucked.
“You need help, honey?”
Castiel’s head snapped up, suddenly hyper-aware of how heavy his breathing was
and how much his body was shaking. A short, plump African American woman with
the biggest hair Castiel had ever seen stood in front of him, scrutinizing him
with a squinting, brown gaze.
“I don’t know what buttons to press,” Castiel said feebly, cringing inwardly at
how uneven his voice sounded.
The woman didn’t mention his state, though, simply shouldered him out of the
way and took his place on front of the machine.
“You doin’ lights or darks?”
“Um, both.”
“Well then, best go with warm.” Castiel watched as the lady pressed a button
labeled "spin cycle", then one with the letters peeling off that read "warm"
before cranking a timer to forty five minutes and pressing it in. The machine
started with a loud whir.
“There, now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Castiel glanced apprehensively
between her and the machine, unsure if she was ridiculing him or not.
“I ain’t makin’ fun of you, boy.” The woman stuck out her hand. “Missouri
Mosley.”
Castiel grasped her hand and introduced himself.
“The Angel of Thursday, huh? Righ’ in the middle of my laundromat. Would you
fancy that!”
“How did you know?” Most people screwed up their eyes or cocked their head at
his name, confused by the exotic sound of it.
Missouri waved her hand dismissively. “My parents were real religious folk.”
She crossed her arms and gave him a once over, making Castiel very conscious of
the fact that he was dressed in only six-day old boxers, before huffing and
nodding, as if he had passed some kind of test.
“Angel,” she said. “You look like you could use a hot shower and a good meal.”
When Castiel remained silent, she rolled her eyes and grabbed his arm, dragging
him aware from the spinning washing machine. “Come on, I live behind this dump.
I’ve got some of my son’s old clothes that should fit you.”
Missouri was right, he did need a hot shower.
Her house was small and quaint, filled with old furniture and tribal
decoration, but it bore the feel of a home. He could tell that some of these
objects held old memories.
It took fifteen minutes for the water to run clear, and ten more for Castiel to
scrub the grease from his hair. When he stepped out of the shower, he found a
pile of folded clothes on the sink for him, along with a comb, toothbrush,
toothpaste, shaving cream, and a razor.
Emerging from that bathroom an hour later made Castiel feel like a changed man.
He snuck downstairs to the kitchen where Missouri was taking a pan out of the
oven, standing in the doorway a few moments before clearing his throat to
announce his presence.
Missouri turned around and gave him a smile. “Sit down right here, angel, I got
fresh biscuits jus’ comin’ outta the oven.”
Castiel sat in the instructed chair and watched as Missouri carried over dish
after dish after dish. By the time she had finally transferred all the food
from the kitchen to the dining room, Castiel’s stomach was nearly folded in on
itself with hunger.
“I can see you eyein’ everything like a lion, boy, so quit bein’ polite and dig
in!”
Castiel had never tasted anything so delicious in his entire life. The fried
chicken was the perfect mixture of crunchy and soft and the carrots were
steamed to perfection and the biscuits were moist but still crumbly and the
potatoes were creamy and salty. He ate four plates in the time it took Missouri
to eat one, watching fondly over her own meal as Castiel all but inhaled his
food.
He wasn’t expecting the ice cream that Missouri pulled out of the freezer after
they were done. She must have seen his face, because she huffed out a laugh as
she scooped out portions for them both.
“S’ice cream, not Jesus on flatbread.”
“Sorry,” Castiel mumbled, ducking his head as he felt a flush rise in his
cheeks. “It’s just…I never got it much. Back home, I mean.”
Missourri seemed to sense that he didn’t want to talk about it, because all she
did was nod and give him an extra cherry.
 
After dinner, Missouri insisted that Castiel stay the night.
“I ain’t having you sleepin’ under some bridge when I have a perfectly empty
bed jus’ waitin’ for a warm body to fill it,” she said, refusing to listen to
the weak excuses Castiel tried to come up with.
That night, Castie slept under a homemade quilt with his head resting on a
goosefeather pillow.
 
The next morning, Castiel woke after the sun had risen, a rarity for him now.
He padded down to the kitchen to find heaping plate of scrambled eggs, sausage,
and bacon waiting for him on the countertop. Propped next to it was a note,
stained slightly with a coffee blot and written in chick-scratch handwriting.
Castiel picked it up and squinted at it, pulling it nearer to his face then
farther away as he tried to decipher the words.
Morning, Angel.
I had to run down to the corner store to get more detergent, you looked too
peaceful to wake up. Now you sit your butt down in that chair and eat
everything on that plate and don’t you leave until I get back. Don’t you think
you can be running out on me without saying goodbye.
M
Castiel grinned. He did admire her spirit.
Folding the note and putting it in his pocket, Castiel carried the plate into
the dining room and sat down with it. While he ate, he took time to take in his
surroundings. While the place had a homey feel to it, there was one thing it
was missing,
Missouri had mentioned her son, but Castiel didn’t see a single picture of him.
No diploma copy hung on the wall, no school portraits, no childhood scribbles
framed and kept as a memory of earlier times. Missouri didn’t seem like the
type of person who would erase someone so close to her.
But, then again, neither did Zachariah.
The front door banged open as Missouri came back, grumbling to herself as she
heaved several giant bottles of detergent onto the counter.
“Miss Mosley?”
She grunted. “Call me Missouri. Miss Mosley makes me feel like an old woman.”
“Okay, um Missouri, what happened to your son?”
Missouri halted in her tracks, hand halfway lifted and reaching for the bottle.
Her ring finger twitched.
“I’m sorry,” Castiel blurted, racing to cover his tracks. “That was
inappropriate of me. I shouldn’t ha-”
“S’alright, honey,” Missouri interrupted, voice soft. “I’ll tell you.”
The woman sat down heavily in the chair across from Castiel, reaching out to
fiddle with the bowl of incense in the middle of the table.
“He was a soldier,” she started. “In Iraq. Two years, he was o’er there. Sent
me a letter almost every day.” Missouri chuckled and shook her head. “They got
here out of order sometimes, so he had to number 'em. But when the letters
stopped comin’…well, I knew somethin’ was wrong.
“Got the call two days later. Said it was an “honorable death,” like that would
help me somehow. The men he saved called me, too, all six of them, to tell me
how brave he had been. There was a big ceremony, they gave me all these ribbons
and metals, patted me on the back and told me how I had “raised him right.’”
She looked up, eyes hard. “I told them, “what does it matter how I raised him
when I ain’t gonna see him no more?’”
“I’m sorry,” Castiel said softly. He couldn’t imagine what she had gone
through. Being torn from his family was one thing, but the small fact that they
were all safe helped him cope with their absence. If they were gone, not only
lost from his life, but from the planet as well?...He shuddered.
“It ain’t your fault, angel, you got nothin’ to apologize for.” Missouri turned
her gaze out the window, staring at something Castiel couldn’t see for a few
moments while she collected her thoughts.
After a while, she turned her gaze back to the boy standing in front of her.
“I’ll tell you something, though. Jus’ a few days before he passed on, he told
me about how they would pass civilians on the side of the road, some of ‘em
were just kids, with no homes or food or hope. He’d give some of them part of
his meals, sometimes, and they’d be so grateful. He said the firs’ thing he was
gonna do when he got back was start a homeless shelter.
“Superstitious woman like me, I couldn’ jus’ let that slide. Lot of lost souls
wander through this hell hole of a town, and I make sure to show ‘em any
kindness I can.” Missouri offered a small smile and reached over to pat
Castiel's hand where it was wrapped around his fork. “You remind me of him.”
A heavy silence bloated the air. Castiel didn’t know what to say after such a
personal revelation. Missouri turned her gaze back out the window, seemingly
lost in her own thoughts.
Raphael had joined the army as soon as he turned 18, eager to fight for his
country and what he believed in. He had always been cold towards his siblings,
especially Castiel and his unique ways, so he hadn’t been sad to see his
brother go.
Now, though, he wished he had gotten to know Raphael better. He would never
have the chance now.
“My uncle,” Castiel said, and Missouri snapped out of whatever daze she had
been in to focus her attention on him. “He…kicked me out.”
“Cause of your neutrality?”
Castiel inhaled sharply. “How did you know?”
“This nose,” she said, tapping the side of her small nose “may be attached to a
beta, but it’s as sharp as a tack.” Her voice grew gentle. “It ain’t nothing to
be ashamed of, honey. I was a late bloomer myself.”
“That wasn’t Zachariah’s mentality,” Castiel said darkly. “He was going to take
me to an alpha construction camp. I didn’t even have time to take anything
other than a few changes of clothes with me.”
Missouri shook her head, then smirked as if a sudden idea had hit her. “Wait
right here. I have somethin’ to give you before you go.”
Castiel waited patiently as Missouri tinkered around for a minute or two before
coming back with a bundled package that she shoved into his arms, motioning for
him to open it.
The ripped, wrinkled paper fell away from the package easily, showing fold
marks where it had obviously been opened and then taped up again many times.
Inside was a folded red coat. Castiel lifted it from his lap to inspect it
further. It was heavily padded, swishing whenever it moved when the waterproof
material rubbed together. The price tag was still attached to the sleeve,
though the price had been scribbled out.
“Got it for my Victor,” Missouri said, smiling as she watched Castiel examine
the coat. “Gets cold here at night.”
“I can’t accept this.” Castiel folded the coat in his lap, frowning at
Missouri. Any reminder of your family, no matter how useless, was something
very close to your heart. The rock resting on his chest was a reminder of that.
“I want you to,” Missouri said, voice firm and leaving no room for discussion.
“It ain’t no use to me, and Victor don’t need it no more.”
“Missouri-”
“This ain’t a democracy, angel. Now you make sure you got everythin’, I’m gonna
put together some food for you to take.”
She left the room swiftly, leaving Castiel clutching the coat in his lap, and
soon he heard the banging of cupboards and pantries being opened. Sighing, he
hooked the coat under his arm and went back to the bedroom where he made sure
all his belongings were in the duffel bag. When he was certain everything was
there, he swung it up onto his shoulder and joined Missouri in the kitchen.
She was holding a giant plastic bag filled with Tupperware, and spun Castiel
around before proceeding to shove the whole bag inside his. When it was closed
again, Missouri put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently.
“You take care of yourself, angel,” she murmured.
“I will.” Castiel turned around and offered his hand.
Missouri took one look at his outstretched hand and shook her head, pulling him
into a hug instead. Hesitantly, Castiel looped his arms around her shoulders
and squeezed her back. Her head rested just above his chest.
“Off with you now,” she said as she pulled back from the hug. “You’re losin’
sunlight.”
Castiel shrugged on the coat, grinning gently as Missouri smoothed her hand
down the his arm to straighten the wrinkles, and with one last hug, left her
standing in her doorway watching him set of down the road.
The bounce had returned to his step after that night, feet comfortable in a
pair of Victor’s old sneakers and legs protected by his thick jeans. His
stomach was full, his eyes were alert, and he felt fresh and clean.
Life was good.
 
Two days later, it rained.
Not a light sprinkle that made the pavement darker and the grass damp, but a
downpour that flooded out fields and felled small trees. With no buildings for
miles around, Castiel huddled under a small bridge, knees tucked up under his
chin to keep the steadily rising water away from his feet.
The obscuring curtain of water and loud pound of the drops on the wood above
him played tricks on his mind. More than a few times, Castiel though he heard
the footsteps of his family, or his siblings’ voices calling out into the wet
night. Once or twice, he could have sworn he saw a silhouette beckoning to him.
So instead of looking out into the dark, he rested his forehead on his legs and
clenched his fingers around Samandriel’s stone, warm from his sitting against
his skin, and focused on the smoothness of it to ground him to reality.
With nothing better to do, Castiel retreated into his mind.
 
