Conversio Munus

by Rosecarr67

Summary:

Dean knows he presented wrong and he's not afraid to say it or show it. Sam might not like that, but he's still the little brother and Dean isn't about to let him forget that fact.

Chapter 1: Intro

Dean doesn’t need to look behind him to know what’s about to happen. He can smell it, the excitement of a nearby alpha, musky and repulsive. It’s supposed to be a turn-on, that’s what everyone says. That’s what all the books said, and health class in grade school, but it’s never been that way. Even with alpha women, it’s barely tolerable, and on men he just doesn’t like it and knows he never will. 

Careful of his body and space as always, Dean bends over the pool table and sinks another ball. It’s the first one he’s dropped in the pocket on the first try, which is all part of the lure. He has to be at least okay at the game, or the hustle will be too obvious. Conscious of the alpha on approach, he makes sure to straighten up without letting his ass move back any farther from the table.

“Well, ain’t you pretty,” the alpha drawls, moving around the side of the table where Dean can see him. 

Already bored, Dean throws him the bare minimum of a smile, and it’s on. A little chit chat, a little open body language, and heavyset redneck in the trucker cap is all his.

The guy’s good, but Dean is better. This is his life, the bait, the fumbled first shot, keeping his own disgust at bay while letting the interested alpha think he has a chance. They get through the first game, then add another hundred to the pot. Dean was planning to let the hustle roll for one more game at least, but this alpha is pushing it. He gets a little too close, tries to rub his dick on Dean’s ass when he makes a shot, and Dean is done after that. He sinks every remaining ball like a machine, scoops up the cash and stuffs it in his pocket. 

“You hustled me,” the redneck snarls, “little omega whore.”

That’s it, those are fighting words, and yes, everyone in the damn place can tell that Dean’s no alpha or beta, but still. 

“Fuck you,” Dean shoots back, pool cue still in his fist.

“Yeah, that’s right, you owe me some pussy for that. I was gonna take it anyway but now I’m gonna make it hurt.”

Crack. The first swing makes contact with the alpha’s left knee, the next strikes his head. He’s not much of a fighter, he goes down after a few more, but Dean knows how quick a man might recover from a mild beating, so he makes sure his hand is on his gun when he walks out.

As the door swings closed behind him, another patron crows, “Billy boy, you really got your ass handed to you by a bitch!” and the whole place erupts in laughter.

Dean walks to his car, feeling smug, but with the ivory handle of his Colt still firm against his palm because he’s not stupid. He’s had several close calls over the years, one a very, very near thing, so he’s not about to put the gun away before he’s safely inside the Impala with the door locked. It’s no picnic walking around every day smelling like a snack. Scent blockers help, but without registration and insurance, the only ones he’s been able to get his hands on aren’t that good so he can’t pass as a beta like some omegas do. 

Now that he’s got enough money to get to California, it’s time to find Sam. Dad is missing, actually missing, not just out of reach or forgetting to charge his phone. Dean’s pretty sure he’s dead but there’s only one way to find out for sure, and he doesn’t feel like continuing this journey alone.

Chapter 2

On the outskirts of San Jose, headed towards Palo Alto, Dean realizes he doesn’t actually know where his brother lives. They’d cut off almost all contact over a year before, and the last time Dean tried to call, Sam’s phone number was out of service. It’s not very likely he’d be able to sweet talk his way into getting the address from admissions or anything like that, which leaves breaking in after hours, a bad idea on a patrolled campus. Lurking about the campus in hopes of bumping into Sam might eventually succeed but will likely take time he doesn’t have.

Sweet talking it is, Dean decides, he can try the trickier methods if that fails. Luckily, college campuses are usually pretty organized and buildings are clearly marked. He parks the car in a lot that requires a student pass, at worst the public safety officers might give him a ticket, which he already knows he won’t be paying. Scamming bored, middle-aged university staff requires looking at least mostly harmless, maybe a bit dashing without giving off too much of the bad boy air.

Dean scrutinizes himself in the review mirror and decides he’ll pass muster if he leaves his leather jacket and gun in the car. It’s just a college campus, there won’t be anyone around who poses a threat, and he can play pretty but otherwise unremarkable in a plain henley and a wet comb scraped back through his short hair to lay it flat.

Once inside, the layout is a little confusing, but eventually Dean finds the student affairs office, and, in an unimaginable stroke of luck, the two women working are both alphas. It’s a cakewalk from there. Dean knows he’s a draw for the right men, but he’s basically universal catnip to alpha women. It’s almost too easy, ‘oh, my father abandoned me on the other side of the country, I’m just looking for my alpha brother so I won’t be all alone…’ In under fifteen minutes, he’s swaggering out with Sam’s off-campus housing address scribbled on a post-it.

Sam’s street is lively, there are people all around his building, spilling out onto the sidewalk. As Dean parks the car, he considers his next move. He’s definitely bringing the gun, drunk alphas are even worse than sober ones, but it shouldn’t be too obvious if he puts a flannel on over his shirt.

People are staring before Dean is even on the grass. He’s used to that, they’ve been staring since he was twelve, and the only defense he has is pretending he doesn’t notice. Acknowledging it only makes it worse.

Luckily, Sam’s ridiculous height puts him half a head over anyone else in sight. Dean follows the back of his brother’s stupid haircut, still the same as in high school, until he’s close enough to bump into Sam’s hip in imitation of those aggressive alphas that accidentally-on-purpose do it to him all the time. Sam gets no warning, since he’s upwind and Dean’s scent is being carried away from him.

“What the fuck?!” Sam barks, whirling around so fast he spills his beer. “Wh- Dean?”

“In the gorgeous flesh,” Dean replies, giving him a toothy grin. 

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Sam is clearly not pleased to see him, but Dean had been hoping for a little less obvious anger.

“Needed to talk to you,” he says flatly, “but your phone number doesn’t work anymore.”

“Did it never occur to you that I quit paying the bill ‘cause I didn’t wanna talk to you? Y’know, ever again, ideally.”

That stings. Yeah, things got bad but as far as Dean’s concerned they were never that bad.

“We had a fight,” Dean scoffs. “That’s not the end of the fucking world.”

“It wasn’t a fight.” 

It wasn’t, per se. It was a very one-sided beatdown, and Sam was on the bad side of it. 

“Whatever it was, you were asking for it and you know it.”

Sam’s gaze drops and his eyes slide away guiltily. 

“That’s not what I came to talk about though,” Dean continues. 

“We’re not talking about anything,” Sam says firmly. “You’re leaving. Now.”

“No, I’m not.”

This is the crucial point. Sam is the alpha, he’s supposed to be the tough one who gets his way, and he does dig in his heels at first.

“I said no,” Sam snaps, “get the fuck outta here, I didn’t want to see you in the first place and I don’t want to talk to you either.”

Dean steps in closer, crowding Sam back. “Fuck you, dude. I’m not leaving until you-”

“Honey?” It’s a girl’s voice, her omega scent precedes her. “Everything alright?”

She’s pretty, that’s the first thing Dean notices. Tall, blond, sporty-slender, probably some art major with a volleyball scholarship. Arm candy for his aspiring lawyer brother.

“It’s fine, Jess,” Sam mutters. 

Dean can see from the dislike in her eyes when she looks at him that it’s not fine as far as she’s concerned.

“And who are you?” she asks coldly, looking him up and down.

“None of your business,” Dean replies with a smirk.

“He’s my brother,” Sam sighs. 

“Older brother, and I need a word with him.”

“Brother, huh?” This time it’s one of Sam’s douchey friends, and he looks Dean up and down with hungry eyes. “So he’s fair game?”

Sam’s face goes taut and he shakes his head, then says warningly, “Brady…”

“What?”

“Don’t.”

Dean looks Sam’s friend up and down with a critical eye. He can definitely take the kid, easy. Boy’s got muscle but it’s sport muscle, good for throwing around a lacrosse stick and not much else. 

“Sam,” he says gruffly, “let’s go. I got some shit to say and you’re gonna listen to it, whether you like it or not.”

Still, Sam crosses his arms over his chest and gives his big brother a mulish stare until Dean grabs him by the elbow and yanks him in the direction of the house. Finally, Sam starts moving, leading the way to the apartment block and up the stairs to his place. 

Looks like Dean was right about the art major thing, ‘cause no way Sam’s taken up painting. He’s a shitty artist, always has been, that easel in the corner must belong to the girlfriend.

Once inside with the door closed, Sam rounds on him with a pout. “God, you’re so fucking embarrassing. Why do you have to act like that all the time?”

“Like what?” Dean tosses the question over his shoulder carelessly, already occupied in cataloging the contents of Sam’s home.

“Like you’re the alpha. You’re not, but you still think you can tell me what to do, and rut on me, and push me around…”

“Take it up with god, Sammy. He’s the one who made the mistake.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Oh, just a little something I figured out since you left. I was never meant to be like this, but somebody, or something, fucked up. And you- you clearly should be the omega with your book-learning, never wanting to fight, your girly hair. It’s obvious if you think about it.”

“No it’s not,” Sam sighs. “That’s not even a real thing.”

Dean shoots back childishly, “Says you. You don’t know shit though, do you?”

Sam starts to splutter indignantly about his stupid college education and shit until Dean’s fed up with it and strides across the room to face him. 

“Look at yourself,” he sneers, gesturing to Sam and his dumb clothes. “You’re wearing a fucking polo, hanging out with those preppy kids, trying to be a lawyer like you’re not just as much or more of a criminal than the people you want to defend.”

“I’m going to be a prosecutor,” Sam corrects him loftily. 

“Whatever, the point stands. Actually, no, that’s worse,” Dean amends. “You’re really gonna go out there and try to put people in prison for the same shit I do? That you and Dad used to do?”

Sam face twists up with anger and disgust. “I only did all that because he- wait… What d’you mean, Dad ‘used to’? Since when has he stopped?”

It’s surprisingly easy to say out loud. “Pretty sure he’s dead.”

“What? How? When?”

“No idea.” Dean shrugs. “I found his abandoned motel room with his journal, most of his weapons, a ton of research I can’t make heads or tails of. His truck was found with the engine running and doors unlocked seventy-five miles away. No activity on any credit cards that I know about, and phones are all going straight to voicemail, haven’t heard from him in weeks. So, stands to reason he’s gone, but I’d like to make sure. I was hoping you’d come with me.”

It seems almost a silly thing to ask, now that he’s standing here in the middle of Sam’s oh-so-normal life, with all the clueless idiots outside playing beer pong while their pretty little girlfriends watch.

Sam shakes his head, expression sad but unyielding. “If Dad died, we both know why. That was his choice, he could’ve quit anytime. He could’ve given us a real life, I could’ve gone to school and made friends, and you…”

“And me, what?” Dean’s not sure he wants to hear this, but he’s damn sure going to make Sam say it. “What, Sam?”

“You could have a mate by now, maybe some kids. You wouldn’t have to be so cold and tough, on the road alone. It’s not natural for an omega to live like that.”

It’s not a surprise. Sam’s always wanted that, wanted Dean to want to be normal, like he is.

“You mean, I could be your mate by now.”

There’s the truth, like a slap in the face for Sam, who actually takes a half step back as though Dean had physically struck him.

“That’s what you really want, isn’t it? You don’t want, uh, Jane, or whatever her name is-”

“Jess.”

