#reader character

Recent events, including connections with various settlements throughout the area, and the appearance of stronger tempered monsters, had allowed for the researchers here to sink greater footholds into understanding the complex ecosystems and fine balances maintained in the Forbidden Lands.

As such, a greater workforce was needed to handle the growing influx of samples, the cataloguing, to bolster the field teams and to process the huge amounts of data.

Your own specialty was scientific illustration. It had been something of a risk, choosing to hone your skills in this area. Back home, the ecological research centre prized analytics and novel scientific methods. Your illustrations were the kind more favoured in the field, and those selected to pioneer such efforts in unchartered lands were the best of the best.

In spite of it all, you'd been selected for this expedition. You had lived for this moment, for being here, on the deck of this airship, shifting your weight from one foot to the other in anticipation so severe you thought you'd felt a wave of nausea coming on.

There was something else driving your burning ambition, you see.

You were, undeniably, an absolute fan of the fabled Astrum Unit and their exploits, which had traveled back to you in your dusty little loft at the academy.

You'd spent the last few years poring over the monthly gazettes, the new research breakthroughs that came from the Forbidden Lands, the engineering marvels and innovations, the brand new materials and animal parts, the plethora of new data that your colleagues fluttered over like excited hummingbirds.

But you'd known about the Astrum Unit's members from before the expedition. You'd seen brilliant, eccentric Erik's star rise, the illustrious (and thrilling) career of Captain Olivia and her palico, Athos, the steady path that Werner forged for himself, an engineering attack dog set upon each new puzzle with unerring focus.

You had a collection of all of their exploits pasted across one of your walls, along with the small figurines you'd custom carved from ironwood, each with their own distinctive set of clothing or armour.

You had managed to dig through the academy archives to find prototypes of Werner's earliest projects, Erik's masterful bound presentations of endemic life and pieces of Olivia's favoured training dummy (which was more scrap metal than monster-shaped, as expected of something that had been repeatedly smacked with a huge hammer). 

Of course, little of that cherished collection of items had made it onto the airship with you. They were safely locked away with the rest of your possessions back home (except for your precious figurines which had made the journey in your backpack).

Besides, you had so many new memories to make (and the fact that you wouldn't want your new comrades to think you too weird or obsessive, haha).

A shout from up on the prow caught your attention, and you rushed forward, eager for your first glimpse of the camp you'd been longing to see.

The airship pulled slowly into the dock, sinking until the deck was on level with a sloping gang plank. You gawped at the sheer scale of the camp, which had been steadily expanding over the past few years. It was certainly a lot larger than you seen in those early (amateurishly) sketched illustrations.

You got behind a large barrel and started to help push it out, availing yourself to the crew members and palico teams offloading the cargo into the waiting area.

Once the airship had been fully divested of its cargo, and your belongings were safely carried off deck, you tugged on the straps of your backpack and started to make your way towards the most nerve-wracking objective thus far; meeting the rest of your team.

You had no aspirations of making the acquaintances of the revered leaders today. They'd probably be out on important missions and business. You'd settle for meeting the rest of the research team. Hopefully, there'd be others as green as you clearly were.

You soon found yourself outside the Astrum main tent, which was simple in design and feature. Looking around, you couldn't spot anyone of note.

There was a research station set up nearby, devoid of personnel, and you decided to pitch your belongings there and wait for direction.

You really were itching to get to work, so out came your art supplies, the stack of sketchbooks with custom-made stain-proof and water-proof covers, the grids for proportion, the various tools for preparing your drawing implements. You'd also brought along several scientific journals and reference books as a guideline for your future work.

Scattered over the research table were various objects, small jars of preserved specimens, plants growing in small wooden troughs, larger bones and what appeared to be an interesting collection of animal teeth.

Among them was a Quematrice feather, the outstanding quality of the specimen immediately catching your eye.

What colour! And what form!

You just had to make a sketch. Maybe add more details later.

Occupied as you became with your current task, it did come as something of a surprise when a voice spoke up behind you.

"Wow! You're really skilled! And so quick at getting down the basics too."

Smiling sheepishly, you added a last touch before setting aside the sketchbook.

"Oh, I've had a lot of practice. Spent the last few years - "

Your voice died in your throat.

Standing before you, in a worn coat with pockets that could probably contain an entire ecosystem, was none other than THE Erik of the Astrum Unit.

Silvery hair cascaded forward over one eye, his elfish visage gave him a deceptively boyish charm, one that you knew all too well hid a razor sharp intellect and an analytic ability far beyond the norm. 

Seeing your dumbfounded expression, his eyes curved upward cheerfully and he gave a small wave.

"Oh, don't worry. I'm from the Astrum Unit."

He leaned towards you conspiratorially.

"I don't know why, but sometimes the newer teams coming in think I'm some kind of weirdo trying to sell them insect repellent."

He spread his hands and shrugged.

"I mean, I'd sell you something, sure. But you can bet it would attract every bug in the area so I can observe their mating habits!"

With that ... concerning pronouncement, accompanied by a small giggle, he promptly turned and bustled over to the research station, exclaiming in delight when he saw that you'd set up already.

Re-discovering your ability to move, you followed him in a half-daze.

Erik! Erik? It was him! It was really him!

You couldn't lose this opportunity to actually unstick your tongue from the roof of your mouth and make a good impression -

Erik was still rambling.

" - and I was just telling Olivia that I need to get out in the field soon to observe more of the Doshaguma herd, because they're already showing signs of competing for the alpha position, and - "

Just name-dropping Olivia so casually!

You nearly choked on your own saliva. Mind scrambling to piece together the information he'd just provided you with, you interjected hesitantly.

"Ah ... you're going into the field soon? For observation?"

"Yeah! If Olivia allows me."

He turned hurriedly and ... was he stuttering? Was he trying to explain himself to you?

"I mean ... not that I need Olivia's explicit permission or anything, haha. It's just a formality. There are other hunters who could accompany me. You know. For safety. And - "

"What's this about other hunters, Erik?"

Erik glanced past you and blanched a little, ruffling his hair with a nervous hand.

"Ah, Olivia! Didn't expect you so soon! I was just telling - "

His words were rapidly vanishing into the depths of the cosmos as you took a moment to absorb what he'd just uttered.

Olivia? Olivia? Was he -

No. No, it couldn't be. If you turned around now -

And doing exactly that, you came face to face with an imposing pair of buckles over white and green armour, those particular shades ingrained in your mind from the sheer number of times you'd re-painted your dozen small Olivia figurines.

Your eyes tracked upward and -

Holy mother of Khezu, what a woman.

Tall, statuesque, blonde hair flicked out in signature rakish style above the simple silver hoops in each ear, Olivia was every bit the charismatic figure you'd imagined, and more.

Her pale, sea-green gaze flicked over you with curiosity, sharp, observant, assessing. She offered a small nod of greeting which you, somehow, shakily returned.

And now she was holding out her hand for you to shake!

No. No, you couldn't let yourself be reduced to a quivering spectator between the two collosi of your dreaming world.

Straightening your back, you took her hand, some unacknowledged part of your brain screaming that you'd never wash that particular appendage again.

Her grip was powerful enough to fling you across the breadth of the camp. Probably.

"Olivia, of the Astrum Unit. That there's Erik, our Head Researcher."

Oh boy, if only they knew how much you knew. Best not to speculate.

You cleared your throat, voice emerging slightly hoarse.

"Um, I do know who you are, Captain. The honour's all mine."

She waved you off, seemingly unconcerned with the title.

"Just Olivia will do. And you are?"

You introduced yourself, internally cringing at how stilted your speech emerged.

" ... and I'm here to assist the Astrum Unit with my particular skill set, scientific illustration."

Erik danced into your view, shaking something in front of Olivia's face. She leaned back and squinted at it and -

Wait, was that your sketch? WHEN DID HE -

He shot you a sunny smile.

"Oh, your drawing was so great that I just decided to borrow it. That's not a problem, right? Look, Olivia! This is the kind of detail I've been looking for!"

She took the sketch from his hand and - oh goodness, was Olivia looking over your work and nodding in approval?

Glancing up at you, she offered a small smile which punched the breath right out of your chest harder than a Gravios blast.

"I guess it is as Erik says. You're certainly talented, and I'm sure his research team will benefit from your skills."

She rolled up the paper and whacked him smartly over the head with it, ignoring his plaintive protest.

"Just keep an eye on him. He tends to run off at times and if he does, just report to me and Athos."

Erik huffed ruefully.

"They don't even know who Athos is!"

"Oh, of course I know who Athos is!" you blurted out, "That's Captain Olivia's most trusted partner."

Panic immediately rose in your chest as they both stared at you.

Oh no. Now you'd gone and done it. They'd think you were some kind of crazy-

Olivia's expression suddenly morphed to something much warmer, and she looked you over as if re-forming an opinion.

"You're absolutely right. Not everyone refers to Athos as my partner, but once they see her in action, it's usually a wake-up call."

You had somehow managed to make a good impression with that statement, but you were aware that it all came down  to how well you knew Astrum Unit. Olivia had met with Athos in the early days of her career and they'd been inseparable ever since.