The sun was shining brightly that day, reflecting off the lake in sparkles that
were too painful to look at and illuminating the water lapping at Castiel’s
knees in a golden hue.
Ezekiel stood behind him, guiding his arms in the correct movement of throwing
the line out into the water and showing him how to stand perfectly still so he
wouldn’t scare the fish away. The few words they exchanged were soft and quiet,
neither eager to disrupt the peaceful beauty around them.
He was ten years old. This trip was for his birthday.
Castiel reeled in his line twenty seven times that day with no bites. Ezekiel
was patient, so unlike his uncle. He praised what Castiel was doing right
instead of punishing him for what he did wrong and grinned when he figured it
out on his own.
Still, Castiel did not want to fail him. He refused to move from that spot
until he caught a fish, no matter how many times Ezekiel suggested they go back
to the cabin. He stood as still as was physically possible, willing a fish to
bite with all his might.
He didn’t own a pair of shorts, so he was wearing rolled up pants.
Zachariah would never let him roll up his pants.
The twenty eighth time Castiel threw the line, he felt a light tug. He shouted
for his brother, staring wide eyed at the line as it was pulled taunt in his
grasp. The white and red ball attached to the string bobbed furiously in the
water, sometimes disappearing from his sight it was pulled so deep.
“Pull him in, Castiel!” Ezekiel called, hands cupped around his mouth. “Pull
him in!”
There was a particularly hard tug and the pole flew from Castiel’s grasp.
He watched in horror as the pole flew through the air before landing with a
smack in the middle of the lake, floating just beneath the surface and darting
around as the fish on the other end desperately tried to get free.
Castiel whipped around, apology already forming in his throat, but then he saw
his brother’s face. Ezekiel’s cheeks were red from contained laughter, but one
look at Castiel’s panicked expression and he let loose, doubling almost in half
in an effort to keep himself standing.
They dragged the canoe down to the water, Ezekiel chuckling and snorting the
entire way, and paddled out to where the pole had snagged on a patch of reeds.
Ezekiel yanked it out of the plants and reeled the fish it.
Castiel watched as his older brother tore the hook from the fish’s mouth and
tossed it onto the floor of the boat where it flopped weakly a few times, gills
fluttering in a desperate attempt to breathe, before going completely still.
The sun glinted off its scales just as beautifully as it had off the water.
“Don’t step on that fish, Castiel,” Ezekiel grinned. “Big plans for that fish.”
That night, Castiel learned how to gut and fry a large-mouth bass. They ate it
with carrots from Ezekiel’s garden and homemade French fries.
Ezekiel said it was the best fish he’d ever had.
Ezekiel had two children now, Castiel remembered. Twins. A girl named Hael and
a boy named Inias. He had sent a family portrait after they were born, him and
his wife Hannah cradling the babies in their arms. They were the tiniest, most
fragile things Castiel had ever seen, with wide blue eyes staring at the camera
in mystification. When he asked Zachariah when they would be able to see them,
his uncle had sneered.
“Give me that,” he snapped, snatching the picture from Castiel’s grasp. “We
don’t associate with rednecks.”
“But he’s my brother,” Castiel had said, not yet knowing what Zachariah
considered “family.”
“No,” his uncle said as he tore the picture in half right in front of Castiel’s
face. “He’s a lowlife hillybilly who you are never to speak to again.”
He never did.
 
Why is the sky blue?”
He is seven, the age where everything is a question and there is no such thing
as embarrassment.
“Because it reflects your eyes,” Gabriel said, pulling his lollipop out of his
mouth only long enough to speak the words.
“But my eyes aren’t that big,” Castiel had frowned.
“Yes, little bro, they really are.”
That night, while getting ready for bed, Castiel stood in front of the mirror
and inspected his eyes. He pulled at the lids and stretched them in different
ways for at least five minutes before concluding that Gabriel must have had too
much sugar that day, because there is no way his eyes could influence all that
sky.
 
Gabriel had gone off to college the next month to become a lawyer- a
“respectable man,” Zachariah had said. It was halfway through the semester
before he discovered that Gabriel had, in fact, gone to intern for a production
company in the area and was using the tuition Zachariah was sending him to
throw extravagant parties.
He stopped sending money.
Anna explained to him that it was Gabriel’s dream to become an actor. Castiel
was awed. His brother? An actor?
Sometimes, he would turn on the TV a few minutes before the news came on in the
hopes of seeing his brother on a program or in the premier of a movie.
Zachariah caught on to what he was doing soon enough, though, and all the
televisions disappeared from the house.
And so Gabriel became a ghost, too.
 
“Hey, Castiel.”
“Yes?”
“Wanna to see something cool?”
When Castiel nodded, Lucifer knelt down next to his twelve his year old brother
and rolled up the sleeve of his dress shirt.
Castiel’s eyes widened. “What’s
 that ?”
“A tattoo,” Lucifer grinned. The soft underside of his arm was pink and
inflamed, and in the center of the irritated flesh, a simple snake looped
around his arm. It had an apple in his mouth, sharply fanged teeth sinking into
the flesh of the fruit.
“Get it?” his brother grinned. “Like the snake in the Bible. And Eve’s apple. I
figure, old Zachie made us read it so many times, why not have my favorite
character put on my arm?”
“Your favorite entity in the Bible is the Devil?”
Lucifer's smile grew. “Damn right.”
 
Castiel wished he had tried to remain in contact with them. They would
definitely help him now, having experienced the harshness of Zachariah’s
survival of the fittest demeanor themselves.
But he was alone in the rain with the memories of three lost brothers sitting
beside him and wearing the last connection to his family around his neck.
 
The water rose even higher, and Castiel was forced to climb up into the beams
under the bridge among the cobwebs and old bird nests. Luckily, in the cool
October weather, all the animals were gone, but within moments his hair was
filled with cobwebs and his nostrils were packed with dust.
That night, Castiel fell asleep in the company of eggshells listening to the
sky weep around him.
 
“What do you want?”
Castiel started and glanced around him. He was standing in a pristine park with
cushiony grass under his feet and a blue, cloudless sky above his head. The
whole area was enclosed in a neat perimeter of tall hedges and, to his right, a
middle-aged man was flying a kite.
“What do you want?”
Upon turning around, Castiel was faced with the backs of two people- a man and
a woman. Both had average brown hair in simple hairstyles and were dressed
sharply, like CEO’s on the way to a meeting.
“Who are you?” Castiel asked.
“What do you want?”
“I don’t understand,” he replied, growing frustrated. The pair seemed to spark
some distant memory- he felt like he knew them, but just couldn’t quite place
them.
“If you could have anything, anything in the world, what would it be?” the
woman asked.
Castiel paused. Before his escape, he had never really made decisions for
himself. It was all Zachariah’s choosing- what he wore, what lessons he
studied, where he went, what tutors he had, what he ate, when he woke up, when
he went for a run, who he talked to. Everything was dictated by his uncle.
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
“One thing, Castiel.”
“To… to have a family, I suppose.”
“You have a family.” This time, the voices came from to the left of him.
Castiel whipped around, coming upon the sight of every one of his sixteen
siblings standing together. It was an inaccurate picture- Anna appeared to be
the same age as when he left the estate, but his older siblings, those who must
be in their thirties by now, were as old as they were when he last saw them.
Some had facial features that were lopsided or blurry, or static hair that
never stayed the same for long, even though there was no wind.
“We are you family,” his siblings said in unison. They were all dressed in
their church clothes. Samandriel clutched a teddy bear to his chest.
“Friends, then.”
“We are your friends.”
“Well what am I supposed to say?” Castiel snapped.
“How do you expect to find your way,” the man said, “when you don’t even know
what you want?”
“I want to fit in!” Castiel yelled, wheeling around and stomping towards the
two adults. “I want to have friends and coworkers and classmates without having
to worry that my uncle is going to walk through the door and whisk me away to a
construction camp!”
Before the either adult could reply, Castiel slammed his hands on their
shoulder and made to turn them around.
 
Castiel awoke gasping for breath, hands clutching at the empty air where two
shoulders had been not moments before. He scrambled for purchase on the wood
beneath him, hands stinging where they pressed into shards of broken eggshells,
as he tried to remember where he was.
The rafters he was laying on vibrated, and the sound of a car flying past
pounded his eardrums, and Castiel recalled the past night. The rain, the
painful memories, the flooding. He peered down at the creek beneath him. It was
still swelled with the rain of the past night, but at least now there was a
considerable amount of land for him to stand on.
Castiel tossed his bag onto the ground before climbing down after it, landing
with a grunt and a thud on the slightly damp bank. The water was running clear,
free of silt or garbage, so he splashed some up onto his face and ran his damp
fingers through his hair to remove the dust and cobwebs. His throat was dry and
screamed every time he swallowed, but he dare not take a drink from the brook.
He had no matches or wood to light a fire and boil the water with, and God only
knows what kind of bacteria was in it.
The sun was shining bright and warm and Castiel left the shade of the bridge to
sit on the gently sloping hill, soaking up the morning sun. It was warm enough
to go without Victor’s jacket, so he shoved it in his duffel and pulled out the
last of Missouri’s food to eat. He had finished off the water yesterday, but he
still had a bag of pretzels and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich left. He
only ate the sandwich, the pretzels were too salty to eat when he was already
so thirsty.
After demolishing his meager breakfast and licking the last traces of jam off
his fingers, Castiel set off walking down the highway. The road in front of him
seemed endless, but at least the weather was nice.
He figured he could go about two more days without water before he suffered
major dehydration. Hopefully there was some sort of civilization within a day’s
walk were he could either fill up the empty water bottles in his duffel or buy
more. If he could find one, he would definitely buy a pot and a lighter so he
could boil water whenever he needed. Some more food would be nice, too, but he
wasn’t very hungry yet. Maybe if he walked past a crop field of some sort- corn
seemed to make up the majority of the agricultural industry here- then he could
take a few ears to cook later.
By five o’clock, Castiel could see the skyline of a sizable looking town on the
horizon. He still had $37.56, plenty to buy a few essentials. He could feel
blood dripping down his ankles where his blisters from his new shoes had
popped, so he added thicker socks and band-aids to his mental list.
When it started growing dark, Castiel decided to stop for the night. The town
was close enough that he would reach it by noon tomorrow, no use walking
himself to the point of exhaustion when nothing would be open by the time he
got there.
There weren’t any buildings around, so he threw his duffel onto the ground in a
shallow ditch and pulled on Victor’s jacket, laid down, and tucked a few
sweatshirts around him for better insulation. Missouri was right, the nights
did get cold. Already, in the fading dusk, Castiel could see his breath form
tiny clouds of condensation in front of him.
Before he fell asleep, he pulled the hood of one of his sweatshirts up over his
face to trap the heat of his breath.
Castiel fell asleep that night among swaying grass and the songs of crickets.
 
