Chapter Text
"Pull one T-Bone and one sausage for a sandwich."
Dean glanced at Tara as he expertly swiveled away from the grill to march over to the freezers— but, as usual, the older woman's face didn't give anything away. They could be in the middle of a hurricane and she'd still be calling out the orders in that bored monotone. The chill of the freezer was a stale breath of relief from the heat of the propane as he put one hand on the steak and found two sausage patties with the other. He could find the ingredients blind-folded in here by now, but he wasn't about to brag about that; Casey was the kind of District Manager who'd make it a training protocol.
"Pulling one T-Bone and one sausage for a sandwich," he called back dutifully, as he seasoned the meat and slapped it on the grill under Tara's hawkish gaze, then readied himself by the hash brown batter.
Tara puffed up, taking a deep breath like she was General Patton announcing an assault. "Drop two hash browns scattered."
Dean, as usual, choked back a huff of laughter as he poured out the two orders of hash browns. "Dropping two hash browns scattered."
Tara's brows did twitch at his tone, but what snagged his attention more was the muscles on her arms bulging in warning as she crossed them over her chest. Her build was impressive even for an Alpha; she'd give Linda Hamilton circa Terminator 2 something to worry about. The Sarah Connor vibe continued into the not approved as uniform camo pants and the khaki wifebeater peeking out under Wafflemania's signature yellow and blue vest. She'd never been pulled up though; corporate didn't want to piss off the most roll-with-the-punches waitress in Deep East Texas, not if they still wanted to be open 24 hours a day.
He was thirteen and a half hours into what was supposed to have been a twelve-hour shift himself, and glad of the fact he didn't need to read tickets as Tara called out the full mark— he should've worn his glasses today, not his contacts, the spitting grease and the browning onions were making his eyes sting and water. He planned the mark out on the plate with condiments as trained; they'd drilled it into him those first weeks, these hieroglyphics of meat, eggs, and potatoes; though John had instilled an eidetic memory in his son with slaps rather than training videos a decade before he'd walked in here the first time.
He'd just flipped the steak when the groan of the back door let in first a gust of rain damp air, then the mild tang of stressed male Beta. Lee.
"Hey," he called, low, wary as ever of his open kitchen and the handful of patrons grazing at the bar, or the scattered few huddled in booths.
He'd learned it was better not to call attention to himself, no one lifted their noses to investigate the guy at the grill who just called out orders and served them up, but any glimmer of personality could hook someone in. The grill provided substantial camouflage, he couldn't smell himself right now after thirteen-plus hours of near nonstop short-line cooking, but he'd learned the hard way not to underestimate entitled, asshole Alphas convinced they could add Omega to their order as a side dish. "How's Krissy?"
Lee rolled his eyes affectionately as he tied his apron on with one hand and secured a hairnet over his gunmetal buzzcut with the other. "Flourishing in fifth grade," he replied proudly, though he shook his head ruefully as he grinned. "Despite her best efforts."
Dean met his grin with a broader, unabashed one of his own. "Kicking ass and taking names in the new year, is she?"
Lee grimaced. "Emphasis on the kicking ass. Good thing she has the grades and her butter wouldn't melt face or I'd be called in more often."
"Huh." Dean pursed his lips, considering. "She must get all of that from her mom."
Lee elbowed him, just light enough to avoid leaving a scent mark, because the dude was polite like that. "Har, har, Winchester."
"Don't you mean," Dean paused for a second to put the two sausage patties in their waiting sandwich on the plate, "thank you Dean, for covering for me on such short notice?"
"Thank you, Dean, for covering while I went to a parent-teacher conference," Lee replied, not rising to his teasing bait. "I appreciate it."
"Us working stiffs gotta have each other's backs, right?" Dean muttered, low and serious now as he focused on finishing the steak to avoid Lee's gratitude. Krissy was a handful, a handful that did not deserve her dad having to skip her school events— though at least for Lee it would've been about paying his bills, not drinking his way into hibernation as had been the case with Dean's dad more often than not. "Lemme serve this up and I'll get out of your way."