Olivia paused and looked around, brow furrowing.

"Speaking of which, where's - "

"There she is!"

Erik pointed in the direction of the research station. Near your belongings was none other than Athos the palico, resplendent white fur gleaming in the dim lamplight within the cavern, nose glued to ... your backpack?

And ... oh Raving Rathalos, was she focusing on the pocket where you'd kept the only portable items in your collection, the small figurines of Erik, Olivia, Werner and Athos herself?

Hurrying over, you stopped before her, bowing awkwardly in greeting. She stopped her examination, clear, curious eyes taking in your form. You felt sweat break out along your brow. There was something about her gaze that felt like she could plumb the depths of your soul.

After a few moments, she bowed slightly back, responding in the muted mewl of Lynian.

"Well met, mew recruit."

She left your backpack alone, scampering over to Olivia's side.

You breathed a sigh of relief.

Olivia smiled down at Athos before turning briskly to you.

"How do you feel about hitting the ground running? We've got a survey in the plains tomorrow. There've been sightings of a tempered Rathian. Erik, you should be able to observe the Doshaguma herd while I observe you."

She shot him a look that reminded you of a hawk pinning a rabbit to an empty mountainside. Erik grinned in return.

"It's not like I'd run off on you or anything!"

He tugged at your sleeve eagerly.

"Now's your chance to join us. Bring your special sketchpad. Who knows how much more could be accurately recorded if we have you along as illustrator!"

You let out a shaky breath.

"Of course I'll be there! You can count on me!"

Olivia nodded.

"Excellent. We'll re-group at the main entrance at first light tomorrow. Erik, get our newest recruit oriented. Get Fritz to set them up with a seikret and field pouch for their supplies, and brief them on researcher safety protocols in the - "

She cut off abruptly, eyes narrowing as Erik blinked innocently back at her.

"Actually, forget that. I'll get someone else to brief them on safety protocols in the field."

"I'm perfectly capable of that, you know!"

Ignoring him, Olivia placed her hands on her hips and addressed you again.

"We watch each other's backs out there, so look out for your teammates and mind their signals. Welcome to the Astrum Unit, new recruit."

If there was a backing track to your simple academic life, it was at this moment that it swelled to a deafening anthem of heroic exploits.

Here comes adventure! Here come the accolades! Here comes the chance to prove yourself to the very members you've idolized for goodness knows how long and -

A soft tap to your forehead brought you back to focus as Olivia lowered her hand, her expression a combination of amused and concerned.

"Hey, you okay? Looked like you were forgetting to breathe for a minute there."

Erik gave an enthusiastic nod.

"It's exciting, isn't it?"

Athos held out a furry paw.

"Hunting is like catnip, but don't get confused and try to catch your own tail, mewbie."

You adopted an expression of fierce focus.

"I'll do my best!"

Renata and R&R -> @wishing-stones

Baggs -> megalommi

An affirmative grunt is the only response, and you shut yourself in the RV's tiny bathroom. Pinching in your back dispenses with the notion that you can get by using regular drugstore suppressants; the damn things don't work when the show's already on the road. Instead you reach for the neutralizer and smear it over your scent points. Not much you can do about your privates, except stick a thick pad there and hope for the best. Cussing, you eat some aspirin with a cup of coffee, get in your captain's chair, and hit the backroads.

Your guest wakes up about the time you pass the state line. Tall, very handsome, stiff with the aftermath of an ass-whuppin’, the bruise on his cheekbone turning a nice shade of plum and lilac. "Morning sunshine. There's coffee in the cupboard over the stove. Make yourself useful."

Dean Winchester grunts something obscene but he goes to do as he's told. "What's with the cigarettes? Thought you quit."

"I did," you confirm, crushing your cigarette out and lighting another. "I've been up for thirty-six hours since I got the SOS from Garth to come save your dumb ass. Cigarettes keep me awake. Next step up is speed and that shit makes me sick." And the smoke should cover any scent that gets past the neutralizer.

"Alright you've made your point. Open a window or something."

"Can't. We'll lose the air conditioning."

"Don't care. Those things reek."

Conceding his point, you get him to open the windows. Whether or not that improves the air quality is debatable. Downwind of Gary stinks of burned oils and bad decisions. On top of that it's one of those overcast days where the world feels like a steam room on half power. Dean's flannel and your jean jacket get tossed up into the upper front bunk within minutes. Lord have mercy but why did he have to pick today of all days to wear a tank top? In his mid-thirties, Dean looks his age, and his age looks pretty damn good.

Of course short sleep is only part of the story. Thanks to the scrambling your hormones got from ten years of experimental suppressants, your heats are hard and painful. You scrap the plan to escort Dean back to Kansas yourself and make a new plan to hit up a fixer you know who lives in Illinois. Izzy’s got a bunch of beaters with clean titles and he owes you a big one.

Dean's not in a much better mood than you are. With how often he gets kidnapped and thrashed you'd think he'd be used to the process, but no. The ride turns into one giant bitchfest, Dean ignoring your growls to shut the fuck up as he complains about everything-- how much his back hurts, how he mashed his fingers in the cupboard door, how the radio isn't picking up anything but bad country western and whiny preachers. Battling the backroads of Indiana in a C-class RV in ninety degree weather and no air conditioning, with a bad heat coming on and the world's biggest fussy baby whining in your ear, is going in the books as one of your special Hells. You wish Sam was here. Nobody's better at Dean-wrangling than he is. You should be so lucky; Sam's holed up at the Winchesters' super secret hideout, fresh off surgery to repair a torn tendon in his knee.

A stop for gas and some fried chicken helps. "I'm sorry," you apologize, swallowing a big hunk of drumstick. "I don't think I've eaten since lunch yesterday and I'm a total bitch when I'm hungry."

"'M sorry too," Dean says around a mouthful of coleslaw. "I try to be nice to people who save my ass."

"Dude," you say, "saving your ass is not only a service to humanity, it's my distinct pleasure." Your reward is a blinding grin and an eyebrow waggle, and you try not to blush. The man is hot as a lit match and if things were different-- well, you'd have to take a number, people a lot cuter'n you have drawn blood for the pleasure of his company.

Your pussy clenches and a brutal cramp seizes your innards. Fresh slick oozes, the sensation making you cringe. You seize on Dean's casual, "So what's the plan?" like a drowning woman grabbing for a life ring. "Well my nearest fixer lives outside a little town name of Union Hill. He can hook you up with transportation and gas money." And you can park the RV in the middle of nowhere and howl out your heat in peace.

"You don't want to come back and visit?" Dean asks. If you didn't know better you'd think he looks a little . . . hurt. "Sam would love to see you. He told me to say thank you for that print you sent."

"Everybody should have a Van Gogh in their first house," you say, smiling. "It's like a national law." Your smile breaks on a massive yawn.

"Hey-- go get some sleep," Dean says. "I've got a CDL, I can drive this tin can."

"Watch it Winchester, this is my home you're talking about," you grouch. A power nap sounds nice right now, if for no other reason than it's a excuse to put some space between you and Dean. Far as he knows you're a Beta, and you intend to keep it that way. "You know how to get to Kankakee from here?"

Dean gives you a look.

"Sorry, my bad. Wake me when we hit the city."

"Yes ma'am," Dean says.

"Salute me when you say that."

Without looking back as he settles into your captain's chair, Dean flips you off. "Hey," he asks as he fires up the engine, "you know of a good barbecue joint around where we're going?"

"There's a truck stop on 57, maybe two or three exits south. They've got a pit out back. Why?"

Dean makes that dunno shrug sound. "I could seriously go for some ribs.”

---

You're deep under, dreaming of plush lips and -- of all things -- chocolate fudge and cheesecake when the RV lurches.

"Sorry," Dean calls back as you climb out of bed. "We're making a pit stop. I gotta find a pharmacy."

The RV lurches again, damn near throwing you off your feet. The coffeepot crashes to the floor. "Fuck-- Dean!"

"Sorry," he says, unconvincingly. Someone outside blares a horn and Dean hollers something you're sure he didn't learn in church. You peer out through the curtains and see a Walgreens. Dean wheels into a bank of parking spaces and cuts the engine.

"Wait a-- Dean! chill!" Too late, he's out the door and jogging across the parking lot. You stare at the remains of your coffee maker, source of the bitter fuel of life. How Sam has not strangled Dean in his sleep, you have no idea.

Well as long as you're here-- grimacing through the intensifying cramps you pick up a new coffeemaker and stock up on protein drinks and bottled water. Omegas can, and have, died of thirst or hunger while deep in heat. As you leave the store you see a Confinement Notice posted on the wall. Shit. You forgot, Illinois is a Confinement state-- unless you get your horny ass inside the cops can pick you up and stash you in a closet next to the drunk tank until your heat runs its course. For Your Own Safety, For Their Own Safety. It's tempting to rip the damn thing off the wall and burn it.

Dean's in the bathroom when you get back, grunting something about an upset stomach. Whatever, Dean locked in the bathroom means less chance you'll do something dumb. Maybe, just maybe, you can get out of this with your dignity intact.