A putrid puff of air into his face made Castiel jerk awake.
He tried to sit up, but something was restricting his movement. It took him a
few moments of dazed confusion before he realized it was a man, and a large one
at that. He was draped almost entirely over Castiel, leering at him with icy
blue eyes and crooked, yellowed teeth. The sweatshirts that had previously been
gathered around Castiel like a nest had been thrown to the side and his jacket,
sweatshirt, and shirt had been ripped open to expose his bare chest.
“Mornin’, sunshine,” the stranger drawled in a voice so nasal it made Castiel
shudder. “What’s a pretty little omega like yourself doin’ out here all by
yourself?”
Castiel blinked. “I-…what? I’m not an-”
“Think I can’t smell you?” the man interrupted, leaning down and sniffing below
Castiel’s jaw. “Mmm, you’re all flowers and rainbows, honey.”
The man licked up Castiel’s neck, tongue slimy and revoltingly warm. He tried
to push the stranger off, but whoever he was had Castiel successfully pinned to
the ground. His thin limbs were deceptively strong.
“What do you want?”
“More like what do you want?” he grinned. Shifting a little on his legs to
straddle Castiel’s thigh, the man started rutting up against him. Castiel’s
breath caught in his throat when he felt a hot hardness press into him and he
felt his eyes grow wide with fear. “Bet you’d beg for it, wouldn’t you? Beg for
my knot?”
“Get off me,” Castiel snapped, arching up to try and throw the creep off. All
the stranger did was lean down to smell his neck again.
“This is you’re first heat, isn’t it?” Castiel froze. “Oh it is. I can smell
all that delicious virgin on you.”
The rude awakening had left Castiel out of tune with his body, but now that he
was aware of it, he could feel heat rolling off his flesh in waves. The hair at
the nape of his neck was soaking with sweat and drops of it were sliding down
between his shoulders and under his arms. His vision was slightly blurry, eyes
stinging when the shadow of the man on top of him didn’t completely block out
the sun, and his throat was so dry it felt like it might catch on fire.
After years of research and waiting for the slightest indication of any role
with desperate hope, Castiel knew what this was.
“I’m in heat,” he said softly, with something akin to awe in his voice.
“I’ll help you with that, baby,” the stranger said, humping his leg even harder
now. With his heightened senses, Castiel realized that not only was his breath
rancid, but his entire scent was too. He smelled like sour wine. The stench was
clogging Castiel’s throat, filling his lungs and making it nearly impossible to
breathe.
“No,” Castiel gasped, trying to jerk out of his grasp. “No, leave me alone.”
“Don’t pretend you don’t want it,” the man droned, lapping behind Castiel’s jaw
at his scent glands again. He gagged. “Any omega whore would be lucky to have
an alpha like me.”
The man dropped his head to Castiel’s bare chest and sucked harshly on one of
his nipples. Castiel whimpered at the bolt of pleasure-pain it caused,
disgusted with himself when his dick twitched a little at the sensation. The
alpha growled in satisfaction, staring at Castiel with pupils so wide they
nearly engulfed his whole iris while he flicked his tongue sharply over
Castiel’s nipple.
“Stop,” Castiel choked out. “Stop, I don’t want-”
Before he even processed what had happened, the harsh crack of skin on skin
split the air, and his cheek was zinging with pain.
“Shut up, slut,” the man growled. “No one likes a whiner. Now be a good little
bitch and hold still.”
Castiel was dimly aware of the sound of a zipper being pulled down, and then a
freezing hand was fumbling with his own fly. The pressure was gone from his
left arm, the hand that had been holding it down now preoccupied with trying to
tug off his pants.
In a flash, Castiel twisted out from under his attacker, elbowing his throat in
the process, and leapt up. The man clutched at his windpipe where a dark bruise
was already forming, gasping for breath and coughing as his neck muscles
undulated under his pale skin. For good measure, Castiel kicked him hard in the
crotch before turning on his heel and fleeing, running as fast as his wobbly
knees would carry him.
By the time his legs gave out, Castiel was miles from where the alpha’s truck
was parked. It was only then that he remembered his bag and extra sweatshirts
were still lying in the ditch, along with whatever money he had left, but it
wasn’t worth it to go back.
He felt dirty, physically and internally. He was tainted where the stranger’s
hands and mouth had touched him and sullied to his core with the stench of foul
grapes.
Shaking, Castiel buttoned his shirt and zipped his sweatshirt and jacket back
up, carefully avoiding touching the nipple the alpha had sucked. After
smoothing out the wrinkles in his clothes, Castiel touched his scent gland,
cringing when he felt rapidly drying saliva cooling there. The attacker had
slobbered over the whole left side of his neck, leaving him feeling damp and
used.
In fact, his body was damp. His scent glands were damp with oils, his skin was
damp with sweat, and between his legs was damp with the excessive amount of
slick produced in his heat.
An omega. He was an omega. Zachariah might have accepted him back into the
house if he had been an alpha, maybe if he was a beta, but certainly not if he
was an omega. If he went back now, he would only be turned away again, or
worse. Castiel wouldn’t put it past his uncle to sell him to a breeder.
Castiel rolled into a sitting position and put his head on his knees, focusing
on his breathing. He would spend his whole life purchasing pills to avoid being
raped and struggling to find employment because of his submissive role in
society. There were laws in place to protect against omega discrimination, but
every law had a loophole and the majority of the population still thought that
they were weak and only good for their heats.
Speaking of, Castiel could already feel his heat getting worse. His hands had
started to shake minutely and his internal temperature was skyrocketing,
completely at odds with the goosebumps erupting over his skin like wildfire.
There was still no sign of the repulsive man, but Castiel pushed himself to his
feet none the less and continued walking steadily towards the ever approaching
town. If he could make it into the city and onto crowded streets, it would be
safer than sleeping in the middle of nowhere.
So Castiel walked.
 
Welcome to Lawrence
Population: 90,000
Castiel stared at the sign with weary eyes. He had only been walking for a few
hours, but coupled with paranoia and the effects of his heat taking a toll on
his body, he was exhausted. All he wanted was to take a hot shower and curl up
somewhere warm and safe where he didn’t have to worry about someone trying to
fuck him into submission.
When he walked down the street, Castiel drew the gaze of everyone around him.
His homeless look stuck out like a sore thumb among the well dressed crowds,
and his obvious condition made heads turn his way as he slunk through the
shadows. While only alphas could smell his heat, his dewy skin, sweat stained
clothes, and the gleam in his eyes made his current state obvious to anyone who
took a seconds or two to look him over.
After a few minutes of walking downtown, Castiel turned into an alleyway and
jammed himself between a two dumpsters. The stench was suffocating to his newly
heightened omega sense of smell, but at least it would mask the scent of his
heat to any passing douchebag alphas.
Mere seconds after situating himself in a moderately comfortable position,
Castiel fell asleep. It was a fitful rest, interrupted every few minutes when
he jerked awake, terrified and confused. When Castiel finally did fall into a
deep slumber, his dreams were filled with barren, scorching deserts and dusty,
dry riverbeds.
 
Castiel awoke completely the next day when the sun was at about the noon point.
He left the sanctuary of the dumpsters and slunk back onto the street, keeping
his head down and his eyes on his feet. He could feel passerbys staring at him,
and some even tried to stop him, but they all smelled like alphas, so Castiel
ignored them.
Lawrence was a nice city, filled with quaint shops and charming restaurants. He
passed at least two bookstores, nose twitching when he smelled the books, but
he didn’t go inside. His hands itched to flip through the pages and get lost in
someone else’s life in anotherworld for a while, but he couldn’t bring himself
to open the door and step across the threshold. He was certain that touching
the books with his soiled fingers would ruin their stories forever, cover them
in the smell of despair and the lingering scent of anguish.
Castiel wondered what Zachariah would do if he knew where he was, wandering the
streets of an unfamiliar city without two pennies to rub together. He imagined
his uncle’s bugged out eyes, veins popping out of his forehead, and nearly
smiled.
A cold wind whipped down the street, easily piercing the material of Castiel’s
coat and chasing away his amusement. Lawrence certainly was safer than the open
plains, but it smelled like exhaust fumes and was the perfect breeding place
for short, freezing gusts of wind. Out on the prairie, the sun was warm and the
breezes were balmy and carried a fresh scent. Here, the sun seemed distant and
cold and the frigid winds brought with them a metallic smell, like old pennies.
Castiel found himself inexplicably wishing Anna hadn’t overheard Zachariah’s
conversation, that she hadn’t warned him, that he hadn’t left. Alpha
construction diets were filled with protein rich-foods and their barracks were
bordering on uncomfortably warm. There, at least, he would be well fed and
comfortable. There, he would have been put with other omegas once he got his
heat.
There, he would have been safe.
Unwilling to go any further, Castiel ducked under an overhang in front of a
coffee shop. The window that made up the wall was set back, creating a small
corner where the glass met the side of the brick building. He curled up there,
among the gum wrappers and cigarette butts packed into the corner, and tucked
his coat tighter around him.
His heat was getting steadily worse, a strange kind of painful need licking up
his spine like flames. He was certain he had leaked through his pants by now
and had probably created a damp spot on the ground. Hunger was tearing through
his stomach walls, but it was nothing compared to the dryness that cracked the
skin of his throat.
Castiel didn’t sleep, but he pretended to. A few alphas stopped and stared at
him, he made out their shapes from between his cracked eyelids, but they never
stayed for long.
Until she came.
He could smell her before she spoke, a sweet, smoky scent, like a campfire and
molasses combined.
“Hey, honey.” When Castiel didn’t respond, she huffed. “I know you’re not
sleeping.”
Grudgingly, he opened his eyes.
The alpha smiled with blood red lips. “Look at those pretty eyes. How has
nobody claimed you yet, Clarence?”
“That’s not my name,” Castiel said flatly.
She snorted in amusement. “What, do you live under a rock? Would it kill you to
watch a movie, read a book?”
“That depends on the movie or book you’re referring to.” Castiel turned towards
the wall. “Please leave me alone.”
“What’s your name?”
Castiel remained silent.
“Alright, then, you from around here?”
Not a word.
“Come on, Clarence, give me something to work with.”
“No.”
A sigh. “You do realize I’m trying to help you?”
“How could you possibly help me?”
The alpha grinned, shark-like, and Castiel got the feeling he had said
something terribly wrong.
“Well,” she crouched down next to him. “I could take you home, peel off all
those layers one by one, my own, beautiful little present.” She sidled closer
until the length of her body was pressed up against Castiel’s, the smell of her
pheromones clogging up his senses. “I could ride you until you broke, then eat
out that dripping hole of yours, mark you from the inside out.”
A choked noise was wrung out of Castiel against his will, and the alpha’s grin
grew even more predatory. She ran a long nailed hand up his thigh, cupping his
crotch and kneading when she reached it. It was a display of dominance that his
body reacted to, even if his mind revolted. Castiel felt blood rush to his
cheeks at the same time it pooled in his cock.
“Feels big,” the woman purred.
“Please don’t,” Castiel whispered. He was too tired, to wrung out to fight
back. Not surprisingly, the alpha completely ignored his plea.
People continued to walk by, oblivious to Castiel’s plight. Even if they knew,
he doubted they would help him.
“We should go somewhere more private,” the alpha whispered, breath fanning out
warm and wet against his cheek. He turned his head away and tried to curl in on
himself, but that just made her nails press sharply into him.
“No?” She squeezed her hand even tighter and he flinched. “We could do it right
here. Everyone would see that you belong to me.”
A bell jingled.
“Fuck off, Meg.”
The intruding hand was suddenly gone, as was the warm body next to him. Castiel
glanced up to see a man in the doorway of the coffee shop, arms crossed over
his chest and eyes hard and glaring at the now-standing woman next to him.
“You have no more right to him than I do,” the alpha hissed, baring her teeth
in a subtle threat.
“Leave,” the man said firmly. The woman continued to hold eye contact with him
for at least a minute, a stand off of sorts, before she sneered and turned
away.
“Didn’t want him that much, anyway,” she called over her shoulder as she walked
away. “Too skinny.”
The man continued to stare after the retreating alpha until she rounded the
corner and disappeared. As soon as she was out of his sight, his body relaxed,
shoulders dropping and his spine loosing some of its rigidity. He turned to
Castiel.
“You alright, man?”
“Yes,” Castiel said quietly. “Thank you.”
“Listen,” the man said, taking a step forward. “I really hate to do this, but
you can’t stay h-”
His nostrils flared sharply and he stopped talking, eyes locked onto Castiel’s
as his pupils dilated into black pools faster than you could say heat.
“Oh,” he said, suddenly looking uncertain and awkward.
Castiel said nothing.
“Um, should I-…do you need a place to stay?”
Castiel frowned. A day or two ago, he might have said yes, but any innocence he
may have had left had been thrown out the window. It was obvious by the
reaction he had to Castiel’s scent and the sizable bulge in his jeans that he
was an alpha. The last thing Castiel needed was for some other knothead to
attack him while he was sleeping, especially one as big and intimidating as
this one.
The frustration that had been mounting in him finally snapped, morphing quickly
into a cold, calculated anger and overpowering his exhaustion. He was a person
with thoughts and feelings too, not a fuck toy for alphas to use as they
wanted.
“No thank you,” Castiel said curtly. “I think I can manage.” He pushed himself
to his feet, trying to put himself at a better height to turn down an alpha at,
but his legs nearly gave out from under him and he swayed where he stood,
threatening to topple over.
“Woah.” The man’s hand shot out and grasped Castiel strongly by the shoulder to
steady him. “Easy there, tiger. You sure you’ll be okay?”
“Don’t touch me,” Castiel snapped, yanking his arm out of the alpha’s grasp.
The man threw his hands up in a surrender position, taking a step away from
Castiel before he dropped them again.
“I’m serious, man. I’ve got a spare bedroom and it looks like you need
somewhere safe to stay for a little while.”
Castiel paused. That wasn't right. “Spare bedroom?” he repeated.
“Yeah, why would-” the alpha’s eyes grew wide. “Oh. No, no I didn’t mean-
…fuck.” He fumbled around in his leather jacket for a second, withdrawing a
badge flipping it open. “I’m a fucking police officer, okay? Jesus, I wasn’t
going to-…shit, man, no.”
The alpha let Castiel take the badge and inspect it. After he was satisfied, he
handed it back.
“Why should I trust you?”
“You shouldn’t,” he shrugged, tucking the badge back into his coat. “I’m sure
you’ve experienced first hand how much alphas can be dickheads.”
Castiel scoffed. “You’re not making a very strong argument.”
“How ‘bout this, I’ll show you around, and you decide if you want to stay or
not.”
Castiel nodded and the alpha motioned for him to follow, going back into the
coffee shop. A few pairs of eyes flicked towards them, but the man inclined his
head and gave them a smirk and they turned back to their drinks and donuts.
“Hey Adam,” the alpha called, raising his voice to be heard over the din of the
café. A sandy-headed kid popped out from behind a set of double doors, ones
that presumably led to the kitchen. He wiped his floury hands on his waist
apron before brushing the white power off onto the floor.
“Yeah?”
“Make sure Dad knows where I am, ‘kay?”
Adam nodded hesitantly, gaze flicking back and forth between Castiel and the
alpha, nostrils flaring as he scented the air. Two alphas. Great.
“Do you want me to make sure, uh, no one disturbs you?” Adam asked, lowering
his voice at the last part of the sentence and leaning a few inches closer.
“No,” the alpha said, glaring at Adam. “We’re not-…I’m just giving him a place
to stay.”
“Oh.” Adam blinked in surprised, then grinned sheepishly. “Well, in that case…”
The kid reached behind the display case and pulled out a chocolate muffin,
whipping a paper bag through the air to open it before putting the muffin
inside and handing it to Castiel. “On the house.”
A swirl of gratitude swelled between his lungs as Castiel accepted the
offering, clutching it close to his chest and inhaling the sweet aroma of
freshly baked food.
“Thank you,” he said softly, and Adam nodded in reply before disappearing back
into the kitchen.
“My half brother,” the alpha said as he started steering Castiel away towards a
door that read "Authorized Personal Only." “He’s a little…well, he assumes a
lot.”
“It was a logical assumption,” Castiel said. He was more preoccupied with the
muffin warming his chest than the fact that Adam thought they were going to
sleep together.
The door swung open to reveal a flight of cement stairs, illuminated by a
single, bare bulb that flickered weakly a few times before turning completely
on. It hummed with the electricity passing through it, so loud that Castiel
could hear the noise over the sound of their footsteps ascending the stairs.
“I’m Dean, by the way,” the alpha said as they reached the top of the
staircase, coming upon another door.
“Castiel.”
Dean fished a key out of his coat pocket and unlocked the door, allowing it to
swing inwards before he stepped inside himself.
“Come on in,” he said, ushering Castiel into the apartment. “I think I have a
few beers in the fridge, you want one?”
“I don’t drink.”
Dean narrowed his eyes at Castiel. It wasn’t a suspicious glare, but rather a
calculating one.
“How old are you?”
“Seventeen,” Castiel replied, and Dean whistled.
“You got seventeen years of freedom before your first heat? You lucky little
shit.” Dean shucked his leather coat and tossed it over a chair, momentarily
disappearing before he returned with a beer and a water bottle.
“Heads up,” he said, tossing the water to Castiel. Castiel caught it and
cracked the cap gratefully, thirst not forgotten. “I got went into my first rut
when I was eleven.” Dean chuckled, shaking his head. “That was not fun.”
“I would rather be in your shoes,” Castiel said flatly as he raised the bottle
to his mouth. “My uncle was going to send me to an alpha construction camp to
“cure my neutrality.’”
Castiel closed his eyes as he gulped the water. The cool liquid soothed the
burning itchiness of his throat and filled with stomach with a coldness that
felt amazing against the fever of his heat. He could feel Dean staring at him
as he drained the bottle, throat working furiously until it was empty.
A small noise echoed in the silent room and Castiel opened one eye, immediately
focusing on Dean. The alpha was staring unblinkingly at him with pupils so wide
they had swallowed up his whole iris, cheeks flushed and licking his dry lips.
“Sorry,” Dean said, a little breathlessly. “That was just, um….” Castiel could
smell him from across the room, scent getting stronger the longer they held eye
contact. Unlike the other alpha’s Castiel had encountered, Dean’s scent wasn’t
unpleasant or overpowering. He was spring rain and coriander and fresh apple
pie with a light undertone of engine grease. Castiel found himself leaning
forward, trying to take a deeper whiff.
“Okay,” Dean said, his gravelly voice just a notch lower than it had been
before. “I’m just gonna-…I’ll go set your room up. There’s more water in the
fridge, if you want. I’ll be…in the….yeah.” He inched backward, spluttering out
a few more words before practically fled from the room, half finished beer
forgotten on the table beside the armchair and accidentally slamming is hip on
the doorframe as he left.
Castiel took a deep breath, trying to calm his pounding heart. He had to get a
grip. Just because he was in heat didn’t mean he had to just throw himself at
the nearest alpha. To distract himself from the lingering smell of Dean,
Castiel pulled out the muffin Adam had gave him and took a bite.
Before he could stop himself, he moaned at the taste and texture. It was still
warm and slightly gooey in the center, with the perfect balance between
richness and sweetness. As he was eating, Castiel allowed himself to take in
the room around him.
It was obvious Dean lived alone, car magazines and empty beer bottles strewn
around the room in a fashion that no partner would abide for. All his furniture
was either second hand or very old, well worn and stained in various places.
The whole place smelled like Dean and beer and car oil and home. Castiel’s
house had smelled like cleanliness and air freshener, a fake, stale smell that
he had never really grown used to. The kitchen had smelled like dish soap and
the sheets had smelled like detergent and his clothes had smelled like fabric
softener.
Here, in a small apartment above a bakery, Castiel felt more at home than he
did back in the place where he had lived his whole life. He could hear the
gentle lull of the café chatter murmuring beneath him and the fridge humming
and Dean cursing about sheets in the other room but the whole disarrayed scene
had this feel about it.
Castiel helped himself to two more water bottles before Dean came back, holding
a bloody paper towel to his bicep and scowling.
“Don’t open the closet,” he said, offering no more explanation as he swung
Castiel’s duffel up onto his shoulder and stomped back into the bedroom.
The bedroom was small, much smaller than Castiel’s back at the manor, and a few
tall stacks of boxes were shoved into the corner. When Dean saw Castiel staring
at them, he rubbed the back of his neck and grinned apologetically.
“I don’t get many visitors, so I usually use this room for storage."
“It’s fine,” Castiel said. “Thank you.”
“Oh yeah, and…” Dean reached under the bed and pulled out a box. “There’s some
shit in here you’ll probably want. You’re about…” he paused to inhale deeply.
“Two or three days in?”
Castiel nodded.
“Right. Well, it’s gonna get worse. All of the stuff is new, so don’t worry
about germs or anything. Bathroom’s off the living room if you wanna shower.
There’s food in the fridge and if you need anything, just give me a call at
work.” Dean scribbled down a number on the pad of paper beside the bed. “I
think that’s it.”
“Thank you,” Castiel said quietly. “For everything.”
Dean licked his lips and cleared his throat, looking away as his nostrils
flared. Dean had an incredible amount of self control, being this close to an
omega in heat for so long and not even making an advance. He was even keeping
his posture in check, making sure to keep his arms by his side and his head was
tipped at a neutral angle, not even working a growl into any of his words. Most
alphas didn’t try to control their dominance displays when they were going
about their daily business, much less around fertile omegas.
“It’s no problem, man. I really have to go now though, so I guess I’ll see you
tonight.”
Castiel nodded. “I guess,” he echoed.
 
