Dean remembered his life before it all changed, remembered his boundless confidence whenever walking onto the campus of their newest school. He was fearless, no one and nothing scared him. The high school in La Crosse, Wisconsin was no different. After all, what were a few Alpha upper classmen when compared to a wendigo or a rawhead? They entered the schools in that city during the last half of the school year, sometime after winter break. Right away, he became the bad ass on campus, the new kid with the wicked smile whom all the girls went crazy for and wanted to meet, the freshman who the junior and sophomore male Alphas took into their inner circle. He hadn't entered his ranking yet, but they all seemed to know that he was destined to be an Alpha like them. He was bigger and taller, more aggressive and bolder than most the other boys in the freshman class. He was one of them.

Even at 15, Dean knew well the world he lived. It was an Alpha's world, and he couldn't wait to take his place in it. Alphas, both male and female were the ruling/military class of their society, garnering the jobs that required any type of leadership role. They were the executives in the business world, the officers of the military, and made up nearly all members of police and fire departments with a few Betas here and there.

Betas were more commonly the educated elite and the working class of their society. They were the doctors, the lawyers, the teachers as well as mechanics, plumbers, and other types of manual and skilled labor. Still, even in their world, an Alpha was usually the one in charge. That left little else for the Omegas, the lowest rank in their caste system. Omegas were expected to stay home and be the breeders of their society. Those that did work were often relegated to the service industry and unskilled labor. Then of course, there were the least reputable jobs nearly exclusively held by Omegas, strippers, escorts, and prostitutes.

Any Omega who aspired to do anything more, was often meant with scorn and opposition. Still, there were the Omegas like Dean, born bigger and stronger than the average Omega. They were able to blend into Alpha and Beta positions by hiding and masking their true Omega identities.

Back then it never even entered Dean's mind that he would soon enter their rank, that he too would go through life hiding and masking his true identity. After all, both his parents were Alphas, how could he be anything less?

It was a spring morning when he woke up feeling warm and a little nauseous, but suspected nothing really out of the ordinary. At the most, he thought that maybe he was coming down with a cold. The thought of spending the day listening to the teachers at Logan High School drone on with their bullshit, made him groan out loud. Going to school was the last thing he felt like doing, but knew how mad their father got when they missed school, even when they were actually sick. John Winchester warned them countless times that he better not get any calls from their schools' attendance clerks asking questions.

He got up from his warm bed, headed for the bathroom, and reluctantly got ready for school. After getting dressed, he walked down the hall and knocked on Sammy's bedroom door then opened it making sure his brother was up and getting ready for school. Sammy looked up from his bed sleepily.

"Get up, Sammy!" Dean ordered.

Dean moved into the kitchen and began pouring them both a bowl of cereal to go with their toast and orange juice. To his dismay, he could feel his body getting even warmer and hoped it wasn't a fever. Sammy came out of the bathroom and plopped himself at the kitchen table in front of the bowl waiting for him still in his pajamas.

"What's that smell?" Sammy asked wrinkling his nose. He sniffed in Dean's direction across the table with a grimace and said, "I think it's coming from you."

Dean clutched at his stomach looking down at his bowl of cereal queasy at the sight of the milk soaked rice puffs. He looked over to his little brother and said, "Shut up and eat your cereal. I don't smell anything."

After managing to get the toast down, Dean decided to take a quick shower to cool himself down, and just in case Sammy was right and he did need one. With the cool water beating down on him, Dean meticulously scrubbed himself, and to his relief felt the fever of his body easing off. He dressed again, and then rushed Sammy and himself out of the apartment into the direction of their respective schools.

Once they reached the corner of the street leading to the elementary school Sammy attended, Dean reached out and pulled at the hood of his brother's jacket. Sammy turned around clearly annoyed brushing Dean's hand away from him.

"What?" Sammy asked.

Dean shifted uncomfortable from one foot to the other breathing in deeply as he asked, "Where's your lunch?"

"I didn't make one. We're out of bread," Sammy answered, perplexed by his brother's peculiar behavior.

