Storm's Last Season
Chapter 11 ~ New Shores
previously on BruisedBloodyBroken:
"Wanna help me?", Dean asked, smirking up at the omega.
Sam cocked his head to the side and his eyebrows furrowed. He wanted to help him. He really did. But there were the stairs ... and unknown territory ... and maybe the other men.
"You can come downstairs if you want, you know that, right?" Dean wore a soft smile on his lips, his eyes glancing up warmly at the young man. "Besides ..." He looked around. "Looks like Sonny and Bobby aren't home ... so ... Maybe you'd like to help me out a bit? With cooking and stuff?"
Sam thought. He thought for a long time.
Dean continued to stand where he was, looking up at the man, giving him time to think.
Then FINALLY, Sam decided to get up from where he sat and went down the stairs. Slowly, always a watchful gaze at the door frame towards the living-room and the one of the kitchen.
NOW:
Things increased over the next couple of weeks. Sam was back to hundred percent – at least in all respects on how he had been before he became sick. Mentally he was doing better too. He sat at the top of the stairs more often now and watched Bobby and Sonny leaving the house in the mornings.
He also took his place on top of the stairs when it was about time for the both of them to return from the garage.
Though he would disappear as soon as he saw the both of them coming through the front-door – and after he had changed a glance with both of them.
Sam had thought a lot about the things Dean had told him about omegas in the outside-world. He also had thought about Alistair a lot. And the more he learned about this world – via TV and radio and the things Dean told him – the more he began to believe that his "father" had lied to them ever since. That every single word about the outside-world Alistair's mouth left was a huge untruth.
Though ... he couldn't bring himself to join Bobby and Sonny downstairs in the kitchen or anywhere else. It was like a thick wall in his mind, that wouldn't allow him to do so. As if there were strings that were holding him back ...
He hated this. He hated that he couldn't walk down the stairs whenever he wanted. Though he knew he was allowed to. He was also allowed to leave the house and go out in the yard. And he just couldn't ...
So he stayed where he was, sitting on top of the stairs every time Bobby and Sonny left for their job and came back in the late evening. Sometimes he was waiting for them in the armchair beside the window and when he heard the familiar rumble of Sonny's pickup truck, he went to the staircase and waited there for them.
Every time he did so, he told himself that he was going to go downstairs and have dinner with all of them ... but then panic gripped him and he went back into HIS room.
Dean had him told more than once, that the both men wouldn't hurt him, wouldn't even come near him if he didn't want them to. He also had told the omega that Sonny and Bobby respected his need to keep distance between himself and them and that they would never do anything he didn't want them to.
And Sam believed him. He believed every single word. - Then again ... he had also believed Alistair everything he had told him.
So it wasn't that easy after all, even when he had the feeling that he could trust Dean Winchester in every aspect ... something he couldn't say about his life with Alistair. Not even in the beginning, before everything had started to go south.
The omega had also put on some more weight. The lines of his face weren't that sharp anymore.
Dean tried to coax him out of – what had become – their room. Though, he just made slow progress ever since the incident with the sheriff.
It became a regular, that Sam was helping with dinner, as long as it was just him and Dean in the house.
Even the mattresses from Sam's room had been removed. - There was no reason anymore to keep them there and Dean would do everything to not let Sam sleep on them anymore.
Now that it looked like Sam was accepting the bed, he thought it was time to get back into his own again at night. He thought that it'd be better if Sam would have time to himself or something. And to be honest: DEAN wanted to have time to himself. Not because he felt lie Sam was a burden. Hell no. Just because his feelings for the omega started to affect the alpha inside of him even more now. Every time Sam's head rested in his lap he had to think about the man's soft looking lips and how they would feel on his own. How they'd feel on his skin ...
There had also been a couple of moments when Dean had just wanted to throw everything out of the window and crush his lips against Sam's and kiss the shit out of him.
That was something the alpha couldn't allow himself to think.
