Chapter Summary: Dean Singer (formerly Winchester) is known for a few things, being a male alpha whom doesn't care about his secondary gender or finding his soul mate. He has an unrivaled knowledge of classic cars and '70s-'80s rock music, and an exemplary service as an ex-marine. However, his carefully constructed life post-military begins to unravel when he realizes his feelings for his alpha best friend might not be quite as platonic as he had thought and that his friend might just be concealing a secret that could change everything about their friendship.
Contains Adult themes.
Author's Note: 1) I'm not getting into the finer details, but I just decided to start doing a series of unrelated Denny one-shots but instead of them being posted as separate stories like I'd been doing, I'm going to start collecting the new ones here. 2) The title of this collection actually comes from my favorite mobile game. 3) The name of this particular one-shot comes from the Janet Devlin song Saint of the Sinners.
Disclaimer: Supernatural and all characters wherein belong to their respective owners, I do not own them nor have I ever claimed to, I'm just playing around with them.
Other: 1) A huge thank you to my wonderful beta from the Stanford Daze series, The Lost Book of Chuck, Vampire Rescue Mission, Creole Pie, Lost Bones, Hellbound, Hidden Within, Pocket Sized Angel, Another Number, and whose now acting as my beta for this story, vrskaandrea. 2) Also a huge thank you to my - who I'm referring to as - secondary beta, Wildfire's Flame for agreeing to jump onboard. 3) Any remaining errors are solely my own.
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Prologue
In the world in which Dean Singer lives, most people fall into one of three categories: An Alpha, a Beta, or an Omega. Put simply an Alpha is typically dominant in the relationship and social settings while an Omega feels freer to make their own choices but is more submissive. A Beta is generally neutral but can be dominant to an Omega and submissive to an Alpha. In this world, these terms are also what some call secondary genders.
Anyone can be anything regardless of gender. A male Omega could become pregnant but a male Beta or Alpha could not, female Omega's and Beta's could also become pregnant but a female Alpha could not. There are ruts and heats involved as well as genital knotting and growling/snarling often occur. Ruts can typically occur once a month in a healthy person but can also be less or more depending on the person's history. Alpha's can also be very protective and aggressive especially if threatened.
A Beta does not have as strong a sense of smell as an Alpha or even an Omega but are often considered buffers between Alpha's and Omegas. They are not as aggressive as an Alpha but neither are they as submissive as an Omega. They are considered more stable and able to calm situations or break up any fights that may happen. They are still quite willing and capable of having sex with anyone.
Finally there is the Omega. They tend to be smaller but not always than their counterparts. They tend to be the ones whom also get pregnant the most. They have heats instead of ruts but these again occur approximately once a month for a healthy person but can fluctuate depending on circumstances. Omegas usually have the biological need to be sated, to feel claimed while Alpha's want to do the claiming or "knotting." Beta's will do what they feel comfortable with their partners. There can be nesting involved with Omega's as well as scenting and biting.
Saint of the Sinners - Part 1
Dean laid half under Baby as the oil slowly dripped into the pan. He always timed Baby's yearly oil change with the anniversary of his brother Sam's death, because it was simply the only thing he could function well enough to do that day. Being an ex-marine, it was one of the few things he hated. He didn't always have time to shutdown and stop functioning but even then, it wasn't something he could keep from happening either.
Dean had liked his commanding officer Cain but a lot of the other officers who served under the same guy hadn't liked him. They believed the rumors that Cain had murdered his own brother in cold blood. They never bothered to learn the truth. Cain had accidentally shot and killed his little brother Abel when Cain had still been too young to realize guns could kill someone. He had believed guns only had water in them and none were actually lethal. He hadn't known and that made the nightmares even more problematic. Dean had been the only one in a long time to help Cain through one of his 'bad' days and Cain in turn watched out for Dean's own nightmares. He helped Dean to learn coping mechanisms to better deal with his trauma and to keep others at a distance.
Cain's parents Adam and Eve had more or less tossed him to the wolves after Abel's death. He ended up getting shuffled around from foster home to foster home until he was seventeen when he was taken in by a friendly couple, Joseph and Anna who had a daughter named Colette. They hadn't liked it when Cain and Colette ended up involved but they hadn't kicked him back to the agency like he'd honestly expected. Instead they had watched Cain grow into a man; a man who chose to go into the military to serve his country the best way he knew how.
