35. Waiting All Winter

The wind seems to find its way directly into Castiel’s jacket the moment he steps outside. He shivers, shoving his hands deep in his pockets, and ignores the urge to turn around and go right back through the little side exit he’d just come out of. 

He can’t. Worry – and worse, anger – are running rampant in his scent. He knows that’s something that will be alarming to many of the omegas inside, and he’s unwilling to subject them to the volatility of an alpha’s emotions while they recover. There’s a reason that he’s careful to take separate paths, most of the time – a reason that he stays in areas where the omegas are fully aware alphas might be. He is not trying to set back anyone’s recovery by spooking them. 

Firmly telling himself not to sulk, he meanders down the path along the edge of the building. The sun is still hiding behind the clouds, and the snow is slushy and gray. Midway through April, spring is somewhat overdue and definitely here to stay, and the piles of snow on the ground are likely the last they’ll see until winter returns. 

Normally, that would sadden him. Castiel likes the winter – likes the simplicity of it, the clean lines that the snow makes of his surroundings. Knowing what he knows about Dean’s experience with the outdoors, though, Castiel cannot help but be glad that sunshine and flowers will soon replace the cold. 

He sighs, staring out into the woods. 

It is hard to think of Dean as he’d first been, when Castiel had brought him home. Limping and bruised and bloody. And that had been after several days of healing – Dean’s pain threshold is bound to be high. It shouldn’t bother him so much that Dean had been keeping things from him. The omega hadn’t considered his pain important, obviously; it wasn’t that Dean hadn’t wanted to tell him, or that he’d been actively lying. It was just that he hadn’t seen a reason to bring it up. 

And, even if he had intentionally neglected to mention it, perhaps he’d been right to do so. Castiel had instantly – and apparently, predictably – overreacted. 

Dean is his own person, whether the law recognizes him that way or not, and so Castiel should not feel in any way entitled to make decisions for him. Yet he’d attempted to do so without a second thought. He’d completely disregarded Dean’s feelings and desires in favor of protecting his omega from – 

He grimaces at the mental slip. His omega. 

He’s been doing that more and more, lately; thinking of Dean that way. He’d slipped into that exact mindset in the elevator, a few hours ago, had snapped orders at Dean like he had any right to do so. He hadn’t used his alpha voice, but he also had known, somehow, that he hadn’t needed to. There had been terror in Dean’s eyes – the same sort of fear he’d had early on, when he hadn’t so much as looked up without express permission. The omega had been fast approaching a morbidly familiar panic spiral, and Castiel had been desperate to avoid it.

Dean, of course, had insisted that he hadn’t minded, and had even thanked him for it. That had eased his guilt a little, but it still distresses him that his first instinct had been to take control. He’s not good at that – isn’t good enough to do that. Castiel has never been alpha in that way. But the small attempts he’s made at telling Dean what to do, if only to ease his anxiety, have felt distressingly… easy. Natural. 

He doesn’t know how to feel about that. 

What he does know is that he wants to protect Dean from anything and everything that could do him harm. He wants that so bad that his chest aches. 

And, yet. 

Dean had been correct, when he’d chastised him and reminded Castiel that something like that was not possible. No matter how much he desires to, Castiel cannot keep the omega in a bubble of protection. And, furthermore, Dean does not need to be protected to that degree – he is more than capable of taking care of himself, now that he’s got his feet back under him. He can get a grip on his own fears and insecurities faster than Castiel could, put in the same position. 

He’s proud of Dean, he realizes; so proud that his chest has grown warm and tight just thinking about it, out here in the cold. He’s proud that the omega is willing to keep trying, proud that Dean is brave enough to be rude, to joke with a man he was terrified of only months ago. He’s proud to be beside him while he’s learning to stand tall.

And… Dean needs to be free. 

Castiel’s excuses for hiding the possibility from him have more than run out. He knows that Dean will be able to handle the information, now – knows that, while he may be initially upset, he will be able to wrap his mind around the idea quickly. Will be able to understand how necessary it is, for his continued recovery. 

He also knows that bringing Dean to the center all but guarantees that he’ll figure it out all on his own, and he tries not to feel like a coward for hoping that he does. 

“You always smell so damp when you’re guilty. Like a bloody basement.” 

Beside him, Balthazar has materialized and matched his stride perfectly, his hands crammed into his pockets and his scarf over his nose. His eyes are trained on Castiel closely. “Where’s Winchester?”

“With Pam,” he admits, sighing. 

There’s a moment of silence in which Castiel waits to be reprimanded – he knows that Bal will understand exactly why he’s been sent out of the clinic. Instead, though, the omega lets out a sigh to match his own. 

“Was it the x-rays?”

Castiel feels a tightness in his throat, feels his nose sting, and Balthazar makes a knowing sort of noise – though not a teasing one. He looks out at the path ahead of them, his eyes a little distant. “Hard to look at, I’ll wager.” 

Castiel wonders, numbly, what Balthazar’s x-rays might look like. Wonders how much damage his family and the unnamed masters before them have managed to do to the man that has chosen, in spite of that cruelty, to be his friend. 

He swallows. “Yes. They were.”

And God, they had been. Castiel had only seen the first pair – Dean’s leg, from the knee down, and the snapshot of his chest that Pamela had tossed up next to it. She hadn’t needed to point out the breaks to him; he’s familiar with examining x-rays, hours of staring at slave files enough to have made him an amateur radiologist. He’d seen the hairline fractures scattered like spiderwebs on Dean’s rib cage. Had seen the badly healed break on his clavicle – an old injury. Had seen that, while Dean’s knee isn’t currently broken, it certainly has been in the past. 