Dean felt his body warming up once again with surprising rapidity. He unzipped the top of his jacket letting the cold air breeze onto his torso and to his relief the brisk Wisconsin spring air, cooled him off.

"What's wrong?" Sammy asked.

Dean ignored him as he pulled out his wallet and offered his brother three one-dollar bills. He shoved the money into Sammy's hand and pushed him in the direction of his school, "Just get going."

As Sammy walked down the street to his school, Dean lowered his jacket below his shoulders, took in a couple of deep breaths, pulled it back on, and made his way to the high school down the street.

In his first period class, Dean squirmed in his seat uncomfortably. There was something seriously wrong with him and he didn't know what it was. The fever returned more intense than before, but he didn't necessarily feel sick or nauseous this time. Instead, there was an aching need he couldn't identify burning within him. His skin felt sensitive and prickly and he fought to keep his breathing calm and even.

Suddenly, during her lesson on the distributive property, Mrs. Boatman turned away from the chalkboard and scanned the classroom. Her nose curled slightly as she looked to each of the girls of the class focusing on Myrtle Groggins who sat in the back, always wore black, and never talked to anyone. Mrs. Boatman moved half down one of the aisles of desks and called out to the girl, "Myrtle, are you feeling well?"

"It's not me, Mrs. Boatman. It's someone else." Myrtle answered, letting her anger come across at her teacher's assumption.

Mrs. Boatman looked around the room again smelling the air trying to pinpoint the direction from where the scent came. She couldn't help but let out a surprised gasp when she looked down at Dean next to her realizing the scent came off of him. Dean stared up at her utterly dumbfounded as it finally dawned on him what was happening to him and what it was he was experiencing.

His heart sank and he closed his eyes. "How could it be true?" he asked himself. How was it even possible? Both his parents were Alphas, and male Omegas were the rarest of ranks, what were the odds he'd be born one? Time seemed to stand still as he suddenly found himself in a vacuum of soundless disbelief. He could hear nothing but his own thoughts. And one single thought beat into his head over and over again. An Omega. He was an Omega...

It would change everything. Nothing in his life would ever be the same. Could he ever become the hunter he always wanted to be? He couldn't even remember meeting an Omega hunter. They were mostly Alphas, with a few exceptions like Bobby and Ash. His stomach twisted into a knot at the thought of facing his father and the disillusionment he was sure to demonstrate upon discovering that his oldest son wouldn't grow up to be the imposing Alpha they all assumed he would be. Dean opened his eyes, still stunned and deeply disappointed in himself, to find the teacher looking down at him equally confused and surprised.

When the other students in the classroom caught on to her reaction and realized it was Dean who was going into his first heat, he heard various remarks around the classroom:

"No way!"

"Holy shit…"

"Oh, my God…"

Dean winced at the sound of his fellow students echoing his own astonishment. Normally, he would have jumped out of his seat ready to fight anyone who dared to ridicule or humiliate him, but in his present state, he could only stew in his heat induced discomfort stifling his panting breath and wiping the sweat from his brow.

"That's enough, class." Mrs. Boatman said as she stepped back from Dean's desk moving back toward the front of the class and to the corner of the classroom where her own desk was positioned. She flipped a red switch on the wall behind it and from above the chalkboard a woman's voice came out of the school's PA system:

"Office."

"Hello. I need one of the female proctors to escort a student to the nurse's office," Mrs. Boatman loudly said as she pulled out a note pad of blue paper and wrote out a pass for Dean.

The intercom was quiet then the woman's voice returned, "Understood, Mrs. Boatman. One is on the way."

"Thank you."

The teacher then turned her attention back to Dean. She looked at him with a genuine look of concern holding out the blue pass to him, "Dean. Please, gather your things. You need to go to the nurse's office."

Dean quietly nodded his head and quickly shoved his notebook and textbook into his backpack. He glared at the other students waiting for one of them to make a comment. Some of the boys smirked at him while most of the girls looked at him with sympathy. Yet, none of them said a word. He stood up with his backpack and took the pass from the teacher.