He was planning on taking a shower. Truly, he was. But then suddenly he woke
up, without remembering falling asleep, with the clock on the bedside table
telling him he’d somehow lost four hours in the process.
Seconds after his eyes blinked open in confusion, Castiel was slammed with what
could only be described as a wall of sensation. Suddenly, the sheets were too
soft and too scratchy at the same time, the air was too heavy to breathe, and
his skin erupted in goosebumps as a cold sweat slicked his heated skin.
Blinking did nothing to clear his blurred vision and digging his fingers into
his ears didn’t stop the ringing that was piercing them.
Groaning, Castiel rolled off the bed, only to collapse onto the floor when his
legs didn’t hold his weight. He would have stayed there, content to curl into a
fetal position and squeeze his eyes shut, if it wasn’t for all the dust. He
could feel the particles clawing their way up his nose every time his took a
breath, and it only got worse if his inhaled through his mouth, the dust
filling his lungs and clinging to his throat.
A shower. A shower would help.
Castiel managed to shove himself to his feet and, with the aid of the wall,
trudged to the bathroom. The cool tile felt slick and hard under his slippery
feet and he left damp patches where he stepped, part sweat, part slick that had
dripped down his legs.
While he stripped down, Castiel waited for the water to heat up. Every time he
stuck his hand under it, it felt freezing, even though there was steam
billowing up around him and fogging up the mirror and floor. Only when he
cranked the heat gauge up to the highest level did the water feel warm enough.
They were called heats for a reason.
The steam from the shower made it even harder to breathe, but it cooled the
fire raging inside of him. Oils from Castiel’s body made the water shimmer as
if tiny rainbows were trapped inside the droplets.
Being so sheltered his whole life- not going to public school really made it
hard to socialize with others your age- meant Castiel was somewhat hesitant
about this whole heat thing. He knew the mechanics of what was happening to his
body, of course- fertileness causing his muscles to relax to make him weaker
and therefore less likely to refuse a strong mate as well as more receptive to
an alpha’s knot, scent glands going into overdrive to attract a mate, and
internal temperature skyrocketing to provide an optimal environment for
conception- but it was the whole sex thing that threw him for a spin.
He had never even watched porn, only touching himself if he woke up from a
dream with a painfully hard erection. His family was extremely religious, and
he had been told from a young age that masturbation was a form of sin. Now that
he was older, he knew better, but going without pleasure for so long meant he
never felt a particularly strong need for it.
But in the throes of heat, with want screaming in every fiber of his body, the
last thing he wanted was to not wring pleasure from his body.
Castiel picked up the conditioner and squeezed some into his hand before
reaching down to spread it onto half-hard cock. The sensation made him shudder,
and he bit his lip to hold back a groan when he started moving his hand.
His legs started wobbling again, so Castiel threw his forearm against the wall
in front of him and leaned on it, resting his forehead on the tiles. He could
actually feel every little crease in his hand on the skin of his cock in this
state, and that just mounted his pleasure. Castiel squeezed his eyes shut and
gasped for air as he tightened his hand, adding a twist to the top of every
stroke.
The submissive part of his mind urged him to imagine another hand in place of
his own slender one, a hand with close cut nails and callused fingerpads
stained black with engine grease. He imagined a larger, thicker body pressed up
behind him, unoccupied hand grasping his hip tightly, and full lips whispering
heated words into his ear. He imagined hot, open mouthed kisses pressed to the
back of his neck and the light drag of teeth across his nape, catching on the
skin and marking it red.
It was the last thought that set him off, pushed him over the precipice with a
cry as he splattered the wall in front of him with come. He felt his hole pulse
and produce an ungodly amount of slick, oozing down his leg before it was
washed away by the water.
When the last shuddering aftershocks of his climax stopped wracking his body,
Castiel opened his eyes. His gaze immediately landed on the wall, blood rising
to his cheeks when he saw his come painted there in strips of white. He quickly
wiped the evidence of his orgasm away and kicked the water pooling around his
feet towards the drain until it was all gone. His chest heaved, greedily
sucking in the water-logged air around him, as he waited for the ebb of the
need inside him.
It never came. If anything, it just got stronger. Sure, the orgasm was good,
but it wasn’t what his body craved. Castiel glared down at his softening cock
and pounded his fist weakly against the wall, frustrated now along with crazed.
Turning off the water, Castiel ripped open the shower curtain, only to be hit
with a freezing blast of air and quickly pulled it shut again. He didn’t want
to put his dirty clothes back on, and his clean ones were in the bedroom. That
meant making it across the apartment with nothing on his wet body.
Steeling himself, Castiel leapt out of the shower, gathered up his clothes in
his arms, and yanked open the door. It was even colder outside, steam billowing
out in a great cloud along with all the heat, and he walked as quickly as he
could through the living room and down the hallway to the spare bedroom.
By the time he got there, he was a shivering wreck- teeth chattering, limbs
shaking, goosebumps standing so prominent on his skin that he was sure they
would stay there permanently. Without even bothering to get clothes on- he
would just leak through them anyway- Castiel launched himself into the bed and
pulled the blankets tightly around him.
It took ten minutes for him to heat up again and now there was sweat dripping
down his body, pooling behind his knees, under his arms, and in the small of
his back and shadow of his spine. The water in his hair never really dried out,
rather was just replaced with sweat.
All the books he had read, websites he had visited, and always focused strictly
on the scientific facts. What was happening to his body and why, clear
questions and answers. They have never mentioned how it would make him feel as
a person, never even touched on how helpless and weak he would be with wave
after wave of heat rolling over his body.
He understood, now, why so many omegas allowed themselves to be taken by alphas
or betas they didn’t particularly care for, to submit to the wishes and needs
of a dominant role and allow society to treat them like objects. The prospect
of facing this alone, of being uncared for while in such a vulnerable state,
terrified Castiel. Simply thinking about being on the streets made him shudder
with something more than cold, fear wracking him to the very bones. He thanked
whatever God might be out there that he chose this particular coffee shop to
sit in front of, that Dean was the one to offer him help.
Dean. A fresh wave of hotness swept over him at the thought of the alpha’s
green eyes and the power that had been shimmering in them when he stared Meg
down, the strength that had been in the line of his shoulders, the challenging,
upward tilt of his chin. Dean was strong, compassionate, and loyal, the perfect
candidate for a good mate and father.
Castiel’s eyes flew open.
Mate?
Father?
No, no no no. Bad brain. Bad hormones. He had known Dean for less than twenty
four hours, there was no way he was considering mating with him, and absolutely
no possible way he was considering bearing his children. In a world where
females were considered primary child-bearers, fertile male omegas were at the
rock bottom of the social pyramid, looked down upon even by other male omegas.
He wouldn’t submit himself to that kind of persecution just because his
hormones were on a rampage.
But, he had to admit, the thought of children sent a zing down Castiel’s spine
that had nothing to do with heats or hormones or omegas. He had always known he
wanted children, had already been picking out names by the age of eight. When
he had been too young to know better, Castiel would play with Anna’s baby
dolls, feeding them and bathing them and rocking them to sleep. Children had
always been in his agenda, he had just never considered being the one to carry
them.
Castiel pressed a hand to his lower abdomen, imagining it softer and swollen
with life. The possibility of creating something like that thrilled him in a
way he never thought it would.
Maybe there was something good about being an omega. When the time came, with
the right mate, there could definitely be a positive side to this.
Castiel drifted off with that thought comforting his addled mind.
 