If you can fight through the haze drifting across your brain. Thick killer fog, smothering logic and reason, turning off anything but a fierce longing for bare skin, lips, hands, knot. Your skin is burning, clothes are starting to chafe. You’re running out of time.

When you get to Izzy’s hideout -- a cozy basement cave on an abandoned farm with a yard full of rustbucket cars, the house and barn lost to a fire years ago -- you're in a state. Febrile, trembling, every erogenous zone on your body aching. You have to take a minute to get your knees under you when you climb out of the RV. Jesus, you've never had a heat hit this fast.

"No." With shaking fingers you touch the note caught in the storm cellar door, staring wide-eyed and disbelieving at heavy duty padlocks. "No no no no no no, Jesus fuck no--" you dash back into the RV and pound on the bathroom door. "Dean get out here! My fixer's gone, you gotta see if you can get one of his beaters running--"

"I can't." Dean's voice is even hoarser and deeper than usual.

"What? Why the hell not? Your legs broke?"

A choke of laughter. "If only."

"Dean this isn't funny," a crinkle of plastic gets your attention and you pick a shopping bag up off the floor. The receipt is inside and as you read the brand names your insides collapse into a void. Neutralizer and suppressants, Alpha formula. Oh Jesus died in vain and legally changed his middle name to Fucking, Dean is in rut.

"Why didn't you tell me?!?" you shrill. "Dipshit, it's really not a good idea to be riding around in a mobile home full of fucking guns when you've got a rut coming--"

"I didn't know!" Dean roars and you flinch. "My rut's not due for another three fucking weeks! Maybe one of those assholes dosed me. Maybe those painkillers you gave me did something-- I don't know." Dean goes on, oblivious to your silence. "Fucking thing comes every thirty-three days, has ever since I was fifteen. I could set my watch to it. I wake up this morning, I feel fine, three hours later I start getting the shakes. I thought if I loaded up on suppressants I could hold it off until I got home but the fucking things aren't working!"

"How bad is it?" you ask.

"I could pole-vault over myself right now," Dean says. "Look I know you're probably exhausted but you gotta get me back to the bunker--"

"Dean you see the bag hung over the towel bar on the door?"

A pause. "Yeah?"

"Open it up and look inside." The bag, an old army medic first aid kit, is where you keep the stuff from the drug trial-- copies of questionnaires, doctor's exam notes, charts of the side effects, the empty glass vials with their color-coded labels. You listen as Dean opens it up and rifles through the contents, and cringe when the anvil drops and he starts snapping out swears. "What the fuck?!? Omega?"

The contempt in the word gets you mad again. "Because it wasn't your business and my heats aren't regular. I wouldn't have shut us up in a box together if I thought I wasn't safe!" Your uterus clenches into a hard fist and your knees buckle, your palms smacking on the kitchen counter.

"Oh fuck. Do not tell me you're going into heat."

You cough out a laugh. "You tell me. Alpha."

Dean sniffs. "Oh Jesus Christ. How-- oh God you smell good. How did I never notice?"

"The shit I was on worked." There had been side effects of course-- your hair falling out all over, a uterus full of fibroids and scar tissue, the increased cancer risk, irregular and painful heats . . .

Not fun. But a breeding Omega is a liability as a Hunter, and you need Hunting more than you need a mate and pups. However vehemently your body disagrees right now.

"I knew you were something," Dean says, surprising you.

"Oh fuck off Winchester, I'm not one of those slobbering Betas you pick up in bars who want a walk on the wild side with a real-life Alpha. Did any of them ask you for a bite?"

"You're a vicious bitch when you're in heat, you know that?"

Your reply is lost in a high squeak of pain. The latch on the bathroom door rattles and you lock it from the outside-- you'd installed the bolt years ago. Just in case. Dean throws it a shoulder. Panicking, you shriek, "Dean stop!"

He slumps against the back wall. He takes a deep sniff, like a little kid smelling a flower. You can't help it, you pull a deep breath and moan as Dean's scent hits your brain, filling your senses with fudge and leather.

It takes every bit of your disappearing willpower to stagger to your bed.

---

The next hours are pure misery. Wave after wave of need racks your body, your cunt clenching around nothing, every fiber of your being desperate for a knot, for seed. The tiny little space left where you live is just as desperate, cracking you with a whip of you are not your biology, you are not some hole for an Alpha to hump their come into, you are not some fucking brood mare, you are not, you are not, you are not--

Again and again you cry out as the words fail you. Your own hands and the toys in the nightstand drawer work overtime, wringing climaxes out of your body to the point of pain. They just make it worse. Your body doesn't want to come, it wants Alpha. Surrounding you, holding you down, pulling you close, knotting, biting, marking, mating-- just in time you sink your fangs into your pillow and howl.

When the first wave recedes it's dark outside. Your body feels like a clenched fist and you hiss in pain as you unwrap yourself from your pillows and pull yourself straight. It's agony but you know from bitter experience that you have to use these lucid periods productively. Your knotting toy lays at the foot of the bed, sticky and stinking. Tears of frustrated rage in your eyes, you pick it up and hurl it overhand, hard enough to dent the wall.

"Jesus!" Dean snaps from the bathroom.

"Sorry. Are you okay?"

"Well," Dean says as you lurch to the kitchen table and crack a bottle of protein drink, "I've got a hard-on that won't die and a really embarrassing mess to clean up--"

"Dude!"

"You asked, genius. And I am starving. I could eat a dead skunk if you put some onions on it first."

"There's a box of ration bars under the sink and the clear water tank is full. Just in case," you add, "there's a pistol and a silver knife in the toilet tank and some holy water in the medicine cabinet." You do what you can to clean off some of the sweat and slick, the cool water soothing on your skin.

The next wave hits and you're on the floor dragging the washcloth back and forth through your pussy, spread out on your front with your ass in the air. Dean's crouched down on the bathroom floor. You can see his face pressed against the little slats in the door, hear the hissing of breath through his nose. Gobbling up your scent like a kid with a sackful of Halloween candy. Shuddering, disgusted with yourself, disgusted with him, you crawl back into your bed for round two.

---

"You gotta let me outta here," Dean says, several hours later.

"You can't leave," you tell him tiredly. "Illinois has Confinement laws." You getting caught with an RV full of unregistered firearms, pipe bombs, drugs of all functions, magic supplies both holy and otherwise, and maybe one or two satchel charges is one thing. Dean getting picked up? The FBI would put him under the jail.

You hear Dean sit on the toilet lid. "Shit."

"Yeah. Don't suppose there's anybody you can call--"

"Phone's on the table. Besides," he adds, "everyone I can think to call is-- they shouldn't be coming here."

You hear the unspoken point. Garth's a Beta but there's a full moon coming and he won't risk being caught away from home. Sam is out of commission and an Alpha besides. Castiel is . . . well, he is what he is, but he's in the wind. "Shit.”

"I just said that."

"Hoho, very funny. Ha ha, it is to laugh."

Dean snorts. “Look, ‘Mega--”

“Don’t call me that! Don’t you ever call me that!!!” you yell.

“Okay okay okay-- just listen. Is it really so awful?”

"Do I have to dignify that with an answer?" you snap back. "This shit fucking hurts, you dick."

"That's not what I meant," Dean says. "I mean-- the thought of me. Is that really so awful?"

Oh God, what a question. "Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? I'd have to fight for you with anyone with eyesight and a libido that works."

Dean doesn't say anything for a moment. "So. Any Alpha that's good-looking?"

"Fuck you," you spit. "You have any idea how fucking demeaning this shit is? I'm going on about my day and all of a sudden I wanna drop my drawers for any twitching dick that walks by? When I was in school I had fucking Betas grabbing me in the halls. 'Present for me Omega.'" Your voice almost breaks. The memory of your first heat is one you don’t want back. "One of them was my fucking history teacher. Said it was his duty as an Alpha."

A bitter sound that might've started as a laugh comes from the bathroom. "Librarian," he says. "Dragged me into the science wing supply closet. Said her husband went noseblind and she was dying for a knot."

"Jesus." Would they? Of course they would. Young, attractive, bad reputation, mostly on his own-- to a certain kind of scum Dean would've been catnip. "How old were you?"

"Seventeen." Dean pulls a breath. "There were some others at that school. I got passed around like a fucking trophy." Or a whore, you think but don't say. "I never said nothing to anybody but I kept getting these looks from some of the seniors. Big bad Alpha, even the teachers want a piece. I tried-- I swear, I tried to stop. One of them, she taught one of Sammy's classes-- he started taking high school English when he was in sixth grade. She told me if I didn't fuck her she'd call the cops and get Sammy taken away."

You touch the surface of the locked door. The one threat Dean would never, ever take as anything but serious, the one thing that would scoop his guts out and make him nice and tame. "They can go straight to Hell," you say. Your tongue hits your fangs, fully descended. As if you could go back in time and rip the bitches to pieces for daring to lay a hand on your-- on him. "Every last motherfucking one of them."

Silence, no engine noises, no crunch of tires in the distance. Just insect wings and an owl hooting in the trees. Just you two and the angels right now, and you hope to God they're not paying attention.