"Sure, sure," Lee confirmed distractedly, his attention already mostly on Tara as she reappeared to call out another order. It looked like Dean was dipping out just before a fresh rush, he'd need to get out of here before he felt the impulse to step back up to the plate, clock a couple more extra hours. His feet wouldn't thank him, but his wallet would.
He shook that thought off, already starting to tug at his apron as he finished the orders and passed them over as Tara swooped expertly in. They recited the order back to each other like they were in one of those poetry slam competitions that had always popped up in Nickelodeon shows when he was growing up, but he'd never believed existed anywhere. Not at any of his many middle or high schools, anyway.
He made his goodbyes short and sweet, quiet enough that none of the more inebriated patrons would decide to play Marco Polo with him or some shit, and dived into the break room/co-ed locker room. Federal law prescribed that it be a scent-neutralized area, and it was in the sense that the flowery burn of off-brand Febreze took the sharp edges off the miasma of personal scents. Wafflemania wasn't about to invest in those fancy filtering units. Hell, they barely had working AC.
He made his way to his locker, just to pull out his jacket, boots and the laundry bag he'd brought from home. Some people (cough, Martin, cough) just stuffed their uniforms back into their lockers for days at a time, but ew. He switched out his work shoes— worn-in and so ingrained with the smell of the grill that he kept them in a sealed tub at the base of the locker— for his Army surplus boots and stuffed his apron, along with the uniform vest and cap, into the laundry bag. The shirt and pants would wait until he got home. What wouldn't wait was rolling the stick of blockers over his neck, pits, and wrists, a thin chemical layer of armor before he shrugged on his dad's leather jacket and turned up the collar.
His skin immediately itched in protest, but no matter how well-lit management kept the exits and parking lot, no way was he heading out bare, stinking of weary, harried Omega. That was like catnip for certain weirdos, even if the fumes from the state highway should render them noseblind. He was damned lucky though, that he'd been able to stop taking suppressants while working out of the kitchen, safely blanketed by the scents of bubbling batter and sizzling meat, as well as by the general indifference of the public to behind-the-scenes service workers. Beat out being a server, that was sure.
He patted down his pockets out of habit, though his keys and wallet hadn't moved since he'd left home before sunrise that morning, then gave his superstitious little salute to the tattered Gunnar Lawless poster Ash had tacked above the coffee machine. Dean had been asked too many times if this place being called Wafflemania was what got him to apply, given his love of wrestling. The decision had had a lot more to do with the prospect of being paid $19 an hour, but he wasn't about to argue that the connection didn't please him. And he got a little eye candy to soothe away the burns the coffee always left on his tongue.
The water-swollen back door fought him like always, and he noted with a grimace that one of the bulbs in the security lights was blinking blearily, on its way out for good. So much for feeling secure. The aforementioned road fumes battled with the scent of the pines that had been beaten back to make room for this haven of culinary excellence at the side of the road. The trees, along with hickory and oak, were ubiquitous for thousands of miles around, here in the heart of the Piney Woods. It was said, not so jokingly, that the people born and bred here in the Big Thicket all carried the trees in their scents. Maybe that was why Dean still felt like an outsider here more often than not, even after six years, but there was always more to it. He'd learned that the hard way too.
Maybe it was reckless, ludicrous, but gripping the Impala's door handles felt like seizing a life raft. Always had, always would. He exhaled in relief even before he opened the door and his senses were overwhelmed with family, self, and home. He'd probably freak all the self-respecting therapists out if he ever said that a car was both nest and den, his enduring home while others came and went. He took a moment or two to luxuriate in it, as his nervous system slowly relaxed and his endocrine system started pumping out the good stuff in response to the scent cocoon that was the Impala.