“- you want me, but since I won’t be your bitch, you ran off to school and cut me out of your life.”

“Like you don’t want the same thing deep down,” Sam shoots back. “I know you do, you can’t lie to me.”

“Never said I didn’t want you, Sam.” Dean feels a lump come up and determinedly swallows it down. He will not cry in front of his brother, especially not about this. “I want you with me, always have, always will. Problem is, I’d be happy just having you in the car with me, doing what we do, but that’s not enough for you. You made that crystal fucking clear.”

Sam’s face scrunches up pitifully, and then he’s the one shedding a tear. “I’m sorry about that. I know I should’ve said so a long time ago.”

“I don’t need your sorry,” Dean says firmly, careful to keep his voice even and hard. “I need you to tell me whether you’re coming to help me find Dad or if I’m going it alone. And believe me, little brother, I won’t be asking you twice. If you say no now, that’s it. I’m gone.”

“I can’t,” Sam replies miserably, shoulders hunched in his stupid college boy shirt. “I just can’t, I have a life here. I won’t walk out on Jess, she doesn’t deserve that.”

“Alrighty then,” Dean says brightly, giving him the fakest big brother grin of all time. “Thanks for fucking nothing, I can show myself out.”

He does exactly that, and Sam doesn’t follow. Once he’s reached the car though, he realizes someone else has. Two someones.

“Hey,” says one girl when Dean turns around to face them. “Nice car.”

They’re cute as hell, brunette twins with ice blue eyes, and they look identical at a glance but one’s omega and one’s beta, so they can’t be.

The second twin, the beta, grins and adds, “Our friend who knows somebody who knows Jess says you’re Sam’s brother.”

“Ah, yeah, that’s me,” Dean chuckles, bemused. “I’m Dean.”

The first twin smiles too, just as wide. “Cool. I’m Azalea, that’s Zinnia, but if you’d like to take us back to your place, you can call us Zaley and Zinnie.”

“Those are very pretty names for two very pretty girls,” Dean replies, reaching to open the back door of the car for them. “Happy to entertain you ladies.”

Three floors up in the house, Sam is standing in the window watching, so Dean gives him a cheeky salute before he drives away with the twins, just to rub it in. Seeing him leave with someone else is no less than Sam deserves for being such a little shit, after all. 

“So to what exactly do I owe this pleasure?” Dean asks as he pulls away, glancing at the cheeky twins in the rearview mirror. “You girls can’t tell me you aren’t pulling alphas left and right.”

“Well, sure,” Zinnie says with a shrug. “But alphas are… so rough and careless. It’s like they can’t even understand a girl might want to fuck without getting slammed into a wall and held down or treated like a toy.”

“Also, you’re incredibly hot,” Azalea adds. “I’m sure you don’t need us to tell you that.”

Dean grins at his own reflection, because it’s true, and he knows exactly what they’re talking about. He’ll try an alpha woman now and then for variety if the scent is tolerable, and it’s impossible not to notice that they have an annoying habit of leaving marks that aren’t exactly pleasing to whoever his next partner is.

“I am,” he replies, “and so are you, lucky for us both, you’re right about my soft touch.”

It’s not exactly the day he had planned, but Sam refused to come and Dad’s not getting any less dead if Dean starts looking the next morning instead. God himself couldn’t blame a guy for wanting to enjoy a night with two willing girls, maybe even a long weekend if he plays his cards right. The search for Dad’s remains can wait a bit.

Chapter 3

Over two years pass before Dean hears anything about or from Sam again, and even then, it’s not directly. Bobby calls him while he’s working a poltergeist haunting in Virginia, to let him know Sam’s turned up at his house in South Dakota.

“Sam? As in, my brother Sam?” 

“That’s the one,” Bobby sighs through the phone. “He asked about you.”

“Really.”

“He won’t say it, but I think he was hoping you’d be here.”

“Okay, but why the fuck would he leave school?” Dean asks.

“Beats me, all I got out of him is there was a fire and his girlfriend’s dead. Guess he ended up here ‘cause he’s got nowhere else to go.”

“Shit. Died in the fire?”

“I’d assume so. He’s got burns all over his arms.”

What immediately comes to mind is that Sam almost died in a fire once before, and Dean is sure Bobby’s thinking it too, but neither of them say it. 

After a moment’s thought, Dean says, “Alright, Bobby, soon as I’m done with this damn ghost I’ll be headed your way. Couple days maybe.”

“Sure thing. Take care of yourself.”

“You, too.”

Dean closes the flip phone with a soft clack, then turns it over a few times just to have something to do with his hands. Part of him really wants to see Sam, the other part is just mad Sam has the audacity to stroll back into his life after his previous cold exit. Thank god there’s a job that needs doing so he has an ironclad excuse to put off seeing his little brother for a bit.

Two days turns into three, then four, but the extra time doesn’t really help. The confusion and anger is still there when eventually Dean steers the Impala into Bobby’s salvage yard. There’s no car there that he can easily recognize as Sam’s, but Bobby would’ve said if he left. 

Bobby’s already at the door when Dean comes up the stairs, presumably having heard the car. They hug briefly, then Bobby jerks his head in the direction of the living room. 

“Sam’s in there, brushing up on his Latin,” he mutters. 

“Right,” Dean says.

“Go on, kid,” Bobby replies gruffly, still keeping his voice low. “He misses you, and I know you miss him, too. Cut him some slack.”

“I had to burn Dad alone because of him,” Dean protests. That one cuts almost as deep as Sam taking off in the first place. “I think I got a right to be pissed.”

“He’s still your family. ‘Sides me, he’s all you got.”

Dean rolls his eyes at that, but he crosses the room anyway. Sam is sitting on the floor of what is now Bobby’s office, surrounded by books, with white bandages on his forearms. He looks good despite that, even with the choppy haircut and slightly too small outfit. Dean recognizes the clothes, they’re some of his that he keeps in Bobby’s spare room. 

After a moment, Sam glances up and does a double take. 

“Hey,” Dean says, trying to stay carefully neutral. Sam’s alpha scent is the only one he’s ever been drawn to, so even though he’s too doped up on dangerous amounts of suppressants for his body to respond, it’s hard not to immediately start fussing over his poor hurt baby brother.

“Dean.” Sam sounds as wary as he does, but he gets up and goes for a hug, tripping over a book and swearing on the way. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Yeah,” Dean replies noncommittally as he returns the quick embrace. He tries to step back but Sam hangs on.

“I couldn’t smell you when you came in,” Sam remarks quietly, ducking his head to sniff along Dean’s jawline and down to his neck. “I barely can even now.”

“Oh.”

“Doctors said the smoke inhalation’s gonna mess with my nose for a while.”

“Huh.”

“Are you gonna talk in full sentences or am I wasting my time trying to have a conversation with you?”

When Dean doesn’t answer right away, Sam’s teeth close on the soft flesh under his ear. He yanks away with a snarl, and backhands his brother, not too hard, just enough to remind him who’s boss here.

“You want full sentences, Sam? How about, what the fuck are you doing here? You really think you can just turn up and act like nothing happened? Like I didn’t ask you for help and you basically told me to kick rocks? I had to burn was what left of Dad on my own ‘cause you couldn’t be bothered to take a break from your precious school. I guess losing some girl is enough though, right?”

Sam, shamefaced now, stands silent, rubbing his face where Dean’s ring clipped his jaw.

“Well?”

“I’m sorry, about all of it,” Sam says in a small voice, shoulders hunching over. “You’re right, I shouldn’t have told you to go. I just didn’t… really believe you about Dad. I thought you were being dramatic, but Bobby says he’s really gone.”

“Yeah,” Dean scoffs, “he’s really gone. For good, and we still don’t know how.”

Something shifts in Sam and a strange look comes up behind his eyes, but he doesn’t say whatever he’s thinking. 

“Boys,” Bobby says from the kitchen. “I got some cars I need moved ‘fore dark if you wouldn’t mind.”

They rearrange the salvage yard in silence, which is Dean’s choice more than Sam’s. He can feel how badly his brother wants to talk, but he’s not ready to set his anger aside just yet. 

Unfortunately, the time eventually comes that Bobby is gone to bed and the two of them are still up, unable to rest without reconciling. Dean stays at the kitchen table for a while, laptop open and drink in hand, while Sam lurks in the office with another Latin book. Eventually, it’s ridiculous to pretend not to be tired, so Dean is forced to casually walk past his brother to get to the stairs and respond to Sam’s stilted, “Goodnight.”

Assuming Sam will stay downstairs and sleep on the couch, Dean strips to his underwear and gets under the blanket in his room. However, despite the familiarity and the comfort of home, he can’t relax enough to go to sleep. Sam is one flight of stairs away, girlfriend-less and available, in need of comforting. Dean ends up so deep in thought that he misses the creak of the stairs and doesn’t notice anyone coming until the handle of the bedroom door clicks open.

“Jesus Christ,” Dean hisses in surprise, scrambling back on the bed.

“Sorry,” Sam whispers through the dark, “sorry, sorry, it’s just me.”

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“I- I… don’t know.”

It’s too dark to see a thing, but Dean can easily imagine the slump to his little brother’s shoulders. 

“I just want to be near you,” Sam says eventually. “I missed you. All the time.”

Dean wants to say, ‘Me, too’, but can’t quite bring himself to do it. Instead he says, “Okay, but do you have to be near me right now? It’s the middle of the night.”

The end of the bed sinks under Sam’s weight, then he’s crawling up the mattress until his face is close enough to kiss. 

Before Dean can protest, Sam put a finger to his lips and murmurs, “Shh, we don’t wanna wake Bobby up.”

“Sam…” Dean says warningly, shoving at his chest. “Get off me, now.”

“But I want you.” Sam’s voice is almost petulant. “I’ve always wanted you.”

It’s true, there’s always been something between them, but aside from that one episode right before Sam took off, neither of them has ever acted on it, and that one time didn’t exactly go well. Sam’s already taking his boxers off though, so it’s pretty obvious what he thinks is going to happen next.

“Sam, no. Have you forgotten last time-”

“Can we not talk about that, please?”

On the one hand, Dean’s not sure how they’re meant to be around each other again without talking about it, but on the other, he can smell Sam’s arousal thick in the air and he wants so badly to take what’s on offer. Unfortunately, there’s no way to do that without giving himself, and that’s the one thing he swore he’d never do. 

“Come on,” Sam wheedles, shifting again to straddle Dean’s lap. “Please? Just let me, and I’ll never leave you again. You know that, you know I wouldn’t.”

Dean doesn’t even wish he could say that was a tempting offer. He wants Sam to stay, of course, always has, but he’s not going to offer himself up. That price is just too high, so he shoves Sam away again.

In response, Sam grabs at his wrists, and then they’re grappling with each other, just like the last time that Sam refuses to talk about. Dean can tell from Sam’s casual defense that he thinks he’s going to win this time, with his broader shoulders and superior height, but Sam has been out of the hunting life for a while. He’s gotten slow and rusty from all that book learning while Dean was going on hunts alone.

Using that inexperience against him, Dean makes a move that gets himself out from underneath, and while Sam is still trying to recover, he rolls on top and shoves his little brother’s face into the pillows. He grabs Sam’s hair, wrenches his head up, and bites down hard on the strained muscles of the younger alpha’s neck.