But Sam didn't seem that happy about Dean#s plan to leave him alone at night. So whenever Dean decided to sneak out of Sam's bed and into his own, he found the omega lying on the floor beside his bed since god knew when.
They had talked about this then ... and Sam had seemed to understand. Wouldn't it have been for the very next morning, that Sam had been beside the alpha's bed again, all cold and shivering on the wooden floor.
So Dean decided to leave everything as it had been and practically had moved in next door with Sam.
He and Dean were spending a lot of quality time in front of Bobby's TV when no one was at home.
The Winchester was heading out once a week to hustle at pool in the surrounding cities, so he wouldn't get a financial burden to Sonny and Bobby. He had also thought about something regular for his time being. But there was Sam. And he wasn't sure if Sam'd deal with it if he would take on a job right now. Working from nine to five, monday to friday ... it was a risk and the possibility, that Sam's progress would've been for nothing.
Though, Dean imagined, that it would be possible as soon as Sam would find a way to deal with Sonny and Bobby closer than a couple of yards between them, that he would take on a job in a garage or something.
Dean had no clue how to get him to do just that ...
Sonny told him that it needed time. That Sam didn't trust someone who easy and that it was just natural that he was acting that way.
So Dean let it be as it was, not pushing.
Sam had drawn some more sketches of his past life. Some of the sketches were of a very private nature. Pictures, Dean had to promise him, he wouldn't show to anyone else, nor that he would take pictures of them.
The omega didn't say anything about those sketches though. He just let Dean look at them and took them away again. The Winchester respected that and though he needed to tell Sonny about those pictures of whom he thought they'd be important to the sheriff.
It was one of those lazy fridays.
Dean and Sam lingered around on the couch most of the morning, skipping through the channels. The omega had his head in the alpha's lap, letting his scalp be massaged and his hair being stroked. The alpha explained who was what. Alpha, beta or omega. To Sam's surprise there were a lot of omegas on the TV though. And they didn't look like they got treated like Alistair had tought him and the others.
Quite the opposite.
"Christina Aguilera, Sammy. - That's ..." He bit his lower lip, his green eyes lingering on the blonde (in this case she was black-haired) beauty on the screen. "... that's one hell of an omega ..." His voice sounded dreamy.
Sam, who rested his head in the older man's lap looked up at him. A mix of emotions crossing his face at the hunter's words. He would've lied, if he'd told someone right then, that he wasn't at least a bit jealous.
The way Dean looked at that woman. How he sucked his lower lip in and bit down on it. How his emerald-green circles darkened with something he couldn't quite name.
"Alistair said, that an omega can't become famous. - That we're ... we're working in clubs ...", his voice trailed off and he looked back at the screen, watching Christina Aguilera singing "Fighter". "And I believed him, Dean. I believed every single word of it. We all did ... we all did ..."
Dean looked down into his lap and laid his hand on Sam's head, brushing over his soft hair. "I know, Sammy. - I would have too ..." The alpha swallowed around the building lump in his throat. "You didn't know better ... you couldn't know ..."
He watched Sam blink, the colors of the screen reflecting in his eyes, the tiny movements of the muscles in his neck and throat when he tried not to cry.
"If me and ... my brothers and sisters ... or whatever they were ... knew. We'd have tried to flee earlier. And maybe ... maybe if it wouldn't have been for me .. if they wouldn't have tried to get me out of there too ... maybe then they'd be still alive, Dean." Sam blinked again, the glossy sparkle of tears covering the white and the color of his eyes. "It's unfair ... why do I get to live when the others don't?" The question wasn't directed at Dean ... not completely. It didn't sound like he actually awaited an answer.
"I don't know, Sam. - Sometimes ... sometimes life isn't fair." Dean's voice grew raw and hoarse while he spoke. "But you're here. And I'm glad. I'm happy."
Now Sam turned his head so that he was looking up at the alpha again. "I don't want to go away if they find any of my relatives. - I want to stay with you."
