Chapter 8

Seeing Bobby's house is like walking into the past, in a way not even meeting this Dean was. Dean was a single familiar element in a mildly familiar – simply from how many bars Sam's been in – setting. Here everything is familiar. This is Bobby's house before the war turned it into a ruin, before the prevalence of demons made devils traps and holy water necessary, not just precautions of a paranoid hunter. This is Bobby's house before the foot soldiers of hell walked the earth. It almost brings Sam to his knees, and only calling the cold of the archangel stops the sight from bringing him to tears.

The coldness draws Dean's attention, though he misinterprets the cause – of course he does, how could he even guess the true reason?

"Hey, Bobby's cool. He won't be happy I'm claimed by a supernatural being, but as long as he knows you're not hurting people he probably won't try to kill you."

That's not as encouraging as Dean means it to be, and Sam's pretty sure Bobby will try to shoot him when he finds out exactly how he and Dean came to be bonded. Either Dean hasn't thought of this or he's severely underestimating how much Bobby cares about him. Given how like his brother this Dean is either of those options is a distinct possibility.

Honestly? Dean's kind of freaking out. Bobby is like a surrogate father to him and he's coming here to ask the man – who doesn't even know he's an omega – for help figuring out why his heat cycle is out of whack, and by the way meet my bonded Sam, and no, I don't even know what kind of supernatural creature he is. Yeah, Dean's not looking forwards to this conversation at all.

It looks like he needn't have stressed about telling Bobby he's an omega and that he's been mated. His dad's already told the man. Dean's not sure if he's happy cause he's not going to have to tell Bobby himself, or really pissed at his dad for telling anyone information he wants to keep private without getting his permission. His mind is overloaded enough that he tells Bobby that without even thinking about it. Great, Dean really needs to learn how to keep better control of his mouth one of these days.

"I know this whole thing is confusing for you boy, but you ain't the only one. You're dad just had his world view changed and he needed someone to talk some sense into him so he called me. And it's a good thing he did, it's probably the only reason I can sit here and be talkin' to ya without blowing up myself. You tell us, and we've got a lot of anger. Some of it's at you, most of it's at ourselves, but it certainly gets directed outwards first."

"Anger at yourselves?"

"Of course ya idjit! You're omega, we were supposed to protect you, care for you, and we were blind enough we didn't even see it. Your daddy's always had a bit of a problem admitting that he's wrong, even to himself, easier to blame you for hiding than to admit that he should have seen and didn't. He's calmed down though."

"Really? He hasn't called."

"Nah, cause he has trouble admitting he was wrong talking to you like he did. To afraid that you won't take his apology to even give you one the idjit."

They lapse into silence after that, each one stuck in their own thoughts, until Sam decides he's given them long enough and it's time to ask Bobby for some help on the reason that they've actually come here.

"There's something off with Dean's heat cycle, we've researched every spell, curse, or creature we can think of but we've found nothing. We were hoping you might have some ideas."

The words certainly rouse Bobby. Sam can tell he's got the man's full attention. And when he speaks again Sam can hear the panic edging his words.

"Something wrong with his heat cycle?"

This draws Dean's attention back to the conversation and Sam can see him drawing his mind back to the problem at hand before he answers.

"Yeah, no heats my whole life, then two within the last year."

"And you went through them without any help."

"Sam claimed me on the first one, and he was there to make sure I went through the next one how I wanted to."

As soon as Bobby hears this he casts a suspicious glance up at Sam.

"No heats your whole life, and he just happens to find you the first time you go into heat?"

Yeah, put like that it really does sound suspicious. Sam supposes there's no real reason – save keeping Dean from being weirded out – not to show them how he knew.

"Knew he was going to go into heat, and where, didn't have much information beyond that. I can show you how I knew if that'll stop you looking at me like maybe I'm the cause."

Sam doesn't even wait for a reply before he's walking away, and for an instant Dean and his inner omega are in complete agreement in their panic that their lack of trust and suspicion of Sam have driven him away and he doesn't want to stay with Dean any more, doesn't want to be his alpha.

But just as quick as Sam left he's back again, holding a stack of paperbacks. Dean's first guess was that they were some type of hunting references – strange as they look – but no, they're some fiction series in the horror genre. Dean's drawing a complete blank on how these are supposed to be connected to anything in their life, and he's sure that his look at Sam conveys just that.

"Read the backs, you should realize pretty soon."

And Dean does. Every single book is about hunts he's done since he and his dad split up and started hunting alone. Dean's really not sure what to think of this, or even really which part he should be focusing on. Should he be more freaked out that someone is writing about his life, that Sam somehow knew the books were real and about him, or that Sam has for some reason been reading about his life?

He's drawing a blank at the moment, so he decides to hold the whole freak out later and get them all back on topic.

"They don't say anything about what's messing with my heat cycle do they?"

"No."

And Dean decides he's had entirely enough shocking and emotional conversations for one day. Anything else can wait for tomorrow, he's going to bed.

Published: April 17, 2013