When he’d first seen Dean’s file, he’d skipped over scans like that. Much more pressing had been the exhausted eyes of the man in the last photo, the distressingly sharp decline of escape attempts on record. But, sitting in Pam’s exam room and trying desperately to control his emotions, he’d been unable to turn away from the awful things that Dean has endured. 

Bal claps a hand on his shoulder, firm and bracing. “Leave the past in the past, mate. No use getting upset now.” 

“Easy to say,” he says, voice low. “What I wouldn’t give to find the scum that did those things to him…” 

Balthazar just hums, patting him once before returning his hand to his pocket. “Yes, well. As much fun as I’m sure you’d have turning them into veritable piñatas, you’d have quite the hunt in front of you. That kid went through more masters than I did.”

The omega is quiet, and for a while the only sound they can hear is the crunching of damp snow under their shoes. 

He’s known Balthazar long enough to be able to tell when something is bothering him – his normal, citrus scent sharpens into something closer to disinfectant when he’s agitated. And right now, he smells like pine-sol. He turns, raising an eyebrow at the omega. 

Bal flicks his eyes at him, then looks back at the path. It’s another moment before he speaks. “Alastair Carn.” 

Castiel stiffens, but Balthazar doesn’t pause. “That was the name Ash finally dug up yesterday. The bastard didn’t make it easy, surprisingly – normally, the brothel type are exceptionally stupid. But he covered his tracks well.” 

Castiel can feel his hands closing into fists in his pockets. Having a name – a real name, not just a whisper of a man – makes it worse, somehow. It forces him to wrap his mind around the idea that a real, living human being had been the one to break Dean down to rubble.

“You found something on him, didn’t you,” he says bluntly. It’s not a question. Balthazar wouldn’t have brought it up if he hadn’t, and he wouldn’t be hesitating if it was good news. 

Balthazar rubs a hand over his mouth, frowning. “It’s more what I didn’t find that’s distressing, actually.” 

Castiel takes a deep, steadying breath. “Tell me,” he tries not to growl, “that the bastard is not alive, Balthazar.” 

The omega glances at him, his face carefully devoid of its usual lively emotion. “Wish I could. But there’s no death cert’ on record for him. Ash sifted through everything he could get his hands on, and none of the John Doe cadavers found around the blast site are a match for the photo he’s got, either.” 

Heartbeat thudding in his ears, he doesn’t realize he’s stopped in his tracks until Balthazar eyes him, a slightly wary expression on his face. “Cassie–” 

“The photo,” he snaps, holding his hand out.

The omega hesitates. “You know there’s nothing he could do, yes? He’s lost the chance to claim him. He–” 

“Balthazar,” Castiel bites. “Let me see.”

Sighing, the man relents, digging in his pocket for his phone. He taps at it for a moment and then sends it over, and Castiel opens the message on his cell with a cold, frightening sort of calm. 

The man in the photo has short, graying brown hair. He’s white. Probably late forties, early fifties. Surrounded by sallow, wrinkled skin, his colorless, deep set eyes stare at Castiel from the small photo; below that, his mouth forms a savage, joyless smirk. 

Castiel realizes, distantly, that his hands are shaking. 

This is the man who hurt Dean. Who bound him, and beat him, and whipped him. This is the man who trained him into subservience and fear. This is the man who allowed countless alphas to violate the omega in the worst way imaginable; this is the man who did so himself so often that Dean was not even allowed to sleep on his own terms. 

This is the man who carved, and shattered, and tore at the most vulnerable parts of Dean, until the very soul of the man he loves was twisted beyond recognition.

This is not a man. He is a monster.

He jerks when someone touches him, baring his teeth. Snapping his eyes up, a feral growl rips from the back of his throat, something savage inside of him roaring for a fight – for someone to hurt. 

But there is only Balthazar, his palm hiding the photo, his fingers wrapped around the back of Castiel’s hand. 

Confused, Castiel is frozen in place; muscles quivering, heart pounding. 

The omega locks the phone for him. Unflinching, his normally joyful face creased with sadness, he meets Castiel’s gaze with what can only be described as a deep, sympathetic understanding. 

“Breathe, Castiel.”

A breath he didn’t know he was holding hostage bursts out of him. He takes a shaky, hungry gulp of the cold air. Fights back a wave of something feral and furious, a chill crawling up his spine. The woods are spinning around him. 

“It’s alright,” Balthazar says, his voice low and calm. His hand is still wrapped around Castiel’s own, an anchor. “It’s alright. There’s no danger here, and Dean is safe and sound. There is nothing and no one to fight.”

Slowly, the swarm buzzing in his brain quiets down. 

He blinks once, twice. Balthazar’s scent washes over him, intentionally soothing, and he realizes that the omega has his other hand around Castiel’s wrist. Holding him back.

All at once, the sheer degree of the control he just lost hits him. He staggers back and turns away, nausea twisting his insides; Balthazar lets him go. He says nothing as Castiel stumbles off the path, says nothing as he leans against a tree and closes his eyes, swallowing convulsively. 

“Shit,” he finally croaks. The world spins a little – he wonders if he’s going to vomit. “Shit.”