A loud crash made Castiel shoot up into a sitting position, fully upright
before he was even awake, adrenaline pumping through his veins and heart trying
to break free of his ribcage.
Dean was standing in the doorway, left foot clutched between his hands and
biting his bottom lip, obviously barely restraining himself from letting loose
a string of curses. A box was sitting at his feet, but in the darkness of the
night, Castiel couldn’t make out what was inside it.
“Dean?” he slurred, wincing when the sleep-heavy words clawed his throat on the
way out. “What’re you doin’?”
“Sorry,” Dean said. “You were shivering and I was going to cover you with more
blankets without waking you up, but,” he motioned to the box, “that plan kind
of crashed and burned.”
“Oh.” Castiel flopped back down, immediately regretting it when the springs in
the bed squeaked violently in his ears, and pulled the blankets back up around
him to cover his naked chest. He was suddenly very aware of his nude state,
watching Dean carefully from the corner of his eye as the alpha approached the
bed with the extra blankets.
“Do you want me to take these?” Dean asked, hand skimming across the blankets.
They were soaked with Castiel’s heat fluids by now, and- if Dean’s flaring
nostrils and rapidly dilating pupils were anything to go by- reeked of him,
too. “I could wash them.”
“No!” Castiel grasped the blankets in his hands and tugged them higher up his
body, twitching when Dean yanked his hand away as if he had been burned. “I’m
don’t-…I’m not wearing any….” He stopped, already having said too much.
Dean’s eyes raked slowly down Castiel’s blanket covered body, like a predator
eyeing its prey, and Castiel curled tighter into himself. There was nothing
stopping Dean from ripping off the blankets and taking him right there, though
if he really wanted to, clothes wouldn’t have impeded him much either.
A tiny, dark corner of Castiel’s brain, one that he squashed immediately,
jumped at the idea. Dean glanced at Castiel in confusion when he flushed and
ducked his head under the blanket, remembering the images he had conjured up
when in the shower the day before.
The last thing he expected was the gentle weight of another blanket being laid
across him, then another, and another. Dean was silent as he layered five
blankets on top of the ones already on the bed, kicking the box under the
mattress when he was done.
“Do you want more water?”
“Please,” Castiel croaked.
Dean came back with a glass and a pitcher, filling the glass before handing it
to Castiel and setting the jug on the bedside table. Castiel accepted the cup
scooted up enough to sip the water without choking, but not enough to expose
his chest. Dean turned to leave, but before he could, Castiel spoke.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked softly, eyes lowered and words whispered
into the glass more than they were directed at Dean. “Why are you helping me?”
The mattress dipped as Dean sat on the edge, careful to keep away from
Castiel’s feet.
“The world’s a fucked up place,” he said simply. “Helping people’s a way to
make it better.”
“You could just donate to charity,” Castiel said dryly, immediately chastising
himself for the comment. Why should he question the help he was receiving?
Dean smirked. “I could.” His hand closed around a pendant hanging from twine
cord on his neck and he ran his thumb over it, contemplating how to respond.
Castiel subconsciously fingered his own necklace as he watched.
“My brother,” he said finally. “He’s an omega. I learned pretty damn early that
all the crap about omegas being weak was bullshit. When we were young we…well,
we moved around a lot, my dad and my brother and me. Every time we went to a
new town, Sammy had to convince people he wasn’t just going to roll over and
let people order him around.
“His dream was always to be a lawyer, and everyone always told him it was
impractical.” Dean scoffed. “If there’s one word that’s not in Sam’s
dictionary, it’s impractical. They were always telling him that he should find
a nice dominant, settle down, start a family. He fought to get into college,
fought to stay in college, and he’s been still fighting ever since.” He
grinned, face filled with pride. “Sam’s one of the best, now, top at his
league.”
“You’re very proud of him,” Castiel said. It wasn’t a question.
Dean nodded. “He would kill me if I ever said anything rolist. It’s just…wrong,
y’know? Making assumptions about someone ‘cause of their biology is just as bad
as being sexist or racist.”
“So you help omegas often?” Castiel would never admit it, but the thought made
his blood turn green with jealously. The idea of another omega sleeping in this
bed, of receiving Dean’s care, made him envious beyond words.
To his surprise, Dean shook his head. “Not just omegas. Anyone who needs it.”
“Oh.” At a loss for something, to say, Castiel carefully sipped his water.
Drinking too fast made his stomach feel like it was boiling. His brain neatly
filed away the story, adding selfless to the list of qualities that made Dean a
perfect m-
“Did you eat?”
Castiel blinked a few times, startled out of his thought process. “I-…I think
so.”
Dean laughed. It was a rich, full sound that had Castiel’s lip turning up in
response. “You can’t remember?”
He shrugged. “I was a bit preoccupied with the fact that it felt like my skin
was melting off my body.”
Dean nodded solemnly, but the depths of his eyes still twinkled with amusement.
“Understandable. I’ll make soup.”
“You don’t have to,” Castiel blurted, feeling like he had to say something, at
least try to stop this train wreck before it happened. “I mean, you’ve done so
much…”
“Dude, all I have to do is open a can and dump it into a pot. It’s not like I’m
hiking across the world to pick wild tomatoes from the slopes of the Alps.”
“Wild tomatoes don’t grow on the Alps,” Castiel mumbled.
“Smartass,” Dean said, thwacking the end of the bed with his hand good-
naturedly. “Crackers or toast?”
 
Dean totally lied about the canned part. Castiel had sampled every brand of
canned tomato soup (nobody in his family was really the nesting, culinary
skilled type) and this was not preserved.
“Liar,” Castiel said after the first spoonful, and Dean just grinned and
shrugged.
“Okay, so it’s not canned. I had leftovers, sue me.”
Culinary, his brain whispered, dedicated, but Castiel ignored it.
They ate in silence for a few minutes, Castiel’s bowl cradled in his lap and
Dean’s cupped in his heads, sipping it from the bowl instead of using a spoon.
“So what about you?” Dean finally said. “A lot of omegas in your family?”
Castiel frowned at his soup, stirring it with his spoon. Little chunks of
cracker that had broken off rose to the surface and he scooped them up. “I’m
the only one.”
“The only one?” Dean repeated, astonished. “You must be shitting me.”
“I’m not. The Novak line is esteemed for its alpha heritage.”
“Wait, wait.” Dean put his soup down and leaned a fraction of an inch closer.
“Novak? Like, Gabriel Novak?”
Castiel’s frowned deepened. “Yes. He’s my brother.”
A breathless chuckle escaped Dean’s lips. “Son of a bitch.”
“Do you know him?” Castiel asked urgently, suddenly overwhelmed with the need
to knowwhat happened to his candy-loving brother. “Dean, do you know him?”
“Not personally.”
Castiel huffed in irritation. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’ll show you.”
The bowl in Castiel’s lap tipped when Dean got up from the bed, but he paid no
attention to the soup that sloshed onto his skin. He would sweat it off in
minutes, anyway. Hypothetical information about his brother, on the other hand,
was fast overshadowing his heat symptoms.
Dean came back with a TV guide clutched in his hand, and flipped it open before
tossing it to Castiel. He caught it and turned it around, eyes skimming over
the show guide in a search for his brother’s name.
“The picture in the top right.”
Castiel’s eyes immediately jumped to the top right corner of the page and his
breath caught in his throat. There, with his arms slung over two other men’s
shoulders, was Gabriel, smiling the same cocky grin he wore when Castiel knew
him.
“Show’s called Changing Channels,” Dean said, returning to his position on the
end of the bend. “It’s cool. Gabriel and his buddies are stuck in their TV;
every episode is them in a different show. They have to figure out their roles
in the show and play them in order to get to the next show. Supposedly, if they
make it through enough shows, they can get out.”
“It was his dream,” Castiel said softly, fingers gently touching his brother’s
smiling face. “To be an actor.”
“You act like you haven’t seen him in a decade.”
“I haven’t. Zachariah disowned him when he left and I wasn’t allowed to talk to
him.”
Dean’s face hardened. “No one should be kept from their siblings.”
Castiel shrugged. “It’s the same for two more of my brothers. Zachariah didn’t
approve of their activities and I wasn’t allowed to talk to them.”
Dean opened his mouth to say something else, but at that moment Castiel’s heat
rushed forward and he closed his eyes against the sudden onslaught of smells,
namely Dean’s.
“Dean,” he said weakly. “Please leave.”
“What?” Dean’s scent suddenly grew stronger, increasing in reaction to
Castiel’s. “Oh. Yeah, sure.” He took Castiel’s soup bowl before he left,
shutting the door behind him.
Castiel had to fight with his instincts not to call Dean back in, to throw the
covers from his body and roll over present himself to his alpha and lure him
into his body.
No. Not his. Dean was not his and he was not Dean’s. He would not offer his
body up like some kind of prize or bribe. Dean was a level headed alpha, but
that didn’t mean he would be able to resist the pull of a presenting, fertile
omega. In fact, Castiel was almost certain that it was impossible for an
unclaimed alpha to resist that sight. He’d rather not test his boundaries.
The extra blankets Dean had brought weren’t helping. They smelled like him,
like his delicious heady aroma, and Castiel allowed himself the small
consolation of burying his face in one of them. The scent of an alpha did
little to soothe his heat, but little was better than nothing, so he took what
he could get.
Castiel wished he could call Anna, tell her everything that had happened and
that he felt. She would offer sound, unbiased advice, point him in the right
direction. He had always counted on Anna to help him make big decisions, and
without her guidance he felt lost. His big sister would know what to do in this
situation; she always knew what to do.
He sighed and tucked his face further into the blankets.
 