"You're the first person that didn't instantly make a joke about it," Dean says finally.

"I make jokes about funny shit. That shit ain't funny."

"Yeah." You hear something light, leaflike-- Dean flipping a page. "Did someone hurt you? Is that why you signed up for this?"

"Omegas get hassled. It comes with the territory," you dodge the question. "I volunteered because--" you think a minute. "I went into heat once when I was tracking a tseste. Damn near died. OTC meds weren't strong enough, so I started doing some digging. Pfizer’s been working to develop heavy-duty suppressants for a while now. High dose hormone regulators. I sighed up for a clinical trial. Stuff works great-- no scent, no mating drive. The drug part of the study ended about a year ago. I just have to go to the doctor twice a year for follow-ups."

Dean snaps his fingers. "That's why you didn't take that case in Buffalo. That ghost ship."

"Yeah. I was parked outside Sault Ste Marie scaring the mosquitoes." Ashamed, you add, "I really am sorry about that, I heard you and Sam damn near drowned."

"Wasn't your fault." That leafy sound again. Of course Dean's read through everything in the bag. Nothing else to do in there but play with himself, you think and wish you hadn’t. Those big hands and nimble fingers, strong enough to bend iron, gentle enough to suture a wound or wipe a tear. "Did the jerks from the drug company tell you how bad the side effects could get?"

"They had to," you reply. "This isn't a super secret project to neuter all the Omegas in the world. Pfizer gets a suppressant formula that actually works, they'll be the richest bastards since the Pharaohs. I'd sell my soul not to have to deal with," your lip curls in revulsion as you take yourself in, soaked in sweat and slick and ready to throw yourself at any swelling knot, "this."

"Please tell me that’s a figure of speech."

You roll your eyes. "Even I'm not that desperate. It's not you, Dean. If it were just us--" why in God's name are you saying these things?

"It is just us," Dean points out. "Nothing here but you and me."

"You, me, and a mating instinct that still gets people off the hook for murder in 36 states." The words flow, like blood from a deep cut. "I took a shitload of drugs that killed my uterus and will probably give me cancer because that's better than pumping out pups by the boatload until my body gives up and dies. And don't tell me it doesn't have to be that way. It might not be legal to throw out job applications from Omegas but it still fucking happens. You know what I wanted to do before I had my first heat? I wanted to go to West Point. Be the first woman on the Joint Chiefs. But nope, the Corps loves Alphas but Omegas are too much fucking hassle--"

"You're not hearing me," Dean interrupts your tirade.

"And you aren't hearing me. I can't afford to forget I'm a fucking sow. It's gonna get me killed one of these days. You got the same classes I did Winchester, you know the life expectancy of Omegas tops out at fifty-five. Fifty for male Omegas."

"And thirty-five for female Alphas. That's not the point."

You gulp. Dean in rut and out of patience was not something you ever wanted to see. You clutch your midsection, another wave of heat stirring, sucking at you, pulling you under.

"I wanted you the minute I looked at you," Dean says, making your eyes pop wide. "I didn't make a move because I thought you couldn't stand Alphas. Remember that night, when Sammy and me met you?"

You nod. "The harpy nest."

"We had to pull you off that frat boy Alpha when he grabbed your ass." Shit. You remember the incident, sort of, you were pretty drunk at the time. You'd forgotten about the part where Dean had to drag you kicking and screaming off the premises while Sam talked the bouncer out of calling the cops.

Dean's voice goes even rougher, lower. It feels like he's speaking right to that surging, stinging want spreading through you. Your hind brain plucks the same old song on your nerves, mate-knot-breed, mate-knot-breed, the same old breedslut’s waltz. The animal inside wants to dance, and relishes the thought of taking Alpha’s lead. "If I wanted to knot you 'til you bleed I would. I can break through this damn door in a New York minute and you know it. And for the record," you shudder, "I can feel exactly how much you're hurting right now and you have no idea what it's like having to feel my mate in pain and just stand here with my dick in my hand."

The sensation of total stop gets underlined by another murderous cramp. Curled with pain, you shout, "MATE?!? ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?!?!?"

"It's the only way this makes sense," Dean says. "You said you've never had your heat take you this fast. I've never been more than a couple days off-schedule. Either we've been hit with a curse and fuck I hope not or we're a match and our cycles are synching up."

"You don't honestly believe in that true mates crap," you say, digging your nails into your sides hard enough to break skin.

"I've seen it. There were these two guys. Hunters. We ran into them on a case. I saw the claiming bites. Sam asked them when they got together and Jose said they met on the streets. When they scented each other, they knew. Jose said it was like somebody distilled happiness. You know what you smell like to me right now?" Dean takes a long sniff. "Grape popsicles.” Another sniff. You can picture him scenting, head back, lips parted, skin flushed and shadowed with beard, a Renaissance angel in bluejeans, those eyes looking at you, wanting you. “Barbecue, with brown sugar and lots of pepper.”

You aren't aware of scenting and the words just sort of come out. "Mackinac Island fudge.” One hand slides down and between “My mom's old motorcycle jacket."

Faintly, you hear the clink of a belt buckle. "Cinnamon."

Your fingers glide over slicked flesh. "Cedar shavings."

A soft groan, a breathless voice. "Irish whiskey."

Both hands, seeking, circling, inside. "Toasting marshmallows."

You can hear the rhythmic sliding of skin against skin. A soft plosive sound, Dean spitting into his hand. "Hot engines."

Your body clenches at your fingers, the bands of muscle meant to lock behind Alpha's knot flexing and fluttering. "Gunpowder."

Dean's panting as he sinks to his knees. "Peanut butter--" he moans your name.

Climax breaks over you and you curl your fingers into a bony knot, your other hand rolling your clit like a marble in oil. "Baked apples," you cry out as Dean gasps from the other side of the locked door. Scent and seed and slick and tears. You crawl away from the bathroom crying out in pain as the heat rips and drags you under.

---

Never ask if things can get worse. God takes it as a personal challenge.

You didn't even make it into the bed. Instead of climbing up onto the sheets you’d curled up into a tight ball on the floor, and there you remain. You'd assumed the scent of an Alpha in rut made heat as bad as it could possibly get. Misss-stake. The paradigm has shifted, your instincts have seized on the idea (the truth, a little part of you cries) and that's not just an Alpha in the other room (mine!), it's Dean. You can't pretend the Alpha, the man, you're scenting is just some knot that happens to look like your friend (mate). Dean's hands on your blazing skin, Dean's mouth kissing yours, Dean's knot locked in your cunt, Dean's seed pumping into your body. Oh the things he could do to you, body and spirit so much stronger than he lets on.

Your scents have intensified to the point where you can taste them on the air, bite them off and chew them. A filmstrip voice from fifth grade sex ed class drones in your memory-- 'like their animal counterparts with similar mating cycles, Alphas and Omegas in season produce pheromones to indicate their status to potential mates. In the correct conditions, pheromones can be detectable up to a mile away. An unmated Alpha or Omega's pheromone production will increase the longer a breeding cycle continues without a successful mating.' The sound of hateful sniggering, always in your ears. Breeder, cum sink, momslut, Omega.

The sense of Dean's presence drags across your senses like fish hooks over your skin, and cruelest of all it's not demanding, it's begging, pleading. Alpha feels your agony and longs to take the pain away. Faintly you can hear Dean's voice, thick with his own need. He keeps asking you to answer him, laugh at this, say something at that, breathe like a train engine, anything to help you emerge from the Hell of your own body.

And something just . . . gives. Breaking strain, tipping point, limit reached and breached. "Dean!" you cry, sobbing so hard you can't breathe. "Help me! Dean, please--"

A crack like a gunshot, and the bathroom door splinters into matchsticks. You turn your head and there he is, barechested, jeans hanging open, his cock jutting up and out, the knot at the base dark and pulsing. You look for Dean and instead it's all Alpha and your heart crumbles to ash. Weeping, you do what's expected; head down, spread your knees as wide apart as they'll go, press your chest down into the floor, arch your back to flare up your rear. A proper presenting, showing Alpha you're ready for breeding. Like a stinking beast and worth half as much.

"Please," you cry into the floor. If dignity is cheap why does it hurt so much to lose? "Please, it hurts, it hurts so bad."

"I know baby, it's okay, I got you," instead of spreading you wider or grabbing you by the nape Dean takes your shoulders and pulls you gently upright and against his chest, the heat of his skin matching the heat under yours, "c'mere, it's gonna be okay, shh," softness pressing to your face, your head, your mouth, "can you stand? c'mon, put your feet down--" he pulls one of your limp arms over his shoulders and stands, drag-marching you the last step to your bed. By the time he's got you laid down he's shuddering almost as hard as you are.

You whine when Dean pulls away, gasping out pleas, grabbing his hand and interlacing your fingers. Whatever he was going to do gets abandoned and Dean drags himself overtop you, jeans boots and all. You wind yourself around him, soaking up the feel and the smell and the everything the way cracked skin soaks up lotion-- pain and relief all at once. His cock drags across your belly, leaving a hot trail. A hand gropes your cunt and you let out a high whistling gasp. "Hang on baby," Dean says. He tries a smile. "Left my lube in my other pants."

