Author's Note: This is something dark and kind of strange that I wrote when I couldn't sleep last night. It was typed on my iPhone, because my laptop is currently unavailable. This is my first foray into the world of alpha/beta/omega dynamics, and I took some artistic liberties.
Everything seems to be going swimmingly, for the most part. They have just ganked a nasty set of vamps and Cas has been talking more, cheering up and even developing traits and quirks as a human: liking Fair Trade coffee, wearing cardigans, watching Star Trek: Voyager (much to Dean's delight), borrowing Dean's after shave with no intention to give it back. Thursday, he had rushed Sam and Dean out of the bunker, insisting that he was all right and everything would be fine, 'you just go on and kill those vampires, save some people, I'll make bread and the bunker will be clean-' Dean chuckles at the memory, thinking about getting Cas a frilly pin apron, but he knows full well that the ex-angel would just thank him profoundly as he and Sam tried to hold in their giggles.
They had gotten back to their motel when Dean's phone vibrated, signifying a new text from Cas's simple flip phone. It read:
not feeling thta great, just a fever porbab;y i ll get over it soon. U told me to keep u posted so i am. do not come home on my account and i hope the hunt is going well from cas
Dean had chuckled at the message. Sam had tried to explain that he didn't need to say 'from Cas' in every message, but Cas insisted that he had to make sure.
Now, stepping out of the Impala, the air smells sweet, like rain and morning dew and green grass, and Dean inhales deeply.
"You smell that, Sammy?" Dean asks, closing his eyes and savoring the fresh scent. Dead man's blood isn't the nicest scent in the world and the Impala has been smelling like sweat as of late; summer in Kansas isn't exactly igloos and snowmen.
"It smells like B. O." Sam remarks, shaking his head at his brother, who just grins.
"Hey, just 'cause I wear deodorant sometimes..."
They're at the door of the bunker and Dean is fumbling with the key. He opens the door, but just as quickly slams it shut, his body reacting before his mind.
"I- I can't go in there," he intones, voice low and growl-ey. Sam quirks an eyebrow.
"Uh, Dean?" Sam asks, gaze questioning.
"Did Cas ever- when he left, did Jimmy-" Dean cuts off with a frustrated groan, and Sam can see that he's pawing at the door.
"De-"
"Was Jimmy an omega?" Dean forces out. Sam swallows, unwilling to comprehend what Dean is implying.
"Uh..."
"Damn, can't you smell that, Sammy?" Dean is practically whining. He pounds his fist against the door, and Sam knows instantly that his self control is thin. Thin at best.
"Smell what," Sam says, still wishing that maybe Cas made pie or something.
"Shit. Shit shit shit. Fucking shit. We never got him tested. We should have gotten him fucking tested, I can't-" Dean groans, and his forehead hits the heavy door with a thud.
"Dean, Jimmy was a beta," Sam remembers suddenly. "I remember he was rambling about what's her name-"
"Claire or something-"
"No, that was the daughter-"
"Fuck, Sam! I can smell it from here!"
"Resist it, Dean, I've seen you resist it plenty of times."
"Omegas mate young, r'member? The longer they go without, the stronger their heats come until they've been knotted. Cas's body is what, like, thirty five? Thirty eight? Forty?" Dean is panting, biting his hand to keep from opening the door.
"Shit." Sam's jaw is set in a hard line, thinking.
"I- I want it," Dean whimpers, and Sam can scent his desire.
"No." Sam states flatly, his I am fully aware of the fact that I'm younger but this is not happening voice coming out.
"Sammy," Dean says hoarsely.
"No."
"I- I won't knot him, I'll talk to him-"
"You're practically drowning in rut, Dean!" Sam hisses. "This will not end well."
Dean growls, a deep, guttural sound, the alpha instincts he's worked so hard over the years to oppress coming out full force, triggered by a heat fifteen plus years overdue.
"I need."
"We've talked about this."
They have talked about this, but only once, at a bar when an attractive young omega went into heat. Dean managed to leave her alone, hell, he even found her beta brother, but it was close. They both know their lifestyle leaves no room for dependent omegas. Dean cried that night, and drank until he passed out. Sam comforted his brother, but secretly savored the fact that he was a beta and didn't heat or rut.