Dean was gone when he woke up and sunlight was streaming through the window.
His heat felt a little bit better, or maybe it was just the fact that Castiel
had gotten used to it. At least now he could walk without collapsing.
The pasty smells drifting up from the coffee shop below should smell good, but
all it was doing was making Castiel inexplicably nauseous and starving at the
same time. Instead of eating, Castiel showered and dressed, figuring he was
well enough to watch TV instead of lying in bed all day. He dragged more than
half the blankets from his bed and curled up on the couch with them, flipping
through the channels to find something that sparked his interest.
According to the TV guide, Gabriel’s show wasn’t on until 9, so he settled on
some nature documentary about bees. Castiel didn’t really pay attention,
drifting off into a thought process even he couldn’t keep up with, one that
jumped from bees to the creation of cheese to the chemical equation to make sex
hormones to lines from Hamlet.
By the end of the documentary, Castiel was shivering again, and could feel the
blankets beneath him soaking up his sweat and slick. Out of consideration for
Dean’s couch, Castiel shut off the TV and moved back to the bed. There, he
didn’t have to worry about permanently staining the cushions or spreading his
scent all over the apartment.
God, how he wished he could take suppressants. It was dangerous, though, to
take them during your first heat, and Castiel didn’t want to risk infertility.
Although infertility were sounding more inviting by the minute if this was only
the third day in what would probably be a six or seven day cycle.
The need was back stronger than before. It was like a tide, ebbing off for a
little bit before coming back full force and crippling him, reducing him to a
slave of his body. A constant litany of mate breed fuck cycled through his
brain, interrupting more rational thoughts and giving Castiel a headache. A
small part of him, the part that was still sane, was glad Dean was at work. If
he was here, if Castiel had to smell him, he doubted he would be able to resist
the alpha.
Castiel rolled on his side and tucked his legs and arms into his body in a
fetal position, snuffling against the blankets that were starting to smell less
like Dean and more like him. He blinked blearily, spinning vision not really
focusing on anything, until he saw the box.
Head perking up, Castiel considered it. Dean had told him whatever was inside
would help him, and Dean had shown he was trustworthy so far. Reaching out,
Castiel managed to pull it towards him without getting out of bed, and he
flipped off the cover to inspect the contents.
Castiel’s eyes widened when he saw what was inside, a strange mixture of
arousal and fear rising up inside him. The box was filled with toys…sex toys.
He had heard about them in theory, but never considered using them. There were
four toys in the box, all still in their original packaging, and scattered
between them were a few packets of lube and a handful of condoms.
Two of the toys were dildos. One of them was made of glass, at least eight
inches long, with a smooth, bulbous head and a thread of blue spiraling around
the shaft. Castiel licked his lips and felt a drop of slick drip from his hole.
The second was shorter, but it was thicker and had a swollen base that was
probably meant to simulate a knot. It faded from bright pink at the end, to
orange in the middle, and black at the bottom. There was a slit in the top,
like it was supposed to have something squirted out of it, and Castiel didn’t
dwell on what that something might be, instead letting his attention drift to
the remaining objects.
The last two toys were shaped somewhat like the dildos, but they didn’t look
exactly the same. One of them was much smaller, only the length of his hand,
and looked like it was a glass pinecone stuck on top of stick. The last one
resembled an ice cream cone made of blue plastic, and was connected to a remote
of some sort.
Frowning in confusion, Castiel picked up the remote, careful to keep his
fingers away from the toys, and pushed the grooved circle with his thumb that
turned it on, exposed by the Try Me! slit in the plastic packaging. The toy
started buzzing, vibrating in the box and sending the condoms and packets of
lube jumping around and knocking against the other toys.
Castiel felt his eyes grow impossibly wider and he hastily shut off the toy,
slammed the lid back onto the box, and pushed it as far away from the bed as
possible. He may be desperate, but he wasn’t that desperate.
But the toys got him thinking. He hadn’t considered that part of his body when
masturbating in the shower, which was stupid of him, really. He was in heat,
aching because he was fertile, not because he was sexually frustrated.
Curious now, Castiel slipped his hand down the back sweatpants he was wearing,
fingers slipping through sweat and slick, and ran the tip of his index finger
down his crack. When he brushed hesitantly against his hole, a lightning bolt
of pleasure tore through his body and he gasped, pulling his hand away hastily.
He had never touched himself there before, and had no idea what would feel good
and what wouldn’t. That one, quick touch had felt amazing, but it scared him.It
was too new, too different.
Castiel’s life had been built on tradition and custom and routine. New things
came few and far between, and when they did, he was usually guided through it
with detailed instructions. The past few days, it felt like his mind was
unraveling, fraying at the edges from the complete 180 his existence had taken.
Now, everything was his decision, his choice, and the consequences of those
actions were his to bear and his alone. No longer could anyone else shoulder
the blame responsibility for him, it was all up to him.
The next few hours were spent in a miserable state of half consciousness,
drifting through the agonizing fever that seemed to be his life now. Castiel
could feel himself drying from the inside out, but the glass Dean had given him
the night before was gone, along with the pitcher. Every time he tried to get
out of bed, his knees gave out, sending him crashing to the floor and shivering
so hard his teeth knocked together. It took him several minutes to drag himself
back into the bed and after a few tries, he gave up.
Castiel started to hallucinate, seeing his brothers and sisters standing around
his bed. They spoke to him, some offering words of comfort and others snide
comments about his condition.
“Water,” Castiel rasped to them. “Please.”
Anna gave him a pitying look and patted his hand, her touch frigid compared to
his boiling skin.
“We can’t, Castiel,” she said. “We’re not real.”
He groaned and tucked his head under the blankets, hoping they would go away if
he ignored them, but that just made their voices louder and touches more
insistent. He tried to tell them to go away, to leave him alone, but all that
climbed out of his throat was a wheezing whine. It felt like his throat was
bleeding, raw and cracking like the land of a desert. He imagined the cracks
spreading throughout his entire body, organs splitting and spurting blood.
The hallucinations started getting more vivid, and soon he wasn’t even in the
bedroom anymore. He was lying on the back of a rushing river, a waterfall
tumbling cool, fresh water down into the stream just feet from him, but every
time Castiel reached towards it with his hand or dipped his head into the
river, the water level would drop or the waterfall would scoot over a few
inches, always remaining tantalizingly out of his grasp.
“Castiel?”
Castiel frowned. The water was talking. That was ridiculous. Water didn’t talk.
But, then again, it didn’t shrink from his touch, either.
“You okay?”
No! Castiel tried to say, but he couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, could barely
even breath. He opened his mouth to try and force the answer out, but his lips
cracked and started bleeding, red beading on his lips and zinging the taste of
blood through his mouth.
“Holy shi-… Cas!”
Abruptly, Castiel was yanked into a sitting position, fingers entangling in his
sweaty hair to tilt his head back, and something was pressed to his lips. On
instinct, he opened them, and was rewarded with a rush of something cool and
wet slipping past his lips. It wasn’t water, definitely wasn’t water, but it
didn’t matter, because it was landing in his stomach and filling in the cracks
in his body and washing the away the blood that had leaked out of them.
Castiel peeled his eyes open and was met with blackness. Nothing. Frantically,
his eyes darted back and forth, searching for any sort of silhouette in the
absolutely darkness.
“Cas? You with me, buddy?”
“Dean?” Castiel rasped, reaching out with a damp hand, too damp to possibly
belong to his dry body, and touched a strong arm, muscles tight and taunt under
the skin. That arm belonged to Dean, there was no mistaking his scent. “Dean,
why is it so dark?”
“You… you can’t see me?”
Shaking his head, Castiel bit his lip and felt tears well in his eyes. Dean
cursed under his breath, the muscle in his arm contracting as he did. Castiel
couldn’t worry about that now, not when he could already feel the drink Dean
had given him seeping out through his pores.
“Please, Dean,” he wheezed. “Water.”
“Right, yeah…”
Heavy footfalls left the room quickly, coming back not ten seconds later. The
sound of water pouring into a glass was music to Castiel’s ears, and he reached
out greedily, groping out in the air until a cup was pressed into his hand.
He emptied the glass and held it out for Dean to refill. And he did it again.
And again. And again. Castiel lost track of how many cups he drained, eyes
squeezed shut at the goodness of it all, even though it didn’t matter.
Finally, Castiel put the glass down on the bedside table, stomach so full he
didn’t think he could drink more if he wanted to.
“Cas.” Dean sat down on the bed next to him and put his hands on either side of
Castiel’s face. Castiel jerked away from the touch at first, certain Dean was
going to use his sightlessness against him, that the other shoe was finally
going to drop, but stilled when all Dean did was make a shushing noise and
brush his thumbs over Castiel’s cheekbones.
“Open your eyes,” Dean murmured. One of his thumbs smeared something wet across
Castiel’s cheek that was defiantly not sweat. He tried to turn his face away,
ashamed of his tears.
“No,” Castiel whispered. He didn’t want to see nothing but blackness again.
With his eyes closed, he could pretend that he saw nothing of his own will,
that the darkness was normal.
“It’s alright, Cas, just open up.”
Slowly, ever so slowly, Castiel opened his eyes.
It wasn’t dark. In fact, it was too bright. The whole room was bathed in a
painful white light and Castiel had to blink several times before it came into
focus, whitewash fading into beautiful, beautiful colors.
Dean let out a long breath when Castiel’s eyes found his own, flashing a grin
that didn’t seem comforting as much as relieved. Before Castiel knew what was
going on, Dean had slipped one of his hands behind his head to cup the base of
his skull and the other dropped to wrap around his back as Dean pulled him in
for a hug.
“Why the hell didn’t you call me, man?” he asked softly.
Castiel chuckled breathlessly, smiling down at his arms that had hugged Dean
back. “I didn’t have a phone.”
“You didn’t have a-…oh for fuck’s sake.”
The sensation of Dean’s strong arms wrapped around him was soothing, a balm to
the confusion of his heat and dislodging the terror that had latched itself to
a spot in his chest. His scent washed over Castiel in gentle waves, slowing the
frenzied beating of his heart and the pounding of blood through his veins.
Protective, his brain hissed. He protected you,saved you.
Castiel buried those thoughts so deep even Death himself couldn’t bring them
back to life.
Seeking a stronger smell of his scent, Castiel turned his face into Dean’s jaw
and inhaled deeply, nose pressed into one of his scent glands. It was a
fragrance he would never get tired of, even if he was to smell it for ever
second of every day for the rest of his life.
Dean froze, going completely still in Castiel’s arms, before gently untangling
himself from Castiel's insistent limbs and standing up. He didn’t look
disturbed or disgusted, but rather a second away from snapping. Honestly, he
lasted longer than Castiel had expected, being that close, touching him for
that long, must have been torture.
“Thank you,” Castiel said, and he meant it. He had never been one for physical
contact, but he was finding that he craved it more and more. It might have been
because of his heat hormones, or maybe because he was finally around people
that weren’t in his family, but a simple hug was enough to pull him back from a
panic attack.
That small voice in the back of his head, the one that Castiel continued to
ignore, suggested that it wasn’t the hug itself, but rather the fact that the
hug was from Dean.
Dean reached out towards Castiel face, hand stopping inches away and
hesitating.
“Can I...?” Without knowing what the question was, Castiel nodded.
The very tips of Dean’s finger glided across Castiel’s face, feather-light and
soft. They traced his jaw, skimmed over the bridge of his nose, smoothed over
his eyebrows, and traced nonsensical patterns on his forehead before brushing
the sweaty hair away from his face in such a tender gesture that Castiel’s
bottom lip trembled. The air around them was full of intimacy and swollen with
unspoken words, and Castiel felt suddenly claustrophobic, confined to this
room, this bed, breathing the intimate air and sharing his life with Dean.
Before he could voice his emotions, though, Dean swooped down, pecked a quick
kiss on his glimmering forehead, and left the room.
Castiel blinked and raised hand to his face, fingers ghosting over where Dean’s
had been moments before, and ended where his lips had touched his skin. The
place was cool to his fingers, chilled by the press of Dean’s flesh against
his, and Castiel felt it gradually warming up beneath his finger pads.
He was fighting a loosing battle.
 