Sam grunts, then whimpers, when he realizes he’s been overpowered. Dean wants to say something nasty and childish, like ‘you started it’ but he knows if he releases Sam’s neck his brother might recover his composure enough to get away and that’s not happening. They’ve been through this twice now, and he’s not going to be lenient again.

With one fumbling hand, Dean gets into the nightstand drawer and gropes around until the smooth, cold plastic of his jerking-off lube appears beneath his hand. It’s not the best for this, not slick enough for an alpha’s dry hole, but it’ll have to do and then maybe Sam will learn his lesson.

Sam jumps under him at the click of the bottle cap, entire body going tense before he says, “Look, you won, okay? I- ughhh.”

Relentless, Dean forces another liberally slicked finger into Sam’s ass alongside the first one. It has to hurt, but he doesn’t really care. 

“Dean… Dean, please,” Sam gasps, and only then does Dean release the grip of his teeth.

“Don’t beg like a little bitch,” he says harshly. “This is exactly what you meant to do to me, isn’t it?”

Sam doesn’t answer and Dean repeats the question, so his little brother understands he wants an answer.

“Yes,” Sam says reluctantly. “It is.”

“Yeah, I know. So it’s only fair that you shut the fuck up and take it like a man, isn’t it?” Dean replies, and yanks his boxers down to his knees. He’s not going to risk losing control of the situation by getting up to take them off entirely.

The ‘yes’ Sam gives sounds like he’s about to cry, but he doesn’t struggle anymore.

He wasn’t initially intending to rub salt in the wound by mocking his brother, but Dean can’t help noticing that not only does Sam take it, he likes it. Two minutes in, he’s thrusting his hips back onto Dean’s cock, panting and moaning.

“That’s it,” Dean says encouragingly, “good boy, Sammy, you’re taking it so good, you’re a natural. Or maybe you’ve done this before. Maybe you wanted me to win so you wouldn’t have to admit how much you like omega dick up your ass.”

“Never,” Sam sighs into the pillow, “never did it before, I swear. Just you.”

“You like it though, don’t you?”

“Dean…”

“C’mon, you love it, say it.”

Sam doesn’t say that, but he does spread his legs and arch his back, then moans, “Harder, De, please?”

“Fuck,” Dean groans, thrusting deeper now that he’s got a better angle. “Fuck yeah, Sammy, as hard as you want.” 

Now that Sam is pliant and eager, he allows his hands to wander, over the smooth, perspiring plane of that broad back, and under, fingers tangling in the sparse hairs of Sam’s chest, then moves down over the washboard abs he’s always admired but never envied. 

When Sam comes it surprises them both, Sam’s shocked moaning is so loud Dean belatedly claps a hand over his mouth. If Bobby’s sleep hasn’t already been disturbing by the noise of their fucking, he’s certainly going to be awake now. Thank god the crappy bed has no headboard to bang against the wall.

The tight clench of Sam’s ass has Dean finishing seconds later, pumping every last drop of his infertile omega cum into his brother. There’s no knot of course, so he just pulls out when he gets his breath back.

There’s an uncertain few moments when Sam is just laying there and Dean isn’t sure what the hell is going to happen next, but then Sam turns over on his side and reaches out to tug Dean down beside him. They’re face to face at first, but Sam ends up wriggling down on the bed, curling up his huge body so that he’s small enough to fit his head under Dean’s chin. He makes a satisfied little noise, a puppyish sigh, then he’s out like a light. Dean wishes he could fall asleep so quickly, but he’s not stupid enough to think that Sam’s fucked-out bliss is going to last through the next day. They’re going to have it out sooner or later, but there’s no telling just how vicious that fight will be when it comes.

Chapter 4

In the morning Sam says, “I’ve been dreaming about a demon. The demon, I think.”

Dean, who’s barely blinked the sleep out of his eyes, is thinking about the brown-scabbed bite on his brother’s bare shoulder. He hadn’t even realized he’d drawn blood the night before, but now he can taste it, stale in his mouth.

“I think it killed my girlfriend,” Sam adds.

“Wait, what?” Dean yawns.

“I think the demon started the fire.”

“Back the fuck up, you’re having visions?”

Sam doesn’t seem nearly troubled enough when he sighs, “I think so. I haven’t been able to track down any of the places or people yet.”

“You should get cleaned up,” Dean says, changing the subject, because it’s way too fucking early for this. He’s going to need at least one cup of coffee before he’ll be ready to discuss his little brother having visions like some kind of psychic. 

Sam looks away and nods without saying anything more, then gets up carefully and gathers his clothes before heading for the bathroom. 

While he showers, Dean throws an undershirt and jeans on, then shuffles downstairs for coffee, belatedly realizing that Bobby is awake and making breakfast. He must still reek of sex, but it’s too late to backtrack, he’s already in the kitchen.

Bobby doesn’t look at him as he shuffles over to the coffeemaker, but he does say, “You good?”

“Sure, I am,” Dean answers, missing the implication at first. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You two weren’t exactly quiet last night.”

Ah, right. Of course Bobby would think that, anyone would. 

“Ask Sam if he’s good,” Dean chuckles darkly. The coffee is as black as his mood is now, just the way he likes it.

Finally, Bobby actually glances at him, and Dean turns so he’s not in profile anymore and his surrogate father can get a proper look. There’s not a mark on him, and he knows it.

“I’ll do that,” Bobby says, corner of his mouth twitching in a smile. 

Dean goes back to his coffee, pleased at the quiet support. He wasn’t sure if he should expect it or not, but Bobby is an omega, too, and he understands. John’s aggressive behavior in an early rut once resulted in Bobby running him off the property with a shotgun, and their relationship never recovered.

Sam eventually appears, clearly eager for breakfast, but going slowly in a failed attempt to hide that he’s moving stiffly. He doesn’t take a seat either, he holds his plate in his hands to eat leaning against the counter.

“So,” Dean says around a mouthful of eggs, “Sam here says he’s been dreaming about the yellow eyed demon.”

Bobby sits up a little straighter, eyes flicking between them, then asks, “That so, Sam?”

“I think so.” Sam shrugs and winces. “I’m not sure what it means yet, but I’ve been seeing things. Stuff I’m pretty sure is real, but it’s hard to tell.”

“Got any leads?”

“I just had one about a bell, a big, cast bronze type thing. I dunno where it was or why I was seeing it though.”

“Any marks on it? Writing, pictures, anything like that?”

Sam describes an oak tree engraving, and Bobby pulls up a photo immediately, which Sam agrees looks just like what he saw in his dream. 

Against Bobby’s advice, he insists on going to Cold Oak to check out the bell for himself, and Dean agrees to drive with him.

It’s awkward at first, being back in the car with Sam, especially after last night, and the conversation is strained. The way Sam keeps shifting around in his seat isn’t exactly helping the mood either.

“This is why it’s supposed to be you,” Sam grumbles eventually, sliding down the vinyl seat to take some of the pressure off his backside. “You’re used to it. We could both be sitting comfortably right now, but you had to go all big brother on me.” 

Dean feels an immediate wave of resentment bordering on anger, but he holds it in. “Actually, I’m not.”

“What?”

“I’m not ‘used to it’, Sam. Why would you assume that?”

“Because you’re… y’know. How do you get through heats without it?”

“I don’t.”

“You don’t what?”

“I don’t have heats, so there’s nothing to get through.”

“Jesus,” Sam scoffs, aghast. “Seriously, Dean? How long has it been?”

“Uh, I dunno.” Dean shrugs. It’s been so long he really doesn’t remember exactly. “I’m twenty-eight, so… what’s twenty-eight minus, like, thirteen?”

“Fifteen.”

“Approximately fifteen years then, give or take.”

“Holy shit! Are you for real? How are you not sick? And how did I not know?”

“First off, Sammy, I’m pretty sure at this point all that shit is propaganda, ‘cause I’ve never been sick from it. I’m in the best shape of my damn life. Second, you didn’t know because Dad always made me leave now and then anyway, just so you wouldn’t learn bad habits for when you had an omega of your own someday.”

Sam’s expression, unseen by his brother, turns dark. “And by that you mean Dad encouraged you to suppress yourself all the time so he would have backup whenever he needed it.”

“I was happy with it,” Dean tells him. “Whatever Dad got out of it was Dad’s business, and I got what I wanted too, no harm, no foul.”

“Oh, please, like Dad ever gave you a chance not to be ashamed.”

Dean doesn’t think what he feels about being omega is shame, though. There’s nothing wrong with it, and he enjoys the company of other omegas more than alphas sometimes, but the omega role just doesn’t sit right on him. The very thought of having to go through a heat makes him feel like scratching his stupid womb right out.

“You don’t have to hate yourself just because he thought you should.”

“Sam…”

“I’m just saying.”

“Well, don’t.”

“Dean-”

“Why do you always make everything about Dad? I’m allowed to hate shit without it having anything to do with Dad.”

“Because you don’t do anything without it having to do with Dad.”

“You know what-”

Dean jerks the wheel, sending the Impala skidding off to the shoulder.

A slapfight turns into grappling, then, somehow, they’re half naked in the back seat with one of Sam’s hands gripping the lower edge of the open window. 

“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” Sam pants, “not like this.”

“What-”

“Just let me-”

Sam struggles to turn over, there’s barely space for the two of them, and this time he ends up with a foot hanging out the window on the other side of the car. Dean has an equally difficult time reaching the lube he keeps in the glove box, and then it’s a sweaty, cramped battle to get Sam stretched enough to let him in.

“I- I think we’re good,” Sam says finally, even though he’s still wincing. 

“You sure?”

Last night aside, Dean doesn’t really want to hurt him, and it pains him to see the look on his brother’s face when he pushes inside. Sam clenches painfully hard around him in response so he stops, petting his brother’s shuddering flanks until the agonized expression fades.

“We don’t have to, you know,” Dean offers, “I can stop.”

“I’m fine,” Sam assures him. “I’m fine, alright? Just go slow.”

Dean goes slow, but Sam whimpers, and he almost calls it quits.

“Come on,” Sam insists, tucking his arms under Dean’s so he can reach down and grab his brother’s ass with both hands. “Quit being a pussy and fuck me like you mean it. Not gonna break me.”

“Holy shit,” Dean scoffs, “you have done this.”

Sam’s already flushed face goes even pinker. “Not with a guy.”

“With chicks?”

“Jess and I, we were… into some unconventional stuff. Sometimes she wanted to be the one doing the fucking, and I liked it, but it made me feel like shit, ‘cause…”

“Because what?”

“All I could think about was you.”

In response, Dean pulls out to the tip before slamming in again, wrenching a pained but pleased groan from Sam’s throat. That breaks the barrier, Dean is no longer thinking about hurting Sam, he’s thinking about leaving more marks on his little brother, the deeper the better, staking an indelible claim that will make Sam his forever.

“You like it like that, huh, Sammy?” Dean pants, heedless of the way Sam’s head bumps the door with every thrust. “I’m gonna fuck you so hard you can’t walk straight, but that’s what you want isn’t it? Want me to rough you up, don’t you?”