The laundry bag did not join the mix in a positive way, but he just shoved it further along the bench seat, resigned, and started the engine. A glance at the fuel gauge ignited an internal debate as he pulled out onto the highway, whether to take the exit to town and sail through the other side of it to reach Bobby's, or to stay on the road and pull off at the Gas n' Sip. Longing, even preemptive elation, prickled over him as a shiver, and he had to shake his head at the thought that the very idea of having to get gas now elicited a fucking Pavlovian response in him.
But ultimately, the hairnet clinging to his scalp, he'd forgotten to trash it in his rush to leave, and the sweat and grease on his brow and sliding down his back made him take the exit for home. Shower first. Cas would understand. He'd see him later, if not bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, then at least clean and smelling only of himself.
The journey dragged, which also struck him as funny given that he'd been driven through every state in the Lower 48 before he'd turned twelve. He could still remember the Butterfingers he'd managed to buy for Sam in celebration when they'd finally ticked Rhode Island, of all places, off the list. Maybe he'd finally sprouted roots, since he was whining about the two stop signs in a town he was in and out of every day. The town he'd finished high school in, for crying out loud.
He traced the familiar route of country back roads barely wide enough for the county to number until he finally turned under the towering, rusted arch that demarcated the entrance to 'SINGER'S AUTO SALVAGE', give or take a couple of drooping or downright missing letters. His shoulders eased just that bit more, though he couldn't totally relax, since he had potholes to swerve the Impala around. He really needed to push for Rufus to come over with his backhoe and they'd fill in these holes, but it would need to wait until payday; he couldn't afford the bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue it would take to get Bobby's best friend out here to do anything more than eat Dean's leftovers and bitch about his neighbors.
It took a practiced eye to spot the house on approach. Stacks of vehicular carcasses surrounded the house as if it aspired to be a set for Escape from L.A., forming a secondary, manmade protective ring around the dwelling already shielded by the dense forest Bobby and his forefathers had mostly left untouched. Dean barely noticed the organized, spiky chaos of it all now, but he could still remember his younger self's dubious reaction when arriving here for the first time, in the passenger seat of Sonny's truck, on a mission to see his baby brother for the first time in six months. He'd even voiced that reaction aloud, 'How the fuck did this place get okayed for fostering?' Sonny had just guffawed, going into the wrong gear on the truck's stick shift in his hilarity, and then told Bobby what he'd said almost as soon as they'd got in the door. Traitor.
He parked Baby in her usual spot at the front of the house, though the twin menaces that were pollen and tree sap wouldn't ramp up their attacks in earnest for a handful of weeks. He clocked the blue Civic Sam insisted on folding himself into like an origami crane already parked for the night and felt his brows pucker. Didn't Sam have Debate Club tonight? Or was it Mathletes? He was losing his fucking touch, not knowing where Sam was every moment of the school day and beyond. His hands tightened on Bobby's wheel, stomach clenching with reflexive anxiety. He had to get a grip. Sam was home, for fuck's sake. Sam preferred it when he lost track of him, he'd made that damn clear, repeatedly, and John wasn't lurking to make sure Dean never dropped Sammy's leash. They'd never go back to Flagstaff, never need to call in Poughkeepsie.
With a sigh, he grabbed his laundry bag and opened the car door, though he had to stay seated a moment longer, willing his scent to settle. He pictured the piece of pie waiting for him in Bobby's refrigerator, the hopeful smile that Cas had given him last night when he'd handed it over, specially kept back for him from the Gas n' Sip regulars. The sappy dork.
The stress ache in his scent glands eased and he managed to leave the safety of the Impala with a smile on his face. Maybe he and Cas would just watch Jenny Jones tonight, catching Cas up on pop culture with his carefully curated bargain bin DVD collection could wait. He chuckled; they were at the height of romance.
He peeled off his boots at the door and set them carefully on the rack, because if he didn't, Karen might just break down the pearly gates to come tell him off.
"Hey, Bobby!" he called out, noting with a grimace that he'd worn a hole in another pair of socks. "What's Sammy doing home? He get kicked out of the Spelling Bee again for correcting the adjudicator?"
