After Benny presses a kiss into his omega's hair and reluctantly departs to work the day shift at Mac's, Dean makes sure he has run the deadbolt across the door. The hunter spreads his notes across the table without risk of discovery. Hiding this essential part of his life feels shady, as if he is doing his alpha a disservice by not trusting him. It is kind of amazing how a mental paradigm shift has happened without a meltdown or freak out. When he thinks 'My Alpha', Benny's face, scent and presence is automatically conjured. That's just the way it is, and Dean finds he is fine with it. Before coming to Gauntlet Dean had not dared to dwell on a future mate, meaning either that his alpha was a shadowy figure or in practical legal terms, his Alpha-Dad.

Dean digs under notebooks, the map pamphlet, and his spare spare denims with the ripped knee. While it feels good to be wearing his own clothes again; spare black denims, light gray Henley and his beige button down, Dean misses being swaddled in Benny's scent. It's colder today, so he can reasonably attribute slinging Benny's dark wool scarf around his neck to the temperature. If he goes out later he thinks he'll pick the coat Benny had put over his shoulders the evening before. It's warmer than his short winter jacket. At the bottom of his duffel, next to his towel wrapped blades, is the half bottle of Jack Daniels that he discovered, cobweb decorated, tucked in the 'hunting' cabinet at Caleb's place. He's saving it for when he has the talk with Benny. He figures he is going to need a stiffener or three.

An hour later, Dean places his pencil on the table with a sense of satisfaction that he is on the right track. Jonah's story was a goldmine, but he'd gleaned other clues from people he'd talked to, even Don Motherfucker Bryson. Dean has ruled out whole slews of evil sonsabitches. Lack of omens precludes demons. Not being rooted in a building makes poltergeists unlikely. Victims surviving strikes out plenty of options. Coming to Gauntlet has confirmed that the victims of choice are young, probably unmated, male omegas. Their brief abductions occur at night, under a full winter moon. They all turned up, chilled and suffering from symptoms of exposure or hypothermia. Jonah woke on The Knuckle. That is above the caves which had Dean's hunter spidey senses pinging the moment he found out about them. He hasn't dismissed the local legend of Rowan Emery yet. The witch was said to have been washed ashore and had the power to control the elements. Perhaps the witch cursed the isle in some way before she was exiled. He might be looking for some strange cursed object, one that the omegas came in contact with. Then there is Jonah's nightmare, which Dean fits more neatly into a spirit or monster who feeds on the energy of its victim over a period of time.

Dean reaches two conclusions. Firstly, he's going to need to touch base with his Dad, Jim or Bobby. Once he gets a beat on the monster or the curse, he figures it will take an experienced hand to guide him on how to gank it. Secondly and pressingly, he needs to gather more facts. He'd like to find the beat on Emery, if there are any reputedly magical objects on the isle, and the burial place of any child who died tragically by exposure or drowning. The museum was set up for tourists but there is a library in the backroom of the chandlers/bookstore with the coffee stall. Hopefully along with being a lending library it holds local records, old news sheets and journals. If it doesn't, then Dean will possibly have to journey to the archives in Ellsworth. Dean doesn't mind hunting solo. In fact it is preferable to a dominant and grouchy drunk Alpha-Dad. But at times like this it is crap not having a partner. A couple of years back, Sam would have been attending Ellsworth High for the few weeks of the hunt, then Dean would both have had a base to come and go from, and Sam would have been ensconced in their library researching like the nerdy freak he is.

The promise of hot smooth tall coffee enables Dean to get his ass over to the library. He leaves a note for Benny, just in case his alpha returns earlier than expected. The tide is crashing against the rocks beyond the sands of the cove. Dean was sort of out of his mind when Benny carried him along the shoreline, but he makes an educated guess that at full tide that way is impassible. Dean mounts a sloping trail that runs behind the cabins. The gradient rises at the top, bringing him to the zenith almost smack bang where he raged against communication satellites a few nights earlier. It's an easy walk down to the community.