Balthazar gives him a moment more to get his bearings. When he can breathe correctly again, he hears the crunch of snow under shoes and feels his friend’s hand on his shoulder. 

“You,” he finally says, a hint of humor under his sympathy, “can be downright terrifying, mate.”

“I’m sorry,” he blurts. “I – that was –”

“Normal, given the circumstances,” Bal says simply. He doesn’t sound angry, and, more importantly, he doesn’t sound afraid – Castiel would never forgive himself if he managed to scare Balthazar after years of building up his trust. 

They stand in silence for a while, their breath puffing out in little clouds. Castiel realizes that he’s shivering. 

“I need to sit,” he says, hoarse, and Balthazar hums an agreement – he gently steers him toward a nearby bench, brushes the snow from the wood, and nudges him until he drops down on it. He covers his face with his hands and tries not to think about what he might have done if there actually had been an alpha in front of him, a moment ago. 

“This is worse than the parking garage,” he says into his hands. “How can it be worse? What the hell is wrong with me, that I’m more angry at a photo than I am at someone who had just tried to rape him –”

“If he’d actually done so, you’d probably be facing murder charges,” Balthazar says bluntly. “It’s different because you knew the bloke in the garage didn’t get a chance to touch him. And you know this one did.”

He shudders, an aftershock of anger rippling through him. “If that man comes anywhere near him…” 

“Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.” Balthazar leans back on the bench next to him, settling in with his hands folded in his lap. There’s a moment of silence between them, and then Bal says,

“You’re head over heels for him, aren’t you?”

Castiel closes his eyes. He isn’t about to deny it – not to Balthazar. He knows better than to think he could fool him, and he owes him the truth anyway. “Yes,” he mumbles into his palms.

Bal just huffs, a puff of condensation floating above him. “Of course you are. Not interested in a single bloody omega for years, no matter how many of them come through the center, and now…”

He sounds mildly exasperated, but he isn’t accusatory. Castiel looks over at him – Bal is gazing out at the slushy snow with a strange look on his face. “I haven’t touched him,” Castiel pleads, desperate. “I haven’t…” 

“Oh, I know,” Bal says easily. “You wouldn’t. I’m not worried.”

Shoulders slumping, he looks down at his hands, relief and misery coiling together. “I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

“We rarely do,” his friend responds wryly. “Does he know?”

Castiel’s throat tightens at the mere thought. “God, no. No. He isn’t free, Bal – I can’t tell him, not now.”

Balthazar hums an agreement, nodding. “And what about when he is free? What then?”

He sighs, rubbing at his face. “I suppose I’ll play it by ear. I just…” 

The wind rustles through the trees. Somewhere in the distance, a flock of chickadees sends out warning calls. A raven caws in response, the sound echoing off the snow. 

“I don’t want him to think he owes me anything.”

“And that,” Balthazar says warmly, “is exactly why I trust you. And exactly why he will trust that he won’t need to manufacture feelings for you just to please you. Maybe not now, maybe not anytime soon. But, given time…” 

He trails off, and Castiel doesn’t need to look at him to know that he’s grinning. “I am never going to hear the end of this, am I?” 

“Absolutely bloody not. This is delicious ammunition.”

He groans into his palms, and Balthazar laughs as he claps him on the shoulder. 

Once Cas has left, Pam gets down to business. 

She points out various little spots on the x-rays and questions him on each one, her mouth getting thinner and thinner as he answers her questions as plainly as he can. By the time they’ve discussed the healed breaks in his fingers – the ones he can remember, anyway – she’s downright pissed, her eyes blazing and her a muscle in her cheek twitching as she violently scribbles things down in his chart. 

There was a time when Dean might have thought that anger was directed at him – fury for all the punishments he’s earned over the years. But he knows better, now. He recognizes the mama bear rage in the older woman, and he’s grateful for it. 

What she doesn’t do is start offering sympathy, and Dean’s even more grateful for that. He’s not sure how he would take it, if he’s being honest – he doesn’t need anyone’s pity, and there’s no changing what’s already happened. So he’s happy that Pam just cocks her jaw and hisses, “those fucking bastards,” when she can’t seem to help herself, rather than crying or something equally terrifying that Dean would have no idea how to handle. 

“Do you blow a gasket for all your patients, or am I just special?” he cracks, to cover the self conscious wave of gratitude in his chest. It just… it feels so good to be cared for, feels good to know that there’s another person in the world that thinks what has happened to him was not deserved. 

There have been many moments in Dean’s life where he’s wondered if he truly did earn the punishments he’s endured – a part of him, larger and larger over the years, that has suspected he truly is defective, or broken, or bad. People like Cas and Pamela and Balthazar… they are slowly but surely setting him straight, reminding him that there are plenty of folks in the world who would never condone the things that have been done to him. Who condemn those who would. 

It had been difficult, these last few years, to remember that people like that still existed. 

Pamela snorts, adjusting the glasses on her face. “It’s been a while since we’ve had a case like yours, Dean. Most of the omegas that come through here are pretty green.”

She leaves off the obvious – that omegas like him don’t tend to live long at all, and if they do, they’re too far gone for even people like Cas to save. 

House omegas have it a little better, he guesses. They’re trained as nannies and housekeepers, and, while they don’t escape violence completely, they usually only have one alpha using them at a time. They tend to be healthier. To live longer. The ones sent to breeding farms – fertility clinics, free people call them – are treated better than even that, simply because they have to be in order to keep a pup alive. 