He waited for Sam to shout back one of his usual retorts, that 'that wasn't what happened, Dean! or, 'that's from a movie, Dean!' but he was met with a heavy silence that he filled with a singular, uneasy huff of a laugh. He inhaled deeply, sharp and sudden enough that the act burned as much as the scent itself. Burning rubber, rust, an oily sweetness that glued itself to the back of his throat, that last one the ghost of Sam's pup scent that he suspected was psychosomatic, nonexistent for anyone else in his 6'3.5", and still growing, Alpha brother. Frustration, anxiety, fear. And that was just Sam, the rotting wood scent of Bobby's sour mood was a base note, less volatile but nearly as pungent. The leather jacket that had been halfway off when he'd spoken was pulled hastily back around his shoulders and the laundry bag swung tight from a taut arm, a projectile at the ready..
He couldn't claim to have strode into the kitchen though, braced and with all guns ready to fire. It was more of an anxious shuffle that became an awkward hovering in the doorway while Bobby and Sam presented a grim united front at the table.
"Jeez, who died?" he asked with a strangled chuckle.
Rather than rolling his eyes, Bobby held his gaze from his position standing behind Sam's chair. Dean's heart sank. "Dean, sit down, son."
"Uh…" He swallowed, swiping the hairnet off his head as if he were doffing his cap. He pulled out the chair across from Sam, but didn't sit, it already felt like doing so would be akin to awaiting judgment.
"Tell me what's wrong first," he demanded, twisting the hairnet in his hands. He noted Sam watching the wringing motion with a nauseous fascination. Not ominous at all.
Bobby sighed, but rather than pinning Dean with one of his trademark impatient (yet somehow still fond) scowls, his expression remained steady to the point of blankness, undermined only by the churn in his scent. He squeezed Sam's shoulders before speaking, "Sam has something to tell you."
That was the cue, maybe the only one Dean would've heeded, to sit down. "Did you get turned down for Columbia?" he asked gently, peering into Sam's white face, "Or Berkeley? Don't worry, Sammy, those were backups right? You already have that acceptance letter from Stanford, so you're golden, Ivy League all the way!"
Sam's distress was immediate, almost putrid in his nose, but he pushed through his instinct to jump back, speaking faster instead, fighting against an oncoming wind. "Or…or, if it's that Stanford has turned down one of the scholarships, that's not ideal, but we'll make it work. I'll make it work however I—"
Sam looked as if Dean had just gutted him and skinned him too, for good measure. "Sarah's pregnant!" he blurted.
Dean blinked, utterly thrown. "…Sarah?"
Bobby ran a hand over his face. "Daniel Blake's daughter."
Dean's brow furrowed while Sam's chin wobbled, though he was also scowling as if Dean were being deliberately obtuse. "The guns and antiques guy? The one who haunts flea markets and garage sales?" He snapped his fingers as the face of a pretty brunette Beta finally came to mind. "That debate competition in Lufkin, right? Cas and I drove you."
"It was Model UN," Sam muttered sullenly, though he shrank in his seat, voice thickening with tears. "But yeah."
"I…" Dean gulped back a wave of nausea as his vision tunneled. "I thought you didn't go for it, Sam. That you chickened out on asking for her number."
Sam scoffed, arms tight around himself as if it were all that was holding him together. "Yeah. About that."
"It's his, Dean," Bobby said heavily. "I saw the girl, she's sure—"
"Obviously," Dean cut in sharply. "Contrary to popular belief about women and male Omegas, the vast majority of us fucking know who sires our kids!" He glowered at Sam, "Did you doubt her? Did you seriously ask if it was yours?!" he seethed.
Sam hesitated a beat too long. "I…never asked that. I kinda knew when…" He trailed off helplessly.
Right, those good ol' Alpha sniffers. Hadn't stopped Paternity Court from being a thing. "You got Sarah Blake pregnant." His voice was flat, dead.
Sam eyed him warily, even through tears. "Yes."