A female proctor, a Beta with short black hair entered the classroom wearing a red polo shirt and carrying a walkie-talkie. She looked past Dean to the teacher. Mrs. Boatman nodded to Dean. The proctor stepped back in surprise as the teacher moved around her desk. She took the pass from Dean, handed it to the proctor, hesitated then gently patted Dean on his back.

The proctor looked at Dean with her brows knitted and said, "Let's go."

Dean slung his backpack over his shoulder and followed her out of the classroom without looking back. As they walked down the empty hall, the proctor lifted the walkie-talkie to her mouth and said, "There might be a problem. The Omega is male."

"Did you say male?" came a voice at the other end.

The proctor read the blue slip of paper in her hand and reported, "That's right. Dean Winchester, 9th grade."

When the proctor and Dean got to the office, the secretaries and a few members of the staff immediately turned to look at Dean. He could hear a few of them whispering to one another until the principal came out of her office. The room fell silent and everyone went back to what they were doing. Dean had seen the principal on campus before walking around it always wearing a skirt with a matching blazer. She looked young and wore her blonde her in a twist at the back of her head to give her an air of respectability and maturity. In her heels, she stood taller than Dean and moved close to him to loom over him, her Alpha nature taking over her in an attempt to intimidate him.

Like the other boys in the school Dean had joked about how attractive she was and how he'd like to knot her in mating. Now, he felt nothing for her but disdain as she looked down at him with an expression of clear disapproval on her face. Alpha females had little interest or respect for Omega males, no matter how rare they were. Physiologically, it was possible for an Omega male to mate with a female Alpha, however socially it was unheard of. A male Omega's scent had no affect on a female Alpha. She was usually drawn to the scent of her Alpha counterpart.

"Winchester, right?" She asked with an of air impatience holding her hands behind her back.

Dean fought against his instincts to lower his head in front of her. Instead he looked directly up at her and answered, "Yes. Dean Winchester."

"Your family never turned in the emergency contacts card. Is either your mother or father at home? I take it one of them is an Omega as well."

"My mother died awhile ago, but she was an Alpha, like my dad," Dean answered meeting her eyes in a defiant manner.

"Do you know your father's work number? He needs to come pick you up," she said to him.

"He doesn't have one. He travels a lot for his job. He's sort of a salesman," Dean normally didn't mind telling lies that sounded like lies to adults, but on this day, he did, especially under the scrutiny of the principal. She looked at him with skepticism.

"Sort of?" The principal breathed in impatiently, "Well, do you have any family nearby? Someone who can pick you up?"

"No, not really, only our uncle, but he lives in Sioux Falls," Dean answered uncomfortably wishing they would just let him leave alone and let him go home on his own. It was times like these that he cursed his father and the way they lived. It was bad enough feeling like shit, but to face that he was an Omega in the middle of a busy office with a bunch of indifferent strangers acting like assholes tore away at him.

"Sioux Falls!" The secretary from behind the counter repeated as she stood up from her desk and moved closer to them, "Principal Hanson, that's over four hours away. We could call CPS."

The principal checked her watch then looked Dean up and down before turning back to the secretary, "Not yet. We'll give the uncle a chance. If he leaves now, he can be here by the end of the school day."

She turned back to Dean and asked, "Do you have your uncle's phone number?"

Dean nodded.

"Give it to Ms. Schmidt."

Dean slipped off his backpack and took out his binder with the local phone numbers for emergency contacts in case anything ever happened to him or Sammy. Their father made him make one every time they moved into a new town, and Uncle Bobby's name was always at the top. Dean handed the list to the waiting secretary.

"Get on it, Ms. Schmidt!" the principal ordered.

"Yes, Miss,"

The principal looked around the office and demanded, "Where's the nurse?"

"Right here, Principal Hanson."

The nurse stepped forward holding a paper cup filled with water and something in her other hand. She looked up at the blond woman and asked, "Where should we put him while we wait for his family?"

Principal Hanson raised a brow glancing from the nurse back to Dean then answered, "Put him with the other one. Omegas are no threat to each other."

The nurse turned to Dean and kindly smiled, "Follow me, Dean."