Castiel drifted off after that, lulled to sleep by the memory of Dean’s
embrace, and only awoke again when he heard the shower running. Immediately, he
pictured Dean’s nostrils flaring as he walked into the bathroom, pupils
dilating as he picked up the scent of Castiel’s release. He pictured Dean
growing hard under the spray of water, jacking himself off in the very same
position Castiel had been in, groaning Castiel’s name under his breath when he
came. The thought made him flush and shift, but at least a galloon of slick
didn’t leak onto the bed this time.
This was the fourth day of his heat, and he could feel the boiling in his blood
slowly draining out of him. He had to be even more careful around Dean now, a
fertile, unclaimed omega falling from heat would unleash Dean’s more
animalistic side, the alpha in him not wanting to let a perfectly good chance
to breed go to waste.
When Castiel was sure that Dean was gone, he allowed himself to drift off back
to sleep. It was a deep sleep, unperturbed by nightmares or fits of fever, and
Castiel slept the day away.
His fever was stronger than in the morning when he opened his eyes, but that
was expected. A last hooray, you could say.
What Castiel didn’t expect was the itch underneath his skin, constant and
sharp,like the tingle of a limb falling asleep. It was hard to describe, less
like the need he had felt before and more like an irritating prickling he
couldn’t stop.
No matter what was he tossed and turned, the sensation didn’t go away. He
stretched and twisted and curled and flailed, but nothing worked.
Sighing in exasperation, Castiel flopped on his side and scowled.
He saw The Box out of the corner of his eye.
Cocking his head at it, Castiel raised an eyebrow. Maybe?...
He allowed one of his hands to sneak down the back of his pants and brush over
his opening again. This time, the pleasure was expected, and his only response
was a hitch in his breath.
Making his decision, Castiel shucked his pants and pulled off his shirt,
tossing them both to the floor beside the bed. Dean wasn’t home, and judging by
the time, probably wouldn’t be for awhile. He would use his fingers, not the
toys. Those things were huge and there was no way they would fit inside him
comfortably.
Tentatively, Castiel probed at his furled hole with a single finger. He was
still wet enough that he wouldn’t need lube, so he slowly sunk his index finger
in up to his first knuckle.
Nothing much happened. No fireworks went off, no alarms blared, no confetti
rained down on his head. All that occurred was a small explosion of pleasure
that zinged across his skin. It was a new kind of pleasure, not the kind that
his hand on his dick gave, but a fuller kind, more satisfying.
Castiel focused on relaxing his muscles and sunk his finger deeper. Yeah, that
was definitely good. More than good, it was awesome. He spread his legs wider
and pulled his finger out a little before pushing it back in.
His spine arched against the bed as if it had a mind of its own, hips pushing
down and muscles clenching. Castiel gasped for air as he started steady pace,
writhing on the sweat soaked sheets and feeling even more slick leak from him.
Pleasure practically oozed from his pores, eyes rolling back into his head and
breath coming in short, harsh pants. And if this was just one finger…
On the next thrust up, Castiel added his middle finger, unable to stop the
groan that seeped out from his lips. Slowly, his scissored himself open,
twisting his fingers and dragging them along his walls, almost sobbing with how
good it felt.
Then, his middle finger brushed against something different and Castiel
screamed, stars going off behind his eyes and electricity zooming across his
flesh, igniting every nerve in his body. He felt like he was floating and
sinking all at once, flying and falling, and when he came to, he realized he
was clutching at the headboard with a white knuckled fist.
Castiel brushed his finger against that spot again, this time biting down on
his bottom lip to keep himself silent, though a loud moan still escaped.
Why hadn’t he done this before? There was nothing bad about this, nothing
scary, just him and his fingers and all the different ways he could make his
skin tingle with pleasure.
His dick was hard and flushed, so erect it was flat against his stomach, but he
ignored it in favor of adding a third finger. He could reach even more of his
walls this way, stroking and curling his fingers to reach every nerve ending
possible.
The tendons in his wrist were starting to get sore from the awkward angle, and
Castiel eyed The Box out of the corner of his eye. The blue one wouldn’t hurt,
as long as he made sure that it stayed very much off, but it was so…impersonal.
Made of plastic, nothing like a real flesh and blood knot would feel inside
him.
His body seemed to approve of the idea, because his muscles clenched down
around his fingers almost painfully. He imagined a strong body draped over his,
pounding into him in earnest, gripping his waist tightly with oil-stained
fingers.
Oh. Shudders worked their way through his limbs, and more slick was dripped out
of his tightly clamping hole.
“Dean,” Castiel whispered on a way up, eyes falling shut with the pleasure of
simply uttering the alpha’s name. He imagined Dean’s mouth on his neck, Dean’s
mouth on his chest, Dean’s mouth on his hips, Dean’s mouth on his cock, Dean’s
mouth on his thighs, Dean’s mouth everywhere. The sensation of his fingers
inside him increased tenfold when he pictured Dean’s fingers in their place,
grinning up at him from between his legs as he rubbed Castiel’s prostate.
At first, Castiel thought he was hallucinating again, because without any
warning, the door to his bedroom swung inward, pushed open by a grease-stained
hand, as if he had been summoned by Castiel thinking about him.
“Hey Cas, what's goi-….”
Dean’s sentence spluttered to a stop as he locked eyes with Castiel- panting,
writhing, sweating, shuddering Castiel. His jaw opened and closed a few times,
lost for words as he held Castiel’s gaze before his eyes broke away and
traveled down his body, wide gaze stopping where Castiel was fucking his
fingers into himself.
“Cas,” Dean croaked, whining a little in the back of his throat when Castiel
drew his fingers almost all the way around only to shove them back in, head
dropping back against the pillow.
“Dean,” Castiel groaned in response, not missing the way the alpha shivered at
the sound of his name.
“Cas,” Dean said again, vocabulary seemingly comprised of that single syllable
at the moment. Castiel’s hand flew up to grasp the headboard again when he hit
his prostrate, making a strangled sound in the back of his throat that seemed
to yank Dean forward, had him stumbling towards the bed like a marionette whose
strings had been jerked.
“Cas, you need to tell me if you want me to leave,” Dean said breathlessly. His
eyes had grown black, overcome by pupil, and they were filled with something
dark and heady when he returned his gaze to Castiel’s. “You need to tell me
now.”
Castiel’s hand stopped as he considered. He unburied all those unwanted little
comments in his head, allowed them to flood his mind. He considered Dean-
strong, compassionate, endearing Dean who had given Castiel a choice, always
backed away when he pushed him and drew in closer when he pulled him. He
considered his body, which was reacting so strongly to Dean as it had not
reacted to the other alphas. He considered all this, then pulled his fingers
from his body and sat up, holding his hand out to the alpha and beckoning him
forward.
Dean fell onto the bed, there was no other way to put it, he toppled onto the
mattress, not even bothering to kick off his shoes before he was covering
Castiel’s body with his own, an instinct leftover from older times when an
omega in heat was something that needed to be shielded from prying eyes and
even a caught and willing omega could still be snatched away by another alpha.
Castiel tipped his head back to bare his throat in submission and Dean growled
possessively, ducking his head to lick and nip at the sensitive skin under his
jaw. Castiel gasped and bucked up when Dean’s teeth closed over his jugular,
sinking his teeth into the sensitive skin and nibbling to bring a bruise to the
surface.
“Dean,” Castiel groaned, his voice clearly saying get on with it, but Dean just
hummed and nosed upwards to lick behind Castiel’s jaw at his scent gland,
tongue coaxing out more oil and greedily lapping it up.
“So good,” Dean murmured, a purr starting to rumble in his chest that Castiel
could feel vibrating against his own. The deep tremors sparked an elated
feeling inside him, inner omega reacting to his alpha’s emotions. “You smell so
fucking good, Cas, you don’t even know. Driving me crazy all week.”
“Yeah?” Castiel panted, loosing his train of thought when Dean switched to
sucking at his scent gland, eyes squeezing shut and mouth dropping open until
he let up, starting licking again. “You too.”
Dean’s purr grew louder and he nosed once more behind Castiel’s jaw before
dropping lower, laying a trail of kisses down his neck and across his
collarbone, pausing to lap up the sweat gathered in the hollow below his
throat.
Following the rivulets of sweat dripping down his skin, Dean traced a droplet
down to one of Castiel’s nipples, swirling his tongue around the nub before
sucking it into his mouth and rolling it between his teeth. Castiel arched up
against the feeling, couldn’t help the cry that was punched out of him. Dean
snarled triumphantly in the back of his throat before switching to the other
one, lavishing it with the same attention before continuing downwards.
Castiel’s breathing sped up as he watched Dean lay kisses along his abdomen,
brushing his across starvation-prominent ribs with a whine and nosing at them
like an apology, or a promise. When he nipped at them, Castiel yelped and
jerked, arm flying out to bat his head away. Dean glanced up uncertainly, a
question etched into his frown, but it quickly dissolved into a mischievous
grin upon seeing the look on Castiel’s face.
“Don’t you dare,” Castiel hissed, but Dean’s head was already descending
towards his stomach and his hips were pinned down before the words even left
his mouth.
Castiel wiggled and shrieked as Dean blew raspberries into the taunt skin above
his navel, trying to shove his head away without avail. He gave up after a few
seconds, resorting to desperate flailing and hysterical laughter.
“Dean,” Castiel gasped out, managing to squeeze words in between fits of
giggles. “Dean….please…..ah!”
Dean finally took pity on him, laughter shaking his own chest when he finally
pulled away, smoothing a hand over Castiel’s stomach just to feel the muscles
jump beneath his fingers. He licked a teasing stripe up Castiel’s torso in the
shallow indent between his ab muscles, ending at his pectorals and resting his
forehead against Castiel’s, smiling softly as he waited for Castiel to catch
his breath.
“You bastard,” Castiel said, words tapering off into a sigh as Dean’s hands
slipped up his body, working over everywhere his lips had just been. His touch
was light and reverent, so unlike the tight, possessive grip Castiel had
expected from an alpha. It was like he couldn’t really believe that this was
real, that he had to keep his hands on Castiel to make sure he didn’t just slip
away.
“You’re beautiful,” Dean whispered. Castiel felt the words tumble from Dean’s
mouth and break against his own like waves on sand, so close he felt Dean’s
lips shape the syllables and the warm breath that carried them. “You know that,
right?”
Castiel turned his head away instead of answering, tipping his jaw up in hopes
of enticing Dean with the expanse of his neck, persuade him to drop the
question, to let it slide, because it was too intimate, too close.
But Dean ignored the offer, instead catching Castiel’s chin in his hand and
bringing his gaze back to those greener than green eyes.
“I’m serious,” he said.
“I know,” Castiel said, and for some reason his voice was breaking, shattering
around the edges from trying to fit through his rapidly swelling throat. This
was stupid. He was stupid. Why was he crying? He had nothing to cry about.
“Hey,” Dean murmured. “What’s with the waterworks?” He kissed the tears that
had slipped from Castiel’s eyes when he closed them, following the wet line of
salt water back to the source and dropping a peck on each of his eyelids.
 It was too overwhelming, all of this, this wave of something rising up inside
of him. He wanted to give himself over completely, let Dean take him apart
piece by piece and rearrange him again, create a whole new person, and it was
terrifying. Putting his life in someone’s hands like that, depending on
completely on another person, meant he could easily end up on the streets with
nothing but a duffel bag and a roll of cash. He couldn’t let that happen, not
again.
“Cas, look at me.”
Castiel obeyed, opening his eyes and sniffing, sounding pathetic even to his
own ears.
“Listen to me. This is very important, what I’m about to tell you, okay?”
A nod.
“Good. I have never felt this way about another human being, except maybe
Sammy, but there’s no way in heaven or hell that I would do this with him.”
Castiel chuckled weakly, sniffed again. “I don’t what you did to me man, I
can’t stop thinking about you.” He paused to rub his nose against Castiel’s.
“And I am not going to leave you, okay? That was your douchebag uncle and his
douchebag ideals and I may be many things, but a douchebag is not one of them.
So quit your worrying because I’m kind of trying to fuck you here and it’s not
going to go over very well if you’re crying. Capische?”
“Yes, I capische.”
“You sure?”
Castiel rolled his eyes. “Yes, Dean, I’m sure.”
“Don’t mock me,” Dean said, but there was no venom behind the words.
“You talk too much,” Castiel said, and looped his arms around Dean’s neck to
pull him down and slant their mouths together.
Dean’s hands slid from cupping Castiel’s face up into his hair, dragging his
blunt nails against his scalp and making Castiel moan into the kiss. Dean
surged impossibly closer at the noise, laying even more weight on Castiel
before propping himself up a little bit on his elbows, still twirling Castiel’s
hair between his fingers.
When Dean’s tongue traced the seam of his lips, asking for entry, Castiel
offered it eagerly, opening his mouth to the warm press of Dean’s tongue. This
part he didn’t know, but Dean showed him how to tilt his jaw and twist his
tongue and bite down every so often with just the right amount of pressure.
Castiel was a quick learner, and grinned in triumph whenever he found a new
spot that elicited a moan from Dean.
Oil-stained fingers slid through the sweat on Castiel’s body, covering his
fevered flesh with cool hands and soothing the wildfire inside him. When Dean’s