He grits his teeth passing The Lookout. Tension eases walking by Mac's, knowing Benny is inside. He doesn't escape without seeing one of the lowlifes. Leaning against the wall of the fish filleting building is Baldtop, a cigarette drooping out of his mouth. He's talking to Abe Littman whose nose is covered like the villain in Cat Ballou. When they spot Dean, they turn their backs. The omega will gladly take a cold shoulder from those bastards, who it seems are sticking to the deal with the sheriff.

Moments later, Dean is holding the door open for an elderly beta gentleman whose arms are full of old paperback westerns. A waft of Arabica hits him, dilating his pupils with pure caffeine aroma. He snags a Danish and an espresso while he asks about the library. It is two linked rooms out back. The larger is the lending room. The smaller reference room needs the key from the librarian, and it is a treasure trove for Dean. They hold old news clippings, journals, pamphlets, and copies of parish records and settlers' accounts.

Alpha Simone Blanchet is an intimidating presence in a tweed pant suit. Dean is damn sure he never would have risked stealing a story book for Sammy from under her long roman nose and wire rimmed glasses. However she proves to be honestly pleased to host a visitor interested in local history. She does make him wear douchey white cotton gloves, but she also gives him free reign while she tends to her regulars back in the lending room.

Mournful pup deaths in the parish registers increase in volume as he delves further into the past, but nothing screams monster to Dean. There are earlier editions of the tourist blurb and a couple of early twentieth century amateur publications for the consumption of visitors. Some include variations on the story of the witch, but there is no evidence of a 'Fairy-cursed Stone' or any stories of a Hope Diamond like object.

Finally in the glass case of older bound volumes, Dean hits pay dirt. He behaves and calls Simone for the key to the simple brass lock, which he could have picked with his eyes closed.

"Which one caught your eye?" She asks with a knowing smile, reaching for the tallest tome which has "Charts" embossed on the spine.

Dean can understand why she presumes this is the one he wants. Old maps and sea charts are fascinating and a great source of annotated information. He shakes his head and points to a slim volume wedged between an old ledger and a bound book of letters.

"That one please, Alpha Blanchet."

She hums, "Good choice. Nice to meet a history buff who seeks the real story behind our legend. Have a look at chapter seventeen in this too." She takes out a paperback publication on Acadia National Park. "I wish I could stay and discuss your interpretation of events, but duty calls."

Dean flicks open the 1950's paperback. It contains personal accounts from visitors to this corner of the world. The chapter Alpha Simone recommends is the story of a naturalist beta parents and their family who overwintered on Gauntlet. Interestingly they comment that they heard the oral history of the witch legend and it is a salutary tale of its time, but they give no details.

Sucking the top of his pencil, Dean can't see anything new until he reaches a paragraph that has him scribbling like a crazy dude. Their teenage omega son vanished inexplicably into the January snows, the night before the full moon. Being experienced trackers, his parents found him some hours later, barely conscious and delirious. He recovered his wits within days, but the family relocated to Great Cranberry. Dean wants to put the book in a juicer to extract more information. He understands every crumb of intel builds the hunter's pie of knowledge.

He pulls over his first choice. Beta Vera Bopp was a sober god-fearing antiquarian born before the turn of the century, according to the preface, which Dean skims. She was gravely concerned with how her grandfather Whitsunday was being painted in the scandalous heathen tale of The Witch of Gauntlet and undertook to write an account of the real evidence. She interviewed elderly islanders who remembered the events and combined their accounts with records of the time and some private letters in her family's possession.

Vera's pen was never going to win a Pulitzer. She writes in faux old English as if The King James Bible and perhaps the hand of her grandfather were her inspiration.

In the year of our Lord, Anno…

Blah, blah, blah… If Sam was here, he'd love this. Dean skips ahead.

Such as the stray omega, abandoned to Fate by God's Hand and His Sea, did request parish aid to built shelter for his bones.

What the… His? … Dean squints at the page, but the print does not change. Rowan Emery was a male omega. He was a man. A Man-Witch.

Dean races ahead, glimpsing at Bopp praising paragraphs and weather reports. There is a direct quote from one of the pastor's letters.

Alpha George spends much time and a pretty penny courting Rowan but methinks with faint hope.