You smack him somewhere meaty. Dean grunts but his attention doesn't waver. Two fingers slip inside and wiggle while Dean murmurs how tight, how wet and warm, how good it's gonna feel, how good he's going to make you feel. The tip of his cock brushes you and before you can freeze he rolls his hips and oh.

There's no resistance at all. He just glides, fitting up into your body like a key in a lock. Every single muscle in your body pulls tight tight tight and you scream, Dean half-sobbing a curse against your lips. The spasm lets go just as you feel yourself starting to pass out and clarity returns to the feel of your Alpha painting your face with kisses, your bare skull held gently between his hands. Blood and sensation surges back and you moan as Dean puts an arm around your back and thrusts.

He's big inside you, and the way he's got you tipped makes every movement light sparks along your nerves. Gentleness goes by the boards as your body clutches at him, as your claws cut furrows in his back and your heels dig into his butt. The rest of reality doesn't exist, all that matters is Dean in your arms, Alpha's knot swelling, starting to catch.

The world goes upsie-daisy as Dean grabs tight and rolls the whole works over. "Wanna see," he pants, holding your hips until you get your balance. "My knot-- oh my God you're beautiful, you're so goddamn beautiful."

You don’t have words, just touch, your hand pulling Dean up for a kiss. Your bodies find their stride and you’re rocking hard together, moaning against each other’s lips. Hours on the edge has you in a place beyond, need and pain and bliss all smashed and melted together. You’re desperate for the end, you want this to never end.

“NO!” you scream in denial when Dean’s knot pops and your cunt locks him in place. His back arches as he comes and the pain in your body drains away as his cock pumps you full of seed. You start to cry, your own peak denied, release out of your reach--

Beneath you, Dean sprawls, crying out at each pulse of his cock. His hands clamp on your hips hard enough you can feel him clutching bone. Unconsciously you follow his unspoken lead, rotating your body around Alpha’s knot, making every millimeter of him stroke and drag. Jaw clenched as your pussy pulls at his overstimulated cock, Dean strokes your clit, his touch light as bird wings and intense as fireworks. His eyes lock with yours and what’s left of the world fades to nothing. All that’s real is this, Alpha and Omega, you and Dean.

Everything in you stops and flashbulbs pop behind your eyes as you finally come, crying out Alpha’s name, and the last thing you hear is Dean shouting as another load of his seed bursts into your womb. Your body folds over and everything goes black.

---

Just before dawn, when the terminator passes and everything is shades of blue, you open your eyes, flat on your back. On his side, curled up next to you, Dean sleeps. One of his arms lays across your belly.

Well. You lie still, utter peace rubbed up against utter shock. 24 hours ago you were giving your wounded friend two Oxycontin with a bourbon chaser and worrying about gas money. You take a whiff, noting the change in your mingled scents. Lord it's weird, relaxing and tensing up all at once.

Dean mumbles a little and you shut your eyes, going boneless. You don't want to see his face when he opens his eyes and realized he's not in bed with a gorgeous, well-fucked, ready-for-more Beta. He'd said he wanted you and he wasn't lying -- you give yourself at least that much credit -- but an Alpha in rut would find an Omega in heat attractive no matter what.

Dean takes a deep sniff at your neck. Is he purring? Moaning? Whatever it is, it's going right to that worried place, soothing it away. "Hey," he says, so softly. "You awake?"

"Mmm," you grumble, turning on your side and into Dean's arms. Dean doesn't turn away, doesn't grope you, doesn't mutter obscenities as he rolls you over to present. You can feel him moving around you, making his body into a safe little harbor, and you can almost believe there's nothing else in the world he'd rather be or do.

For all that he's a Hunter and one of the strongest personalities you know, for all that you'd never doubt for a minute that Dean's an Alpha, the thought of Dean being Alpha as you understand Alphas doesn't click. Alphas don't get all soft and googoo face when they're holding someone else's pup. Alphas don't turn down sex from cooperative partners even when said partner is a little short of legal or too drunk to tapdance. Unmated adult Alphas don't exist cooperatively for years on end even when they're related. Sam behaves more Alpha than Dean does and Sam's a sweetheart most of the time.

Another wave of heat swells in you but there’s no pain, just want. You nuzzle your way up Dean’s throat and meet him for a kiss.

Both of you pull away with a disgusted noise. “Ew. Dragon breath,” you say.

“Yours is worse,” Dean, no gentleman, tells you. “Least I don’t taste like an ashtray.”

“Hold your breath,” you order, reaching down and feeling him rise to attention.

Pouting-- he’s actually pouting-- Dean pushes your hand away. “Sorry baby,” he says, kissing your forehead, “but I gotta piss like a racehorse.”

“Charming. Make it fast.” You make a face as you roll out of bed. At least these aren’t the good sheets. An Alpha in rut leaves behind one fuck of a wet spot.

Dean picks up a piece of wrecked door. “Holy shit.”

“You’re paying my deductible,” you tell him, reaching around the doorframe and snatching your toothbrush.

Ten minutes later and you’ve got minty fresh breath, a protein drink in your system, and your butt squeaking a brisk one-two beat on the kitchen counter as Dean fucks you to within an inch of your life.

---

“Well this is awkward,” you say.

Dean pants out a laugh. “Ya think?”

You try to shift yourself off Dean’s knot and hiss in pain. “Um . . .” you give him a pained grin, “I like Captain Solo where he is?”

That gets you a glare. “Seriously?”

“Sorry. Pop out on three-- one, two--”

“No no no no no, you’ll tear.” Over your protests, Dean picks you up off the counter, careful of your knotted together bodies. He sits on the dining table, draping you over his lap and making your mewl as his cock shifts around inside you. Dean sighs as you get your knees on either side of his hips. “That’s better.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“Why the hell not? I’m not going to just rip out of you. What kind of an asshole do you think I am?”

“An Alpha. And you’re not an asshole you’re a dipshit. There’s a difference.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.” You can’t help it, your lip curls in a snarl. “Not much I could do to stop you.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Oh am I offending you now?”

That’s worth a glare. “Yeah, kinda, it pisses me off that you think you gotta prove something to me.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” you ask, confused.

“I mean--” Dean cuts himself off, thinking, holding you still when you try that swivel trick around his knot. “Stop that.”

“Whyyyy?”

“Because I’m trying to have an adult conversation--”

“Whyyyy?”

“Because you’re starting to remind me of Sam when he was ten and it’s annoying--”

“WHYYYY?”

“Because I really do not want to be thinking of my brother right now--”

“WHYYYY?!?”

Dean’s fighting a grin and losing. “Animaniacs references will not save you--”

“WHYYYY?!?!?”

“Knock it off!”

You suck in a breath for the whine to end all whines, only to breathe crosswise into coughing as Dean starts tickling you. Swearing through your giggles, you attack his ribs.

Somewhere in there tickling’s led to stroking, caressing, kisses, soft bites. Gently you drag your lips across Dean’s collarbones, down to mouth a nipple, up to nibble over his tattoo. Just touching him feels good.

His mouth slips down the side of your neck and pauses on the mating gland. You stiffen. Hurt shines in Dean’s eyes, before he covers it in irritation. “Jeez-zus Christ I’m--”

Making a decision, you touch his lips and shush him up. “Look. When this is over we’ll talk. For real talk, I promise. Until then, can we table the deep soul-bearing heart-to-heart shit?”

“You’re regretting this already?” Dean asks, the hurt shining through more strongly.

“God no.” Pounding the point home with a kiss. “I just don’t want you to. If you’re right, about us I mean.” You stare into his eyes, nearly lost in shining green, one of your hands over his beating heart. “I don’t wanna fuck this up.”

Dean takes your face between his hands and kisses you, deep and sweet. You barely notice when his knot collapses and he slips out, leaving a mess of mingled come all over you both.

---

It’s getting hot, sweat making your bodies slide deliciously as you gently, softly, agonizingly move against Alpha. His cock fills you beautifully, the fat head rubbing against a spot inside that brings tears to your eyes. Slow, stoking the heat burning through your body.

Dean lifts your leg a little higher, goes a little deeper. “Hold your leg like that,” he whispers. His newly freed hand goes to your belly and presses down against the shallow curve of tummy fat. “Feel that?”

You can. Your insides fluttering as Dean pushes against them. From inside. Makes every movement more there, more immediate. Head, ridge, shaft, knot-- you moan when Dean starts gently rubbing your clit, making him answer in kind when your cunt spasms around him.

It lasts, Dean makes it last, until you can’t anymore and he flips you to your back and fucks his knot into you. You cry out as your body takes another load of seed and you lie there, bodies heaving for air, the two of you glued together with the heat.

---

“You’re a genius,” you tell Dean.

“I know, I know,” he smiles, almost too beautiful to look at in the rich sunset light. Your nose can still pick up his scent, mixed with green leaves and burning citronella. The two of you sit on your old air mattress, sharing some dried fruit and venison jerky, passing a jug of water. In the west the sun vanishes in a riot of rose and orange and purple. High up on the roof of your little home on wheels, it really does feel like a tiny slice of Heaven.