Dean nodded and followed her as she led him back down the hall to a small room next to her office. The door to the room had a rectangular window with mesh wiring inside the glass on the top portion of the door. She opened the door for Dean. Inside the room were two medical beds that looked more like gurneys pushed against either wall with a bathroom at the end of the room and a narrow space to walk between the beds.

Sitting on one of the beds was another freshman Dean recognized from his fourth period PE class. She had been crying and her eyes widened when she realized the reason Dean too was being escorted into the room by the school nurse.

"Dean, have a seat," the nurse indicated the free bed across from the girl.

He reluctantly sat down dropping his backpack next to him.

"Here's a couple of suppressants," the nurse offered and Dean quickly took them along with the small paper cup of water. She waited for him to swallow them down then took the cup from him and explained, "Once a heat has started, the suppressants won't stop it, but the symptoms will ease off a bit. You won't feel so uncomfortable."

Dean wanted to thank the nurse for her kindness, but couldn't. He simply nodded in the other direction hoping the humiliation of the whole situation would be over soon. The nurse moved away from him and left the two Omegas in the small white room by themselves.

The girl on the other bed tried to make eye contact with him, but Dean peered at nothing in particular in one corner of the room.

"We have PE together, don't we?" She turned her head to get him to look at her. Dean ignored her, not knowing what to say. Not really knowing if he could say anything. He just wanted to be left alone in his misery. When he didn't answer, she continued, "I don't want to be an Omega either. I wanted to go to college. It's so hard for an Omega to go to college and have a real life. I just want to be normal…"

Dean had an urge to tell her to shut up, but he wasn't that cruel. However, he had his own concerns and disappointments to mull over. He had never been "normal," but now even his unconventional life would be even more difficult. Then of course there was still his father he had to deal with.

The girl sighed heavily, but before she could say anything else, the nurse reappeared at the door. She stepped into the room and announced, "Rhonda, your mother's here."

The girl grabbed her backpack jumping off the bed and making her way out the door. With a quick turn back to Dean she said, "Good luck."

Soon after the girl and the nurse disappeared, Dean saw the vice-principal step into view beyond the window, Principal Hanson next to him. He too was an Alpha, and like the principal fairly young and moved about the campus in complete control of the school. He looked directly at Dean with a curious expression causing Dean to turn away from the brown haired man.

The man said to the principal, "A male Omega, I've never seen one."

Dean held in his anger sickened that he could clearly hear them on the other side of the door, and the fact that neither of them cared that he could. He wanted to jump off the bed and throw his backpack at the window and curse at them. However, he knew he was trapped in the room until Bobby came. He knew all too well what CPS was what kind of trouble it could bring to a hunter and his family, so he continued to seethe feeling more and more uncomfortable despite the suppressants.

The principal agreed, "They are pretty rare. I knew one in college, my freshman year. He didn't last long. At the beginning of our sophomore year, he went to a rush party where someone slipped him a trigger. He disappeared. We thought he'd left the party early, but he was still missing the next morning. No one heard from him for days. Turns out he was in the basement of the frat house. He was there for over a week. What those frat boys did to him… "

"Over a week?" The VP asked.

"Once the pill kicked in, the boy's heat lasted seven days instead of the usual three. He was in a triggered heat. I'm sure you've seen a video or two. A triggered Omega only wants one thing; will barely stop to eat and sleep. He never tried to leave or stop them, just serviced the frat boys until his heat subsided. Of course once it did, he went right to the police with accusations of rape."

Dean could hear the VP ask, "What happened to them?"

"The frat boys? Nothing, thankfully."

The VP said nothing.

The principal quickly explained her remark, "My brother was in the fraternity. They were all charged with kidnapping and multiple counts of rape. But, they couldn't prove who gave the boy the trigger. The Omega claimed it was slipped in his drink at the party, but the frat boys said he took it himself when he got to the party. Either way, the frat boys were only following their instincts. It was an Alpha fraternity, after all. What would you expect them to do?

"What the hell was the Omega even doing there?" The vice-principal sounded disgusted then continued, "If his parents wanted him to go to college, they should have sent him to an all Omega one. They do exist."

"At any rate, we contacted the uncle in Sioux Falls. He'll be here before three," the principal said.