"Need Cas," Dean whines, and a realization hits Sam like an eighteen-wheeler truck. No, like a train carrying eighteen eighteen-wheeler trucks.
"Dean..." Sam says hesitantly, not knowing how far gone his brother is.
"What." Dean grunts, throwing a thinly veiled threat in his single word.
"Maybe it's so strong 'cause of mutual attraction, you know, when there's true love or whatever-"
Dean lets out a strangled laugh. Yeah, couples in love become strongly affected by each others' cycles, but he and Cas aren't in love.
"He's my best friend, Sammy," Dean growls. "I need to talk to him."
"No. Not like that you aren't. Poor son of a bitch probably doesn't even know what's happening to him; he'll jump you and you'll lose control and then-" Sam stops short and swallows.
"And then what, Sammy?" His inner alpha is sniffing a challenge, and he will stand his ground no matter what.
"And you will have used him. You'll knot and then you'll be mated. You will be able to move on, to fuck other helpless-"
"Sam," Dean snarls warningly.
"Be spared the heartbreak, but he can't move on-"
"SAM!" Dean roars, making his brother shrink back, but he keeps talking.
"Let me talk to him. I can get him in an ice bath, you can go get some heat suppressants from the pharmacy, clear your head-"
"I wanna go in," Dean growls, voice lower than Sam has ever heard it. Ever.
"No. Give me the keys, I'll take care of him."
Then, red floods his vision and his fists clench and all he can think is mine mine mine, despite the fact that Sam is a beta and he isn't really a threat, but his body wants to mate, to claim, to knot, and Sam is in the way. In the back of his mind, he's also angry and hurt that Sam thinks he'd just abandon his omega, leave his bitch alone without providing like a proper alpha. Like a weak alpha.
Dean is not weak, and he will show anyone who stands in his way.
"Mine," he yells. "He's mine." Sam catches something in his eye then, a glint of moonlight illuminating the predatory urge to dominate and he's scared. Scared because his brother can't be stopped now, won't stand down. He will mate with Cas and he might not spare Sam's life.
"Dean," Sam whispers, but the breath is knocked out of him as he thuds to the ground. Dean has tackled him, snarling and angry.
My omega. Mine. Back off.
Dean punches Sam, once, twice, and he's expecting another blow but Dean has sprung off of him, satisfied that he's taught the incumbent threat a lesson, claimed his territory.
Sam struggles to sit up, and his heart falls when his vision rests on Dean opening the door, taking the key with him.
It's done.
Dean's gone, the alpha is out, and Sam can't stop it.
Sam yells his frustration into the sky.
Inside the bunker, Dean can hear Cas's pulse throbbing away in his bedroom, his blood singing to Dean, mate me, claim me, knot me, breed me...
The only thing that even comes close to this is when his blood lust was so great that he had threatened Ben Braeden in that long-forgotten hallway.
claim me claim me claim me claim me
Dean can hear Cas's hips moving against his will. He can hear the fallen angel's soft cries, mere whimpers that die before they leave the back of his throat. He can smell the slickness of Cas's thighs. He can taste the omega's heat in the air. He tears his jacket off, then his shirt, far too worked up to be clad in so many damn clothes.
claim me claim me claim me claim me claim me claim me
take me take me take me take me take me take me take take take
Dean is in motion, an alpha lured by the strongest force in the universe. Castiel's scent envelopes him, tows him along until he's in the hallway outside of Cas's door. Somehow, he's managed to lose all of his other clothing, but he's too far gone to care.
The sight he is greeted with is delicious, sensual, every manner of lust embodied.
Cas is naked, lying on top of the covers, face down, moaning and mewling and crying. His body, lithe and tan, hairless and freckled, is soaked with sweat, and there is a huge wet spot where his slick has seeped into the bedding. His hips search for friction, frantically driving into the mattress and the second he becomes aware of the presence of an alpha, he howls plaintively, and starts to move.
claim claim claim claim claim
Cas raises himself so that he's on hands and knees, then he bends his head to rest between his forearms on the bed. He moans.
claim claim claim CLAIM CLAIM CLAIM CLAIM-
Dean claims.