But omegas like Dean, dumped into the trade as a teenager and trained for one purpose and one purpose only, aren’t destined to last long. 

He’s pretty sure that outright killing a slave is illegal. But nothing says he can’t starve to death from being punished one too many times. Nothing says he can’t bleed to death from a beating he earned, or from an alpha using him a little too roughly. It’s a combination of dumb luck and spite that’s kept Dean alive this long, and he knows it. 

Pamela sighs, rubbing at the bridge of her nose as she tries to find her center. “Sorry. I promise I’m not always this unprofessional.”

Dean shakes his head, smiling a little. “Nah. It’s kinda nice, actually. I appreciate it, so, you know. Don’t apologize.”

She gives him a sad sort of smile in return, something soft in her gaze. “You’ve got a lot of kindness inside of you, Dean Winchester.” 

He snorts. “Sure. Regular old Mother Teresa, right here.”

She rolls her eyes, but rather than argue with him, she flips to a new page on his chart. “Ready for the unpleasant part?”

Dean suppresses the instinctual urge to balk, and looks up at her instead. “Ready as ever, I guess.”

Much like the first time she’d looked him over, Dean tugs off his shirt and sits very still as Pam gently examines him. She nods approvingly at the lack of bruises on him, smiles when she sees that his back has healed. She doesn’t mention his nape, but he can tell that she’s relieved to see it free of injuries – even as a beta, she understands how sensitive omegas are back there. By the time he’s buttoning his shirt back up, he’s much less tense than he’d thought he’d be. 

Then, of course, comes the harder part. 

“I should take a look down there too, kiddo. Just to be sure everything’s healing and working as it should be,” she says, looking down at his pelvis pointedly. And, as much as he’s decided that he trusts Pamela, Dean can’t help but stiffen. 

The doctor raises her hands with her palms out. “Feel free to tell me to back off,” she says gently, her humor softening to genuine compassion. “We won’t do anything you don’t want to do.”

Dean shakes his head, cocking his jaw. “It’s fine,” he mutters, and he tugs off his pants before he can convince himself not to. 

Instead of standing, like he had the first time, Dean lays back on the little bed and stares up at the ceiling. He can’t tell if it's better or worse like this. He can hear Pamela shuffling things around, can feel her getting closer. She narrates exactly what she’s going to do before she does it, and that helps a lot – as do the approving noises she makes when she examines him for anything that hasn’t healed. By the time she’s done, his skin is crawling and he feels a little faint, but he doesn’t want to bolt. And that’s an improvement. 

“You can go ahead and pull up your pants, Dean, but I’d like to do a quick ultrasound on your abdominal scarring. As long as you’re alright with that.”

Dean clenches his jaw and doesn’t answer, shimmying his jeans back up. He leaves them unbuttoned so she can access the scar. His heart is in his throat. 

She raises the head of the bed a little, easing him up a few inches, and with a better view of the room he finds he’s more relaxed. She wheels over one of the machines he’d been wary of earlier, and he eyes it like a spooked horse. 

“Have you ever seen one of these be performed?”

He shakes his head. 

“Okay, well. It’s not invasive. Basically, I’m going to coat the end of this little wand,” she holds up something that looks a little too familiar for him to be comfortable, “in some slippery gel, just so it will slide around easier. Then I’ll glide it over the area I want to look at. It’s painless – the worst you’ll feel is a little cold.”

He swallows, eyeing the wand apprehensively. “It doesn’t… it stays outside. Yeah?”

“Yes,” she confirms. It’s all too obvious that she knows exactly what he’d been thinking about. “It works sort of like a stud finder.”

He snorts at the mental image, relaxing a little. “Oh. Okay. Well, go crazy, then.”

She smiles at him, and squirts something like petroleum jelly on the end of the wand. It is a little cold when it touches his skin, and he jumps, but it doesn’t hurt. The scar tingles where she touches it, but that’s about it. 

Pamela turns to the little monitor attached to the screen, frowning as she peers at the grainy image through her glasses. It looks incomprehensible to Dean, but she’s clearly able to understand it – she makes an unhappy noise, gliding the thing back and forth across the skin below his stomach. 

“There’s… a lot of scarring,” she says quietly. Dean knew that already – he was there for the surgery. He’d been awake – until he’d passed out, anyway. So he knows it hadn’t exactly been a nip-tuck situation. 

“From what I can see,” she says, frowning, “your cycle will probably proceed as normal, once you’re healthy enough for it. But just like I thought… you won’t be able to get pregnant. Even if you did, the pup wouldn’t survive past a few weeks. There’s just too much damage."

Dean waits to have some sort of reaction to that – waits to feel angry, or sad, or relieved. But there’s just this numb sort of buzzing in his brain when he looks at that grainy image on the monitor. 

He hadn’t ever wanted kids – hadn’t thought he ever would. But he would have liked to choose for himself. Like so many things in his life, though, the choice has been made for him. 

It’s just another thing to mourn. 

Silently, Pam wipes the jelly off his stomach with a damp, warm towel. She doesn’t push him – doesn’t try and encourage him, or give him useless platitudes. It is what it is. 

After she’s done, he can sit up all the way, and he does so, swinging his legs back over the edge of the bed. Pamela hands him a little plastic cup full of water, which he sips from gratefully. Probably sensing that he needs some space, she drops herself onto the stool that Castiel had been on before continuing. 

“While we’re on the subject, have you had any issues getting aroused?”