"What if he's not?" the vice-principal asked.

"Then we wait. There's no way in hell I'm sending this boy home reeking the way he does. All we need is to have an Omega student of ours gang raped by a pack of his Alpha classmates on his way home from school."

Dean kept from looking at her, but could imagine the look on the woman's face. The overall contempt she harbored for him and his rank was audible in her voice and intonation, in the things she said and the way she said them.

The vice-principal agreed not with derision, but with something altogether different, "I see your point. I can't smell him through the door, but he left a lingering scent in the office… that was very…"

"…intense?" The principal attempted to finish his thought

The vice-principal hesitated then stated, "…intoxicating."

Dean quickly looked at the man, caught the man's leer before he turned away from him to look innocently back at the principal. Something deep inside him stirred. Shocked by his own reaction to the vice-principal's stare, Dean cringed and faced the opposite wall. The heat emanating from his body intensified and for the first time he understood the aching need awakening deep within him. He shifted uncomfortably on the firm medical bed.

The principal continued, "Our only other option was to call Child Protective Services, but the uncle assured us that wasn't necessary and that he'd be here as soon as could."

"Well. We'll see," the VP said doubtfully. They were quiet for a moment longer. Dean turned back to the window to see the Alpha vice-principal peering back at him. The man slowly looked away from him as he disappeared from view to follow the principal down the hall.

Although they were finally gone, Dean's discomfort remained. His body continued to surge with the heat coursing through him, inflamed by the lingering gaze the Alpha gave him. Never did he think that he would be attracted to another man, but Dean found himself desiring the brown haired vice-principal in a manner that truly disturbed him. He shook his head, pushing the images of the man taking him there in the small room, of the Alpha forcing him into position tearing away at his clothing and mounting him.

To his horror, he found himself getting sexually aroused and not just with the familiar erection since his earlier adolescence. Now he found an unfamiliar wet releasing from his backside to seep through his jeans and onto the thin paper sheet spread over the bed. Humiliated and disgusted with himself, Dean gathered his jacket into a ball and brought it up to his mouth to muffle an agonized wail.

When the nurse returned with his lunch, she noticed the dampened paper sheet under him. He couldn't bring himself to face her and stared off into the corner. She crouched down to face him and tenderly placed her hand on his knee. He stiffened at her touch tightly shutting his eyes in a vain attempt to hold back his tears.

"Dean, it's okay," she calmly said. "It's a natural thing your body is experiencing. You have nothing to be ashamed of."

He couldn't respond to her or even accept what she said. She left and returned a few minutes later with a pair of clean, but used sweat pants and a small hand towel. After she left the room he went into the small bathroom to clean himself and change into the sweats.

The nurse returned sometime later to retrieve his empty lunch tray and to leave a stack of medical pamphlets to help explain what was happening to his body. This time she made no attempt to console him. Dean picked up the pamphlet on top of the stack entitled, Living Your Life as an Omega that depicted two teenage girls doing various activities on the cover of it. He forcefully shoved the pamphlets into his backpack with a, "Fuck you."

Finally, after hours of waiting in the small room, the principal returned and opened the door. She breathed in deeply with a stare and flatly stated, "Your uncle is here."

Dean picked up his backpack and reluctantly followed her back into the area of the main office. Uncle Bobby stood beyond the counter waiting for him. The nurse was talking to him, handing him the same set of pamphlets she'd given him. Bobby nodded at her with a great look of concern. Dean knew the man long enough to know that the concern wasn't for Dean or the fact that he was an Omega but in how John Winchester might take it once he found out.

"…heat ends, you or his father should take him to the family doctor. Birth control is something you need to consider, as well as starting him on suppressants as soon as possible. I have to let you know, Mr. Singer, male Omegas are at even greater risk of unsolicited sexual advances than their female counterparts. Their pheromones are unique and most male Alphas find them very compelling. Your nephew needs to be protected."

Bobby nodded, noticed Dean, then turned back to the nurse and said, "Thanks. I'll make sure his old man gets him the help he needs."