Cain had been a hard man. He was disciplined and rigid. He had to be that way growing up or he wouldn't have survived being bounced from one foster home to the next. He didn't make decisions hastily and was not into any downtime. He had learned at an early age that hard work was the only way to keep from flying apart. He had to be tough. He had to be stern. He had to protect those under his command. He knew what war could do if you weren't prepared. He knew death would follow swiftly and without mercy. He was toughest on those he wanted to survive and he wanted his whole regiment to survive.
After Cain's first deployment ended, he ended up marrying Colette. In the ten years Dean knew Cain he'd been to all but one of Cain and Colette's anniversary parties and that was only because his deployment had actually been different than Cain's for once. By that point, Cain was no longer technically Dean's commanding officer. Dean had been promoted to Commander and while Cain still held a higher rank, Dean no longer directly answered to Cain…so, that ended up being one of the rare occurrences where they weren't deployed together.
Dean would never forget the blood spatter and bits of bone and skin hitting him when Cain was shot in the head on their last deployment together. Dean never realized the animalistic screech he heard was coming from him as he caught Cain's body when the man fell backwards, his normally bright blue eyes forever closed. The pain Dean felt as Cain's blood coated his arms made him freeze like he had when Sam had died all those years ago.
If it hadn't been for Castiel Shurley (Cas), a fellow marine and a childhood friend, he would've gotten himself killed that day as well. Cas had saved him and pulled him out of the crossfire when all Dean could do was stare vacantly. He would later learn he screamed for both Cain and Sam before Cas had been able to get him to focus on the gun in his hand and the enemy that was still shooting at them. He still couldn't remember all the details that happened after Cain went down. The doctors said it was post traumatic stress but Dean couldn't care less what it was called. All he knew was that his commanding officer and one of his best friends was dead.
Dean tried to stay in touch with Cain's wife Collette when he was sent home on medical leave. Tried being the operative word as he quickly found himself drifting away from her due to the amount of pain and guilt even unfounded that he felt each time he was near her. Dean knew Colette didn't blame him for Cain's death but this was the final straw that broke the back of the proverbial camel. His mind became full of one repeating reframe; he was poison and everyone he was close too would die.
Cain hadn't realized it when he first met Dean but most of his regiment would fall the same day he did; but not Dean. Dean would endure, not the same as he was before he went in but still he would be alive, unlike his brother. Dean shook his head. He didn't want to go down that particular road right now but felt the memory take shape regardless.
Dean had watched as John, his father, had killed Sam in a drunken rage. Sam had only been eleven years old while Dean had just turned fifteen a few months prior. Dean grit his teeth as the smells and sounds of that night filtered thru his consciousness as he finished up the oil change on the only good thing that came from being his father's son. They had been in yet another ramshackle motel room and Dean had left Sam alone for a few minutes. Their father hadn't been there when Dean stepped out to grab a couple of pops from the soda machine in the lobby of the motel. He had only been gone for minutes, just a few lousy minutes. But he supposed that was all it took.
The guilt rolled thru Dean just like it had the first time he realized that Sam was gone. Pushing up from the ground, he leaned against the black shiny car before shutting the hood and wiping his hands on a red rag that he laid nearby. He stumbled slightly against the car as he remembered stepping back inside that ratty motel to find Sam pinned against the wall by their drunken father. Dean had never seen the man so incensed and so not like his father but it didn't even register. The only thing that registered was Sam was being hurt.
Dropping the pop cans, he had rushed John and been thrown across the room and into the wall to the left of his brother. He had felt John's hand tighten on his throat when Sam had tried to step in. John had simply shrugged Sam off and when Sam hit the edge of the bed frame with his forehead, he never got back up like Dean did. Dean completely lost his mind when he realized Sam was dead. He had damn near killed John when the police finally arrived. Some concerned citizen had heard the screams and had called the police but Dean was so far gone they had to sedate him to get him to leave Sam's dead body.
Dean swallowed hard as he centered himself with the feel of the hard lines of the black '67 Impala under his hand. He hated that he always found himself remembering that bleak awful day and then wondering what could have been done different to save Sam.
Sighing, Dean licked his lips unconsciously as he picked up the beer he had sat on the workbench. He had long quit referring to John as his father even several years prior to the incident with Sam but never did he think John would actually hurt one of them. After all, he was the only parent they had left. Dean and Sam's mother Mary had died in a house fire when Dean was only four years old and Sam was still in diapers. Scrubbing a hand down his face, he took a long pull of the alcohol, trying to numb himself to the pain of his life and to forget the horror of his memories.
