16. Earth Air Water Trees pt. 1

Dean stands in front of the bed – his bed? – with his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. 

The sun is setting. Castiel has come and gone for dinner, and the books he dumped all over the floor have been picked up and sorted. Castiel had helped him, allowing Dean to haltingly direct him to the different piles he’d created. It had felt odd, telling an alpha what to do even in the vaguest sense, but his master had all but refused to move until Dean told him where to go. 

The mattress in front of him is big. Looming. 

He’s slept on the rug every night since he’d woken in the bed the first time, never quite able to make himself find comfort above the ground. There’s been a lingering fear there, a certainty that this is all a joke, a setup, and that the instant he messed up it would all be over and he would be back where he started. He hadn’t wanted to get used to luxury. 

Still, he’s always been careful to put the blanket back in place before Castiel comes upstairs for breakfast, in case the alpha thinks he’s being disrespectful by refusing to sleep there. 

Dean steps forward, muscles taut, and he hates himself for his fear. He’s afraid to sleep in a fucking bed. He knows it’s pathetic, but it doesn’t change anything. Swallowing, he takes another step forward, then another, until the comforter is brushing his legs. 

His heart is pounding. Baby steps, Winchester. He turns, sits down on the edge of the mattress, hands shaking as he presses them to his thighs. It’s as soft as he remembers from the first time. Still smells fresh and clean. Biting his lip, he scoots himself back until he’s an island in the middle of the bed, his arms curling automatically around the pillow that still smells faintly like Cas.

The blanket around him is as big as an ocean. He might drown if he isn’t careful. Unbidden, memories of Hell pound like a heartbeat in his brain, flashes of pain around his wrists and neck and between his legs. 

He screws his eyes shut. But, of course, that means he can see those alphas all the more clearly, can nearly feel Alastair’s claws trailing up his ankle and calf and the inside of his thigh. So he opens them instead and stares at the light green patterns on the blanket and the soft glow of the bedside lamp that Castiel turned on when they ate dinner together. Listens to the gentle hum of the ceiling fan, to the low murmur of the television downstairs as the alpha watches what he thinks must be the evening news, the same thing he does every night. 

Slowly, his breathing evens out, his heart stops trying to claw its way out of his chest. With every uneventful second that passes, Dean unclenches, his shoulders relaxing in increments. It helps that he’s already exhausted, his stupid little freak-out session from earlier today enough to make him want to sleep for a week. He leans back until he’s resting against the headboard, the pillows plush behind his back. 

The walls don’t collapse, he doesn’t catch on fire. He’s sitting in a bed, and nothing bad is happening to him. He huffs out a self deprecating laugh and rubs his hand over his mouth. What a goddamn pussy he is. 

He can still smell Castiel on his clothes, far stronger than the stale smell of the pillow. Honey, coffee, rain, and something electric that reminds him of how the hair on his arms used to stand on end right before a Kansas thunderstorm. It doesn’t bother him that he smells like the alpha, and that doesn’t make sense because it should. Even before all of this happened to him, he’d always thought he’d be independent, sneering at the idea that he needed an alpha to take care of him or mark him. 

But the lingering reminder of Castiel is as soothing as it always is. It smells like safety. Dean buries his nose in his sweatshirt and inhales, his eyes hooding. He wonders if Castiel can still smell him, too. He’d certainly nosed against the man’s scent glands enough. The memory makes him grimace. 

When push comes to shove, he’s no different than any other omega. His dad would be disgusted with him. Probably would have earned himself a backhand if his old man had seen him being such a coward. But the ghost touch of the alpha’s palm on his skin takes his thoughts off of John pretty quickly. 

He trails his fingers over his neck, up and down in a self soothing motion. And his fucking hand is shaking.

It’s dawning on him that Castiel might actually be the person that he’s claiming to be. 