Dean gave him a sad smile. "Practically you're a grown-up. You don't have to do what you don't want to ... but ..." He sighed. "I've a job, you know? I'm travelling a lot ... and THIS." His gaze swept through the room. "THIS house ... it doesn't belong to me. It's Sonny and Bobby's."
Sam's frown deepened. He understood. Dean wouldn't want to keep him. Once he'd be all normal again (what this people thought was normal), Dean'd leave. And Sam'd go elsewhere ... right? No one would want to keep him. No one.
The hurt in the omega's eyes stung as hell. He didn't know what to say ... This conversation sure as hell didn't go down a good way. Dean could practically sense the omega's distress, his fear of being left, of being alone all over again.
"But I'd come by ... when you'd be with your aunt or uncle ... or whoever. - I'd visit you as often as possible.", the alpha tried to reassure him. "I wouldn't just break up with you. I'd be there ..." ... just not all the damn time ...
Sam turned back towards the TV. Visibly disappointed and sad and just ... just hurt. "Why do people wear underwear in public? - Does she have to dance like this?"
Dean's eyebrows furrowed. He glanced at the screen. All of a sudden, Christina Aguilera didn't look that sexy anymore. "Sex sells. - Men like to look at girls like her ... It's ... it's animating."
Sam sniffed and blinked, trying to hold the tears at bay. Trying to not let his guard down just now. Though he felt himself fail.
"I think she shouldn't have to walk around like that. - If she's as famous as you said, she could wear normal clothes instead of underwear in public.", and with that he sat up and practically fled from the living-room and up the stairs, leaving a flabbergasted Dean behind.
Now it was DEAN who felt alone all of a sudden. The loss of scent and closeness to his mate ... all of a sudden ripped away from him ... the fact that HE had made him leave with what he had told him ...
Dean huffed out a breath and closed his eyes, rubbing over his face. Why the hell did he have to ruin everything good in his life?
Sam didn't come down that afternoon to help him with dinner. He didn't even sit on top of the stairs, when Bobby and Sonny came home.
And Dean didn't go upstairs to check on him. He felt like crap. Like ... like he had kicked a pup right in the face and left to die, whimpering and whining and hurt.
Great job, Winchester.
Even after dinner (he had prepared a plate for Sam, had sat it in front of his door and knocked and told him that he brought him dinner), Dean couldn't bring himself to face Sam.
And Sam wasn't able to even open the damn door of his room to get the damn plate with food.
Dean stood in front of his room for a very long time. Listening, waiting for a respond. But there was none.
An hour later and after he and the others had eaten, Dean went upstairs, hoping that the omega wouldn't have put the plate back in front of the room, so that he had a reason to get inside. So that he could try to talk about their topic from the morning.
Deep lines of worry formed on the alpha's forehead, when he saw that Sam hadn't even bothered to have a taste. A deep sigh fell from Dean's lips, when he bowed down to pick the plate up.
When he came downstairs with the untouched food, Sonny rose an eyebrow. Of course he had noticed the miserable expression and slumped shoulders of his younger friend. But he had thought it was just a crappy day. Now he wasn't so sure about that anymore.
"What happened?", Sonny turned around in his chair to look at Dean, who put the plate into the fridge.
The hunter didn'T turn around to face the man. He still felt like scum. Hell, he felt even worse right now, after knowing that this part of his future bothered Sam more than he had previously thought.
"What'll happen if the sheriff won't find any of Sam's family? - What's going to happen, when he's beyond treatment and ready for the world outside?"
Sonny's frown deepened.
Bobby just came back from the living-room and stopped in his tracks, as if the thick atmosphere in the room was hindering him on coming any further.
"He has relatives somewhere. - They're letting the pictures of the children alter until they have about his age. There will be similarities between the picture of the kid and Sam as a grown up that'll tell her who his parents were and where she's going to find relatives. Then we'll arrange a meeting between him and his relatives. And he high likely is going to go with them ..." Sonny paused. "But you know that already. - Why do you ask?"
Dean shrugged. "What if he doesn't want to go with them?"