Dean walked out from behind the counter of the office to stand next to Bobby. The older man gave him a weakened smile and put an arm around his shoulder with a firm pat. He looked down at Dean and said, "Don't worry everything will be fine. I've already picked up Sam, let's get you two home."

When they got back to their apartment, Bobby had him take a shower then ushered him into his bedroom. Bobby must have talked to Sammy while on the drive to pick him up at the high school because he made no attempts to ask any questions or explanations for what was happening to his brother. He only glanced over to Dean once in a while with confusion.

Dean secluded himself in his bedroom for the next three days suffering through his heat, surprised at the wax and wane of its intensity. He reclined in his bed, in his darkened room unable to sleep. The discomfort of his hot prickly skin and his sweat soaked sheets were too much to bear. Worse than any of that were the thoughts that plagued his mind, and the desperate need he felt to be satiated. To have himself knotted by an Alpha, any Alpha. His thoughts returned over and over again to the Alpha vice-principal and his prurient leer. In the middle of the night, he wondered where the man lived, how difficult it might be to find him.

When his thoughts weren't filled with the vice-principal roughly taking him and knotting him, Dean thought reluctantly of his father and how he would react to what was happening to him. His father's reaction was unpredictable. There were a variety of ways he could react, anger and disappointment of course were the most likely.

When John Winchester finally did come home, it was the last day Dean's heat, late on a Friday night. Dean rested quietly in his bedroom, the heat of his body nearly completely gone, the powerful longing ebbing away. He heard the front door of their apartment open and close then the booming sound of his father's voice.

"Bobby? What the hell are you doing here?"

Silence

"Is something wrong with one of the boys?"

He could hear Bobby answering his father, but couldn't discern any of his words. Unlike his father, Bobby worried whether or not his voice carried off into the boys' bedrooms, in particular that of Dean's.

"What…" Even through the closed door, Dean heard the desperation in his father's voice.

More silence.

"No… no… That can't be right. How? It doesn't make any sense. He's not built like one of them. He's not like…"

A longer silence.

"Goddammit, Bobby, I know that."

After a few minutes of continued silence, there was a knock on his door as it slowly opened. John Winchester stepped halfway into the room and held onto the door. Dean felt his chest tighten and a small part him break when he saw the expression on his father's face. His father appeared detached and cold, as he if didn't know Dean anymore.

John looked at Dean sitting up in his bed and asked, "You ok, son?"

Dean slowly nodded, wanting to say something slightly opening his mouth, but he could think of nothing to say. So he remained silent.

John nodded his head, waited a moment longer, almost said something else, but didn't. He averted his eyes from his son, his brows furrowed either in concern or frustration, Dean wasn't sure. Finally, quietly he stepped out of the room keeping his eyes on the floor.

The next morning Dean was greeted with a plastic shopping bag placed at the foot of his bed. It was filled with the powerful deodorant soap, heat suppressants, and a body spray designed to mask the scent of Omegas. Over the course of the weekend, Dean could see his father make every attempt to act as if nothing were different, as if their lives could simply continue as they always had. He talked about the hunt for a family of ghouls that kept him away for two weeks, and the way he managed to flush them out of their hiding spot in the remote northernmost reaches of Wisconsin. However, something was different, Dean sensed it.

Monday morning, he missed a fourth day of school as he and his father made the two and half hour drive to the Planned Parenthood in Madison. It was during the drive with the two of them alone in the car that Dean realized how different things were. Out of the blue on the long drive his father turned to him and said, "It's not your fault, Dean."

Dean couldn't help but notice over the next few weeks how his father avoided looking at him and refrained from engaging him in conversations except to remind him of his responsibilities to watch over Sammy or to make sure he took his suppressants, his birth control, and to maintain his bathing ritual. On some deep dark level, there was the feeling that his father did think he was at fault for what he turned out to be.

The last two months of school were a nightmare. The week immediately following the heat was filled with a daily fistfight, until the Alphas of his high school learned to back off. But they didn't back off entirely, more than once an Alpha or two brushed up against him in halls rubbing themselves into his buttocks, pushing him in the halls during passing period, or calling out, "Omega whore."

Worse than any of that was coming home to face the distance that continued to grow between him and his father.