Chapter 6

It takes a bar full of obnoxious alphas to have Dean remember. He'd been feeling good but he wanted a beer and a round of pool so he'd dragged Sam out to a bar. He's honestly kind of forgotten about it, not like Sam acts like his alpha, so the way the alphas at the bar react as soon as they notice his claiming mark when he takes his coat off, well, it kind of blindsides Dean. They go from joking with him and competitive over pool to ticked off about being lied to and associating with someone "beneath them" in an instant.

Wrapped up in his own little bubble with Sam, Dean has honestly been starting to forget about the whole alpha/omega division. People treat him with the respect his alpha upbringing teaches him to expect, his omega instincts have mostly shut up now that he's bonded and his "alpha" – Dean's so totally convinced Sam's not an alpha he's been considering what a third type of people might even be called – is happy with him, and life with Sam contains no interactions that trigger Dean to react to Sam as being either alpha or omega.

He's actually rather ticked off at the alpha's for reminding Dean of the type system again. Living without it has been really nice, freeing, and being forced to remember it's existence feels like he's now carrying around an extra weight.

They leave the bar as fast as is feasible. It's the smartest move to make, but it leaves Dean walking back to the hotel frustrated, and without an outlet for the rage that seems to prickle under his skin.

Checking his phone to find that his dad has sent him a set of coordinates? That's the icing on the cake that convinces him he hates this day.

Dean's got a message from his dad.

Wonderful. Yet another person from this world that he has no wish to meet but is probably going to anyway. Though maybe Sam's luck will be good and John will have sent Dean a hunt to handle on his own? Sam really wants to put off meeting this alternate version of his father. His own was obnoxious enough, he suspects meeting this one as a stranger mated to his son will be far worse.

Still, he knows they're not just going to ignore a hunt. The lives of those they save will always be more important than the trepidation Sam feels considering meeting this world's John. So when Dean tells him he's gotten a hunt from his father, Sam doesn't bother to argue, he just goes to pack up his duffle.

The frustration Dean feels bubbling under his skin from the interaction with the alphas last night and his father's call hasn't abated by the time they roll into the town indicated by John's coordinates. It's a small enough place that there's only one motel, and Dean can see his father's truck parked outside of it. So John's here. Awesome.

As the reactions of the alphas last night has reminded Dean it would be best if his Dad continues to have no clue that Dean's an alpha. If the reactions of those alphas is all that's reminding him to attempt to conceal his type then Dean's going to have to take back all the nasty things he mentally said about them.

Because he is awesome – and outside the type system Dean thinks – Sam agrees to pretend to be the omega in their relationship. Dean's seriously going to need to think of something nice to do for the dude as a thank you for this. Sam doesn't have a claim mark, but they both wear things with collars anyways so people will assume based on their interactions in the absence of physical evidence. It's actually how they go about working cases most of the time, but asking Sam to help him lie to his father is a whole 'nother matter entirely.

It falls apart on the last day. His inner omega has been bitching at Dean the whole time; telling him he shouldn't be obeying his father – seeking his approval – when John isn't his alpha anymore. It's been fueling the frustration that's been building under his skin this whole hunt.

Except it turns out that hasn't been frustration building under his skin. They play their parts perfectly – practice does make perfect – and they make sure that John doesn't see either of their necks to notice claim mark or lack of it. No, what tips his father off is completely beyond his control, it's something he hadn't even considered would be a problem. What tips his father off is the scent of his upcoming heat.

It turns into a blowout fight. Sam's never seen either version of John this pissed off, not even when Sam got his acceptance letter from Stanford and John told him to stay gone if he left. No, in this fight John isn't even leaving Dean the option of continuing to be family. Sam's father John could be an obsessed bastard at times, but apparently alpha instincts have only made him worse.

He spouts some bullshit about how he had a right to know he wasn't raising an alpha, and how Dean has been endangering the people he saves on hunts by pretending to be something he's not, and how maybe if Dean had told John that he was an omega they could have used it. Maybe there was some way that Dean's status as an omega could have been used to catch the pagan god that had killed his mother.

It's the guilt trip from hell, and it's only the strength of the emotions raging in Dean that stops Sam from asking what the hell pagan god killed Mary. It's something he's never even thought of somehow. She has to have died to push John into hunting, but it shouldn't have been the yellow eyed demon since Sam was never born in this world. He'll have to figure out what's going on – hates having not even considered something so fundamental only to figure out it's nothing like he's been unconsciously assuming it was, it feels like having the rug pulled out from under him – but all of his questions can wait for now, he needs to get Dean away from John.

John seems startled when he moves. He stays shocked and silent long enough for Sam to herd a dazed and anguished Dean into the passenger seat of the impala – for once – and take off for the motel to collect their belongings.

This is the last thing they need. Far such a large emotional upset to coincide with the beginning of Dean's heat – when the last one was what allowed Sam to force Dean into bonding with him – is a stroke of extraordinary bad luck. Discussion of John is going to have to wait, Sam and Dean are going to need the remaining time that Dean is rational to figure out how to deal with the coming heat. Sam will totally understand if Dean wants to be locked up in some cabin to wait it out on his own, hell, Sam's not too keen on fucking his brother's doppelganger. He's not sure if the fact he loved his own Dean in a way he shouldn't have makes this easier, or even worse. On the one hand, it at least means this Dean is physically attractive to him, on the other, it feels like a betrayal of his Dean both as a brother and as the man he loved.

He was going into heat. Now that it had been pointed out to him he wondered how he could have been so oblivious. It hadn't been frustration building under his skin, it had been heat, a sensation he now recalls from before, from the night Sam found him in that bar and kidnapped him to claim him. Which brings his thoughts to the man – supernatural being of some sort – beside him. Did he want Sam with him during his heat?

As they drove on, dusk turning to night, Dean knew he would have to choose soon. He knew Sam would respect his choice, but he would need to communicate that choice before the need of heat overwhelmed him and left true choice impossible.

Published: March 20, 2013