Dean nearly chokes on the water, spilling it down his shirt. “Have I – what?” he sputters. 

Pamela just cocks her head at him, as if she couldn’t possibly imagine what would be mortifying about that question. “Have you had trouble with getting slick, I mean. Or becoming erect. I didn’t see anything on the ultrasound that would impede that, but...”

Dean’s pretty sure his mouth is flapping like a fish. “I – that’s. Um.”

She waits for him to sort out his words with a bemused expression on her face. “Why are you – I mean. Why does it matter?” he can’t help but demand, his stomach churning. Had Cas told her?

“Just want to be sure all your equipment is up and running, kiddo,” she says patiently, smiling – he decides that Cas couldn’t have said anything, because she’d probably be using kiddy-gloves if he had. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Things like that are completely natural.”

Numb, he mechanically says, “It happened yesterday.” 

She nods and jots that down in his chart – and God, does that mean someone else is going to read that? He swallows, watching her pen move back and forth. “Other omegas here… They do that? Too?”

She looks at him a little closer, this time. For a moment, he can tell that she doesn’t understand the question – and when she does get it, her face softens, dangerously close to that pity that he dreaded so much. 

“Yes, Dean. They do. Once they’ve had a chance to heal, and their bodies go back to normal. It’s a healthy thing.”

“It was fucking terrifying,” he blurts, and immediately flushes bright red when Pamela’s eyebrows shoot up. “I… it. It scared me. I’m not. I wasn’t. Allowed to, um. Yeah.” The words tumble out of him, small and timid. God, he wants to dig himself into a hole and pass away.

Pamela slowly stands up. She comes over to stand in front of him. And, with no preamble or hesitation, she tugs him into a hug. 

He curls into it, face screwed up as he tries not to cry. Pamela smells like lavender shampoo and hand lotion, and her chest is warm and soft, and for a fleeting moment, Dean remembers what it was like to be hugged by his mom. He thought he’d hate this – thought he didn’t want her sympathy. It turns out, though, to feel like cool water on a burn. 

“Castiel doesn’t care about that,” she says, and the pity he’d been afraid to hear in her voice is nowhere to be found. “Just so we’re clear.”

He sniffs, and takes in a shaky breath. “I know. I know he doesn’t. I just didn’t think I… I wasn’t sure I could even do that anymore. Not by myself.”

She leans him back by his shoulders, searching his face. “I’m so sorry that they tried to take that from you, Dean. They had no right.”

Yes they did, he wants to argue. They bought me. They had every right. But he doesn’t say that, because he knows that Pamela doesn’t think that way. Knows that they’re in a building full of people who would be horrified at those words. So he just gives her a shaky smile and wipes at his nose, an apology already forming for being so pathetic about something like this. 

Pamela doesn’t give him the chance, though. “You, on the other hand, have every right to feel good, Dean. Experiencing arousal and pleasure are things that all people deserve as human beings. And when you’re comfortable with searching that out, please know that you are entitled to do what you want to do with your body. You will never need permission again.” 

Hearing it put so plainly makes him a little lightheaded. Maybe he’s lucky enough that Cas won’t want to control him like that, but Pam says it like she thinks it’s a universal right for all slaves. Something niggles at the back of his mind, but he pushes it away, too dazed to examine the thought. “Okay. Yeah.”

She gives his shoulders one last squeeze and steps away, shaking her head at herself. “You know, I typically don’t hug patients this much, either.”

“Guess I am just special,” he jokes, and if his voice is trembling a little, she has the decency not to mention it. 

She smiles at him, but she doesn’t deny it. He tries not to feel too pleased about it. Flipping through his chart, she taps her pen on the tip of her nose and sighs. 

“You aren’t really healthy enough for heats, yet, as much as you’ve improved,” she says, rapping the end of her pen on the clipboard. “It’s gonna be awhile before those start up again. When they do, are you interested in suppressants?”

He’s nodding before she can even finish her sentence, and, with a serious look on her face, she writes down his response so it’s official. “Under different circumstances, I’d advise against them for a while so you can get back to a normal cycle. But I think it’s probably better to keep them at bay, at least for now, considering your living situation.” Living with Cas, she means. 

“I was on them before,” he confesses, a little nervous. Most people don’t like the idea of omegas skipping their heats – it’s not natural, and since omegas were made for producing offspring, it’s even considered sacrilegious. “As a kid, I mean. And scent blockers, too.” 

Pamela’s gaze is critical and unreadable, and he tries not to squirm under it. “There are other options, kid. If suppressants aren’t the best one, we do have a heat wing here,” she says, and Dean remembers the locked door with the crossed out A. “With you going so long without a natural heat, that might be the better plan – at least at first.” 

He doesn’t respond, overwhelmed at the thought, and she eases up. “We’ll talk about it again when you’re closer to starting back up. Deal?”

“Deal,” he breathes. 

She flips the pages of his chart back down with a finality that tells him that they’re done, and sets the clipboard down on the counter. “Welp, that’s all she wrote. Anything else you want to talk about before I turn you lose? I think Claire’s probably waiting by now.”

He shakes his head, and she smiles at him, helping him down off the bed. “Keep that crutch with you, alright? You can bring it back when your knee heals up.” She bustles around, grabbing a spray bottle out of the cabinet above the sink, and adds, “Tell Claire to hang on for a moment, if she is out there. I need to get rid of Novak’s alpha stink.”