Secretly, Sam wants Dean any way he can get him. It doesn’t really matter, top or bottom, soft or hard, he’ll take it and love it because he finally has all of his brother. He has every scrap and ounce of attention, and as long as he does, he’ll damn well make sure Dean’s eye doesn’t wander. He’s going to be everything for Dean, it doesn’t matter what it takes. 

By the time Dean is finished, Sam’s ass is in agony, but he barely notices it. He’s got Dean’s teeth marks on his neck and Dean’s come in his ass, and he no longer wishes the tables were turned. Had he known sex with Dean could be like this, he would’ve willingly offered himself years ago.

In the afterglow, they’re both careless. Each of them arm up with a salt gun and a knife when they reach Cold Oak, but Sam is limping in a telling way and Dean is distracted with teasing him about it, so neither of them notice the bodies until it’s too late. 

Dean glances up, then drags Sam back the arm, all laughter wiped off his face. “Shit, Sam, look.”

There are three bodies hanging by their necks from the windmill, a thin blonde girl, a curvy brunette, and a short guy in a jacket too big for him. The sleeves are hanging over his hands, Sam notices, which is a weird thing to fixate on, but he tells himself it’s at least a distraction from thinking about corpses.

“Could a ghost do that?” he asks his brother, moving closer so they’re shoulder to shoulder.

“Could, maybe,” Dean answers, voice taut with alarm. “Would is another story. I’m thinking something way worse than a ghost strung those people up.”

“You’d be right,” a voice says behind them, and before either has a chance to react, Sam cries out in pain and crumples to the ground. 

A horrible pain spreads through him from his back, white-hot, and then he tries to roll himself over so his face isn’t in the dirt but he can’t. The pain is just too bad and his legs feel heavy, so he lies there hoping that his brother is the one firing and not the other person.

Dean’s drawn the Colt from his waistband before Sam even hits the ground. He doesn’t really register anything about the figure until after he’s put five rounds in its chest, then in the split second he has to decide whether to run back to the car for more weapons or try and save Sam, he realizes the attacker was just a guy. A young Black man now lies dead on the ground, dropped knife inches from his hand, Sam crumpled up in front of him and slightly to the side.

Terrified, Dean drops to his knees. There’s a cut on Sam’s back, which isn’t bleeding much, so he takes the risk of turning Sam over. His brother’s eyes are wide open, and his right arm comes up to grip the collar of Dean’s jacket.

“Don’t- don’t move,” Dean says hastily. “How bad does it hurt?”

“Not as much as it should,” Sam murmurs, eyes half-closed. “And Dean… I don’t think I’m going anywhere.”

—————

Complete detachment of the spinal cord. That’s what Sam’s doctor says when he arrives with the x-rays. 

Clear cut case of self defense. That’s what the cops say after taking Dean’s statement on the attack.

Nobody tells him how the hell he’s supposed to live knowing he led his brother blindly into a situation that got him paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life.

Sam says flatly, “If there’s nothing they can do, then there’s nothing they can do,” and doesn’t speak another word until Bobby shows up. 

Dean expects Bobby to say something, to chew him out, tell him off, whatever, but he doesn’t. He just asks if there’s anything he can do. 

There’s nothing anyone can do, that’s the problem. The only help Bobby can provide is with wrangling Sam’s dead weight into the Impala so they can head back to the salvage yard.

It’s a miserable trip. Sam on the way to Cold Oak was, if not happy, at least full of life, but Sam going home has a dull, vacant stare to go with his dead legs and the bland taupe folder of information about rehabs and assisted living facilities he signed out with. 

At Bobby’s, it’s too much work getting Sam up the steps to the second floor, they barely got him onto the porch, so a temporary bed is made up for him in the office. He’s not happy about it, but he knows Dean and Bobby can’t be expected to haul him up and down those stairs every day.

The most unpleasant part of their new way of life is that Sam can’t take himself to the bathroom anymore, or even tell when he needs to go. If it wasn’t for the adult diapers, Dean thinks they could both bear it, but as things are… he’s not surprised when Sam starts saying he wishes he was dead. Dean would wish he was dead too if Sam was changing his diapers. The only reason he doesn’t wish that anyway, is because the only thing worse for Sam than his brother cleaning up his mess, would be for Bobby to have to do it.

Sam, understandably, resists Dean’s efforts to keep him as comfortable as possible in favor of reducing the number of times he has to endure being changed, which only makes things worse. Dean ends up making the most awkward purchase of his life in a Sioux Falls pharmacy when he can’t find anything appropriate for adult diaper rash. There’s plenty of rash cream sitting in the baby aisle, but he can’t bring himself to further humiliate his brother by bringing him products in cutesy pastel with smiling cartoon babies on the front, so he has to ask someone for help. 

The pharmacist is, embarrassingly, very cute as well as helpful. Dean can’t bring himself to hit on her after that though, not that he’d be able to follow through if he did. Sam is taking up all his time as it is, and when he’s not caring for Sam, he’s following every lead Bobby comes up with in search of an explanation for what happened in Cold Oak. They all agree it’s too coincidental for a random crazy person to be luring and murdering people in that ghost town right when Sam and Dean showed up. Whatever was going on had to be demonic or magical, regardless of the fact that it was a human doing the killing.

Sam cries when Dean brings him the ointment, actually weeps, chest heaving with sobs of frustration and shame. At first, Dean isn’t sure what to do, but Sam is so distressed that he goes with the omega impulse and just cuddles his brother. Sam doesn’t respond at first, but as he slowly breaks down he returns the hug, clinging to Dean’s middle like a lifeline.

“It’s okay, Sammy,” Dean murmurs in his ear, wishing for once that his scent wasn’t quite so suppressed. If it was a little stronger, he might be able to do more to comfort his brother, but that’s not possible. He tries a steady purr instead, hoping the quiet rumble of his breathing might soothe the alpha in his arms.

Eventually, Sam cries himself out and immediately falls asleep. Careful not to wake him, Dean adjusts his oversized brother on the pillows so he won’t slump over or fall. Then he gets to work.

It takes a few days of research, a couple things taken from Bobby’s stash under his nose, and a well-crafted lie about what Dean is doing going out so late at night, but he makes it happen. Come midnight, he’s standing at a crossroads, having buried the little box of ingredients and an old fake ID.

When the demon appears, Dean almost can’t believe it. He can’t believe he’s going so far, doing all this, but he can’t bear to leave Sam in such a condition. They can’t afford fancy surgeries or rehab, so Sam’s physical state is bound to only get worse as his muscles atrophy and there’s no guarantee that Dean will be around forever to care for him, so this is the only option left.

“Ten years?” the demon laughs. “For a hunter? For Dean Winchester who thwarts our master’s best-laid plans? I don’t think so.”

“What master? What plans?”

“Oh, dear. You haven’t figured it out yet.”

“I’m not trying to thwart anyone’s plans, some pyscho hurt my brother and I want him healed up. Put him back to how he was before, and I’ll take nine years.”

“Hmm.” The demon tips its head inside its pretty vessel. “No, I don’t think so.” 

She bargains him down to one year before she agrees, the bitch. Dean takes it though, because he has no choice. He’s not stupid enough to think he can get a better deal somewhere else, so he takes his one year and counts himself lucky he didn’t have to hand over his life on the spot. 

Back at Bobby’s, Dean pulls the Impala into the drive and steps out, eagerly anticipating waking Sam up to share the good news. Sam is already up though, waiting for him on the porch. 

Dean says, “Sammy-”

“What the fuck did you do?”

Chapter 5

“Sam.”

“What did you do?!”

“Shh, you’re gonna wake Bobby.”

“Like he’s not gonna notice in the morning that I’m walking around again? You’re buying yourself maybe six hours.”

“Well, that’s still six hours of not getting my ass kicked by both of you at the same time.”

Sam isn’t amused by the joke, but he doesn’t back away when Dean rushes up the stairs to wrap him in a fierce hug. 

“I made a deal for you,” Dean confesses, now that Sam can’t see his face, “and it was worth it.”

“And what did you have to give in return?” Sam asks, dropping his voice in an attempt to hide the fact that he’s about to cry. “Are we gonna switch places or something?”

“No, not that. I’ll tell you later.”


“Tell me now.”

“Later,” Dean insists. “Just let me have you like this for a bit.”

One hand strokes over Sam’s hair, which is still wet from the shower he took the second he realized he could stand on his own, but Dean doesn’t mind and he knows it. He allows the petting and welcomes it, just as he welcomes the rough, desperate sex that follows, the two of them squished together on Bobby’s cramped couch.

In the morning, Dean confesses and Sam is livid. Bobby is the same, but sadder in the moment than Sam allows himself to be. Dean doesn’t care.

“My last year to live aside,” he says to his grieving family, “I learned something important. This demon chick let it slip when she said I thwarted her master’s plans. We were right, Sam wasn’t dreaming about Cold Oak for no reason. Something brought him there, and we need to find out what.”

“That wasn’t worth your life,” Sam replies, just on the edge of tears. “If the demon is after me, we would’ve found that out sooner or later anyway.”

“And you would’ve done what, Sam? Sat in your wheelchair and thrown peanuts at it? If the yellow eyed demon wasn’t satisfied with just killing Dad and it’s coming back for us, you’re gonna need two legs.”

It’s like Dean doesn’t even know he’s everything. Sam can’t even imagine his life snuffed out, never seeing that dashing smile again or getting to giggle at his brother’s handsomely crooked legs. Dean is impossibly beautiful, golden, and he’s better at behaving like an alpha than Sam will ever be. The thought of him dead in a year makes Sam wants to scream and cry like a child. 

“You dreamed anything else lately?” Dean asks, mouth full of food.

Sam winces at the sight. “No, they just stopped all of a sudden. It feels like… maybe Cold Oak was some sort of test and I failed it.”

“Everyone else was dead, how could you have failed?”

“I dunno, maybe there was someone else there besides us, we just didn’t see them.”

Bobby and Dean both look very discomfited by that idea.

“Say that is what it was though,” Bobby says slowly, “some sort of competition. What in the hell were those poor saps competing for?”

“If we’re going to find out…” Dean trails off, then looks Sam up and down critically. “You up for a vampire hunt, little brother?”

“Vampires,” Sam scoffs. “Vampires aren’t real.”

“Oh, they are and they’ve got something we need if we’re gonna go hunting the devil’s minions.”

“And what’s that?”

“Samuel Colt’s gun.”

“That’s not real either.” Sam shakes his head. “What have you been doing all this time? Hunting unicorns?”

“Vamps are real, Dad just thought they were extinct. He was going for the gun when he disappeared and by the time I figured it out and followed up the trail, the gun was gone and the guy who had it last was dead. Throat ripped out.”

“Who’s the guy?”

“You remember Daniel Elkins? Dad used to take us up to his place when we were kids.”

Sam thinks he does, not the actual man, but a mention of him, perhaps in the journal their father used for all his hunting knowledge.

“Anyway,” Dean says, still eating as he talks so Sam can see every bite, “Elkins had the gun and he didn’t want to give it to Dad at first, but then he was going to, until Dad disappeared and Elkins was killed by this vampire pack that had a grudge against him. I’ve been keeping tabs on them, there’s just too many for me to take on alone.”

Sam isn’t at all sure that he’s in shape to be hunting a monster he has no experience with, but he’s got enough alpha in him to insist on going anyway.