Any condemnation is aimed at Alpha George, whoever the hell he was. It looks like Rowan was more integrated into the isle community than the modern version of the tale. Vera rambles on but does impart that Rowan dwelled unmated in a cabin by the source of the Baleen. There is a whole chapter on the Civil War drought and how it was felt in Maine. This leads on to the years 1856/1857, when the drought gave way to a terrible winter famous for The Cold Storm that enveloped the eastern seaboard in snow that January.

It was during this period that the Elders held council and agreed to expel Rowan Emery and his bastard babe from God's sacred isle.

What the ever-living fuck?

Dean scrubs his mouth and jaw. He refuses to get upset over something that happened almost a century and a half earlier.

When the concerned parishioners went to take Omega Emery from his place of abode, no sign or sight of the suckling pup remained.

Dean is getting pissed. Turns out this rock was always a home to motherfucking douchebags. They all deserved to have the life sucked out of them in his humble opinion. Except the elders of yesteryear and the rapacious sonsabitches of today are not the marks of the monster. It is innocent young vulnerable omegas like Jonah.

Reading on, Dean discovers that Rowan broke down onboard the boat, beseeching the islanders to take him back, that he'd hidden his pup in the caves under The Knuckle. The omega swore foul oaths. He cursed the day he was saved from a watery death to be thrown onto the sands of his perdition.

A single tear splatters on the yellowed paper. Dean wipes rapidly with his cotton glove. He sniffles away any further display of how the account is wrenching his heart.

When the party returned, some of the gentler folk of Gaunt persuaded their alpha and beta mates to search the caves. High tide had risen and receded. There was no sign of Emery's pup.

Dean can't read the final pages. The weight of horror presses on his chest. A small voice in the back of his mind queries where the reputation of witchcraft came from. He holds his head in his hands, cogitating the possibilities. Rowan was made a scapegoat in the island's history. They had perpetrated a vile and cruel act on a defenseless unmated omega and his pup. Unable to continue with such a stain on their characters, no doubt the story was twisted and corrupted until Rowan's foul oaths and curses became witchcraft and even the continental United States' extreme weather was laid at his door. The crabby greedy old female witch was a better stereotype, Rowan's gender neutral name making the switch seamless.

Simone pops her head in to check on him. She must see the blotchy eyes and curled fists.

"What happened…" Dean chokes out. "What happened to Rowan?"

The alpha gives a hissing sigh. "I have no records to say, but there is a letter from a Connie Macken in one of the correspondence files. It suggests one of the 'gentle folk of Gaunt', perhaps a fellow omega, communicated to him that the pup had drowned. Rowan's tale grew in the imaginations of succeeding generations. When I was young, it was tourist fare, but another version was employed to frighten omega pups and wayward teens into behaving with proper decorum."

"The drowning of a baby didn't make the final cut for the masses." Dean comments bitterly.

The librarian nods solemnly. She echoes Dean's musings. "The dreadful truths were expunged in favor of creating the archetypical female witch of story-land."

While he expresses his gratitude for her assistance, Dean can't stop thinking that he may have to put to rest… he can't use the word 'gank'… the vengeful spirit of a tiny abandoned baby.

As he walks the short distance to the phone booth, Dean chews everything over. This case is weird. There is a pain in his gut for long deceased Rowan Emery. He doesn't care if the dude was really a man-witch. What happened to him was awful. He turns his mind away from conjured images of a tiny baby and the rising tide.

He's got John's number half punched in, when he clangs the handset back into its cradle. Tongue twitching between his lips, Dean makes a decision. He's not telling his Dad yet. He is breaking protocol and a direct order. He can't face sitting cross legged on the dock the following day to greet John after he would have driven through the night, and having to explain his nascent relationship to either alpha. Another factor in his sideways fudging disobedience is that he hasn't a clean cut conclusion. Is this a salt and burn? Or is it a monster to be ganked?

He deliberately dials John's other cell phone, the one that lives in the glove box of his Dad's truck, and leaves his daily voicemail.