He snarls as he wraps his arms tightly around the fallen angel's chest, his legs straddling Cas's. Cas bucks, and Dean bites down, hard, on the omega's neck, drawing blood. He laps at it, ignoring the pained, strangled cry of the man below him, mind set on dominating.
Cas wails as Dean pushes into him, his hole already prepared from his heat. He's hot and wet and tight and Dean moans until he runs out of air. Cas is caught between his body's lust and the sheer terror of the animal that his best friend has become. He is bearing most of Dean's weight, and his arms are shaking. He locks his elbows, ashamed at the wave of pleasure that courses through his blood at the feeling of being filled.
He's scared, and aroused, and that terrifies him.
He had only just realized what was happening, that it isn't a fever and he is in heat. Then there was the smell of leather and rain on pavement that flooded the bunker.
Dean's arms tighten their grip around Cas's rib cage, and Cas blinks away tears of pain and pleasure as his breath leaves him and then-
Dean starts moving.
Cas whines loudly as Dean pulls out and pushes in again, the obscene slap of hips meeting ass joining Dean's growls and Cas's whimpers to fill the room with an animalistic cacophony.
Dean's muscles only tighten as he grinds against the helpless omega, crushing his lungs with his rippling, dominating strength. Breathing is very, very difficult for Cas by now. His throat aches, burning with tears.
He's become one of those things where there are two snakes, biting each other's tails in a never ending circle, pain and pleasure combining and battling and swirling and now he's sobbing, gasping for air as Dean drives himself further into the omega's body.
Dean, with a grunt, changes position, sensing that the creature below him is shaking, trembling. He braces his hands on the bed on either side of Cas and starts biting the omega's neck, breaking the skin each time.
Cas gulps in air, but it's not long before Dean's fucking him again, noisily and sloppily and unfeelingly. It's all he can do to keep his arms up, to not collapse beneath Dean, and he sobs as his body forces him backwards, meeting each thrust of Dean's hips with his own body's need.
Dean, on the other hand, is in heaven. Cas is so fucking hot. He's burning up everywhere he touches. His muscles tighten and massage Dean and meet his every thrust and his goddamn scent is driving Dean absolutely crazy.
He's crazed. He's never ever claimed an omega during heat before, and it's pleasure beyond anything he's ever reached while having his way with someone.
Then, Cas's arms can't hold him up any longer, he's shaking so much. Dean sees this as submission, and his thrusts grow ragged and arrhythmic as he is cresting, his orgasm ripping through him like a tsunami.
Cas doesn't know what's going on when his vision goes white and his muscles spasm, tightening and then he's pinned between something hot and heavy and something thick and stifling hot, his mouth pressed against whatever's under him. His abused lungs try to force air to push through the mattress but it doesn't work, and he feels light-headed and dizzy when suddenly he is breathing again.
The dizziness doesn't clear.
Dean forgets who he is. He's absolutely suspended in bliss.
The first thing Dean is aware of when he comes back in to reality is his mouthful of sweaty brown hair. He recoils, spitting and shaking his head when a sharp pain in his groin tears his thoughts south.
He's knotted.
He's knotted in somebody.
He's knotted in somebody who is lying with his face pressed down into the mattress, unmoving.
Holy shit.
He's knotted in Cas.
Cas's chest isn't swelling and emptying slightly like it's supposed to be.
Terror and utter loathing flood Dean in a burst of molten lava as two things hit him: one, he's just mated his best friend, his vulnerable, innocent, beloved Castiel. Two, Cas isn't breathing.
Dean grabs a fist full of that brown hair and yanks Cas's head off of the mattress. To his immense relief, the fallen angel gasps in a huge breath and his arms, which were pinned beneath him, struggle to move.
Cas convulses wildly as he tries to immerse himself back into reality. There's a sharp pain in his head, and a dull, throbbing ache between his legs. He squirms and shakes, every movement sending icy pain through Dean, who is still heavy and swollen inside of Cas.
Finally, the alpha stills the omega, and the part of Dean who loves this man like a brother cradles him gently as he rotates them onto their sides, Dean's form molded against Cas's, unable to run away like he desperately wants.
Then, Cas glances up at Dean as Dean's settling next to him, and the blue depths are glazed over, dull with pain and etched in the trauma he's just experienced.