palm cupped Castiel’s thigh, he pushed his hips forward, but Dean bypassed his
cock to skim over his hole.
“So wet for me,” Dean whispered against his mouth, easily slipping two fingers
in without resistance. “Why didn’t you use the toys, baby?”
“T-too-…too fake,” Castiel gasped, feeling every twitch of Dean’s fingers down
to the very tips of his toes. His fingers curled in Dean’s shirt as he tried to
ground himself to reality, using the fabric as a distraction to not loose
himself in the feeling of Dean inside him. “Wanted something r-real.” He made a
sound that resembled something along the lines of ngh when Dean added a third
finger. “Wa-..wanted you.”
Dean growled at that, twisted his fingers harshly, dragging tips of them across
his walls and Castiel cried out, pushed down onto his hand as he tried to force
the fingers deeper. Dean kissed his temple and pressed a hand to his hips,
keeping him down on the bed. Castiel whimpered and twitched his pelvis up
fervently against Dean’s palm, but Dean was strong and had him successfully
pinned down.
“Shh, sweetheart, s’okay. I got you.”
“Dean, please,” Castiel begged. He wasn’t even sure what he was begging for
anymore.
Dean hummed, like he was doing some ordinary, run of the mill thing, jotting
down directions instead of shoving three fingers up Castiel’s ass at a
punishing pace. Castiel dropped his hands to the bed and twisted his fingers
into the sheets, clutching at them in an attempt to keep his sanity.
“You should be more patient. But I guess you could use something to take the
edge off.”
Castiel barely had time to comprehend the words before Dean was swooping down
his body. By the time Castiel managed to focus on him, Dean’s head was already
positioned above his cock, and all he registered was a hot puff of breath
against the head before Dean swallowed him down, tip brushing against the back
of his throat in one go.
One bob and that was all it took for Castiel to come, screaming out Dean’s name
to the ceiling as his spine bent at such an intense angle he was sure that it
would snap. White noise buzzed in his ears and overtook his vision, sensations
swirling together in one pulsating mass of pleasure for at least a minute
before his senses returned, muscles still twitching and jerking with random
aftershocks.
Dean was right, all it did was take the edge off. He was still just as hard and
Dean’s fingers still felt just as good, at least the sense of urgency was at
bay for a little while. Castiel flexed his hands and, somewhat sheepishly,
realized he had torn the sheets.
“Better?” Dean asked, sucking a bruising kiss onto one of his hipbones.
“Yes,” Castiel breathed.
“Too bad you’re in heat,” Dean said nonchalantly. “I would fuck you bare if you
weren’t, fill you up with my come.” Castiel felt himself clench down on Dean’s
fingers at the thought, the ghost sensation of being filled with Dean’s seed
igniting every omega tendency woven through his genes. He could hear Dean’s
smirk in his words as he said, “Looks like you like that idea.”
Dean pressed his nose to Castiel’s inner thigh and inhaled deeply, scenting the
smell of his arousal and growling when Castiel mimicked him, flaring his own
nostrils to smell Dean’s. His scent was thicker, darker than it had been when
they first met, tainted with the heady aroma of his heat-induced rut, something
that Castiel himself had brought on. His body had made Dean’s scent change like
that and it made something not far from the possession he knew Dean felt for
him swell in his chest.
Castiel’s attention was diverted roughly from that something when he felt the
unmistakable wet press of Dean’s tongue against his hole, worming in beside his
fingers. He groaned and threw his hands up, grappling for the headboard, the
wall, any kind of purchase to grasp.
Dean hummed and the vibrations traveled through Castiel’s entire body,
shuddering through his very bones and making him shake with need.
“Dean, now,” he babbled, loosing control of his tongue. “Now, Dean, please now,
need you so bad, please.”
Withdrawing his tongue and fingers pulled a wretched whine from Castiel, the
loss of contact leaving him clenching over nothing and feeling horribly empty,
but Dean hushed him with a kiss to his thigh.
“Turn over,” he said against Castiel’s skin. “I’m wearing too many clothes for
this.”
Castiel eagerly obeyed, flipping into his stomach and propping himself up on
his forearms, head bent at an angle he knew would display the smooth transition
from his spine to his neck. He heard rustling behind him, a belt buckle
clinking, clothes being tossed away. It was only when he heard the rip of a
condom wrapper that Castiel’s shoulders tightened, nervous anticipation curling
low in his gut.
He wasn’t worried about the actual act- oh no, he was looking forward to that-
but rather was frightened of what would come after. Would Dean suddenly change
into a stereotypically possessive, rough alpha, making Castiel wear a collar
and not permitting him to leave the apartment without his consent? Or was he
really not interested in a long-term relationship, just a quick lay, and would
sell Castiel to a breeder or brothel the minute he could fetch a good price for
him?
The warmth of Dean as he laid on top of him soothed his anxiety and he pressed
back into the solid weight of the alpha’s body, taking comfort in the way they
slotted together. He sighed, a tiny sound, at the kiss Dean planted on the back
of his neck.
Castiel tipped his pelvis up, trying to get Dean to slip into him, but Dean
titled his own hips away with a chuckle, nuzzling at the back of Castiel’s neck
instead.
“Dean,” Castiel groaned. “Stop being a tease.” He canted his ass higher, curved
his lower back in invitation.
Dean took advantage of the arc of his body to run a hand up his back, fingers
dipping in and of the shadow of his spine before spreading across the wings of
his shoulder blades, feeling the bone move restlessly beneath Castiel’s skin.
He kneaded the tense line of his shoulders and cooed soft sounds into his hair
that turned Castiel’s muscles to liquid.
“Perfect,” Dean purred. “Perfect little omega for me.”
Castiel whined wiggled against him, pressed up into Dean’s body in an effort to
cover the alpha in his scent, make himself irresistible. Dean, however, was
having none of it, and slipped his hand from Castiel’s shoulder to the back of
his neck, emitting a low, warning growl and sinking his nails into his nape.
Castiel’s body recognized the action for what it was before he did, a prelude
to an alpha’s teeth sinking into the soft flesh there in a claiming mark, and
he stilled beneath Dean. The growl turned into a purr and Dean kissed the flesh
beside his fingers, nuzzled the side of his neck as Castiel felted something
hard and warm nudge between his cheeks. He inhaled sharply and spread his legs
wider.
“You tell me to stop, and I will,” Dean said, words tumbling out on a
breathless rush of air. “Anytime, Cas, and I’ll stop.”
Castiel could only whimper and buck up again Dean’s cock, held immobile and
silent by the nails in his nape.
Finally, finally, Castiel felt the blunt press of Dean’s dick against his hole,
pressing insistently until it slipped past his rim and into his body, slick
easing the way.
Pleasure.
Pure, exploding, lighting bolt pleasure rocketing from the tip of his toes to
the ends of his hair, furling out around him like great, feathery wings.
Castiel’s entire being, entire world, had narrowed down to this room, to this
bed, and the feeling of fullness and completion that made his soul sing and his
heart pound against his ribcage.
Nothing else mattered but the steady rock of Dean’s body against his, the harsh
sound of Dean’s breath in his ears, Dean’s hands holding his hips down as he
fucked into him. Dean didn’t even have to press his neck down anymore, Castiel
stayed submissively flat of his own accord, brain too busy short circuiting to
allow him to do much more than lay there limply and whine with pleasure.
An arm looped around Castiel’s waist and tugged at him, forcing him to rear up
on his knees. He threw his arms around Dean’s neck for balance, head falling
back against his shoulder and mouth dropping open in a silent moan at the way
this new angle made Dean sink impossibly deeper.
Dean’s hands came up from where they were sitting on Castiel’s hips to run up
his chest, stopping when they reached Castiel’s nipples and tugging playfully.
Castiel groaned and curved against him, a bow pulled taunt by Dean’s fingers.
He was on the edge again, so close but so far away, and started bouncing in an
effort to push himself over.
A growl vibrated against his back, he must be fucking up Dean’s rhythm
completely, but all he did, all he could do, was squeeze his arms tighter and
sob out a broken moan.
The hands at his nipples abruptly disappeared, instead one of them grasped his
hips, rendering him immobile. The question of the other one was answered a
moment later when Castiel’s eyes flew open at the feeling of fingers closing
around his cock, jacking him off to the pace of Dean’s thrusts. He couldn’t
even scream anymore, just made a sound like a wounded animal as he came,
struggling for breath under the onslaught of sensations.
Rolling his head towards Dean, Castiel found him wearing a mix of concentration
and frustration on his face. Alarm punched him in the chest upon seeing it-
that was not a look an alpha sound be donning during mating. Castiel made a
questioning noise, dared to nudge his nose under Dean’s jaw and, when he
received no reaction, nip lightly at his neck.
Dean initially barred his teeth and snapped his hips more forcefully at the
feel of Castiel’s canines against his throat, alpha instincts screaming that it
was not an omega’s place to mark his mate. But then he slid his lips back over
his teeth and he tipped his head, offering Castiel the length of his throat in
a thrilling display of alpha submission.
Castiel’s found his own chest rumbling with a purr- higher, lighter than
Dean’s- and was initially startled into silence by the sound. Zachariah had
never allowed his siblings or him to purr, he said it was animalistic, and this
was the first time he had ever made such a noise. But he reminded himself that
anything Zachariah had told him was null and void here and he grinned and
purred as loud as he could as he pressed hot, open mouthed kisses to the
sunkissed skin of his alpha’s neck, tracing the splattering of light freckles
with his tongue.
A huff was all the warning he got before he was slammed back down against the
mattress as Dean lost control to his animalistic side, the side that demanded
Castiel lay on his stomach and submit. He pressed his hands to Castiel’s lower
back and growled threateningly, to which Castiel tipped his forehead against
the mattress to offer his neck in an attempt to placate his alpha.
Dean ignored the action, instead kept shifting his hips on every thrust,
changing the angle his cock slid into Castiel’s body every time. Every so
often, he made a noise of irritation that Castiel didn’t understand, whining
petulantly every time he heard it.
Then, the head of Dean’s dick brushed against that spot instead Castiel and he
howled, whole body jerking as he came again, almost missing the triumphant
snarl it pulled from Dean. He pistoned his hips at than angle, hit Castiel’s
prostate again and again and again.
By the time Castiel felt the swelling at the base of Dean’s dick that signified
he was near climax, Castiel had already come three more times, bed beneath him
soaked and reeking of him. The bed springs screamed in protest as Dean started
loosing his rhythm for the sake of going faster, headboard pounding against the
wall with every slam. His fingers slipped where they were grasping at Castiel’s
waist, sliding through the sheen of sweat covering his body.
With one final thrust, Dean stopping pumping and started rutting, pushing into
Castiel with small, tight circles of his hips until the muscles of his rim gave
away and allowed for Dean’s knot to pass through.
Dean growled as he started to come, diving forward and latching his teeth onto
Castiel’s nape so hard blood rose to the surface, driven by an instinct to lock
his jaw onto that vital place in a double effort with his knot to keep his
omega from escaping the breeding. The pain was nothing in comparison to the
sensation of Dean’s cock twitching inside of him as it pumped out load after
load of come. He felt his muscles clenching down, milking the alpha for every
last drop of seed, and in that moment Castiel hated the inventor of condoms,
hated the thin skin of latex that kept the last piece of Dean’s claim on his
body from him.
Dean gently stroked Castiel’s sides as he came down, managing to unlock his jaw
and rest his forehead between Castiel’s shoulder blades instead, twitching as
the last few spurts of come left his body. He dropped a gentle kiss to the rope
of Castiel’s spine as his breathing slowed, heartbeat still thudding so hard
Castiel could feel it as easily as his own.
Maneuvering them as best he could with the knot still locking them together,
Dean turned both of them on their sides and away from the wet spot, curling
around Castiel protectively. Castiel sighed and covered Dean’s hand on his
stomach with his own, resting his other palm on the arm thrown across his side.
His heat wasn’t completely gone, wouldn’t be until it had run its natural
course or was doused with an alpha or beta’s seed, but being claimed had
drastically reduced the discomfort. Castiel felt his eyelids drooping,
succumbing to comforting heat emitted by Dean’s body, when he heard a gentle
voice pulling him back to consciousness.
“I bit you,” Dean said quietly, more to himself than anything. A light touch
brushed across the bite, then the swipe of a tongue, cleaning away the blood
smeared around the mark.
“It was expected,” Castiel yawned, squeezing Dean’s arm consolingly as he
continued to clean the wound. He pressed a gentle kiss to the sensitive skin
before speaking again, softly.
“I didn’t mean to-…I shouldn’t have without asking you first.”
“It’s fine.” He just wanted to sleep, but Dean was talking again and Castiel
didn’t even know about what but he didn’t particularly care. He cracked his
eyes open, staring at the opposite wall in irritation.
“Dean.”
“Hm?”
“Shut up.”
There was a stunned silence before Dean chuckled, chest shaking against
Castiel’s back as he flipped the hand on his stomach and laced his fingers
through Castiel’s.
The last thing Castiel felt before dropping off to sleep was the press of lips
behind his ear and the vibration of a deep voice humming a lullaby into his
skin.
End Notes
     Might be writing a sequel, so check back soon if you want to suffer
     through 20k more words of my word vomit.
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their work!