He snorts. “Will do.” Limping to the door, he hesitates a moment before opening it. He turns back around. “Pam?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks.”

She smiles at him, the expression crinkling her crows feet pleasantly. “I’ll see you soon, Dean.”

When he steps out, there’s a young woman waiting in the same chair he’d been in before, her arms crossed over her chest. 

She’s young, 19 or 20, and she brushes long, blonde hair out of her face to look up at him. Her omega scent is sweet, but faint – Dean wonders if she’s on heat suppressants. The kid looks healthy, and if it weren’t for the tags around her neck, he might not have clocked her for a slave at all. She’s sitting in her chair without even a hint of trepidation, meeting his startled gaze with a cool glare. 

“Are you Claire?”

“Who’s asking?” she demands, crossing her arms. She eyes the tags on his chest suspiciously. “I haven’t seen you around here.”

Dean blinks at her attitude – it’s not one he’s used to seeing from omegas, other than himself. “I’m staying with a staff member.”

“Huh. Overstock,” she sniffs, flipping her hair as she leans back in the chair. Her nose wrinkles. “You stink.”

“Thanks,” he says sarcastically. What a little shit. “Pam says to wait for a while before going in.”

“Is she mopping up your fear scent?”

Dean studies her. It would be easy to rise to the bait. He’s pretty sure that’s exactly what she wants, barking at him like she is. Whatever happened to this girl has put her defenses a mile high – she’s on the offense. 

“No. Well, actually. Yeah, probably that too,” he admits, and she glances back at him, caught off guard. She’s obviously surprised that he would cop to it, but a moment later, she doubles down, grimacing as she sniffs him again. She leans away from him with a sneer. 

“You smell like alpha.”

Dean cocks his head to the side. “Yeah, I’m sure I do. I’m living with Castiel.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “Castiel Novak? Yeah, right.”

“Why’s that so surprising?”

“Because no one ever even sees that dude,” she snaps, tapping her foot on the ground. “He’s a recluse, or something. That’s what everyone says.”

“Yeah, well. He’s been working from home for a while,” he says, studying her. She looks nervous, now, a muscle twitching in her jaw, and he thinks that her indifference is just a shield. This kid has been hurt, as most of them have, and while she’s doing a bang up job of hiding it, it’s becoming pretty obvious that she’s not used to having conversations like this with strangers. 

He leans against the wall, sighing as he takes some weight off of his leg, and she eyes the crutch warily. “So, what? You fucked up, he did that to you, and now the doc’s cleaning you up?”

“I did this to me,” he corrects, shaking his head. He can’t begrudge her the suspicion – he’d feel the exact same, he knows. “He wouldn’t. And if you know anything about Pam, you know she wouldn’t let anyone get away with that. Even him.”

“Right,” she says flatly. 

“You don’t know Pam?” he guesses, but she makes a face. 

“I know her. Jody forces me to come see her every other week, seems like,” she grouses, crossing her arms.

Dean racks his brains, and remembers that Jody is also an employee here – Cas has mentioned her a few times. He thinks he remembers him saying that she was a scouter, or something; someone who looks for slaves to buy, he guesses. And now a fosterer, just like Cas. He wonders if Jody has offered to keep her, like Cas has offered to keep him. 

“So, doesn’t that make you overstock, too?”

She glares at him, silent. And that’s answer enough, he thinks. He wonders if that means she was part of the latest round of slaves that Castiel’s center had taken in. The thought of this kid being in a brothel that was anything like Hell makes his stomach turn – she’s far too young to have seen things like that.  

She makes a dismissive gesture at him, huffing, “Well, it was great to meet you. Bye-bye now.”

“You didn’t meet me,” he points out, amused, in spite of himself, at her petulant attitude. “You don’t even know my name.”

She rolls her eyes, but gives in with a sigh. “So what the hell is it, then?”

“Dean. And you?”

The eye-roll increases ten-fold. “Claire. You knew that already, dipshit.” 

“Yeah, well. Sue me for trying to use manners,” he jokes, nudging her foot with the end of his crutch before hauling himself upright and finding his balance. “Mind pointing me toward the cafeteria?”

She looks up at him silently, for a moment. “Just go back to the main hall. You’ll see the sign. It’s idiot-proof, lucky for you,” she snipes, though most of the malice has bled from her tone.

He grins, unbothered by her bluster – after all, it’s familiar. “Thanks, kid.”

“I’m not a kid.”

“You sure look like one, squirt,” he teases, and ignores her protests as he hobbles away. “See you around, Claire.”

“...Sure,” she mutters. He grins to himself as he goes. 

The dining hall is easy to find, luckily. He limps slowly back to the main hall, quietly taking in the sights and sounds and smells. He can scent plenty of omegas, and some faint hints of a beta here and there, but the only alpha smell he can pick up on is Castiel’s – and he’s pretty sure it’s only because they’re bonded. No other alphas seem to be around. It seems strange, at first, but then he realizes that’s probably entirely intentional.

It doesn’t take the kind of shit that Dean’s been through for omegas to be wary of unfamiliar alphas. To the unmated and the unclaimed, any one of them could be a threat. If the purpose of this place is to help take away a slave’s fear, having a bunch of alphas running around would be completely counterintuitive. 

The main lobby is more crowded this time around, and he walks without looking up at anyone. He doesn’t want to answer any questions. People leave him alone, thankfully, even without Cas by his side – he figures the tags keep him under the radar. 