Dean's heart clenches at the idea that shit, he did this to Cas. He desperately wants to stop crowding the former angel, but their bodies are bound together for hours, depending on the size of the knot.
Dean doesn't realize he's crying until he sees the tears spilling down Cas's neck. Some terrible, sadistic part of him just wants to curl into Cas, to seek comfort in his friend.
If he can still be called a friend.
Dean wails noiselessly, throat aching, dismal hatred in every breath. He raped Castiel.
Yes, Cas was in heat.
Yes, mating is the only way to efficiently pull an omega out of heat.
Yes, Dean is an alpha.
Yes, these things happen to omegas all the time, as society coughs and looks the other way.
But Dean knows, deep down and up on the surface, too, that he is a monster for doing this.
He's miserable, a stark contrast to the pure pleasure he was immersed in earlier. He wants to shoot himself. He cries, the only sounds he's making are the empty sobs, the noise that occurs at the bottom of an exhale. Dean cradles himself, not daring to wrap himself around the omega like his post-coital hormones are directing him to. He wants Cas to rip himself from Dean, to scream and attack, to run for Sam and save himself.
Cas breathes mathematically, still processing.
Finally, Dean's tear ducts are exhausted of their supply, and the air is filled with the sounds of his ragged breaths.
"Dean?" Cas asks abruptly, little more than a rough whisper. It breaks Dean's heart. He knows that the ex-angel, or some small part of him, is still clinging to the hope that this isn't Dean, that it's a nameless attacker, a passing alpha, not somebody he thought he could trust. He can't bear the thought that this is betrayal, cold and simple.
Dean's silence is answer enough.
"Dean," Cas says again, but it's a statement. "Say something," Cas orders, voice growing frantic.
Dean shivers.
"Dean." Cas's voice is soft, comforting. "Dean, I need to talk right now. You owe it to me." Cas knows that the guilt trip card will always work.
"Castiel." Dean breathes his heartbreak and sorrow into the name. "Castiel," he repeats, voice raw from his sobbing.
"Shhh, Dean, it's okay," Cas says, his own chest feeling numb and hollow and he knows only that Dean needs him.
"Don't." Dean grunts. "Don't you fucking dare."
Cas curls in on himself, his lower regions still pressed up to Dean, but it's the only place they're touching.
He's hurt Dean. Dean is broken. He buries his fingers in his own brown hair and a familiar pain shoots through him as he tugs mindlessly.
"I'm sorry," he whimpers.
Then, his arms are being yanked out of his hair.
"Cas. Fucking listen to me. You don't fucking apologize. This is me. I did this, and you are NOT putting this on your shoulders."
Cas goes limp, allowing the alpha to force his arms apart. He nods his agreement.
Dean exhales loudly and lets go of Cas's arms.
"Will you listen to me," Dean grunts and Cas nods again.
It's Dean's turn to go limp, and he takes care not to touch Cas as he flops back onto the bed.
"Cas, I fucked up big."
Understatement.
"Cas, I don't expect you to be okay with this. You have been assaulted-" Dean can't bring himself to say the word rape. Rape is something unspeakably horrible that happens to people he doesn't know. People who rape are monsters. "-And that is not okay. Got it?"
"Yes, Dean," Cas says.
"When we separate, I'm going to leave. I am going to tell Sam that- that I- that I assaulted you, and he will take care of you.
"But you need to know, Cas, that no matter how hard it may be to hear right now," Dean says, voice shaking and shattering with every word. "I love you, Cas, and you're family. I am so, so, so, so, so sorry that I did this to you. I'm a monster and I didn't-"
Dean's voice breaks and damn, he can't keep his head away from Cas's neck. He tastes the air, scenting around for Cas's emotions.
There are quite a few things, the strongest being weariness and anxiety.
But there's also affection, a strong, underlying warm scent that takes Dean aback. He chalks it up to a post-heat rush of hormones.
Hormones.
That's a whole nother ball park.
Cas is, at least his primal omega is, sated. His heat is over and that brings the hormones no matter what the situation. His heart is fluttering, and there are streaks of what smells like a match just lit as Cas feels Dean's breath on his neck.