It’s weird, being in the car with Dean again. It’s been years, and the last time they’d driven somewhere together they’d been in a bad, bad place. Sam has to force himself not to glance into the backseat as they drive, trying to control the flash of memory. He knows he can’t be the only one thinking about it.

Unexpectedly, Dean turns down the rock music on the radio and says, “You know I forgave you, right?”

Sam laughs, sour and bitter. “I haven’t forgiven myself. I mean, Jesus, you still have the marks.”

He’s seen them now a couple times, formerly bright pink stripes faded to silvery-white lines down Dean’s back and over his hips.

“So do you.”

Sam’s trophies of that day are a bit more noticeable in the scars on his chin and above his eyebrow, but also much easier to explain away as the relics of a childhood accident or a high school brawl. Alphas did things like that, it was expected and even gave Sam credit as a fighter when that wasn’t really true. 

“I didn’t mean to lose control like that,” Sam says quietly. “I didn’t even realize I clawed you up until after.” 

“Whatever, man,” Dean replies, with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I concussed you so bad they thought you might have brain damage.”

“They called the cops. They almost arrested me for raping you.”

“Yeah, but they didn’t, because you didn’t.”

“Only because you were able to stop me.”

“Is that what this is about?” Dean’s voice sharpens, and both hands go back to the wheel at ten and two, fingers gripping so hard his knuckles go white. “You tryin’ to tell me something, Sam? Is that what I did to you and you couldn’t stop me?”



“No!” Sam says indignantly. “I didn’t- do you really not get it? I wanted you, right from the moment I saw you. That’s why I was goading you, I knew I’d lose and I knew what you’d do and I wanted you to do it but I couldn’t ask because it was too fucking humiliating.”

“Oh, really. What changed?”

“I dunno, somewhere around the tenth time you had to put on rubber gloves and deal with my literal shit I kinda got past that aspect.” 

Dean is silent for about half a minute, then says, “So back then, what was that?”

“I thought that was the way it had to be,” Sam answers, voice dropping in an attempt to hide just how shamed he is. “I was listening to guys at school, and TV, and Dad, and I thought that forcing you to submit to me was just the way mating was done and once it was over you’d be grateful to be mine because I was going to take care of you.”

To his shock, Dean actually laughs. “I’m sorry, you were going to take care of me? You couldn’t even make mac’n’cheese that wasn’t runny.”

Weirdly, Dean’s derision is sort of reassuring. 

“Yeah,” Sam chuckles, “I know, and you were way better than me at marksmanship and hand to hand, and everything else. I guess I was trying to prove myself somehow.”

“Alright, kid. How about you prove you have taste in music and pick out a tape that doesn’t suck?”

“Why do you even have tapes that you think suck?”

“So I can tell if I wanna fuck somebody again after I drive them home.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“I’m gonna fuck you again either way, but still, try to pick something good.”

“Ridiculous.”

When they stop at a motel in Wyoming nine hours later, Dean asks for a room with a king instead of the two queens Sam was expecting, and he’s absurdly pleased. That lasts until they go out for dinner and Dean flirts with the waitress. 

As soon as she’s out of earshot, Sam says, “You do that one more fucking time, I’m getting my own room.”

Dean manages to look surprised and affronted. “Do what? Talk to people?”

“Flirt.”

“Excuse me?”

“That annoying, open for business, look at me, preening, flirting thing you do. I hate it.”

“Sam…” Dean trails off looking conflicted, but at least he’s taking it seriously and not making a joke. “We’re not mated, you get that, right?”

“You bit me,” Sam snaps, then starts shredding Splenda packets out of the bowl between them to relieve his agitation.

“That didn’t count for anything and you know it.”

“What if I wanted it to count?”

“Are you saying you want to move the bedroom pretending out here and act like we’re not what we are?”

“You already do it all the time, why can’t I?”

Dean’s expression is getting stranger by the second, until finally he says in a low voice, “Sam, you realize that an omega acting like a beta or posturing like an alpha is almost expected if you’re my size? I’m not exactly bitch material, and you’re definitely not. No way other alphas see you acting like an omega and don’t make a thing out of it.”

“Well, I’ll only do it if my big brother is around to protect me,” Sam replies smugly. “How about that?”

He knows what he wants and he’s going to get it, and just to make the point he reaches across the table and drags Dean’s hand close to nuzzle his palm like an omega would to influence their alpha.

“Fine,” Dean grumbles, even as he tugs his arm back. “No more flirting.”

Sam knows this is kind of a big ask, it’s a biological imperative for omegas to seek out partners for sex and mating, it’s what they do and it’s the one part of Dean’s nature that he’s never been able to suppress with medication or sheer force of will. Sam is pretty sure that it’s also the only part of being an omega that Dean doesn’t actively hate, so the commitment his brother has just made is significant.

Back at the motel, Sam showers first, then decides against pajamas and gets into bed naked while Dean has his turn in the bathroom. Two minutes later he has a brilliant idea and gets up again. He doesn’t have any lube with him, but he knows there has to be some in Dean’s duffel so he crosses the room and roots around until he finds it. Dean doesn’t tend to take long in the shower, but he should be in there long enough for Sam to prep.

It’s barely enough time, Sam has to rush the last few seconds, trying to make it appear as though he hasn’t been frantically stretching himself. He manages to look nonchalant, he hopes, when he pushes the blankets down so Dean can see he’s naked. 

“Oh, it’s like that, huh?” Dean chuckles low and tosses his towel back into the bathroom. 

“Yeah.” Sam feels like he might be about to blush and doesn’t know why, but maybe it’s because he's taking this fantasy further than he ever has before, even with Jess. “Get over here.”

Having Dean with him like this, touching him, bring surrounded by his scent, is the stuff of Sam’s dreams. He squirms under his brother’s weight, spreading his thighs, not caring that his hard cock is painfully trapped between them. The warm, damp skin of Dean’s back is under his hands and that’s all he needs. 

“Shit, Sammy,” Dean sighs, hot breath skimming over his cheek. “I wanna fuck you so bad.”

“Then do it.”

Dean makes a move to get up, but Sam winds both legs around him and holds him down with locked ankles. 

“Do it,” Sam repeats, and this time he can feel the tips of his ears heat up. “I’m already wet for you.”

His brother’s head tips, confused, but then something clicks and he plays along. “Yeah? Ready to take this knot?”

“Yes, Alpha, please-”

Sam is cut off by Dean’s mouth slamming down onto his. That doesn’t really hurt, and getting the top of his skull slammed into the headboard isn’t that bad in the moment either, but his brother isn’t holding back and by the end Sam has to wonder if this is how omegas usually feel. Bruised and sore isn’t that bad, it’s kind of hot actually, knowing it was Dean who wrecked him, but he’s used to being on the other end. Now he thinks he might know why Jess always seemed a bit shaken and fragile after sex, and that’s not a good feeling.

Chapter 6

Notes:

It's kind of short, but it stopped where I felt it had to stop.

Sam is moving gingerly the next morning. The previous night’s activities are the roughest they’ve ever gotten, not that he blames his brother for the results. It was him who wound Dean up with all that ‘alpha’ talk. 

“Need a cushion to sit on princess?” Dean teases when Sam spends their first ten minutes in the car shifting around uncomfortably. 

“You know, if you’re gonna be a jackass-”

“Alright, calm down, it’s just the big brother in me. I can’t help it.”

“If I remember right, I’m the one who had big brother in me.” Just to see the effect, Sam sneaks a glance at Dean and catches the tiniest smile at the corner of his mouth. “So you should be nicer. Maybe tell me where the Advil is.”

“Glove compartment.”

“Thanks.”

The rest of the ride they don’t talk much. Dean keeps the music going until they turn onto an old country road, then he switches it off so the only sound is the Impala’s engine.

“We’re getting close?” Sam asks. 

“Unless they’ve moved on,” Dean replies tersely. “In which case I suck and the Colt is gone.”

“You don’t suck.”

“Sure.”

Dean does not suck. There are definite signs of life, or rather, afterlife, around the barn he eventually leads Sam to on foot. A couple of cars are parked outside of the dilapidated structure, and there are recent trails through the underbrush. Sam’s already gotten the basics on vampire hunting from Dean on the car ride, sunlight will burn but not kill vamps, garlic and crosses are useless, the only way to kill one is to chop off the head. He doesn’t feel entirely confident in his skills though.

“Dean,” he whispers from his spot, crouched low behind a tree. “I don’t know that I’m up for this.”

“You’re just backup,” Dean replies quietly. “There’s only a few of them. We sneak in while they’re sleeping, chop some heads, then find the gun.”

“Why don’t we just look for the gun while they’re sleeping and then leave?”

“The whole point is killing monsters, Sam. Killing vamps to get the gun so we can kill some demons. And anyway, what’s the fun in just sneaking in and out?”

Such an alpha, Sam thinks as he creeps up to the barn after his brother. They get up to the door, which fortunately opens without a creak, and after one peek in they’re both backing up so quick Dean almost falls over Sam.

“That’s not a few!” Sam hisses. “That is easily seven or eight.”

“Okay, okay,” Dean scoffs. “So they’ve been breeding. Don’t get your panties in a wad, I’m not stupid. We’ll go with the sneaking option.”

It stinks inside, a mix of unwashed bodies and the reek of death, so Sam just does his best not to breathe through his nose as they pick their way through the barn of sleeping vampires. They’re mostly in hammocks, which makes it a little easier, but still not ideal. One stumble when Sam gets overconfident after locating the Colt turns the sneaking plan into the running plan. Fortunately, the vampires don’t seem to want the gun badly enough to risk sunburn.

“You are- such- a dick,” Sam pants as he scrambles to get into the Impala before any of the vampires change their minds about the chase or Dean drives away without him.

“And you’re out of shape,” Dean shoots back. “If I had any idea how out of shape, I would’ve come alone.”

“Please- like I would’ve- let you.”

Sam is half-joking, so he’s taken by surprise when Dean practically throws the gun case into his lap and snarls, “You don’t let me do anything. Don’t forget who the fuck’s in charge here.”

Stung, Sam sits back and stares out the window silently, studiously ignoring his brother as they slowly make their way back to the main road.

“We’ll practice,” Dean says eventually, voice low and serious, “get you back in fighting shape. I want you along, Sam, and not just for the ride.”

That’s as close as Sam is going to get to an apology, and it’s not really enough but he can pretend that it is. 

“Okay,” he answers. “Sounds good.”

—————

Dean makes sure that the next case they go on together has training wheels. Sam’s gotten faster on his feet with practice, but seeing how winded and clumsy he was just trying to run back to the car, Dean doesn’t want to test their luck.

A couple hours away from Bobby’s he pulls the car in at Harvelle’s Roadhouse. Ellen’s got the rest of the info on the case she called Bobby about, and they have to pick it up before going on to find some killer clown or whatever it is. He’s pretty sure it’s a ghost, which shouldn’t be too much for Sam, and partly why he took the job. If not for that, he might’ve made an excuse just to avoid Ellen’s daughter Jo.

She’s there, of course, all alpha and smirking at him in her bar apron. She looks Sam up and down appraisingly, then says wryly, “New boyfriend? I guess all that, ‘I don’t do alphas’ talk was just bull?”

Dean can barely keep the growl out of his voice when he answers, “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Smells like he is.”

“Jo, this is my brother, Sam. Where’s your mom?”