Bobby's worried expression changed into deep concern.
"He's a grown up. - He can do what he want's to. But there ain't a lot of places he could possibly go ...", Sonny answered with a huff.
Dean blew out a shuddering breath and closed his eyes for a long moment. Until this morning, Dean had never thought about what would come later and about all the what if's. He had never thought, that there would be a time after the salvage. A time, when Sonny and Bobby wouldn't mean home to the young omega anymore.
"What happens to those who don't have a family out there?", he continued calmly.
Realization started to dawn on the both older men right then. "Well ... We are going to need the room, Dean." As much as it hurt, it was true. There'd be others who needed help. Others who needed a place to find peace and a chance to change their lives. "If he doesn't want to go with his family. And if he can't stay here any longer ... I guess the state will arrange that he'll get an appartement and a job ... so he sure as hell won't end up on the streets."
The Winchester turned around. His face was pale. His body tense. "He wants to stay with me." Hsi look darted in between Sonny and Bobby. "He said he wants to stay with me ... and I can't. - I just can't. I know ... if he's supposed to be my mate, if we're bonded that there's some kind of connection ... but ... it's something completely different to be here with him, in a HOUSE, than out there on the road in a car. Another motel every couple of days ... The places where I use to sleep when I don't have enough money ... it's disgusting. I can't take care of someone like him. Not like that." Dean swallowed hard. The thoughts in his mind whirring around like crazy. "I have nothing. NOTHING. - And I don't think that he understands that ... that it can't work like that. - Hell, he doesn't even know what I'm doing."
Sonny blew out a huff. "So ... he said he wants to stay with you. - Don't you want to stay with him?"He looked up, catching Dean's confused stare.
"Sure I want him to. - But ... but ... but ..."
"No buts. - If you want that he stays with you, you should think about changing something. Like telling him about what's out there in the night. About settling down, finding a house ... Gettin' a regular job." Bobby rose both eyebrows while he spoke. "And I'm not talkin' about giving up hunting, son. - There'll be weekends. - You could start to work in our garage ..."
Dean shook his head in denial. He wasn't someone to get settled, or to live a normal apple-pie-life. He had intended to go down fighting and not waiting for death to get him because he got old and fat and sat in a wheelchair.
"I gave up hunting for my Karen. - I settled down. I became a mechanic. Now I'm helping other hunters with research while I can. I'm helping them repairing their cars. I do my part in all this, just not on the front anymore." Bobby walked over to the table and sat down. "Because she was my one and only, and I knew it. I knew it'd kill her if I'd leave her behind, while I'm going after a wendigo or poltergeist. I just didn't want her to be sad or afraid."
Dean cast his look down.
"Sleep over it. - Sort out those things and come to a conclusion. You gotta know what you want." Sonny rose from the chair. "Sooner than later you'll need to make a decision, son. - And I sure know that it's not an easy one."
"I just can't. I don't do bonding-stuff ... not in my line of business." Dean tried to explain to himself rather than to the others. "And the brother-thing won't work ... it's ... when I'm around him it's ... I don't know. - And when I'm not around him it's even worse ..." He sighed deeply.
Sonny shook his head and huffed out a breath. "It's not bearable to be separated from Sam, is it? - You want him to have him on your own. You want to own him. That's what you want, what you feel. You don't stand a single hour without him, knowing that he won't be there when you come home or enter a room.", he continued. "So how do you think you'll manage it, when Sam's somewhere in California and you'd be in Florida? You think you could live with that? Knowing that he won't be there when you come back to your motel? When you're coming back here and Sam won't sit at the window and be waiting for you?"
Dean felt even more miserable now. It'd be hell – maybe worse.
"How do you think other alphas felt when they first met their mates? Don't you think they felt similar at the beginning?" Bobby paused and looked up through bushy eyebrows, adjusting his blue ball-cap. "How long has it been since you last got laid? You don't even have the need to find someone else, do you? - Because you can't. You can't pick up someone, because you'd feel like you're betraying Sam."