The night Sam died, Dean ended up driving his way to his 'uncle' Bobby's as soon as he was conscious enough to do so. Bobby had always been more of a father to both Dean and Sam than John since Dean could remember. The fact that Dean was fifteen and didn't even have his drivers permit didn't mean he hadn't known how to drive the Impala since he was old enough to see out the front windshield without needing a booster seat. Bobby took one look at the bloodied and bruised teenager and without a word ushered the physically and mentally exhausted teen into his home. Dean shook and his words wouldn't come when Bobby asked where Sam was at. All he could do was stare off as tears slid down his face and Bobby instantly knew what was wrong with the broken soul in front of him.
Dean was sixteen before all the paperwork had been filed and Bobby had been able to legally take custody of him. He even asked if he could have his last name changed to match Bobby's and the older man agreed. Dean hadn't minded the idea of calling Bobby dad, but Bobby didn't like it, so he didn't. A few months later, Bobby got a phone call from someone claiming to know John and needing to get in touch with him. When Bobby refused to tell her where John was at, the woman on the other end of the phone indicated she was a close friend of Kate Milligan, Adam's mother. Adam was John's 5-year-old son. To say that Dean was confused and hurt and angry were understatements and Dean refused to let Bobby tell the woman, Jasmine about him. It was bad enough knowing the woman was calling because the kids' mother had died from a heart attack.
Dean only relented - years later - when he heard Adam had been in an accident while driving to school. He had been at Collette's on one of his rare visits when Bobby's call came in that Adam had been hospitalized due to a car wreck. A drunken driver had swung left of center and pushed into Adam's car, totaling it. Adam was lucky to have survived.
Collette had helped Dean get to his half brother and she helped Dean realize he was being an ass for not telling Adam about himself. This led to the two of them starting off rocky, but by the time Adam graduated - an event Dean missed due to being deployed again, but one Cas had been able to record for Dean - they'd been on more brotherly terms. Dean had also sent Cas with a gift for Adam which was enough money to put Adam through college. What Dean didn't know until later was that Cas had added enough to cover Adam's college expenses as well.
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Dean and Cas would often come visit with Adam when they were stateside. On one of these occasions when Adam was on fall break Adam had reluctantly and very embarrassedly admitted to the two alphas he was an omega and was dating Cas' older brother, Michael. The first part of Adam's confession hadn't surprised Dean since he'd suspected as much since the first time he met Adam. However, the latter statement had Cas wide-eyed since while Michael was an alpha, he'd never expressed interest in a male of any secondary gender. It made family dinner nights interesting to say the least.
Bobby ended up dying the same year as Cain did and Dean lost the only man he considered his father right after losing his main mentor in Cain. It didn't take long for Dean to file the paperwork to take a temporary leave of absence to deal with Bobby's death. Nobody even questioned when Cas went with him, even if they didn't actually believe Cas' excuse of his son, Jack being ill. The fact that only Cas and Dean were really aware of the son Cas had with his mate Meg before her tragic death in the delivery room eleven years ago didn't help with the viability of that statement. Jack was born the year before Dean's son Ben so Jack and Ben were really close.
Dean and Cas had about jumped out of their skin when they learned their mutual - more Dean's than Cas' though - friend Benny had also followed them on shore leave. What his excuse was to be able to leave the regiment, they had no clue and Benny never told them what he said to his superior officers to be granted permission to leave. To be honest, Dean never bothered to ask either. He was simply grateful to have Cas and Benny with him when he had to deal with funeral arrangements and with calling his ex fiancée, Lisa Braeden.
Lisa Braeden was the mother of Dean's then ten year old son. Telling Ben and Lisa about Bobby's death was another hard thing Dean had to do in a long list of hard things in his life. He and Lisa were not really on speaking terms but he wanted his son Ben to be able to say goodbye to Bobby. He also had to get in touch with his younger daughter Emma whom was only seven years old and had been staying with Gabriel - Cas' older brother and Michael's younger brother. Dean knew that Ben was going to be devastated because while Bobby was 'a grumpy old man', he genuinely cared about the boy and Ben knew that. He wasn't to sure about how Emma was going to react simply due to the fact that she didn't have much to do with Bobby.