“Kitchen.”

“You wanna get her?”

Jo pouts, then slaps the rag in her hand down on the bar and struts off to the kitchen, blond curls bouncing. She makes a pretty picture, but her alpha pheromones stink like dirt and makeup to him, so Dean has never hooked up with her despite her persistent advances.

Just seconds later, Ellen comes out to say hello, and she’s just as ready to think Sam is Dean’s boyfriend as Jo was, which is kind of annoying. 

Once he’s corrected her, she jokes, addressing Sam, “Too bad, I was hoping your brother here had finally settled down. Had to ban him from coming around during open hours, causes too many fights.”

“Fights?” Sam says, eyebrows shooting up.

“Oh, you bet,” Ellen chuckles. “Hard enough to find an omega who can hack the life, much less one who enjoys it and looks like your brother. There ain’t a hunter who comes in here that doesn’t know about him.”

Sam chuckles, and for a second Dean hates him. Sam takes it for granted what he has, doesn’t even see that as soon as he stepped in the room Ellen started looking past Dean to his little alpha brother instead.

When Ellen goes so far as to hold out the folder of research on the vanishing clown to Sam instead of him, Dean is ready. He shoulders in, shoving his brother aside, and practically yanks it from her hand.

“Thank you,” he says coldly. “Appreciate the tip.”

She looks surprised, but shakes it off. “You won’t stay for a drink?”

“I could-”

“Sam,” Dean snaps. He’s already agreed to do the job and he’ll do it, but he’s sure not going to stick around for this kind of treatment. “We’re leaving.”

“Okay,” his little brother murmurs obediently, then louder, “It was nice to meet you, Ellen. We’ve gotta get back on the road though.”

It’s like that for the whole case. People look at Sam, talk to Sam, who keeps fumbling and fidgeting nervously, because he hasn’t been on a real hunt in over four years, and never as the lead. 

The whole experience makes Dean furious. He’s the one who knows how to do the job, not Sam. He knows he can prove that he does, because he has over and over again, but not with giant alpha Sam standing there making everyone think he’s in charge just because of his stupid scent. It was one thing when that happened with Dad. He was clearly older and had more experience, so it didn’t sting quite so much when people looked past Dean or didn’t even realize he was there. Getting looked over for Sam just sucks ass.

Dean tries not to take it out on him, because it isn’t Sam’s fault he presented alpha, but still, Sam sees all of his frustration and jealousy, which makes Dean resent him just a little bit more than he already does. If it wasn’t for the fact that he’s only got eleven months and about three weeks to live, he’d make Sam pay for it, too. Under the current circumstances, it doesn’t seem worth it.

—————

After another few  small hunts, the brothers hit the road. Dean has a list of places he wants to eat at before he dies, and Sam intends to find a way to save him. To that end, he’s made Dean promise to stop and talk with a few contacts Bobby suggested they look up along the way. Or rather, to stop and let Sam talk to them, because Dean refuses to discuss getting out of his demon deal. He won’t even acknowledge the possibility of it happening.

Bobby’s friend Pamela is the first stop they make, but Dean won’t even get out of the car, which is fine with Sam. He’s stopped saying it since Sam revealed his visions, but Dean thinks psychics are freaks, barely a step above monsters. 

Pamela is younger than Sam expected, and prettier. She’s a mouthy beta dressed in very tight jeans and she hits on him immediately. He flirts back even though she’s not really his type, but once they get down to business it turns out she doesn’t have much to offer. She says there are ways to summon a specific demon, but you have to know that demon’s name for them to work. If they can get a name, she’s happy to help.

The next two people they see are hunters. Neither of them have much to contribute aside from some basic demon lore, so Sam and Dean move on and keep moving. They run into hunts, here and there, and once even one of Dean’s past conquests. He only pouts a little about not being able to hook up with her.

Time passes too quickly while Sam finds nothing. He hasn’t had a vision since the one about Cold Oak, they just stopped as of that night, and no new information turns up about demon deals. There’s just nothing, no matter how many miles they drive or people they talk to, no answers surface, and even though Dean does a decent job of acting like he’s okay with that, Sam is pretty sure that he’s terrified. How could he not be?

The final days come, marching by one by one, inexorable. A week, six days, five, four, three, just a couple left, and then the last day, Dean’s final day. Dean tries to keep a good face on, like he always does, but he calls Bobby for no reason, just to talk. 

When he goes to bed with Sam that night, they don’t talk. It’s conspicuously quiet, especially because they’re not having sex either. Sam just curls up with his head under his brother’s chin while Dean holds him so hard it hurts. They stay that way, silent and fearful in the dark until Dean’s grip loosens and the thud of his pulse stops beating in Sam’s ear. 

A violent, bloody death would’ve been less horrifying. That, Sam could’ve rationalized. Had something come for his brother, a monster or a beast to drag Dean to hell, he would’ve been able to fight back, and yes, he would almost certainly have lost, but he would’ve had that chance at least. There’s no fighting against someone slipping away in your arms. Dean is there, and then he isn’t. His body is emptied of life in a second, left to lie in Sam’s arms until he grows cold and stiff and Sam can’t pretend any longer that this isn’t happening.

Chapter 7

The world is awfully empty without Dean in it. Everything feels quieter, scarier, and a whole lot bigger now that there’s no big brother to stand between Sam and whatever is out there in the dark.

Eleven nights after Dean’s death and two states away, Sam wakes up from a dead drunk sleep thirsty as hell, and shuffles out to the parking lot to visit the soda machine. He’s just popped the tab on a lukewarm can of ginger ale when a female voice says, “Couldn’t sleep?”

He turns around so fast the soda slops over his hand, but it’s just a young woman, small and blond.

“We’ve been waiting to get you on your own.”

Sam isn’t sure whether to fight or run, but then she steps into the glow of the nearest flickering lamp and blinks, showing black demon eyes, so he knows either action is useless and he’s just sobered up enough not to do anything crazy.

“What do you want with me?” he asks, trying not to let his voice or his dripping hand shake.

“Oh, relax, Sam,” the demon drawls, eyes flicking back to normal. “My master wanted me to come here and offer you an opportunity.”

“An opportunity to what?” 

“Well, aside from all the other benefits, you’ll get to save your brother.”

“That might’ve been more useful before he died.”

The demon just tips her head at him and says, “We know he’s dead. Had to happen, sorry. Destiny and all that jazz.”

Briefly, Sam wishes he had the Colt on him. It’s safely locked up at the moment, but he knows it works because he killed a crossroads demon with it at the height of his desperation to save Dean. He’s curious though, he wants to know how and why this demon knows anything about him at all.

“Okay.” He nods, then slurps at his soda to give himself a moment to think. “You say you can help. What’s your name and what would I have to do?”

“Ruby.” The demon gives him another tight little smile. “And nothing too strenuous. We just want to teach you to hunt demons in ways you never could before.”

“Who’s we?”

“My master and I are part of a rebellion in Hell.”

“Really?” Sam scoffs. “And you want me to help you?”

“Not help,” the demon snaps. “Trade.”

“So I kill demons and in exchange I get my brother back alive?”

“In exchange you get a chance to walk into Hell and free your brother all by yourself,” Ruby says in a chipper tone. “Be his big, bad alpha champion, like you always wanted.”

That’s the most unnerving thing she’s said yet. Sam has never voiced that desire to anyone except Dean himself, and he knows Dean wouldn’t be going around talking about it. 

“You don’t know anything about me,” he protests stupidly. She knows plenty it seems, way more than he wants her to. “You don’t know anything about my brother, either.”

Ruby smirks and crosses her arms over her chest, then shakes her head a little. “Oh, Sammy. We have ways of getting information on people that you’ve never even imagined. We plucked that sneaky little thought right out of your head while you weren’t paying attention. You liked being your brother’s bitch, didn’t you? But there was still that part that wanted to mark him and claim him, you’d have done it in a second if he let you. You were dying to do it, every day.”

Sam is shaking now, helplessly afraid and angry to have his secret thoughts laid bare by a stranger.

“Don’t you want another chance? You could try being honest this time, let Dean know just how much you need him, want him. Maybe once you’ve saved him, he’ll finally respect you. You won’t just be his kid brother anymore.”

Part of him knows how unlikely it is that this will end well for him, but Sam does want all of that. He’s happy to play the omega for his brother, but he also wants everyone to know Dean belongs to him. He wants to make sure his brother’s notoriously wandering eye never wanders from him, and there’s only one way to do that. Dean laughed at the idea before, but maybe a rescue from Hell is just what’s needed to prove that Sam is worthy of a role as his protector.

“You swear I can get him back if I do this? And all I have to do is get rid of the demons you don’t get along with?”

“I swear,” Ruby says, looking and sounding serious for the first time.

Had Sam realized or thought to ask what the price would be, he wouldn’t have agreed so readily, but the demon is cunning. She starts by giving him a knife that kills demons, then progresses to talking about what a shame it is that the humans have to die, and mentions that it’s too bad Sam’s psychic powers are nearly gone. He’s curious about the powers, always has been, so all too easily she leads him into exercising them. When Sam’s skills plateau, Ruby introduces a number of solutions so appalling that drinking her blood seems like no big deal in comparison.

He’s hooked the moment the first drop of demon blood touches his lips. With that first drink, he can feel power coursing through him. The more he takes in, the easier it is to rip demons right out of their host bodies without taking innocent life, and that can only be a good thing. He’s saving people.

If Ruby’s well-planted suggestion about finding and killing the demon who killed both his parents seems a little too convenient, Sam is prepared to ignore that.

—————

Dean’s first thought when his eyes open is that he’s being tortured again, his next is that burial alive is far too tame for a pissed off Alistair. If his demon torture master wanted to get back at him for something, he’d think of a far worse punishment. Then Dean remembers that being buried is the natural consequence of being dead. Sam, the idiot, must’ve had him resurrected and neglected to dig him up first. 

He climbs out of the grave half-expecting to see his brother, but Sam isn’t there and his mouth is full of dirt. Coughing and spitting, he drags himself up, registers the shock of a ring of flattened trees around him, then decides that’s not important now. What’s important is water, and eventually a phone. 

Weary and hot, Dean drags himself out of the woods, to the road, and down a ways until he reaches a filling station. It’s blessedly empty, it’s been over a decade since his own omega smell was new enough that he could easily detect it, so there’s no way to tell for sure how strong it is now, but he’d rather not bump into any alphas and find out the hard way. Sam, reasonably, didn’t bury him with his gun so he’s unarmed for the moment. 

One gas station robbery, two failed payphone calls to Bobby, and a stolen car later, Dean is on the road and headed for Sioux Falls. The car is in shit condition, and there’s not much gas in it, so before long he’s forced to stop again, this time at a gas station that’s actually open for business. To pay, he knows he’ll have to go in and give cash to the clark, but there’s two patrons between him and the door, and at least one more inside. A vendor is switching out empty propane tanks for fresh ones some fifteen feet from the door.

“Fuck it,” Dean growls under his breath. He’s never been chickenshit, he’s not going to start now. He can’t stop himself sweating in the heat though, and that’s like throwing a bone to a hungry dog if he’s about to walk past an unmated alpha.