The old man hit the nail on the head. That was it. He didn't want anyone else but Sam. It was just Sam anymore. And when he thought back, about when he first saw him, how his scent was burning itself into his nostrils and anchoring itself in his brain ... IT was him from the very beginning.
"So ... what are you fighting than?" Bobby rose both eyebrows.
Dean shook his head. "I don't know ... It's just ..." He sighed.
"You've never felt something like that before." The grizzled mechanic answered the question by himself. "I can tell you, that you love it, that you're feeling comfortable with the way it is as soon as you accept that you are bonded to that omega." He sighed. "Just ... just let it happen, boy."
Dean wore a slight smile on his lips now when he gazed up from the floor. He usually wasn't someone to show his feelings out in the open. But Dean Winchester could make exceptions, couldn't he?
So he walked over without another word and wrapped his arms around the old man. "What'd I do without you?", he muttered into the older man's neck.
"Never gettin' your head outta your ass, son.", he replied with a smirk after a short moment of tenseness and pulled the hunter into a bear hug.
The moment didn't last a second too long, and Dean pulled back again. "Since you both are kinda family ...", he wore a smug grin on his face, gazing slyly at the both of them. "... you sure are gonna pay for a house, huh?"
Bobby punched him into the shoulder – hard. "Do I look like I'm from the Catholic Charities to you?"
Dean chuckled.
No, Bobby didn't. But the Winchester knew, that the both men loved him like a son and that they'd help him however they could.
Not soon after, Dean withdrew into his room to gather his thoughts and think some more. He needed to get up with a plan if he wanted that this would work. At that point he started to think about if Sam would even wanted THIS. It was clear as day, that the omega acted like he did, because Dean had practically told him that he wouldn't stay with him.
Dean was thinking about the mating-thing. About the fact, that his feelings for Sam weren't quite platonic. The thing was, that even though their souls were bonded, that there was the possibility that the omega wouldn't feel the same way. That he felt their bond, but that he just didn't feel in the same way. That and the things he had been through ...
The hunter sighed.
Added to that, there was still the fact, that Sam didn't know anything about his job. That the omega didn't know what was out there in the shadows. That there were other monsters that weren't quite human.
First off, he decided to leave the hunting be – at least for their time being. He needed to find a house, since an apartment in Sam's condition could be too constrictive.
Second off, he needed money. Money he couldn't raise by hustling pool and poker.
His thoughts were trailing off into darker scenarios and he caught himself right before he could even think about giving it up to make plans.
Dean went to his duffel, where most of his weapons were stored and pulled his father's journal out. He eyed it for a long time, before he found himself – with the journal in his hand – in front of Sam's room.
The alpha knocked, but didn't wait for an invitation since he was pretty sure that he wouldn't get one. Dean simply entered and closed the door behind him again.
The lamp on the nightstand was on, so he could make out Sam, who lay on top of the covers.
"You haven't touched your food earlier.", Dean spoke calmly while he walked over towards the other side of the bed, where would be enough place for him to sit down.
"Not hungry.", came the silent answer of the omega.
"Hell you are. - You just think you aren't hungry, because of earlier this morning."
The mattress beside Sam tipped down and he felt Dean settling down beside him. When he lurked up, he spotted the hunter as he leaned against the headboard, holding a small book in his hands.
"I want you to have a look at this." Dean looked down at the younger man and held his journal up. "It's my dad's. - But I'm still using it."
Sam looked up at him with big eyes. He then eyed the book – at least it looked like one. "What will I see?"
Dean huffed out a breath and closed his eyes for a moment. "You'll see that there aren't just human monster's out there, Sammy.", he answered calmly. "And you'll understand the reason why I told you, that I won't be able to have you living with me."
Sam frowned. At the hunter's words an expression of deepest sadness settled over his face and darkened his hazel-orbs. Though he sat up and inched back, so that he was sitting beside Dean. Eventually he took the book from the hunter's hands and laid it into his lap, starting to skip through it.