That thought scares the shit outta him. He just isn’t that lucky – never has been. His luck is garbage. From the day he presented, his life has spiraled from bad to worse. It seems like a fantasy to consider the idea that he might be done with all of that. That Castiel really has no other reason to help him other than that he wants to be kind, that his generosity isn’t a cover for some betrayal that, coming from this alpha, will hurt way more than anything Alastair ever did to him. 

He forces his eyes closed like Sam used to slam the trunk of the Impala, pissed off that they’d once again had to pack up their shit and move. And of course, that makes him think about his little brother’s weight next to him in the back seat of the car, of his head on Dean’s shoulder after he inevitably conked out an hour into the drive, of Sam’s face and Sam’s laugh and…  

He scoots the heavy quilt out from under himself and wriggles beneath it, his throat tight. 

Dean tries to force his mind to go quiet, but he can’t. It’s just so strange to lay on something soft. Even the rug has been a luxury – with Alastair, he’d slept on cracked and creaking wooden floors, the chain on his collar barely long enough for him to get horizontal. His arrangements with previous owners had been just as bad, if not worse – one of the earlier ones had literally made him sleep in a dog crate, hardly enough room for him to curl into a ball. 

The man had put a 17-year-old kid in a fucking kennel, and he probably slept like a baby despite it. Anger flickers inside of him, but it dies as quickly as it manifests. 

No point. 

Wriggling down into the sheets to get comfortable, Dean tries to let his exhaustion take him out of his head. Tries to get a good night’s sleep for the first time in days, tries not to think about Alastair’s reptilian gaze or Sam’s hazel eyes. He wants to let himself take for granted that this comfort is really for him, that there is no sinister plan behind giving him these luxuries. 

That the alpha downstairs really does give a shit about him. 

He’s almost successful. 

But, predictably, he can’t let it go. Laying here reminds him too much of the other times he’s been in a bed for any length of time, none of those memories pleasant. It makes him think of grasping hands and pressure on his neck and pain in his wrists, of the always terrifying and painful initial thrust into him, of the putrid scent of an alpha’s lust. And, worst of all, it reminds him of heat sickness, of the wrenching pain in his gut, of the screaming certainty that he needed relief no matter the form. 

His stomach rolls. He turns to his side and brings his knees up, hugging them to his chest. He can still hear their voices, can feel the pull of the commands they used to give him just to watch him squirm and fight. 

And then a fear – a dark, skittering thing with glowing eyes and a shark-toothed smile – begins to creep through his brain like cancer. Like rot. 

Castiel had ordered him, a few hours ago. 

He’d told Dean to do something, and Dean hadn’t hesitated for a second before complying. Hadn’t even thought to hesitate. His alpha had used that voice, the rumbling and persuasive tone that itched a spot in his brain the way nothing else ever has. 

Technically, he had just told Dean to breathe. But in reality, he had ordered him to stop fighting. To give up, to give in to his demand that Dean scent him.

And Dean had. 

It hadn’t bothered him, at first, because it had calmed down the jackrabbit beating of his heart, had helped him fight his way back to the present. Shit, he’d been grateful, so fucking relieved that Castiel would want him to stop being afraid that he would go to those lengths to help him. 

But now, as he lays in a bed that doesn’t really belong to him and rests his head on a pillow that still smells faintly like his master, the reality of what happened sinks in. 

What else would Dean have done, if his master had ordered him to? What else would he have listened to without a second thought, in that state of mind? 

What else will the alpha order him to do? And how sure is Dean that he would even think to fight it? 

The thought terrifies him. Alphas have never shied away from the power they held over him, had gleefully given him order after order just to watch him struggle and pant against his own pitiful, biological urge to roll over with his tail between his legs. Dean has mostly been successful at resisting, in the past – he’s been able to ignore orders, no small feat with how tired and hungry he’d always been, with how hard those alphas had always gripped his nape.

But not Castiel’s order. He hadn’t even wanted to. 