On the other side of the pump there’s a beta, the man at the next one over has a woman in the car, the man with the propane is just a little too far away and Dean can’t tell what he is. He lurks a second too long outside trying to figure it out and nearly gets hit with the door as two male alphas about his own age come barreling out of the shop. He has to move fast to get out of the way and expects both of them to stop short, but they walk past without even a glance.

Breathing a little easier, Dean makes it inside and pays for his gas. There’s a female alpha behind the counter, a teenager, too young to have a mate yet, but she barely smiles at him even when he flirts out of habit.

As a test, Dean approaches the propane guy, who is alpha as hoped, to ask for directions he doesn’t need. He has to force himself not to grin like an idiot when the older man answers him as though he’s just some average beta. 

For a few minutes, nothing else matters. Pumping gas has never been so delightful. Everything is different, the feeling is magical, even if no one else knows, he does. And hopefully soon, Sam will know, too. 

Sam is harder to find than expected though. All his numbers are out of service, and he’s not at Bobby’s house. Once the old man stops trying to kill Dean, he sheepishly admits that he’s not sure where Sam is. 

“Well, what the fuck happened?” Dean demands. 

“Hell if I know.” Bobby shrugs. “He was adamant that he had to keep hunting though. I think you’re right that he was trying to bring you back but I don’t know how.”

The ‘how’ is what worries Dean more than anything else. He fears the worst, dark magic, a demon deal, blood sacrifice… Sam would’ve been up for anything if it brought Dean back, he certainly proved that in the last year Dean was alive. There was no idea too crazy or perverse for him to try.

“Never mind Sam,” Bobby continues, “what happened to you? With your scent gone I thought for sure you weren’t human.”

“I dunno,” Dean answers, and allows himself a grin. “It’s the last thing I expected, but I can’t say I’ve got an issue with it.”

Bobby gives him a knowing look; he knows that’s an understatement. “And Sam?”

“What about Sam?”

“Nothin’, just wondering if he’ll be as excited about this as you.”

“Why wouldn’t he be? He’s the one who tacked this on to whatever other deal he made to get me back.”

“What if it wasn’t him?”

Dean refuses to think about this. Aside from Sam and Bobby, there’s no one else in the world who gives enough of a shit about him to want him alive. It wasn’t Bobby who brought him back, so it had to be his brother. Sam doesn’t deserve skepticism, he deserves to get a great big sexy thank you right after the ass kicking he’s about to catch for doing something so stupid.

—————

One day later, in Pontiac, Illinois, Sam wraps his arms around his brother and takes a deep breath, expecting the usual faintly sweet scent to fill his eager nose, but there’s nothing. Once he starts thinking about it, he realizes that’s super fucking strange, because even the suppressants never fully dampened Dean’s omega scent, or kept him from attracting alpha attention.

“What kind of top-shelf meds did Bobby find you this time?” Sam asks the second their surrogate father is out of the room. “I can’t scent you at all.”

Predictably, Dean hesitates. He’s never liked to acknowledge his presentation, especially after years of their father making it crystal clear that he was disappointed at having an omega for an oldest son.

“He didn’t need to,” Dean answers after a few seconds. “I was kinda freaked at first that you buried me without my gun, but turns out it wasn’t a problem. Got all the way to Bobby’s and nobody noticed me once.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow, so are you just like… beta now? Or did the resurrection give you a total reset and you’re going to have to go through the whole first heat thing again?”

Dean’s face hardens, jaw set and eyes shuttered. “I don’t know. Hopefully the first one.”

It’s taking everything in him, but Sam is pretty sure he’s masking his frustration perfectly. He was supposed to have been Dean’s savior, this is all wrong, all his work has been for nothing.

“You got a problem with that?” Dean adds when he doesn’t reply.

“No,” Sam protests hastily, “no, of course not. I just thought- I guess, more hoped, maybe someday you’d come around and we would-”

“You know what, fuck you,” Dean spits out, whole body suddenly tense with fury. “I was never gonna fucking agree to that and you know it.”

“You get that Dad’s gone, right?” Sam says, because he just can’t seem to keep his mouth shut today. “You don’t have to live up to his plans for you anymore.”

“Again, fuck you,” Dean snaps, “this doesn’t have anything to do with Dad, it was over a year after I presented before he got really drunk that one day and let it slip that he didn’t think someone like me could hack the life. I always hated being omega, and it’s not because of Dad, or that I’m older than you, or whatever other crap you came up with. This is just better. It’s better. I feel different and it’s a good different.”

“Dean, it’s not like there’s something wrong with it. Thirty-seven percent of the population or something-”

“It’s wrong for me! From the first fucking day at school, when they sent me to the nurse’s office and told me what was happening, I hated it. I cried until Dad came and picked me up, and they all thought it was because I was some sissy little scared omega, but I wasn’t scared. I was fucking pissed. I hated every minute of it, so seeing a couple alphas walk right past me at the gas station like I wasn’t even there? That was the second best day of my entire life.”

Sam has to swallow hard a couple times before he can say, “So you want to stay like this, even though it means we can never be mated, that we’d never really be together? That’s what you’re saying?”

“Yeah, that is what I’m saying.” The look Dean gives him is almost pitying. “It was never gonna happen, Sam, get that through your head. We were never gonna be bonded anyway, that’s my whole fucking point. So yeah, I’m totally fine staying like this forever, because as far as you and me goes, nothing’s changed on my end.”

Keeping his voice carefully controlled, he says, “So you’d just rather be null? Even if it means you’re, like, never getting laid again?”

As soon as it comes out, Sam knows he slipped up.

“You know, if you don’t want me anymore because I don’t smell right to your precious little alpha nose, man the fuck up and say it.”

“Dean, come on, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“How’d you mean it?”

“I just figured, you know,” Sam fumbles, “you’d want to, um, take your new scent out for a test drive.”

“Oh, okay, so what you meant is I’m a slut.”

“No!”

“Whatever,” Dean scoffs. “If I catch you praying that I change back or some shit, I’ll fucking kill you.”

Sam can’t help wishing for that very thing, because as far as he remembers, everything was fine before Dean changed. It really wasn’t that bad. He’s not stupid enough to say so to his big brother though. 

He says it to Ruby instead, when he calls to tell her the plan is off. In the four months without Dean she’s been his only companion and confidante, so he trusts her when she sympathizes and offers to give him space to work things out with his brother. She says she’ll keep in touch in the meantime, and Sam trusts her when she says that, too, never considering that the demon might be just as invested in the success of their plotting as he was only a day ago. 

Chapter 8

“He’s what?!” 

Ruby quails under the force of Azazel’s anger and bows her head. “I’m sorry, master. Whoever pulled Dean Winchester from Hell changed him. He is not omega anymore, he cannot be the Boy King’s consort.”

“I fucking heard you the first time!” Azazel bellows, spit flying from his mouth. He’s already killed everyone in the diner, and Ruby isn’t all sure he won’t kill her. “Our future king can find another consort, but Dean- Dean was supposed to be the inducement! He has no worth of his own, he is a reward! His life was meant to be the carrot and his death the stick that kept young Winchester moving in the right direction!”

Wisely, Ruby doesn’t say that she knows that, even though using Dean was mostly her idea in the first place. 

“Quit standing there blinking at me like a fool,” Azazel snarls at her. “Go find out who or what has foiled our plan. Idiot.”

Relieved to make it out with her life, Ruby quickly acknowledges the order and bolts before he can change his mind. Once out of his reach, she knows all she has to do is wait. Sooner or later, Sam will want help figuring out what happened to his brother, and he has no one else on Hell’s side to turn to.

—————

Sam is hiding something, that much Dean knows. They haven’t talked a lot since their argument, not even once they were back at Bobby’s and had a little more room to breathe, but still. He can feel in his gut that there’s something Sam isn’t telling him. The weak explanations Sam gave for what he was doing the last four months just aren’t holding up.

In the middle of the night on their sixth day at Bobby’s, Sam tries and fails to sneak out of their shared bedroom. Dean is woken by the sound of the floor creaking, followed by Sam cursing softly. He waits until he hears the sound of the front door closing before he gets up and follows. 

At first, it looks like Sam is leaving, but instead he just stands out in the junkyard, stock still without making a sound. Then with a quiet rumble, a car turns into the lot, going slow with the headlights off. Sam gets into the passenger seat and the driver leaves as carefully as they arrived. 

“What the fuck?” Dean mutters to himself. Sam doesn’t have any friends, that he knows of, and his little brother really isn’t the type to step out for a midnight quickie. He’s about to retreat to his room and wait up for Sam to come back, but just as he goes to drop the curtain over the window, something moves in the dark. A figure in a long coat, too slight to be Bobby, steps out into the faint moonlight, then vanishes.

Discomfited, but safe in the knowledge that Bobby’s house is a fortress, Dean retreats to the bedroom for his gun and clothes. He’s too curious not to go out and investigate, but roaming the junkyard barefoot would be a terrible idea even in broad daylight. When he gets to the bedroom though, there’s a silhouette in the window, wearing the same coat. Without thinking twice about it, Dean grabs the loaded shotgun from the top of the dresser that stands right inside the door, and fires. 

The gun goes off, the mysterious figure vanishes, and from his bedroom Bobby shouts, “What in the holy hell?!”

Dean is still frozen looking at the empty place where their midnight visitor had just been standing when Bobby comes striding down the hallway with a gun of his own.

“The fuck’re you shootin’ at, boy?”

“The- there was…” Dean fumbles for the light switch and flicks it on, but as expected there’s nothing to be seen but two rumpled beds and some laundry on the floor.

“Where’s Sam?” Bobby demands. 

“Sam went out,” Dean mutters, stepping inside to get a better look at the shotgun pellets now embedded in the wall on each side of the narrow window.

“What d’you mean, Sam went out? And why in the hell were you shootin’ that gun inside my damn house?”

“I mean, Sam snuck out but he woke me up doing it and the last thing I saw was him getting in a car with the headlights off. After they drove away, I saw something moving on the lot, so I came up here to get dressed, and there was someone standing in front of the window.”

Bobby is skeptical, but it’s undeniable that something must have been standing in the way of Dean’s shot, or else the window would have shattered. A quick patrol of the junkyard and around the house shows no signs of anyone or anything either, but both men are too rattled to go back to sleep so they sit up with a bottle of whiskey and wait for Sam to return.

At a quarter to two, Sam comes slinking in looking so guilty that Dean is instantly even more suspicious than he was already. 

“Really, Sam? Sneaking out of the house?” Dean says sarcastically before his brother has a chance to open his mouth. 

“I wasn’t-” Sam starts to protest, then sighs as he closes the front door behind him. “Alright, I was but you two didn’t have to sit up and wait for me to come back. I’m a grown man.”

“Right,” Dean scoffs, “well, you weren’t the only one sneaking around tonight. After you drove off, I saw someone or something watching. Looked like it was waiting for to you leave.”

“Really? You’re sure?” Sam’s brows furrow in concern. “I didn’t see anything out there.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. It got in here somehow, I took a shot at it but it disappeared. So, you wanna tell us what exactly you were going out to do?”

Sam’s expression wavers, flickers through fear, and settles on the face Dean knows means Sam is about to dig his heels in. “I was with a girl.”

“Just how well do you know this girl?” Bobby asks suspiciously. “You ever test her?”

“Of course I did,” Sam answers a little too quickly. “Salt, silver, holy water. I’m not stupid.”