The alpha sat beside him, not uttering a single word. He just wanted Sam to see, to make up his own mind. Though, the man looked not as shocked as he thought he would. The omega's expression remained unreadable while he partly read what was written on the pages.
"You're a hunter, aren't you?" Sam glanced up at the alpha with a disappointed expression on his face.
Dean nodded. Surprised that Sam knew what he was doing ... that he even knew that something like hunters existed.
"Alistair knew about hunters too. - He told us about demons ... that he had been possessed – a long time before he became us." Sam sucked in his lower lip, looking utterly pensively. Staring at a woodcut of a demon in the book. "That ..." He sighed and made a long pause. "That he didn't want to get the demon out of him. Alistair said, that this demon showed him a new world. A better world ..." Sam's fingertips ghosted over the sheet of paper with the woodcut. "He said, that the demon showed him how to save us ... how to make us worthier to others ..."
Dean's eyes narrowed. "Does the man have a second name too?"
The omega looked up at the older man and shook his head. "We were supposed to call him father. - Just like me and the others ... he didn't have a real name."
"How come you know that his name's Alistair?" Curiosity rose inside the hunter.
"We heard it. - Me and hamster cheek. He had visitors the other night and he was making up appointments with them. We weren't supposed to hear it." Sam tried not to get back too deep into the past. Those appointments he made weren't for Alistair himself. He was planning the next couple of weeks for his children.
Dean's lips twitched. He didn't like the sound of the word appointment at all. It had just come heavily over the omega's lips.
The hunter cleared his throat and frowned. "So ... there were others? Did the others know about you and your siblings?"
Sam laughed amused, most to Dean's confusion. "Of course. The appointments were for me and my siblings." As he looked up, he found a pretty shocked expression on Dean's face.
"W-w-wait." Dean rose a hand and closed his eyes for a brief moment. "Other people knew of you and the others and they didn't do anything to get you out of there? - How ... how many, Sam? How many knew of what Alistair was doing."
Sam cast his look at the ceiling and his forehead creased, while he tried to count through. "Eight? - Yeah ... I think eight. No wait ... me and hamster cheek had each two."
"What do you mean ... each two?" Dean just didn't want to think about the possibilities. Hell, he didn't even want to try to think about it.
"I had a lady and the police officer.", Sam told him, as if it was nothing special. "Hamster cheek got two men."
He closed his eyes. Not just shocked that Sam obviously didn't bother that it had been the way it was. Also the fact, that there had been someone from the police involved. No wonder the kid had freaked out back then on the yard.
Sam's face changed rapidly and his light mood seemed to darken every passing moment. He closed Dean's book carefully and gave it back to him, so that he could curl back up into himself, facing away from the alpha.
"Don't worry, Dean. - I won't freak out because you're a hunter." Sam paused, his voice was already trembling, though he had to get out the rest of what he had to say. "I'm not going to tell anyone."
Well, that had actually been one of the alpha's least concerns ...
With a heavy sigh, Dean inched back down, so that his head was resting on the pillow and he wrapped his strong arms around Sam, pulling him close. He knew that he was crying, and that it had been bothering him. He knew the light mood and the soft smile on his face had been fake. Because Sam's eyes had told him quite the opposite. It was like he could've seen the horrors in the younger man's eyes.
Sam's body erupted and he hiccupped with the next inhale.
The alpha stroke over Sam's head and face, wiping the wetness away. Sam eventually turned around in his arms and buried his head in the hunter's chest, who continued to rub his back and run his fingers through Sam's hair. The omega sniffed and wept, clinging to him for dear life.
"It's going to be okay, Sam.", he whispered gently, "They are going to find that bastard ... and they're going to arrest him. They'll put him away for the rest of his damn life."
... to be continued
now c'mon, girls and boys :)
BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON BACON
maybe for some it's goin' a lill' fast ... i'm sorry ... i just wanted this story to be shorter than my usual once ...