But there is no hatred, no resentment, and Dean is determined to find it. He needs to seek out what he knows is there.
He digs around in the mossy scent of apprehension and the deep ocean of uncertainty. He goes past the red, horse-scented pain in Cas's chest.
But there's no hatred anywhere.
The lit match smell of Cas's caution and mollified hope is overpowering now.
"You don't h-hate me," Dean manages.
"No," Cas confirms.
Silence spreads between them, and Dean realizes that his exhalings are timed perfectly with Cas's inhalings, and vice versa, so that their bodies move together in rhythm- how did they get to be touching again?
"Dean?" Cas asks, worry evident in his voice.
"Hmm," Dean answers.
"You can breathe," Cas suggests, and Dean does.
Then, to Dean's astonishment, Cas extends his arm behind him until his hand collides with Dean's, and he pulls it around his abdomen.
"I'm cold," Cas whimpers, and Dean notices that yes, he's cold. He seems impossibly small, his lithe body shaking. He had forgotten about the chills that affect omegas directly after their heats. And Dean, the very model of an alpha male, needs to display that he can warm him up. The tension between them (the tension flowing from Dean into Cas, rather) is forgotten as Dean cradles Cas in his arms as he rolls them onto his back, freeing up the blankets so he can pull them over top of their merged bodies. He gently rotates Cas until they're spooning again, but now they're facing the opposite direction. Dean tries to give Cas space, but the trembling omega needs the body heat more than anything. This part of the mating cycle evolved out of an omega's need for an alpha to care for them afterwards, to show that he's still there, otherwise the body will go into a horrifying sickness from the cold and expel any offspring that might have been conceived Cas nestles into Dean, and the hunter wraps his arms around the shivering ex-angel hesitantly. Cas sighs, content, his chills making him sleepy. Dean kisses his hair, closing his eyes and inhaling the breath-taking scent of Castiel. It's less violent and jarring now that he's out of heat. He smells like what snow tastes like. He smells of orange blossoms and old books. He smells like Dean's aftershave.
Dean's self-hatred is still raging within him, but he cradles Castiel nonetheless. Cas needs the heat, needs the comfort after his heat. He starts to cry again at the weight of what he's done and at the cruelty of the world to bind partners together after coitus.
But what hurts, badly, perhaps the greatest hurt of all, is that Dean is coming to realize that he loves Castiel.
He loves him, past their brotherly relationship that's crumbling like wet chalk in his hands.
He loves him beyond the after-sex affection.
He's loved him for years, it's why every departure was so painful. Every betrayal by either of them.
And he ruined it, in a severe haze of brutish instincts.
Cas makes a humming noise strangely akin to purring, and he hugs Dean's arms close.
Dean chokes back tears.
"Dean," Cas whispers, breath ghosting across Dean's arm.
Dean can't bring himself to speak, so he grunts in acknowledgement.
"You're sad," Cas says, his voice clear like a child's. Dean's chest aches.
"I hurt you," he whispers.
"It's not your fault-"
"Cas!"
"-and it isn't my fault," Cas says, and Dean's eyes open. He holds his breath, waiting for the ex-angel to continue.
"Dean, mating is what our bodies demand. Not us. Our bodies." Cas nudges Dean's shoulder with his head and Dean realizes that they are both crying.
"Castiel," Dean whispers. He's forgotten how beautiful the angel's full name sounds. Perfect for Cas.
Still, he knows that he's hurt Cas beyond hope of forgiveness.
"Listen to me," Cas says, voice firm and commanding, something it has not been in ages. Months, years, who knows?
"Dean, I'm embarrassed," Cas admits softly. Dean brushes his thumb across Cas's cold skin, remembering the overwhelming warmth it emitted earlier.
"Don't," Dean urges. "It's natural. You're a person, Cas, and this is part of person-hood." He sighs. "You didn't ask for this, and you can't help it."
There is a pregnant silence, heavy with implications.
"Apply that to yourself, too, Dean," Cas says eventually. "I was in heat. My first. You're not a monster for letting your body take control."
"I hurt you," Dean says, and in his voice Cas catches a small glimpse of the four year old boy that carried his brother out of a building. Vulnerable and ultimately, selfless. Others first, Dean last.