Most of the omegas he passes are young, hardly older than Claire. They can’t have been in the trade long, he thinks, and he assumes most of them have been here for a while, because they smile and laugh with an ease that he envies. Groups of two or four slip in and out of doors, meander down halls, and walk in and out of the residential hall he spotted earlier. Every once in a while, there’s someone who looks a little more like him – a little older, a little more wary. A little more... hollow. But even they seem to be, for the most part, unafraid. 

The dining hall turns out to be just a short walk away from the lobby, connected by a wide hallway lined with benches and tables and doors that lead outside into what looks kind of like a courtyard. It’s past noon, at this point, and so there are lots of omegas and betas here for lunch.  

A little too gun shy to hop in line, rumbling stomach or no, Dean finds a place to wait. Wary of spooking anyone in here, he chooses a seat near a door that leads outside, and he texts Cas to let him know where he is so he won’t have to wander. Based on what Claire said, he figures the alpha likes to go incognito when he can. He shifts uncomfortably in the chair, stomach clenching, but he doesn't break down and sit on the floor. It helps that there are tons of omegas around who are also sitting in chairs.

He tries to get his bearings. It’s not loud, exactly, and he’s glad – the room seems like it was designed with quiet in mind, despite its size and the number of people in it. There are lots of soft seats around, couches and tables and chairs scattered into little nooks and crannies, soft rugs all over the place. And, everywhere, omegas are nestled into their seats or sitting in little circles on the ground, leaning back and relaxing, picking food off their plates and talking amongst themselves. No one looks hungry, or like they’re afraid their food will be snatched away. They just look… comfortable. 

Fascinated, in spite of his general unease, Dean people-watches. Now that he’s paying attention, he can tell that some of the slaves here are actually working – there’s two or three who are wandering around picking up trash or cleaning tables, and when he looks over people’s heads and into the kitchen, he can see the glint of tags on necks behind the counter as well as in front of it. 

He figures it makes sense. Why house slaves if you aren’t going to make some sort of use out of them? But even as he starts to form bitter thoughts, he realizes there are the same number of workers with badges as there are with the center’s version of a collar. And that’s confusing as hell – why pay people to do jobs that slaves can do?

He lets his eyes wander. Near the entrance of the dining hall, there’s a weird little display taking up a ton of space, from the ceiling to about three-quarters down the wall. It takes him a second to make sense of what he’s seeing. 

Slave tags. A lot of them. 

They’re lined up on hooks, swinging gently when people walk by. It seems like a weird place to store them – why not just keep them in boxes? That same niggling feeling starts to dig at the back of his mind, scratching insistently – 

“Are you new?”

Dean startles, snapping his head around. 

A young Asian man, on the nerdy side, is looking at him with a slightly too eager expression on his face. There’s a plastic ID card clipped to his shirt, so Dean figures he must work here. “I haven’t seen you around! If you want, I can show you how to get food…?”

Dean realizes, belatedly, that he’s supposed to respond to that. “Uh, no thanks. I think it’s pretty self explanatory,” he says, a little wary as he watches for the man’s reaction. 

Rather than frown at his lack of respect, the young man’s face falls. “Shit. I’m fucking this up already,” he groans, raising his hands up in a conciliatory way. “Sorry to bother you, dude – I’m just gonna… disappear. Yeah.” 

Confusion growing, Dean watches the beta turn around abruptly, his cheeks flushed like he’s embarrassed – like he actually cares what a slave thinks of him. “Wait.”

He whirls back around, a hopeful look on his face. “Yeah?”

“You work here?”

The man groans again, slapping a hand over his forehead. “Ugh. Yeah. Damn, I didn’t even introduce myself, did I? I’m Kevin,” he says sheepishly, holding out his hand. 

Dean just stares at it, hesitating for a beat too long, and before he can convince himself to nut up and shake it, Kevin snatches it back. “Oh – fuck. Sorry. Balthazar is going to kill me.”

He blinks. “You know Balthazar?”

Kevin sighs, shifting his weight back and forth on his feet. He glances around. “Yeah. He’s my boss. Just hired me for real, actually – it’s my official first day. I was volunteering for a while there, but I mostly just did paperwork, so this is my first time working with you guys, and holy shit,” he breaks off, “you can’t possibly care about any of that. Sorry. I overshare when I’m nervous.”

Dean furrows his brow. The kid seems harmless, young enough to be fresh out of high school, now that he’s looking, and overwhelmed as hell. His eyes are flicking back and forth around the dining hall like he’s waiting for someone – probably Balthazar – to come and chew him out. 

“You wanna sit, Kevin?”

Startled, the kid glances at the empty chair across from Dean. “Oh – really? You don’t have to,” he says, sheepish. “I’m just here to help, even though I’m doing a shit job of it. You aren’t, uh. Expected to make me happy, or anything,” he says awkwardly, clearly parroting some sort of training. 

He sounds earnest, though, so Dean kicks out the empty chair and nods toward it. “I know.” 

Hesitant, Kevin drops into the chair, chewing his lip. “Sorry I messed that up.”

“You did fine,” he says, cocking his head to the side. “You sniffed me out pretty quick, anyway. I’ve never been in the building, before today, so I might actually have needed your help.” 

Keven looks confused, but his face clears as he figures it out. “Oh. Were you staying with staff? Balthazar told me they ran out of room for a while, a few months ago.” 