“I still do this, whenever I hit a hunt away from the cities,” you tell Dean. “Especially out in the desert country, like Lake Taos? I always freeze my ass off in the morning but the sky’s just . . .”

“Yeah,” Dean chuckles. “We were on our way across Nevada once and we got caught between towns. Dad had to stop and get a little sleep. So Sammy and me lay on the windshield and watched the stars. I was dozing and Sammy woke me up when he saw a whole buncha shootin’ stars-- we must’ve caught the tail end of a meteor shower.”

Dean’s gaze has gone inward, his voice rough and loose with that bit of Texas that comes out sometimes. When Dean reminisces, it’s usually centered on Sam, or him and Sam as a unit, the Winchester Boys, Butch and Sundance, Martin and Lewis, Heckle and Jeckle. Truly impactful memories aren’t something either of them talk about much. You know why. The truth of who people are is a treasure and it’s shockingly easy to steal. This is a gift you’re being given, and you give back silence and space.

“Sammy started poundin’ on the windshield to get Dad to wake up. I thought sure he was gonna rip me a new one for not keeping him quiet. But instead he got out of the car and climbed up on the hood with us. He put his arm around each of us and we all just watched the stars.

“We woke up at dawn half-frostbit and with this Highway Patrol cop writing a ticket for-- shit, I don’t even remember. Sammy talked him out of it by telling him about falling stars.” You can tell Dean’s disappointed in his story. The most important things are the hardest to say. “Anyway. It’s nice to be under an open sky sometimes.”

“Yeah.” Camping out with your dad, learning how to fish and build a fire and find cattails and aim a rifle. And then your body turned traitor, to you and your dad both.

“You know what?” Dean says, as though he knows the channel of your thoughts and wants to divert it, “I’m hungry.”

“You can have the rest of the jerky, man, I’m cool.”

“Nuh-uh.” He kisses you, pushes you back on the mattress. “I need something . . .” he kisses over your heart, “nice . . .” trails kisses down to your bellybutton, “sweet . . .” licks down to the patchy stubble, you haven’t shaved in a while, “mmm, juicy . . .”

“Oh real subtle Winchester,” you groan as he parts your legs and settles his head between them, “honestly that’s just--”

---

Later, under the light of the moon and stars you ride Dean’s supine body, pleasure and joy and the sense of height making you feel like you’re flying, or falling, or perfectly suspended in the moment God made the light. Nothing connecting you to the world of blood and pain except Dean, and since he’s flying with you that’s okay. His knot lodging firm in your body pulls you back, and for the first time the thought of being locked together seems . . . right, needed even. You don’t need a knot to be locked together and coming back to Earth with Dean is a Heaven in itself.

---

“Gonna rain today,” you say as Dean hands you a bottle of water.

“Yeah,” he agrees. He points to a scar on his leg. “Broken tibia. Aches a little when it rains.”

“Mmm. Prosit,” you clunk your bottles together. As you reach to drop yours in the wastepaper basket, Dean takes your arm and starts gently nibbling at your wrist, where all the lines and blood tangle together. Tingles and sparks fly along your nerves.

A phone rings and you both jump halfway to the moon. Dean picks up his latest burner and groans. “Sam.”

From the volume and Dean’s wince, Sam is not using his six-inch voice. “Calm down man, I’m fine, I’m just laying low.”

“Oh is that what the kids’re callin’ it?” you whisper.

Dean waves you off. “I don’t know, maybe a couple more days? We’ve got some weather moving in.”

Irritated at getting the brushoff you go for the soft underbelly. Well, the not-so-soft part of it anyway. Dean coughs out a “Shit!” as you sluck up his cock, feeling it jump to life in your mouth.

Through the phone’s ear speaker you can hear Sam yelling. Dean glares down into your wide and totally not innocent eyes, as you let your lips stretch obscenely up his shaft, lash at the head with your tongue. “I don’t know! Somewhere in Illinois? We had to pull over-- yes, we, as in I am not alone, as in she might be coming down for a visit--” a choked moan pops out of him as you swallow him down, down, so far down your lips can kiss his knot. You hope he appreciates this, it took a lot of popsicles for you to get this trick right.

“No! Shit Sammy-- whatever-- which one of us is acting like he’s twelve?” A surprised laugh makes you choke and you pull away from Dean, coughing like you’re gonna hack up a lung. “I’m fine, Sam. You shouldn’t even be walking. How the hell you gonna work the double-clutch on that old truck with no left leg?”

“Sam wants to come here?!?” you scream-whisper.

“--you don’t even know how to ride the damn thing,” Dean continues. “No. I am fine, there’s nothing but trees for miles-- hey! I didn’t say anything when you wanted to take a detour to see the Impressionists--”

Your patience dies and you snatch the phone out of Dean’s hand. “Sam,” you cut him off. As the oldest of five girls, you know how to give orders to baby sibs. “Dean is fine. He will be home in a few days. If there’s a hunt we will deal with it then. Unless the house is burning down, chill. You got it?” You don’t even wait for Sam’s response, flipping the phone over, picking out the battery, and throwing the whole mess into the nightstand drawer.

Dean stares at you, mouth hanging open, dick visibly throbbing. The reality of what you just did hits you and you hide your face in your hands “Oh Christ. Sam’s gonna fucking kill me isn’t he?”

Clicking his mouth closed, Dean orders, “Put some clothes on.”

Your heart breaks. “What? Why? I’m not safe to drive yet.” Goddamn it, you’ve got maybe five seconds before you start bawling like a fucking crybaby.

Ignoring you, Dean goes upfront. Your fingers numb, you reach for your keys. Jesus-- your heart’s not breaking, it’s ripping itself to pieces like a dry piston engine. Any second now it’ll crack your chest open in a shower of blood and bone.

Dean snatches your wrist, yanking you away from the keyhook. “What are you doing?” he demands.

“You want to leave, I’ll--”

“We’re not leaving. Put this on.”

Present for me Omega, whispers out of a memory and you shudder as you drape the green on black plaid fabric over your shoulders and do up the buttons. The shirt fits you like a tent and smells like Dean, leather and chocolate and all things safe and good.

“Now that you’re wearing something,” he says, in a voice like velvet and whiskey, “I’m going to rip it off of you, and fuck your brains out.”

Your voice is very small. “Oh.”

---

Cool humidity soothes the inferno under your skin, as rain patters on the RV like pebbles on a tin can. Dean has you sprawled wide over the bed, with your knotting toy in one hand and a pocket massager in the other.

“I think I like this,” Dean says to himself, tickling your clit with the vibrator and making you squeak. “Your pussy’s still hungry.” You know it is, you can feel yourself pulsing around the knotting toy. Dean can see the flexing, smell your scent and your slick. “Doesn’t wanna let go. You wanna play with your titties for me?” His gaze goes unfocused as you caress yourself, thumbs flicking at your nipples. It’s just debauched, the picture you imagine you make, shamelessly naked and lounging on a stack of pillows being pleasured by your Alpha.

Or teased. Dean puts the vibrator aside and slowly drives Doctor Knotts into and out of your cunt, just enough to be nowhere near enough. A breeze from the window brings out goosebumps and pulls your nipples to attention. Indecent, slutty, perverted, degenerate-- under Dean’s gaze the shame under those thoughts disappears. You feel alive. You feel like a fucking goddess.

From the tangle of hair at his groin Dean’s cock rises, ready for duty. An idea percolates to the surface of your lust-fried mind. When you explain it to Dean, he just smiles, sticks his bare feet into his boots, carries you out into the rain, and takes you against the side of the RV. His skin is warm and his mouth tastes like rainwater. You run your tongue up the big tendon in the side of his neck and you feel Dean freeze when your mouth touches the pheromone gland, the mating gland.

You don’t, but oh God you want to. Instead you hold him tight as you come and let the rain handle your tears. Dean’s big hand cups the nape of your neck and he holds you back just as tight. His face is wet too, from the rain.

---

Dean’s on the back end of his rut, you can tell because his coloring is getting back to normal and his knot doesn’t take long to unlock. As though you needed more proof-- you think your heat is passing too. Needs matching one another, the way a mated pairs’ should.

So when Dean reaches, you come to him and meet his kiss. And you’re the one that turns over. You shiver as he takes his place behind, kissing up your spine, lingering on the scar of a ghoul bite he and Sam had cleaned and dressed together. You turn your head and find his seeking lips, trying not to feel your heartrate double and memories stirring like angry spirits.

Dean doesn’t bark it like a trainer correcting a dog. Heel, sit, speak, take it like a bitch. It’s soft, like he cares. Because he does. Dean Winchester is a man you trust, and you’re so tired of never trusting. “Present for me.”

You shift your knees apart and spread open your well-fucked Omega pussy. Dean’s breathing is ragged, like he just took a punch in the gut. You cry out as he touches you, finding heat, slick, slippery as warm oil.

“Is all this for me?” he asks, and you can just imagine-- slick pooling in his palm, trickling down his wrist.