On some level, he knows it's because his brain has decided that he can trust the alpha. After all, he’s feeding Dean the right foods, giving him medication, keeping him clean. He’s letting Dean’s injuries heal. He hasn’t hit Dean even once, not even a slap. Hasn’t even threatened to.

He’s making him feel safe, making him feel secure, dismantling each of his carefully cultivated fears until Dean is vulnerable and unsuspecting. Hell, he even has Dean telling him what scares him, has Dean crawling into his lap and latching on like a little kid, begging for comfort. 

Dean’s body locks up, his heart starts to pound. The thin little veil of safety he’s draped over himself frays into tangled threads. 

He’s so stupid. 

Of course this is what the alpha wants, all alone in his house with no family. No partner. 

No kids. 

He scrambles off the bed, sweat springing to the back of his neck as he backs away from it, horror clawing around inside of him as everything clicks into its sickening place. 

Castiel wants – He– 

In the bathroom before he can even finish the thought, the dinner Castiel prepared for him hits the toilet bowl loudly. He retches until there’s nothing left in him and he’s choking on bile, vision blackened and sparkling at the edges. 

Castiel wants him to go into heat. 

A real heat, one triggered by feelings of safety and comfort, one that can only happen if he’s healthy and happy. 

Castiel wants to knock him up.  

Why the fuck else would he go to these lengths to rescue Dean? Why else would he waste his time fixing a broken omega, rebuilding him from the ground up? He’s doing the equivalent of fattening up the goose so he can chop its damn head off at the end of the season. Prepping Dean like a pig for slaughter. 

And Dean is letting him. 

Another wave of nausea hits him and he retches again, hand covering the scar on his stomach protectively. He’s such a fucking idiot. The alpha obviously doesn’t know about what Alastair did to him to make that plan impossible, and Dean’s not sure what’s worse – realizing that Castiel wants to use him as a breeder, or thinking about what he’s going to do when he finds out he can’t. 

And then, like his thoughts set off an alarm somewhere, his master is knocking on the door. 

“Dean? Are you alright?”

The alpha’s tone is worried, so genuine that it makes Dean’s head spin. Castiel is either a really good liar, or his deception goes so deep that he actually does care about Dean. But, of course he would give a shit – if Dean kicks it, or figures it out, the alpha’s got to start this process all over again with another broken omega who is too desperate for kindness to realize what’s happening right in front of their face. 

Dean coughs the last of the bile from his mouth and flushes, hands white and trembling as he does so, and he tries to figure out what the fuck he’s supposed to do. 

“Are you ill?”

He nearly retches again. Swallowing thickly, he wipes his mouth on the back of his hand and finds some sad little spark of courage left inside of him. 

“I’m – I’m okay,” he chokes. “I think I ate too fast.”

God, he hopes he sounds convincing. Hopes that the fear that Castiel is no doubt smelling is par for the course at this point, hopes that the alpha doesn’t know Dean’s figured out what’s going on. He has no idea how Castiel will react, but he knows it won’t be good. 

Terror sinks its claws into his spine. Somehow, he’s going to have to pretend he doesn’t know. Trembling, he tries to force his scent back to something approaching normal, but he fucking can ’t – he’s eaten too little, gotten too few hours of sleep to be able to hide himself away like that. 

Castiel’s voice is uncertain. “Alright. Let me know if you’d like some anti-nausea medication,” he offers, sounding unsure of himself. “Would you like me to bring you up some crackers? Maybe a ginger ale?”

Jesus. He closes his eyes, grips the toilet bowl. “Uh, no. No thanks. I’m just going to shower and go to sleep. If that’s okay.”

“Of course. Remember, you have Pamela’s card. You can use my cellphone to call her, if you’d like.”

Castiel’s footsteps retreat after that, and Dean slumps down, tension and adrenaline swirling with nowhere to go in his body.  Shakily, he pushes himself up and turns on the shower, sitting on tile with his head in his hands. 

Dean is quiet at breakfast, his posture stiff and his eyes averted. Castiel frowns at how little he eats, his plate still mostly full of hashbrowns and eggs that he pushes around listlessly. 