"I can't fucking believe you!" Dean exploded. The hairnet went flying as he threw his hands in the air. "I dragged you to the big clinic in Shreveport, the one with the classes, not just condoms and leaflets! Was that the one fucking class in your life where you didn't take notes?!"
"Dean," Bobby cut in warningly.
He ignored him. "Did her daddy block her getting birth control or Plan B? You know I could've got that for you beforehand if you'd just asked! I used to slip Ruby some of mine and I hated her guts!"
True, that wouldn't have worked with Sarah being a Beta, totally different drugs than those used by male Omegas and female Alphas, since the latter two were fundamentally similar, both having two sets of equipment, so to speak. It had been about the only thing he and Ruby had had in common, that and each having an asshole father—though street name Azazel would've made John Winchester look like Mr. Rogers.
Sam swallowed, his eyes huge in his face. "We didn't plan that far ahead."
"No," Dean muttered, bitterly, exchanging a glance with Bobby. "You wouldn't."
People would casually assume that Dean was the reckless one, because he was the flippant one, the grunt, the Omega, but it was Sam who would make a decision in a split second and defend it tooth and nail afterwards, no matter if it all went south.
Sam had the gall to look hurt, and Dean hated himself for instantly wavering. "It wasn't a rut," Sam defended himself firmly. "I'm not a knothead, Dean. We were just getting closer, and it felt right at the time."
Dean shrugged, knowing the twist of his lips was cruel. "Hey, come is come, Sam. Alpha, Beta or Omega, rut or no rut, it can still hit home."
As much as he agreed with that basic biological fact, he was vindictively glad that Sam nor anyone else could blame this on rut or heat hormones— yeah, they sucked but, contrary to popular belief, cycles didn't turn people into mindless sex zombies.
Sam turned to Bobby, but the older man was nodding in agreement. "He's right about that, Sam. You should've known better, but no use throwing tantrums over spilled milk, it's better just to deal with the mess."
"Deal with it how?" Dean hissed, launching himself up from his chair with so much force it toppled backward. "We're in fucking Texas! Not only is abortion illegal here, it's illegal all around us!"
After the Supreme Court had pulled their fuckery, he and Cas had avoided penetrative sex for more than two months! Even years later, they were pathologically careful. It was a good thing that Cas was an inventive, kinky bastard who took his mission of getting them both off safely very seriously. He started to pace as his brain calculated the number of miles up to Missouri, the number of grueling driving days it would take to get there and back, and how that number far exceeded the PTO days he could take in a row without being fired. The gas money, the motel rooms for him and Sarah, the meals, none of it squared up. Cousin Gwen might let them stay if they went to Kansas instead—she was a bitch, but she was a pro-choice bitch— that would save a night or two of motel money.
"Fuck!" he shouted, "Fuck, fuck, fuck!" From his spot in the warmth of the laundry room, Bobby's crusty old Rottweiler, Rumsfeld, growled.
"I know, boy," Bobby murmured. "Let it out now so we can knuckle down."
"I am knuckling down, thinking of routes we can drive to a Planned Parenthood!" Dean snapped.
There were other providers, and Sarah would be fine going to any one of them probably, in the right state, since people were marginally less weird about Betas and abortions than they were about Omegas. Probably because of all of the Beta staffers who needed terminations when the All-American Alpha politicians stepped out on their stay-at-home Omegas. That and the 'God created the first Omega in Mary to carry Jesus' rhetoric. Then again, Omegas could call on that 'True Mate' loophole if they happened to be pregnant by a Beta when the Alpha that smelled just so walked into their life. Because no self-respecting Alpha could raise children their 'soulmate' already had, right? Ugh.
"Dean," Sam bit out. "Sarah and I broke up in October."
Dean wheeled to face him, slack-jawed. "…It's the end of February."
Sam clenched his jaw, canines flashing as he peeled back his lips. "Yep."
"Missouri or Kansas are no-gos. She's past the cut-off," Bobby said through gritted teeth.