On the way home he gathers Benny's coat and scarf tighter against a biting wind. The lingering alpha musk has him feeling less morose than if his mind was still churning over Baby Emery's drowning. Once the wood burning stove is pumping out a comforting heat, Dean swallows back a measure of Jack Daniels, raising his glass to Rowan's memory. He stows his notes, then spends an hour fretting. It's mainly over what he is going to say to Benny, but he also is trying to decide whether he should disturb Pastor Jim or Uncle Bobby for sage advice, or maybe report to his Dad after all.

Benny gets back before seven, bearing foil wrapped goodies.

"Where'y'at, Dean?"

The cabin wasn't built for Hide and Go Seek. Dean is out of the alpha's immediate view because he has pushed the armchairs apart and is on the floor doing crunches to burn off some of his nervous energy. He rises to see Benny's cheeks flushed and the alpha adjusting his stance, failing to conceal a rising hard on. It's flattering that showing a little stomach muscle causes such a reaction.

Benny covers with a choked cough and begins to lay out their evening repast.

"Fried breaded chicken, sides of buttery veg and baked potatoes."

Dean straightens his clothing and thanks him with a stolen kiss.

There are also bottles of Mac's Belgian style blond beer and a Styrofoam container bearing crushed Oreo base vanilla cheesecake. It's not pie, but when Dean sticks a finger in the box he discovers it is damn near as good.

They eat with chairs pulled close together. Benny fills Dean in on his day. He feeds Dean his first official bite of cheesecake from the end of his fork. Then he pants as the omega closes his lips around the treat and hums his appreciation with flickering eyelashes.

Dean wishes he could put off having The Talk. He hates that he is going to spoil what promises to be a very enjoyable evening.

After their leavings are tided away and Benny has caught a news bulletin, Dean plunks a crate on its narrow side between their armchairs. He finds two squat tumblers under the sink. He fills each with a finger of Jack and sets them on his improvised table.

Mouth suddenly dry, Dean gulps his liquor and pours again. In his brain freeze he comprehends that he has been growing attached to Benny. If he is kicked out into the icy night, it's going to hit him hard.

"Benny." Dean puffs air. He's going in head first. "I'd like us to lay our cards on the table."

The alpha's brow furls. He squints. "Sugar?"

"If we have any hope…" Dean licks his lips. "We've gotta begin this… straight, y'know?"

"You want my back-story?" Benny inhales deeply.

Dean blinks. All the verbose word-vomit he'd been prepared to spew stalls on the tip of his tongue.

"You deserve to know," A tremor breaks the alpha's timbre, "what sort of alpha you'd be pairing yourself with."

Blue eyes plead for a receptive audience. Their positions are the reverse of what Dean anticipated. With compressed hope that Benny will return the favor, he nods with a wan smile, and lets his alpha say his piece. Waiting makes Dean fidgety under his skin. However now that Benny has begun, he burns to hear what could make an alpha fear that his omega would reject him.

"I almost mated before." Benny's lips disappear, sucked in tight. "A High School joining. Her name was Andrea."

"Late teenage is the prime time for omegas," Dean encourages, understanding the circumstances, remembering the instinctual drive that he chemically dampened and repressed through pure willpower.

Benny scratches his beard under his ear. "Andrea is an alpha."

Dean's lips part in surprise. He is no bigot, but alpha-alpha unions are as taboo as omega-omega joinings. In fact he is almost sure they are against the law in the South.

"We flouted convention, perhaps with hindsight that was part of the thrill. Our relationship survived our time apart when I went to catering school. We moved in together when I qualified. I considered myself very much in love."

"Yet you didn't take the final step?"

"Andrea was reluctant when it was mentioned. Sometimes it would descend into a play fight about which family name we'd take. We talked about a vacation in New Jersey, where she had cousins, and doing the deed in front of a Mating Notary, discussed adopting a pup in the future… but it never happened." Benny looks into the middle distance. "We focused on our careers. Andrea opened a boutique clothing store on the main drag. I cooked gumbo and po'boys at a roadside diner hut just off the highway."

"Sounds great." Dean enthuses with honesty.