He shifts on the carpet and wonders again how Dean is able to kneel and sit here day after day. He sniffs the air cautiously. There’s still that sour fear scent in the air, a little stronger than it had been, and he frowns at the extra layer that hadn’t been there yesterday. “Are you still feeling ill?”

Dean jerks, and Castiel gets the feeling that the omega had just been a million miles away. “Uh. Yeah, I guess. My stomach hurts.”

“I could give Pamela a call so she can come give you a checkup.”

His scent sours even more, and Castiel could kick himself – of course Dean isn’t comfortable with being seen by a doctor. He’s not terrified, not like the first time he’d seen Pam, but, understandably, he’s still nervous. 

Dean picks at his plate. “You don’t need to. Think I’m just not used to all this food.”

Castiel nods. “Perhaps I should still be cooking things that will be a little more gentle on your stomach.”

The omega just gives a noncommittal shrug, and Castiel is forced to either push harder than he thinks he should or let it go. 

He lets it go. 

The trend continues through the day and into the next, and by the time they finish the next morning’s breakfast together Dean is hardly eating anything at all.

Castiel had thought that the moment after the bookshelf had been a breakthrough. Clearly, he’d been wrong. It’s like Dean has drawn into himself, further reversing the progress they’ve made over the last few weeks. He doesn’t come downstairs at all anymore, doesn’t touch the books. He hardly even looks in Castiel’s direction. And all the while, there’s that fear scent, driving him slowly crazy as he tries to work out what’s wrong so that he can fix it. 

But his instincts are likely what got them here in the first place. He knows this has everything to do with that stupid, knee-jerk order he’d given Dean. Knows that he fucked up, because Dean is scared of him again, and they’re back to square one. He wants so badly to go back in time and stop himself. Wants to reassure Dean that he’s safe here – he’s just not sure how to do that in a way that will actually convince him. 

“Dean, is there something wrong?” he asks eventually, unable to fully keep the worry – or guilt – out of his voice. “Is there… can I do something? You seem…”

Dean’s jaw tightens, but he looks over at Castiel almost purposefully, like he’s making himself do it. It strikes Castiel suddenly that he’s been spending a lot of time with Dean, hardly giving the omega a moment to himself. No wonder he’s uncomfortable, unable to relax – he’s constantly on guard, even if he doesn’t want to be. He’d been mortified after his panic attack, and he probably feels very vulnerable even now – especially after Castiel abused his trust by ordering him to do something, even if the act itself had been to help him.

“Would it help if I gave you some space?”

He tries to keep his tone even, to make sure Dean doesn’t think he’s offended by the idea. Dean looks surprised. “You don’t have to do that,” he says blankly. But he doesn’t say no. 

Castiel tries not to let that hurt him. He can’t take this personally – after all, there’s a reason that new omega residents at the center don’t spend time around alphas until they’re ready. He’s expecting a lot out of Dean, being his only company. “I think it might… make you more comfortable. I’d still like to bring you meals, if that’s okay?”

Dean blinks owlishly. Some of the fog clears from his expression – in its place is puzzlement. “You still want to feed me?”

Castiel knows his scent has soured by the way the omega flinches, by the way his hand twitches up like he’s going to protect his neck. Dean stumbles over his words trying to appease him, and that just makes him feel worse. “I just – I meant, if I’m not eating with you –” 

“Although I enjoy your company,” Castiel interrupts stiffly, “my presence is not a requirement for you to continue to eat. This is not Beauty and the Beast. ”

That appears to go right over Dean’s head, because his face doesn’t even twitch. Castiel sighs - of course, the first time in his life he’s managed to make a pop culture reference, and it doesn’t even help. “You can still ask me for anything you need, Dean. I mean that.” He stands, stretches, tries to cover the hurt he’s feeling. It’s irrational, since he brought this on himself. “I’ll be in my office most of the time.”