"Oh, Dean," Cas says, pulling the hunter's arms tighter. "Yes, it hurt, but that wasn't you. I wasn't me, and you weren't you. I was scared out of my mind," he admits with a nervous chuckle, willing Dean not to pull back.
Dean cries softly into Castiel's hair.
"Don't forgive me," he begs quietly.
"No. You want punishment? Then take it. I forgive you, although you've done me no great harm. I forgive you, and I need you to stay. I..." Cas's voice starts firm and commanding but ends up plaintive and pleading.
"I raped you," Dean says, heart thudding intrusively as he speaks the R word at last.
Cas stiffens.
"Your body claimed my body," he corrects.
"I didn't- it wasn't- Cas, what am I going to do?" Dean draws more of that orange blossom and pine and snow into his lungs.
"You and I," Cas says passionately. "We will get through it."
"I can't," Dean says, swallowing.
He's been stripped away. All of his mannerisms and cloaks that mask who he is have been cast aside, back to the primal. He is simply a creature protecting its mate from the elements. It's raw sorrow and aching love.
"We've betrayed each other more times than we can count," Cas says after a beat has passed. "I've beaten you. You've tried to kill me. I've betrayed you and you've betrayed me. But, Dean, in Purgatory, I experienced the ache of willingly leaving a loved one."
That takes a moment to sink in, that Cas still considered him a loved one at that point.
"I love you too much to let you go through that." Cas's voice quakes with emotion.
"Cas?" Dean asks.
"I've loved you so, so long, Dean Winchester," Castiel admits, and he turns his head so that he's breathing Dean in the way Dean's breathing him in.
"Me too," Dean blurts.
"So listen to me. Imagine if it hadn't been you. If I had been out when my head came on, and it was someone else."
Dean bristles, his alpha male not liking the thought of that.
"No," he tells Cas. "I won't let that happen."
"Right, but imagine it did. Imagine the guilt you would feel then, and we might have never found out about... us," Cas said. "Please, Dean, what I'm trying to say is that you scared me, but you saved me."
Guilt still gnaws at Dean.
"Promise me you won't leave," Cas says, and Dean sighs.
"I want to leave. I want you to have space from the monster who did this to you."
Cas tries to object, but Dean cuts him off.
"But I remember how it hurt when you let go of my hand, and I can't put you through that."
Cas nuzzles Dean's arm, a wordless apology.
"If, when your after-heat whatever crap wears off, you hate me, just tell me so and I'll move to- I'll move across the ocean."
"I've had feelings for you long before this," Cas says. "They won't just fade."
"But I hur-"
"No," Cas says, cutting him off sharply. "I hurt you and you hurt me and none of it matters now. You think that giving in to your body's needs- and satisfying mine- is going to hurt more than when you lost faith in me? When you gave up on me? You think it could hurt worse than me betraying you and abandoning you when you needed me?"
Dean doesn't say anything. This conversation has been beyond painful for them both.
"Forget it, Dean. I'll be sore and cold for a few days, and then it will be over."
Cas softly pulls Dean's inner wrist to his face, and he kisses the tender skin there.
"We can get through this, Dean. Please?"
"I- I'll try," Dean says, voice shaking. Snuggling with Cas is phenomenal, despite the fact that Cas is practically an ice cube. Maybe they can try it again when he's not just getting off of his heat.
They lay in silence for a while, and eventually Cas dozes off, his inner omega content to be shielded and warmed.
"I love you," Dean tells the sleeping angel, and he waits until he can finally sever himself from Castiel to sleep, and he curls up next to the him.
Castiel is a bird with broken wings, cold like snow.
Dean loves him with all of his heart, and maybe, if Cas loves him a fraction as much, he might just learn to love himself.
When they awake, Cas is back to normal temperature. They aren't huddled together anymore. They're separated, but still close, and as Cas greets him with their first real kiss, Dean feels like he could be okay eventually. Maybe it's the hormones, but he can feel home here in Cas's embrace.
Personally, I don't see this ending as happy. I think it's Castiel being victimized and Dean hating himself forever and the start of a despair-filled and dysfunctional relationship filled with bruised hearts.
Also posted on Archive Of Our Own under the pseud 'SevenOfNine'