“Yes,” you moan, “for God’s sake don’t tease--" you look up and see your own reflection, in the mirror hung on the inside of the closet. The door must’ve come off the latch again. Sitting on his knees behind you is Dean, your Alpha, studying you with an expression so nakedly vulnerable you almost look away.

“Tell me,” he asks. Pleads. He glances up and sees the mirror, sees you watching. With that vulnerable look, Dean says, “Tell me what you need.”

It’s like you’ve been waiting to give the answer your whole life. “You. Please, Dean, you. Please.”

Lining himself up, Dean presses into you. Dying coals of heat flare and you moan in relief and joy. One of his hands curls around yours while the other helps you sit up against his chest. In the mirror-- holy fuck there you are, bracketed by Dean, supplicant and lover and protector all in one. “You,” you whisper. “Need you. Always need you.” Dean hides his face behind your shoulder and moans.

Dean brings this to the best conclusion there could be, worshipping your body with his, tenderly, gently. So much of him is hard, strength called on too early and too often and pounded into iron by years of loss and impossible choices, but his hands on you are careful, gentle, reverential. Those hands have taken on Gods and won, and they touch you like something delicate and beautiful. “Got one more for me?” Dean asks, the flirty teasing threadbare as you tremble through another orgasm.

“I-- I don’t--”

“Come on, you can do it, I believe in you.” Dean does this weird grippy thing, something that makes your clit feel like it’s got roots all the way to your knees. Every clench and flutter of you cunt muscles makes your clit twitch in Dean’s grip, making you gasp. Bliss so intense it hurts. “There it is,” Dean says as you pitch forward. You lace your fingers through the top of his hand as he braces himself; he grips back and drives into you, broken voices matching as you fall over the edge together.

---

The next day is all tension and awkward silence. You’re both sore from using muscles that don’t get used much. Normal you stands on reserve, truly engages with few, shows weakness to almost no one. For Christ’s sake you begged--

It’s an awkward crew that sets sail, the hot sun turning the moisture left from the rain into wring-out-your-clothes humidity. Dean spends most of his time in the passenger seat focused on his phone. He doesn’t try to engage in conversation beyond the strictly necessary. You don’t know if that’s a relief or just something else to piss you off. Christ, he’s not even coming near you. Pretty big turnaround from not being able to keep his hands off you for two days.

It’s that last thought that makes you clench your teeth and try to think rationally. God damn it, this’d be a lot more straightforward if it wasn’t for your fucking hormones. It adds a layer of mistrust to every intuition you normally rely on. Any judgement call is potentially tainted.

And how much right do you have to crash-land in his life anyway? Being a mated pair goes deeper than any legal or spiritual bond, it’s a physical thing. If you take that step it’ll severely curtail your freedom of motion. His too. And there’s the whole serial philanderer thing-- you know you’re monogamous and a bad experience has taught you that you can’t be in a relationship with someone who isn’t. And what about a family? Just seeing the way Dean comes alive around kids tells you he was born to be a father, and no matter how much you-- you can’t do that for him. You don’t even want kids. And there’s Sam. Where Dean is concerned, Sam is like the earth, no way around him.

Muscle memory has you reaching for your coffee cup and your hand touches Dean’s. Instead of snapping it back, you make yourself squeeze his fingers. Not much. An unscheduled bit of human contact. The strength of Dean’s return grip surprises you. You don’t want him to let go. When he does he gets up and goes in the back, avoiding you--

Dean’s leaving you your space, you realize. But you don’t want a space that doesn’t have him in it.

With that, you make a few decisions and take a turn. “You hungry?”

“Yeah,” Dean calls.

“There’s one of those Mongolian barbecue places up ahead. Wanna go and give the grillers a workout?”

---

“Six months.”

Dean’s chopsticks, heavy with beef and onion, pause on the way to his mouth. His already full mouth. Not that you’re being dainty; heats always leave you starving. He asks with his eyes.

You are not a coward. You refuse to behave like one. “If you’re willing,” please God let him be willing, “I want to give this a try.”

“What this?” Dean grunts around a swallow.

“This. Us.” Just like that Dean’s poker face slams into place. You’ve gotten so used to his unguarded, trusting affect it hurts to see his defenses go up like that.

You’re not gonna, so he doesn’t get to either. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“That’s your Cop face.” You flash yours right back at him. “Don’t do that. If we never talk straight again we have to do it now.”

Dean purses his lips and looks away. “What’s there to talk about--”

“Don’t. You. Fucking dare. Try to brush this off.”

“Look, we’re cool, okay? You don’t have to spare my feelings.”

“Huh?”

“You’re gonna make me say it,” Dean says after heaving a sigh.

“Negative copy on that Midnight Rider, say again?” You smile as you say it, it tickles you that Dean picked the Alman Brothers Band, it suits.

“I had sex with a woman when she couldn’t say no. The law calls that rape.”

You can feel the smile fall off your face. “Dean no, don’t even think that.”

“Why not?” he asks bitterly.

“Be-cause I was fucking begging?”

“You weren’t in your right mind. When I saw you on the floor-- God, I’ve never seen a woman cry like that. But I didn’t care.” His great green eyes burn with horrified shame. “I wanted you so bad, I didn’t care.” That’s the other part of Dean’s personality, the part that exists in a perpetual state of Fail. That part is incapable of internalizing any kind of praise, nitpicks every decision for flaws, and eagerly agrees with anything negative anybody says about him. Of course he’s taken your ambivalence to mean you hate him. For Dean, there’s no other conclusion possible.

That ends. Right now. You slip your fingers into his hand, pull it across the table to hold it in both of yours. It’s his gun hand, you can feel the hard spots. “Look at me, Winchester.” When you have his attention, you say, “I just had two days of the best sex of my entire life,” not a lie, that’s not even debatable, “with a man who made it his mission to not hurt me, not degrade me, made sure I enjoyed every damn minute, and was never anything but exactly who I needed. No matter where we go from here, I’ll always love you for that. And grateful. God, you have no idea how grateful. You took care of me,” you’re starting to get misty, the depth of that gratitude shocks you. You lift his hand and kiss the back. “Thank you.”

Dean clears his throat. “I don’t want to be one of those Alphas that made you treat any Alpha like the enemy,” he says.

“That would be most of them,” you say. He deserves a better answer than that, though. “My dad always wanted a son, but all Mom could ever give him were girls. I was the oldest, so after Mom had the twins I guess he decided God made me a tomboy for a reason.”

“Oh God he didn’t--”

“No,” you cut that thought right off. “My parents are Betas. So are my sisters. When I Presented, dad just refused to believe it. Said God wouldn’t do something so heartless, make his tough little girl into a breeder. He kept on saying that right up until my first day of eighth grade.”

“Your first heat.”

“Yep. It was . . .” fuck, two decades later and certain things -- girlish cackles of laughter, the smell of floor polish, pressure on a certain spot on your back -- still send you into an irrational panic. “I wasn’t prepared. The story came with me when I got into high school. Small town, the really humiliating crap never dies.

“But anyway. Dad stopped acting like dad after that. A couple weeks later I asked him about going to deer camp-- it was supposed to be my first year there. He beat the shit out of me.”

“Jesus!”

You wave that aside. “Not the first time, dad had a heavy hand with us kids. But he kept calling me things. That’s the first time I ever heard most of the bad names Omegas get called. From my fucking father. Who I worshipped. You get it?”

“Yeah,” Dean says. “Absolutely.”

“So when the inevitable started happening--”

“You said your history teacher?”

You nod. “And my sister’s softball coach. And my first boyfriend.” You shudder. “And my cousin. His wife told me that’s what Omegas are for and the sooner I got that the better. Doesn’t help that the law agrees, pretty much.

“I met Peg when she was pretensing as an agent for the DNR.” Dean nods, he knows the story of how Peg Dmitriev popped your hunting cherry. “She came and got me the night I graduated. Dad was prepping his big throwing me out of the house speech when Peg pulled up, told dad to go fuck himself, sat me in her car with a bottle of vodka, and next thing I know it’s tomorrow and we’re halfway to Atlanta.

“Anyway,” you pull yourself back to Now, Dean’s hand warm in yours. “Me being an Omega’s been nothing but a source of pain and bullshit, all my life. Until two days ago.”

“Then why didn’t you ask me to claim you? Because--” Dean hesitates, then plunges on ahead, “I mean, it hurt to hold back from doing that.”

“Because I didn’t want to do anything permanent. I still don’t.” Dean flinches, as though you’d slapped him. You hurry to explain yourself, ease the hurt. “I-I mean, I’m a bitch to live with, I drink too much, I’m a loudmouth schnook, I can’t cook for shit--”

“Untrue,” Dean cuts in. “Your campfire stew is awesome.”

“I can’t give you pups,” you tie the whole thing off with one big one.

“I know,” Dean says. At your look he clarifies, “It was on the paperwork in your bag.”

You nod. “It’s not just-- the lab guys aren’t totally sure what the hormone blockers did to my eggs. If kids are something you’re gonna want, they can’t come from me.”