Ben and Emma both have separate omega mothers but due to some bizarre laws concerning unmated parents, the alpha could take the child if they so desired. Dean didn't like the law but he didn't argue over it considering the fight he had to go through to prove Ben was his son. Lisa had not been happy when Dean had taken custody of Ben but Lisa still got a significant amount of time with Ben - thanks in large part to Gabriel - so, she tended to try to keep her animosity towards Dean to herself. He had also endured being drugged and raped by Emma's mother whom stole his sperm and once Emma was born started sending him orders for child support…yeah, no. That wasn't going to happen. His answer was to take custody of her from her uncaring mother, Lydia. Emma had only been seven years old when Bobby died.
Ben and Emma spent a significant amount of time with their 'uncle' Gabriel when Dean was deployed as did Cas' son Jack. Gabriel would often help out with Bobby's salvage yard and hence the three children would frequently be running thru the salvage yard with Gabriel yelling at them to be careful of rusted metal. Dean knew all three children deserved to say their own goodbyes to Dean's father and knew he had to make sure they were present. Cas had already said he would bring Jack to the funeral but to get Lisa to agree to bring Ben as well may be difficult.
Ben spent the majority of the funeral clinging to Dean while Emma gravitated more toward Adam. What Adam was doing at the funeral, Dean didn't know since he didn't think Adam had ever met Bobby. It wasn't until after the funeral that Dean cracked up laughing watching the glaring contest Emma was in with Michael.
Benny had been the one to find Dean late that night, drunk at Bobby's grave. He ended up driving Dean home before making the mistake of depositing Dean in bed. Dean latched onto Benny and wouldn't let go, giving Benny no other choice than to lay down next to him. Dean would fall asleep - pass out - scenting Benny.
After Dean's leave was over, he, Cas, and Benny reported back. Dean would begin pulling strings to make sure Cas and Benny would always be deployed with him. It didn't always work, but it did most of the time.
Dean having been a commanding office, a CO since before Cain had died…he too knows the weight that comes with losing men under his command. But one late night on a roadside in Afghanistan, he was on a routine patrol with Cas and Benny and a few others. He was alert and on edge despite his encampment's belief their tour was going to be easy. Something just kept niggling at the back of Dean's mind as they went about their evening and when Cas then Benny turned up missing during the night Dean had gone looking for them only to end up captured by insurgents.
Dean had left word with another commanding officer, Crowley that he had missing members of his regiment and had gone against orders to go looking for them. When Cain had been shot and Dean had been the one to catch him, this had been so much worse than that, leaving Dean nearly catatonic.
The enemy figured out fairly quickly that torturing Dean wouldn't get them anything they wanted. He was too loyal, too honest to fold due to being tortured. He was also extremely stubborn and was willing to sacrifice himself if it meant his men could survive. So, the enemy tried an alternative method, they threatened to shoot Castiel. Dean knew he had a fairly good poker face but when Cas was dragged up in front of him as he hung helpless from the beam of some random crumbling building in the middle of nowhere, Dean knew he was going to lose it.
Cas was just a few months older than Dean but he was the one friend that knew Dean since he was a child. He had known Sam. He knew how Dean had felt guilty over Sam's death and how Dean had felt he failed Cain. He meant the world to Dean but Dean was still his CO and knew that no matter what he said, Cas was a dead man. So Dean met Cas' soulful blue eyes that were so much like Cain's that Dean felt the raw pain shudder thru him as his own green eyes met and held Cas'.
Dean could see the acceptance and the betrayal in those brilliant eyes when he refused flat out to tell the enemy anything because they were going to kill Cas regardless. There was nothing Dean could do but that didn't mean he didn't struggle when he saw the tallest of the men raise his gun and pull the trigger. Dean froze as he felt Cas' warm blood and brain matter splatter across his face and chest. He had dislocated his left shoulder in an attempt to get free and the shackles had dug ugly grooves into his wrists, but Dean didn't even flinch until he'd been tossed back in the room with Benny. There out of sight of the ugly men that had been terrorizing him, he started to break apart. But Dean knew the worse was yet to come.
Dean clenched his jaw briefly before brushing sweat soaked bangs from his face and felt the empty beer bottle slip from his fingers. Somehow he knew he was falling into the mother of all flashbacks from Hell but he couldn't stop himself, not even with the familiarity of Baby under his fingertips. Falling to the concrete floor beside Baby, Dean curled in around himself as the memories continued to invade every aspect of his senses. He flinched as he remembered the look that Benny gave him as he broke.