Dean just nods silently, his hands around his still-full plate. He hasn’t eaten a bite.

Castiel does what he promised, and doesn’t see Dean for more than a minute at a time when he brings up his meals. 

He’s not angry, exactly. Dean would know that smell, could recognize it from a mile away, has been conditioned to make himself scarce or small when he gets a whiff of it. But the alpha's mouth does tighten at the corners when Dean hands him his plate from lunch, still mostly full. 

He dumps most of the food in the bathroom trash after that, and the alpha seems pleased when he hands him back an empty plate.

Days pass. It feels like months. He’s not hungry, though he should be. He can’t sleep – he’s tried. But something in him is broken. Some traitorous, stupid part of him wants Cas, wants his scent again. Wants to be held. He’d had just a tiny taste of security and he’s already addicted, jonesing for it. He holds the stupid green pillow to his chest and breathes in the ever fading scent of the alpha and is actually comforted by it more than he’s sickened. 

He hates himself. He knows, he knows what his master wants him for, but here he is, pining for the third night in a row as he shivers on the ground. He shouldn’t be cold; the room is warm, the blanket is warm, the pillow is warm. But he freezes anyway. 

God, he wanted so bad to believe that this was real. 

He dozes. Never for long; he gets half an hour here or there before nightmares wake him. He jolts awake and knows that Alastair is at the door to buy him back. Or that Castiel is pinning him down and cinching the collar around his neck like a noose so he can drag him back to the auction house and demand a refund for a defective product. That the once gentle alpha has cuffed him to his bed, his achingly kind touches turning sadistic and greedy. 

None of those things are ever true once the fog clears, but it doesn’t stop him from shaking or puking or crawling into the shower for the third time that night, eyes dull, chest aching.  

This morning, when he gets up to go to the bathroom, he nearly trips over a little pile of books in front of his door. He stares at them for a long moment before he can make sense of what he’s seeing, has to blink hard through the tears that are suddenly blurring his vision. 

He’d give anything for this to be a genuine gesture – would cut off a damn leg for a reality in which Castiel is actually offering him books to read because he cares about him, and not because he’s trying to bribe him or lull him into a false sense of security. He’s angry, almost, looking at the innocent little pile of novels that Castiel picked out for him – furious and hurt that it can’t be real, furious at himself for thinking, even for a moment, that it could be.

He should have known better than to hope. Every little gesture Castiel has done for him and continues to do for him just hurts all the worse now. 

Dean stands in the doorway and stares at the books on the floor and resists the urge to kick them as hard as he can. Instead, he steps over them, swallowing. He can’t hide up here forever. He needs to get his shit together and start acting like he had been before he figured all this out. Castiel is going to get suspicious, if he hasn’t already, and even though Dean’s scared of what’s going to inevitably happen he doesn’t want to leave.

How pathetic is that? He knows he’s here to be bred. To be Castiel’s pretend mate just long enough for a kid or two to be pushed into this fucked up world. But he still doesn’t want to go. Until Castiel figures out his plumbing is no good, he’s safe. His master can’t hurt him, because then all the progress he’s made up until this point will be for nothing. So if he fakes it, he can buy himself time. 

It feels like he’s giving up. Maybe he is. Five years ago, he would have been packing a bag and planning his route through the woods, counting his lucky stars that Castiel was dumb enough to take off his collar. Now he’s just trying to piece together how he can stay. 

He tries to act normal. Really, he does. He goes downstairs, attempts to sort books into piles, or at least look like he is. He makes himself keep moving when he hears the office door creak open. When the alpha comes out with a smile and tells him how glad he is to see him back downstairs, he tries to make eye contact and smile back. 

Castiel doesn’t buy it. He knows he doesn’t. His frown gets bigger every time he sees Dean. That, in turn, makes Dean more anxious, which makes his master even more suspicious. It’s a spiral that’s going to end with him in a world of pain. 

He thinks he might be able to last a week like this. 

He doesn’t.