"The chance came to buy the diner. Andrea was nearly more driven than me in our quest for a backer. I was young and foolish, blind and not business savvy. We gained the silent partnership of an old schoolmate, Quentin." Benny shakes his head. His scent drops with regret. "The diner was no goldmine, but I was working off our debts, becoming solvent, and Andrea's store was in the black. Then Quentin's debts were called in by this scary motherfucker called Sorrento, who I later found out was the front of house face for this boss guy. The Old Man; the sort of 'gator you wouldn't want to come within a hundred miles of."

"Did they hurt you?" Dean asks urgently, imagining goons with batons and knuckle rings laying into a younger version of his alpha.

"Only my pride, reputation, wallet, and by extension, my heart." He clicks his tongue, "I lost the diner. Andrea left. She couldn't take the stress, the poverty, my drinking, my depression… said I was Alpha and should remember that."

Dean adds Andrea, the bitch, onto his shit list.

"Then Quentin got arrested for fraud. My old accounts were audited but I'd been scrupulous, if somewhat unorthodox in my filing system. I got the all clear, but that made me an object of suspicion to Sorrento's lot. Suppose they couldn't believe someone wouldn't cheat, and they thought I'd cut some sort of deal. I had to leave Louisiana." Benny pauses. "I wandered. Being a cook is a good skill. I picked up work. Spent a year in Georgia, another working in a Philly hospital kitchen. But I had an itch under my skin, as if I needed to move on, as if what I was seeking was elsewhere."

Benny meets Dean's gaze. The omega flushes so hard he is sure his ears are pink.

"How'd you end up here?" Dean breathes. Waiting for me? goes unsaid.

"Met Andrea in Jersey City. My luck was on a downturn. I was living in the van. She was with an older widowed omega. Seriously considering mating. She had step-pups, and a real nice life. Her mate-to-be had inherited this cabin from his deceased alpha, who used it for fishing vacations. Andrea and Monty discussed it and offered me the use until I'd get on my feet or make up my mind where to go. No questions asked and no pressure to move on, because Monty has no desire to visit and his pups won't be bothered until they're older."

"Maybe she's off my shit list." Dean mutters.

"What? Sugar?"

"Andrea. I don't have to track her down and hurt her."

Benny chuckles before a pall falls over his features. "So now you know."

Dean is puzzled at the mood switch.

"I'm not a good provider." Benny grinds out. "A poor example of an alpha."

"Oh my God. Shut your mouth, Benny Lafitte!" Dean's eyes are out on stalks. "You've just told me that you are resourceful, ambitious, a fighter through adversity, hardworking, and a talented chef."

"Did I?" Benny's eyes twinkle. "You sure you didn't hear about bad business decisions, wanderlust and homelessness?"

"Nah." Dean shakes his head. "You done good, Alpha."

"I can't tell you how much that means to me, Sugar." Benny's scent fills with cinnamon apple pie handed over on a velvety leather glove. "So, Darlin', you wanted to exchange skeletons in the closet?"

If the situation wasn't so perilous, Dean would find Benny's choice of metaphor hilarious. Instead he tops up their glasses with the last of the Jack.

"I came to Gauntlet to look into omega disappearances," Dean retells his alpha, before adding, "but not because we thought there were rapist/abductors or an omega abuse ring on the Cranberry Isles. Dad sent me because the cases went back generations, and because they were unexplained. Unexplainable by normal means."

It comes out in a rush, Dean's delivery fast paced but precise. He is deliberate in his honesty, if sparing on the details of injuries he has received. Dean tries to cover all bases, explaining how a poltergeist is different from a haunting, a witch from a Wiccan. He talks of growing up in the life, protecting Sammy, and helping his Dad. He speaks of the reward of knowing you've saved people, uncovered an evil and ganked it. His mouth is dry and heart pounding when he has finished.

Benny hasn't said a word or moved a muscle. He also hasn't fled into the night, which Dean counts as a win.

"It's a lot to take on board." Benny says with serious understatement.

"Do you believe me?" Dean dares to ask.

"If it were anyone else, I'd say they were on meth."

Dean waits.

"I believe you believe it."

"That's not the same." Having a sinking heart is a crap feeling.

"Dean..." Benny pauses. "I've never... I'm not religious or into new age crap."

"Neither am I," Dean protests. He tries to inject a little lightness, "Freaking hippies give me the creeps."