Maybe what had always made Dean like Benny so much was that without scent blockers, despite the fact that Benny was an alpha, he smelled so much like an omega…and Benny's cherry pie scent was an absolutely calming effect. Even if in this case, Benny was holding Dean while he cried and screamed bloody murder and didn't make a lot of sense. When they threatened to not only shoot Benny but to do things to him that were worse than anything they'd done to Dean…Dean felt completely dead inside. It was as if he had already died and all hope of surviving had been extinguished.
Benny had been somewhat disappointed in Dean for giving up, but he also knew what Dean had been through. Losing his mother at such an early age, losing his brother, what happened with John, his mentor Cain, his adoptive father Bobby, and then his childhood best friend? He wasn't actually sure he would've had a much different reaction than Dean did.
Dean wasn't going to bury another of his friends, he was already going to have to bury Cas, so he'd offered to give them whatever they wanted…even if he did end up getting branded as a traitor and thrown into military prison. But then they didn't ask him a single question. They just sliced, maimed, cut, and bled him into submission.
Benny had been in the same room as Dean when they'd taken Dean's right arm piece by piece but he honestly didn't know whether Dean's screams were really caused by what was being done to him or the fact that the sick bastards had left Cas' body in the room and were…defiling Cas' body. Benny wasn't sure when they'd switched from Dean's arm to his right leg or when he - Benny - had quit screaming, but all he could think was why were they hurting Dean when he'd offered to give them the information they wanted?
Benny wasn't sure how long he and Dean were held prisoner before they were rescued. Time sort of blended together as they both endured and watched as several other members of the regiment were torn apart in front of them. At one point, Benny did get one of the enemy agents to answer him when he asked why they continued to torture Dean and himself and not just kill them already. He was told "because we can and it's fun." Benny had simply hung his head at the response and darkness threatened to overtake him as well as Dean whom had long ago quit screaming due to being beat unconscious.
Dean received a medical discharge because there was legitimately no way he could continue his career as a marine when his right arm was missing from just below the elbow and his right leg was missing from just below the knee. Benny technically received a mental health discharge because he was borderline catatonic despite having his own career ending injury.
Dean and Benny both were at Cas' funeral. Dean was still adjusting to his leg prosthetic while refusing to wear his arm prosthetic - a fact that would never change. While Benny was recovering from his own injury - the loss of his right eye - and was slowly recovering mentally, he still hadn't recovered his voice he lost while being held captive.
Dean didn't remember all that much about what was said at Cas' funeral - he'd actually suppressed a lot of it - beyond part of the eulogy he gave. 'Cas was my best friend. He was one of the few people I know today that knew Sammy. He was also the person I gave up my virginity too; we realized rather quickly that alphas don't mix like that, though.' He also remembered Gabriel cracking up laughing at that, Adam pulling the back of his jacket up over his head before making the embarrassed declaration 'I have no brother!' and Michael just buried his face in his hands while his face turned a nice cherry red.
Dean would end up re-opening Bobby's auto shop and salvage yard with Benny once he was physically capable of doing so. Dean spent significant time in a VA hospital and while Benny was cleared to leave much sooner than Dean, he'd end up screaming bloody murder if anybody tried to separate him from Dean. Dean wasn't to sure what treatments Benny went through but knew it involved the removal of Benny's right eye due to the extensive damage that had been done to it. When Dean was finally released from the hospital after intensive surgeries, he ended up staying at Gabriel's - and that had been it's own nightmare due to Gabriel's prank-like nature - because Bobby's just wasn't an option until Dean could get up stairs, again.
Gabriel accepted Benny's presence as just part of the way things were. Even though, Benny's loss of depth perception did get some laughs out of Gabriel since it caused Benny to be clumsy until he adjusted. Neither Gabriel nor Michael ended up blaming Dean for Cas' death. They were hurt at the loss of their baby brother, but they knew Dean well enough to know if he could have done something - anything - to save Cas that he would've. Dean had actually wanted to stay with Adam but with Adam and Michael having a small handful of cats Dean didn't want to tempt his allergies. Dean would get Ben and Emma back from Gabriel while also organizing things so that Jack could still visit them at the Salvage yard.
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Author's Note: I swear, you can ask Andrea…this was supposed to be a one-shot! It has now been bumped up to three chapters.
Reviews/Comments/Constructive Criticism welcome!
Flames will be used to roast marshmallows and then promptly deleted!