omega!dean, who in the lead-up to his heat is is quick to rile and slow to settle.
dean, who's constantly on edge, prickly and cranky at the world and everything in it: his t-shirts for being too scratchy against his stupid sensitive nipples, the motel sheets for smelling like bleach and a thousand passing-through bodies, his job for forcing him out amongst the people (he had to interview a literal bus load of witnesses today, all gussied up in his fucking fed-threads!) when he feels like this, like his skin's gonna peel off in sheets and he'll have to go around for the rest of his days with his flesh melting off like he's just seen the goddamned ark of the covenant.
dean, who can't even get comfortable in the impala, twisting in his seat like he's sitting on a bed of nails instead of the upholstery that's basically his birthright. he keeps jamming new tapes in the deck, skipping through the tracks, and listening for no more than forty seconds before slamming the 'eject' button and popping in a new one. (sam fights the urge to give the dashboard a little there-there pat when dean's not looking.)
dean, who can't decide on where to eat, but turns up his lip at every suggestion. he keeps picking up vienna sausages and canned fruit cocktail and moon pies every time they're in a convenience store, then looking confused when the he sees them on the checkout counter. dean, who's been mowing through the specialty power bars sam bought back at the knot shop in downer's grove, the ones that had incomparable density fights calorie deficit! and 26g of pure protein to power your heat! scrawled in bright blue lettering on the box that sam immediately emptied into a plastic grocery sack before dean could see the packaging.
dean, who's been jacking little things out of sam's duffel every time they do laundry. an orphaned sock here, a t-shirt with holes under the armpits there, two pairs of underwear that sam's pretending not to notice inside dean's pillowcase.
(sam used to bug him, when they were kids, about his nesting habits. the teachers and textbooks in secondary sex-ed always had diagrams and lists of things omegas might put in their nests; duvets and couch cushions and throw pillows, blankets and leak-proof sherpa throws, specialty bamboo temperature regulating blankets. dean never wanted any of that. he just wanted sam, as close as he could get him. a good heat was one where dad would ditch them someplace, and they'd get to curl up together under the same plastic-poly motel coverlet and two sets of over-bleached sheets, all fingers and teeth and dark and warm and wet as twins sharing a womb. a bad one was spent in the front seat of the impala, trying to catch peeks of dean in the rearview without their dad noticing. dean, huddling alone under a poncho-liner, curled up around himself, hands pulled into the cuffs of his shirt, pale and sweating out the fever after dad had given him an injectable suppressant, the military-grade kind that you could buy from expired shipments out the back of army/navy surplus stores if you had cash in hand and the clerks were scummy enough.)
dean, who'll run himself ragged as his heat approaches, fighting the instincts dad hated (even though the man's dead and burned) and sam, who -- when he's finally had enough of this display -- will grab dean by the neck and squeeze until all the tension bleeds out from the impromptu scruffing, then pull back the covers of another anonymous motel bed. it's a clear invitation, and dean's never once turned him down.