Dean nods, and Kevin brightens. “Well, now that you’re here, I can show you around! Where’s your room assignment? I could stop by–” 

“I’m still staying with him, dude,” Dean interrupts, shaking his head. “Thanks, though.”

Kevin deflates a little, but he still smiles. “Oh. Sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed. Who’s fostering you?”

“Castiel.”

Like Claire, that revelation provokes quite the reaction. This time, though, the kid’s eyes widen almost comically. “You – Mr. Novak? You’re staying with him?”

I’m his, Dean doesn’t say, but he thinks it. He just nods, shrugging when Kevin ogles at him. “Yeah. For a few months now.”

“But – he’s an alpha,” Kevin says blankly, glancing down at Dean’s tags – he’s probably wondering if Dean’s insane. “I thought…”

“You ain’t wrong,” he admits, snorting. “But I’m comfortable there, now.” 

Kevin blinks. “Oh. Okay. Well that’s… good. Yeah. Wow,” he adds, shaking his head. “Sorry, dude, I don’t mean to get up in your business or anything, but… wow.” He leans forward, excitement replacing his shock. “What’s he like?”

Dean thinks there’s quite the case of fan worship going on here, and it’s a little funny. It’s better than Claire’s blatant suspicion, anyway. And it’s much closer to what Cas actually deserves. 

“He’s…” God, how to describe him? “He’s quiet. And serious. But he’s really… kind. A good guy, you know?”

Kevin leans back, star-struck wonder all over his face. “Wow. I’ve heard all this crazy stuff about him, right? And I started here because a friend told me that he was doing good work, but I haven’t met him even once...” He shakes his head. “Lots of people tell me he’s pretty aloof. Is that true?”

“Yeah,” Dean says, smiling a little. “Self labeled hermit, actually.” 

Kevin whistles. “Damn. I wonder how he got into freeing slaves? It seems so wild that a rich alpha like him would–” 

“What did you say?”

Kevin stares at him, caught off guard. He hesitates, and in the meantime, Dean’s heart starts to pound. He flicks his eyes over to the wall of tags. Feels his hands start to shake as he finally adds two and two. 

“Uh. I was just… wondering how he started doing this,” Kevin says carefully, obviously aware that Dean’s starting to freak out. “Rehabilitating and freeing omegas, like we do…” 

Kevin trails off. “Dean?” he asks weakly, confused and concerned, but Dean hardly hears him. 

Freeing omegas. Freeing him. 

God, how the fuck did Dean miss that? 

Everything makes sense, now. The way the employees he’s met talk about how things are changing, the way Balthazar was texting him. The way Pamela keeps telling him he has control over his body and his treatment. The way Cas keeps insisting he’s his own person, keeps insisting that he has to make his own choices.

What did he think? That Cas was going to sell these people? That Cas – kind, wonderful, amazing Cas – would send these people back to the hell they came from when he was done fixing them up? Never. Never in a million fucking years would the alpha have the heart for that. 

Sure, Dean had thought he was safe from that. Had thought that Cas wanted him for himself, that he had a secure place and wouldn’t have to worry about being sold again. He hadn’t bothered to consider what would happen to these other omegas.

And, in the back of his mind, he knows that he had avoided thinking about it on purpose. Because if he doesn't belong to Cas... how can Dean expect to stay with him? How can he expect Cas to actually want him, if he doesn't feel like he has to keep him around out of some misplaced sense of responsibility?

It's a cowardly thought. A selfish thought. But it's the only one in his head.

“Hey, man. Are you okay?” Kevin is asking him, his eyes wide. “You look kinda pale. Should I call – oh. Uh. Dean?”

Dean doesn’t answer. He doesn’t know where his voice is – all he knows is that he’s standing up, all of a sudden, and he’s walking outside, because he can’t. He can’t stay still. He has to move. 

He hardly feels his knee, hardly feels the cold. He just knows that if he stops, he’s going to freak the fuck out, and he really doesn’t want to freak out. 

A laugh nearly gets around whatever is stuck in his throat. He's already freaking out.

He doesn't get far before his voice, low and gravelly, stops him in his tracks. 

“Dean.”

He turns around. Cas is right there, just a few feet away in the snow, concern all over him – he can smell Dean’s distress, obviously, and he looks wary. Maybe even a little scared. He looks like he’s guilty. 

But he doesn’t look confused. In fact, he looks like he knows exactly what the hell Dean is freaking out about. 

Cas takes a careful step forward, his hands raised up to hip height. “I… I should have told you. I know I should have, but–”

“I,” Dean interrupts, his voice distant and fragile, somehow, “want to go home, Cas.” 

The alpha wavers, unsure. “Right… right now,” Dean insists. His voice is shaking. “I… I want to go. We need to go. Because I… I can’t,” he tries to explain, hyper-aware of the building full of strangers behind him, of the snow at his feet and the cold seeping into his flannel, his jacket forgotten in the alpha’s office.

Cas hesitates, something torn in his expression. "Dean. You need to be free. You can't heal if you're-"

“Please,” he croaks, closing his eyes. "Don't, Cas. Please. I can't." He takes a breath, hardly holding it together. "Please, can we - I just wanna go home."

He sways, nausea crawling through him along with a shiver. But after a moment, he feel's the alpha's soothing touch. Feels him wrap his coat around Dean’s shoulders. He’s too out of it to protest.

“Okay, Dean," he says, gentle. "Okay. We'll go home.”

And they do.