“You’re talking like kids are even an option.”

You think a moment. “Did you ever hit a point, where one day you wonder if maybe you’re not gonna die young’n’pretty? One of the reasons I agreed to do the study was I thought for sure I wasn’t gonna live ten more years.”

You’re not sure if that thought has occurred to Dean. The Winchesters’ relationship to mortality is . . . complicated. How many times they’ve for-real died is a topic of debate in some dark and smoky bars. Some even say the stories are all bull, that old man John was just dinky-dau and his boys aren’t any better. You’re not one of them. You’ve met Castiel.

“Yeah,” Dean admits. He looks like he wants to say more, but doesn’t. “I can live with kids being off the table, but-- look. Every time I’ve tried for anything good, someone gets hurt. I damn near got Ben and Lisa killed.”

“I’m not a civilian Dean. I’ve been Hunting solo for almost twelve years now. Still here, still sane, still a better shot than you.”

“With a rifle, anyway.”

“Whatever. The point is, you don’t have to stash me in a safehouse in Assfuck, Kansas and hope I remember not to wash the graffiti off the walls.”

“Well what about me?” Dean asked. “I kind of like having a permanent address. I’m not going to throw a ruck in your RV and just hit the road.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to,” you say, bringing up the biggest thing of big things. “For one thing, I’m not going to ask you to pick between me and your brother.”

“What?”

“Sam comes first, I get that.” You’ve been around them long enough to know that’s true. The Winchesters are a package deal. Anybody with eyes can see it, and anybody who challenges it loses. For Christ’s sake, the Devil bet the farm that he could break that, and lost. “That’s the other reason I don’t want to bond right now. If Sam can’t stand having me around--”

“What do you mean? Sam loves having you around.”

“I did just tell him to fuck off.”

“He deserved it. Cockblocker. Look,” he says, turning his hand over so he can hold yours, “if it were up to me, we’d be mated already.” Dean’s doing that thing he does, when there’s no bullshit nowhere. Focused, direct. Part of you wants to run, but another part just wants to wrap yourself up in it, soak it in, exist within that intensity. “But I totally get why you want to take it slow.”

“Yeah. But,” you put the words together, “I don’t want to stand in front of St. Peter yanking claws outta my ass and admit that I left a chance at being happy with you on the table.” You’re not ready to say the words yet, but neither is he and you can live with that for now.

Dean lifts his beer. “Six months.”

You lift your glass of pop. “Six months.”

Clink.

---

One Year Later

“You’re Red’s kid aren’t’cha?”

You nod at the bartender as you pull an ashtray close. Because if there was ever a day you needed a cigarette--

The bartender passes you a pack if matches. “Just get back from the wedding?”

You nod. “Stuck around long enough to get told we weren’t needed for pictures.”

She pulls a bottle of Scotch off the wall and pours. “On the house. You guys look like you could use it.”

“Oh bless you,” Dean sighs.

“No problem. Been listening to Red’s bullshit for years.” You notice a slight flaring of her nostrils and your hand meets Dean’s halfway. You have to remind yourself to take it easy; you’re both off the market. Sam on the other hand . . . the bartender sidles over to get a better sniff at Sam’s Alpha scent, eucalyptus and ice tea and fog, fresh cut green apples. Cool scents, total contrast to his brother’s warm ones.

The original plan -- you and Dean get drunk as skunks and Sam stays sober enough to pour you two back in your motel room bed around 0230 -- gets tossed in the wastepaper basket. “C’mon Dean, we gotta go do the thing.”

“Right, the thing.” You finish your drinks and leave Sam and the bartender to their dance of mutual interest. “Ten says we don’t see him again until Tuesday,” Dean says as he slides behind the Impala’s steering wheel.

“Sucker’s bet,” you reply. Spending as much time in the bunker as you do, you know Sam’s due for a rut. The Omega bartender’s about to have an interesting weekend. “Anyone watching?” At Dean’s negative you get in the back and change out of your for-nice dress. It feels like taking pressure off an infected wound.

“You okay?” Dean asks as you climb into the front seat.

You check the urge to cover with a token I’m Fine-- you and Dean sailed past that a while ago. “It’s nothing I haven’t heard from him before. I’m sorry you and Sam had to hear it.” Your father’s got some fucked-up ideas, but the notion that you’re playing breedslut to a pair of siblings-- that’s low even for him.

“Like we were going to let you deal with this shit alone,” Dean snorts. “Besides, it’s not the first time somebody got the wrong idea about me’n’Sam.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. There was this guy once-- he offered us a grand if we let him film us double-teaming his wife. Two grand if he could put the camera on a tripod and join in.”

“Shit dude. Did he even know you’re brothers?”

Dean shoots you a grin. “Twenty-five hundred. Each.”

“Oof.”

At your direction Dean swings by the party store up the road for a couple six-packs, to the Guiseppe’s for a pizza, and to the park by the lake full of old-fashioned playground equipment rusting away next to the newer, safer, less fun plastic crap. After polishing off the pizza you stretch out next to Dean on Baby’s front end, the windshield hard against your back. The sun going down over the water makes the place pretty as a postcard. You wonder a moment if the view is as nice from the VFW reception hall, as your sister and brand new brother in law take their first dance.

“I think,” Dean says, pulling you from your thoughts, “I owe you an apology.”

“What for? You didn’t treat anybody like a red-headed stepchild.”

“For ever saying anything about how hostile you are to Alphas. Because that--” he tics his head at the road back to town, “explains a lot.”

“You didn’t know.” People you’d gone to school with sniggering behind their hands, gossip exchanged just loud enough for you to hear every word. Your dad, a five-foot-six human bull, regaling Dean and Sam with humiliating stories about your early heats. Your cousin’s angling for God knows, constantly bumping into the guys as they stuck with you like white on rice. Bless them.

Worst of all, your baby sister glowing in white, her eyes fixed on your feet, asking you to please leave. A promise to call later, that she’ll never keep. Rosie never could lie for shit.

Unconsciously your hand goes up, touching the scimitar-shaped bits of raised scar tissue bracketing the mating gland. Dean’s hand slips under yours, gently stroking over his mark. A light touch, like a warm hug or a quick kiss. If he rubs a little harder, you know, it turns your blood to fire, makes you wet, makes you hungry. You remember vividly, you and the guys damn near dying from an ambush of vampires, Dean tossing his car keys to Sam and taking you on the ground outside. He’d begged for your bite first, and your ears had rung with his howl as your fangs tore into his skin.

“I love my sisters,” you say, “but if they’re going to keep being dad’s partisans, I can’t be around them.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” Leaving hadn’t been a hard choice. The three of you stunk up the place, literally, and your sisters’ protests that you should just give dad a chance, he wasn’t cruel just old-fashioned, et cetera et cetera et cetera . . . it was bullshit when you left home and it’s bullshit now.

You look at Dean, remembering another sunset. A year’s put one or two more lines around his eyes; other than that, he’s still almost too beautiful to look at. Moved by a wave of tenderness, you pull him close and kiss him, soft and slow.

Later you lie next to him in your motel room bed as he drifts off, lazy in the afterglow. Life isn’t perfect, but with your mate it’s a helluva lot more fun. Unconsciously Dean shifts towards you, his mouth curved in a slight smile.

For your entire life you’ve been coached to feel worthless, a hole for an Alpha’s pleasure and a sack for an Alpha’s pups. You’ve done terrible things to yourself, living your life otherwise. But then Dean fell into your bed and you took a chance that’s paid off every day since. Every smile that’s just for you, every weapon tossed into your waiting hand, every stitch in a bleeding wound, every gripe about how the fuck do you even do that when you take some rifle practice-- you can’t be worthless and have someone like Dean Winchester feel that way about you. And if your kinfolk won’t see that, it’s not your duty to feel bad about it.

With that logical leap, it feels like something broken inside you sets back together. Dean wakes up when he feels you crying. “Hurgh?” he grunts.

You wipe your face as both your phones chime. “Sam,” you say, scanning the text. “Looks like he and the bartender are staying in.”

“That’s my boy,” Dean grins. “What’s wrong?”

“Permission to get girly?”

“Go for it babe.”

“Just realized mating with you’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. That’s all.”

Dean mulls that over a minute. “I feel exactly the same way,” he tells you quietly. “I love you.”

You laugh as Dean kisses you. “We gotta knock this shit off. We’re supposed to be the badasses here.”

“I won’t tell if you won’t,” Dean promises. “Any plans for tomorrow?”

“Not really. You?”

“Well,” he grins, that impish smile that makes him look fourteen and up to no good, “I did kind of want to see that equipment shed--"

You groan. “Shouldn’t have told you that story.”

“Nope, probably not. And isn’t the World’s Largest Pie Pan around here somewhere?”

Only Dean. “Four-five hour drive. Then I say we swing by the Thrifty Acres, pick up a couple of bathing suits, and hit the beach.”

“I love it when a plan comes together.”

---

AN2: "Jesus died in vain and legally changed his middle name to Fucking."

-The Angry Video Game Nerd

The World's Largest Pie Pan is in Traverse City, Michigan.

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