“Known her long?”

“A few months.”

“If it’s all good and you trust her,” Dean says pointedly, “why are you sneaking around?” 

Sam’s eyes flick over to Bobby, then down and away, and he mutters, “Can we not do this right now? I’m tired, and I’d like to get some sleep.”

“Yeah, so would I, but first I’d really like to know what you were doing out on the same night that some creature showed up in my bedroom.”

“I told you, I was meeting a girl.”

“If that’s all you were doing, why were you hiding it?”

“Look, she didn’t mean anything to me, alright?”

It takes a second for the words to sink in, but when they do, Bobby sets his glass down with a clunk and mutters, “Aw hell, I don’t need to hear this,” then exits the kitchen as quickly as possible. 

Dean waits until he’s pretty sure Bobby will be back in his room with the door firmly shut, then says, “I didn’t ask you to do that. You wanna hook up with chicks, go right ahead, I’m not gonna stop you.”

“You didn’t have to ask, and like I said, it didn’t mean anything. We were just hooking up, I barely know her.”

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“Believe me or not.” Sam shrugs. “I’m telling you the truth.”

He isn’t telling the truth though. The lie is all over him, in the cadence of his speech and the tilt of his chin, and the way his left foot is turned out instead of in.

“You know what, Sam,” Dean says flatly. “I don’t think I need to hear this, either.”

Sam makes no move to stop him leaving, and he doesn’t come up to bed that night. Dean is glad he doesn’t because he’s pissed, and he’s planning to stay that way. 

When he wakes up though, he feels like he’s been run over by a truck. Just the prospect of getting down the stairs on his own is so daunting he almost considers sitting down and descending one step at a time like a toddler. 

“Well, don’t you look like warmed-over shit,” Bobby says when he finally arrives in the kitchen. “You finish off that bottle on your own last night?”

“No, I did not, actually,” Dean replies before dropping heavily into a chair. 

“Someone did.”

“Maybe it was Sam. Where is he anyway?”

“Running,” Bobby snorts with fond derision. “Idjit.”

“Right? Like we don’t do enough running at our job, he’s gotta get up at the crack of dawn and go exercise.”

Despite his pounding head and aching body, Dean realizes he’s actually hungry, so he accepts a plate of eggs and toast. He’s stuffing his face when Sam comes back, sweaty and panting with a Walkman in one hand. He hovers in the doorway for a few moments, but Dean won’t give him the satisfaction of attention.

“You okay, dude?” Sam asks when Dean refuses to acknowledge him. “You look like crap.”

“I feel like crap.”


“You’re-”

“Feverish, tired, and achy, and I’m pretty sure it’s not the flu.”

Under other circumstances, Dean would happily continue giving Sam the cold shoulder, but the only thing worse than not knowing how his current situation is going to turn out would be having to go through it in Bobby’s house. When Sam catches him packing and offers to go with him, Dean accepts with a bitter chuckle.

“Not like it’s safe for someone like me to go alone, right?”

“Maybe it’ll be different this time,” Sam offers, in a valiant attempt at comfort. “It’s still too early to tell either way.”

“Yeah, well, my luck’s never been that great.”

“Good things have to happen sometimes.”

“Good for you or good for me?”

“Dean…” 

Sam voice trails off and when Dean turns to look at him his little brother’s head is hanging so low that he feels a reluctant pang of remorse.

“It’s not like I want you to be miserable,” Sam mutters. “I just wanted things to be easy for once. We clash all the time anyway, if we both turn out alpha it’s only gonna get worse and I don’t want it to.”

Torn between the innate desire to give Sam everything he could need or want, and his own happiness, Dean doesn’t know how to respond. 

“Who knows, maybe it’ll be easier if that’s not hanging between us,” he says finally, though he doesn’t really believe it. Even if he gets what he wants, Sam is still lying and nothing is going to be right between them until that’s settled.

Bobby waves them off with an order to call him if anything happens, even though they’re going ten minutes away at most. The Sioux Falls Sleep’n’Dine is right on the edge of town where the countryside Bobby lives in turns into a residential area. The plan is to hole up there until Dean is through with whatever is happening to him, and Sam is ready to deal with it either way.

He gets them settled in, orders food, and tries not to stare at his brother, stretched out on the bed next to him in only his boxers. Dean says he’s too uncomfortable for anything else, though who knows how long that will last.

Sam doesn’t recall everything that happened during the week that his presentation made itself known. He was only twelve, so the physical memories aren’t as sharp as they could be, but he remembers the mental anguish all too well. There was a lot of ‘here you go, you fucking pussy ass whiner’ followed up by a slap or kick, and a meal his brother had meticulously made exactly how he liked it. For those five days and a few after, Dean was simultaneously the most caring and the most cruel he’s ever been before or since, which Sam didn’t understand at the time. Now he does and he feels for sixteen year old Dean, having to watch his little brother get what he wanted so desperately but would never be able to have.

“This is fucking bullshit,” Dean groans. “I can’t believe I have to do this crap again.”

“It’ll be over soon,” Sam answers. He doesn’t even know if that’s true but it seems like the right thing to say.

“Honestly, I’d rather feel like this for the rest of my life than be omega again.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do fucking mean that, Sam. I’d rather be dead. I know it was all just role-play to you, but it’s not like that for me.”


“Dean, come on…”

“No, I hate this! I can’t- I just can’t, Sam. If it turns out that I’m still- I don’t think I can do it anymore. Especially not now that I know what I could have.”

The worst part is that Dean sounds like he means it. Every rash decision, reckless impulse, and foolhardy escapade makes sense now. He had actually wanted to die sometimes, Sam realizes, or maybe just didn’t care if he did.

“I’m trusting you,” Dean adds, eyes firmly on the ceiling. “You know that, right? I’m trusting you to be here and not do anything to me that I don’t want, even if I do end up going into a heat again.”

“Jesus Christ, Dean-”

“Or let anybody else do it.”

“I would never, alright? I almost did that once and I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself. I won’t let anybody else touch you either, I swear.” 

“You don’t have to swear, I already told you I trust you.”

“Well, I’m saying it anyway, just so you know.”

“Okay.”

While Dean is taking a cold shower, the pizza arrives. If nothing else, Sam can at least ensure his big brother can stuff himself with meat lover’s. His own- olive, bell pepper, and mushroom- won’t be touched by Dean unless they were literally starving in the wilderness. 

After so long in the bathroom that the pizza is getting cold, Dean comes stumbling out, completely naked.

“Don’t say a fucking word,” he grumbles, flopping down on the bed near Sam so he can reach the food. “It feels like my skin is on fire, if I have to put clothes on, I’ll implode.”

They manage to get through a day and a half like that, with Sam trying to provide anything in the way of comfort and Dean grumbling, until eventually Dean’s horny urges overcome the general discomfort. Then Sam gets fucked on or over every single object in the place. On day four, he’s face down in the sweat-damp bedsheets of the second bed they’ve designated for screwing on, when all of a sudden his overused and tender asshole goes from ‘somewhere on the edge of pleasure-pain’ to ‘fucking agony’.

Sam attempts to tell his brother to slow down, which would be a lot easier if he could pick his head up, but Dean’s left arm is holding him down by the neck in a grip like iron. “De- Dean- arghhh! Dean! Stop!!”

Dean’s thrusting hips stutter to a halt and he pants, “Sammy? You good?”

“No, I’m not good, or I wouldn’t have been screaming at you.”

“Shit, sorry. What’s wrong?”

“It feels like you shoved a baseball bat up my ass, what the hell did you do?”

“Nothing!” Dean protests, then a second later he starts to chuckle, almost hysterically.

“What?”

“It’s- it’s just the knot. My knot, Sammy. My knot, you’re- you're hanging off my knot.”

“Holy- fucking- shit,” Sam pants. Now that his nose is free to smell something else other than the disgusting sheets, his brother’s scent is noticeably different. It’s an alpha smell, and he doesn’t totally hate it. His ass, however, feels like he’s about to be ripped in two.

“You gonna be okay?” Dean asks, still sounding amused.

“This is not funny!”

“Well… it kinda is. A little bit.”

“Dean, I am fucking serious.”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. But it’s not gonna go down unless I finish, so…”

“So go slow and don’t try to pull out again.”

“I’m gonna be honest, it’s not even all the way in.”

“You’re joking.”

“Uh, no. That’s probably also why it hurts so bad. Can you try and relax a little?”

Sam is about to demand to know how the hell he’s supposed to relax, but Dean’s warm hands start rubbing soothing circles into his lower back, and focusing on that does help a bit.

After application of some more lube as well, Dean says, “Take a deep breath for me, Sammy?”

“You don’t have to coach me like I’m some virgin,” Sam replies grumpily. It’s not that he can’t tell Dean is trying to be nice, but he thinks he deserves to have a bit of an attitude, all things considered. “Just tell me when you’re gonna do it.”

“That was me telling you I’m gonna do it.”

“Just say, ‘are you ready’, or something normal.”

“Fine. Ready?”

“Yeah.” 

Even with deep breathing it still hurts like hell, but once Dean’s knot is fully inside him and better positioned, the acute pain starts to fade into discomfort. 

“You good?”

“I think so.” Sam wiggles his ass experimentally and adds, “Just be careful not to pull out at all and we should be okay.”

The sensation slowly improves as Dean’s shallow, cautious movements turn into deep, powerful thrusts that put insane pressure on Sam’s prostate. The orgasm is explosive, almost too much to handle, since that knot isn’t going anywhere any time soon. It actually swells even more when Dean comes, but it’s just a weird, foreign sort of feeling, not painful, so Sam is happy to let Dean roll them both over on their sides. It’s not so bad knowing he’ll be stuck there for up to half an hour, as long as one of his brother’s arms is tucked under his head and the other slung over his middle holding him close.

“Never did this part before,” Dean says, voice muffled against Sam’s back. 

His voice sounds a little funny, but Sam doesn’t want to tease him about it. He feels kind of strange and unsettled, too, in a good way.

“Are you okay?” Dean asks after a few minutes. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I know, I’m alright. How ‘bout you?”

“It’s- this is… different. I kinda like it.”

“Shut up, you love it. If you weren’t stuck to me right now you’d be shouting your new situation from the rooftops.”

“Actually, I’m mostly just losing my shit right now,” Dean confesses. “I can’t believe it, Sam. I literally can’t, I’m- I’m fucking scared shitless that I’m dreaming and I’m gonna wake up and-”

“Hey, come on,” Sam cuts him off, struggling to bend his wrist at an awkward angle that will let him lace his fingers with Dean’s. “It’s not a dream. This is real, and even though we can’t ever get mated now, I’m still happy for you. Just because we’re not biologically compatible anymore doesn't mean I’m going anywhere.”

“Damn right you’re not,” Dean says, in a cocky tone that sounds much more like himself. “I’m never letting you off my new knot for the rest of our lives, just so you know. I’m gonna make you live here.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“I know, and you like me anyway.”

“I do,” Sam chuckles, and is rewarded by a soft kiss on the nape of his neck. “I really do, god knows why.”

“Go the fuck to sleep,” Dean scoffs. 

Sam isn’t sure that’s even possible at first, but he drifts off held securely in his brother’s arms, hole stuffed full, and it’s the best sleep he’s had in months.