Benny doesn't smile. He stays on point. "I have faith in what I can see with my own eyes, touch with my own hands."

Dean slumps. Rejection looms. It is a small naked blessing that his heart will only be partially flayed when he slinks out of Benny's life.

"But I know you aren't lying here. Could you be mistaken?"

A sudden anger flares. "My Mom was killed by a demon, in my baby brother's nursery. She died. I lost my mother to one of those sonsabitches. There is no mistake."

"You mean your father told you that." Benny vibrates with unreleased anger against Dean's Alpha-Dad. "He took his little pups on the road, in a quest for vengeance. Could he be feeding you tall tales?"

If he is going out the door anyway, Dean isn't dropping his guns. He is loud enough to almost shout at his alpha, ignoring the little voice that says submit, hide, stay quiet.

"No, Man. Dad did what he had to do, and it wasn't an easy life, but he never hid it from me. I saw things…" Dean doesn't want to go down that path. He pleads, "Listen, I've personally hunted werewolves, expelled poltergeists and dealt with witches who could hex someone to death."

It is Benny's turn to raise his volume, not to crush Dean, but the alphaness is present.

"You are my mate. I'm trying to keep an open mind here. It's like someone coming and telling you Extra Terrestrials are walking among us and the mothership is invisible up in the sky... Hey, aliens aren't...?"

"No. No aliens." Dean is relieved they are still talking. "Some shit that looks like it belongs in Roswell or on V but no, no aliens."

"Right." Benny huffs. "But zombies, witches, bigfoot, ghosts and fairies? Was Interview with A Vampire a factual account?"

Dean laughs. "Yes, yes, no, yes, maybe and I've never seen a vampire. Add in demons, pagan gods, ghouls, trolls, vengeful spirits, nixies, and a whole load of weird monsters."

Benny drops his head into his hands. "I dunno what to say."

"But you're not kicking me to the curb? Not calling in the Men in White Coats?"

Benny winces. "It's not normal."

"Fuck normal." The words fly out of Dean's mouth. "Who the fuck is normal?"

Benny snorted. "You got me there, Sugar."

Silence falls between them, the weight of impending judgment oppressive.

"You say you are on a... hunt? Now?"

Dean nods.

"Show me."

"Huh?"

"Let me into your world. Be it real or in your mind. I want to see. I want to understand."

"You're a civilian." Dean winces, "You don't know... You might get hurt."

"You're an omega. You might get hurt."

"Touché."

"I don't know what to think…" Benny grimaces. "Whatever the truth, I don't like the idea of you hunting. It sounds dangerous and my instincts scream to cherish you. I want to protect you from all your demons. This has been your life. But I'm not convinced it is what is best for you, and Mon Cher, I want you to have the best."

Dean chokes up. He engulfed in emotion. He reaches a hand.

Benny takes it. "I want in."

"You do?" Dean's voice falters as he asks for reassurance.

"Are you reluctant to let me in? Do you think I'll compromise you?"

Dean composes himself, treats the question with gravity. "I don't know. You'd need to follow my lead, my orders."

Benny nods. "You can be Alpha General."

Lips quirked up at the memory of boyhood make-believe games with army men and Sam's desire to marshal their toy forces, Dean's tight worries ease out a portion.

He warns, "There can be long nights in this job of staking out boneyards or places there has been a sighting, so you have to promise not to have me committed to an institution for the omega insane, if we blow out on our first, second, even third try."

Benny huffs, nods his assent.

"You can help with prep too. We need to fill rock salt casings, fill canteens of holy water, and maybe something else once I've sought expert advice."

"Like what?"

"Dunno. Anything. Could be a stone knife dipped in lamb's blood, a silver blade blessed by a Shinto priest, or a rock gathered at midnight from the spirit's grave."

"You're serious?"

"Deadly." Dean nods. He'll take this. Benny's mind is open. He's willing to be exposed to the life and then make his decision.

Dean finds his hand being squeezed. He raises his eyes, whispers a confession. "Alpha, I'm glad we're together."

+++++++++++++++++++SPNSPNSN++++++++++++++++