"Yeah." Dean squeezed his eyes shut, but when he opened them, nothing about this waking nightmare had changed. "New Mexico or Colorado it is then."
He could kiss his job goodbye if he had to drive over the New Mexico border and back. Did he have enough cash to buy Sarah a plane ticket to Denver? His skin crawled at the idea of packing another human being onto a flying death tube to face a medical procedure alone, let alone the picketing protesters she'd need to get past. Were the cops or TSA on the lookout for this kind of trip? No matter how baggy her clothes, she'd stink of pregnancy if she were as far along as Bobby implied. Would she be stopped? Would he be arrested for helping her?
"Maybe," he started desperately, grasping at straws as his eyes burned. "Maybe Sonny knows someone. I know that people arrange buses over state lines sometimes—"
"Sonny can't risk his license getting involved in anything under the table like that, Dean." Bobby reminded him tiredly, pity in his eyes as if Dean had just suggested Sonny was actually Santa Claus, gearing up to grant all of Dean's wishes. "He has enough trouble keeping his place open as it is."
Dean swallowed around the lump in his throat, picturing the fresh bags under Sonny's eyes, the fewer boys around when he and Cas helped out, all more desperate cases than theirs had been, though Sonny would likely argue about that.
"Yeah," he admitted, flinging himself back into the chair and cringing when Sam flinched at the sudden movement. "I know. Sorry, Bobby, I'm just…clutching at straws here."
"I know, son," Bobby commiserated. "Can't say I didn't look through my Rolodex and fucking Google for a while before you got here."
Any other day Dean would've made a joke about the words Rolodex and Google belonging in different decades rather than the same sentence but, he couldn't rustle up the willpower.
"You should've called me to come home while she was here." He was starting to feel like this was an out-of-body-experience, that he was watching some other chump in a frayed Wafflemania uniform with holey socks and sweat stains at his pits huddle around a kitchen table while his world fell apart.
"Dean, it's hard enough to tell you like this," Sam hissed.
He was scratching so hard at the cystic acne on his cheek that it was bleeding. Seeing the blood under his nails drew Dean's eye to the scar on his wrist that had led to him being placed here with Bobby, Karen and a thrice-weekly therapy appointment rather than in Sonny's group home with Dean.
"How is she?" Dean cleared his throat. "Sarah, I mean. Is she…safe at home?" He squinted in confusion even as his stomach churned with dread, "Has she been hiding it for, what, nearly five months? How did her dad not notice? Or fucking smell it?"
"Not everyone has had to develop your nose, Dean." Bobby reminded him.
Oh yeah, that was part of the PTSD package, hyper-vigilance and an equally mood sensitive nose.
"And Dan Blake has always been a distracted son of a bitch, even before he lost Louise, I'm not surprised Sarah could run rings around him. But yeah, she's safe, boy." Bobby shot Dean an approving and fond look that had self-conscious heat rising up the Omega's neck. "Not that he seems to be involving himself much otherwise, other than not doing her any harm. Sarah drove herself over here."
"I think," Sam started hesitantly, fingers tapping an erratic rhythm on the chipped Formica, "that she was in denial for a while. I wasn't there to see it obviously, she's at one of the high schools in Nagodoches, but she told me today she just shut out any friends asking questions, put on more blockers, and buried herself in college applications. She…" He gulped. "…didn't want to believe it was real."
Dean snorted. "Well, I'm right there with her." He watched Sam stiffen and held his gaze. "Since it is real though, what did you two brainiacs decide to do? Because, and I gotta be honest here, I'm only seeing a couple of options, and I think you're too young and dumb for the obvious one, pup or no pup—!"
"I'm not going to mate her, Dean!" Sam burst out as his fists slammed down onto the table and the peppery scent of his frustration started to rise above the miasma of panic and devastation. "And Sarah doesn't want to mate me either! She didn't even suggest it! She got into Brown! A full ride for Art History!"
"Good for her." Dean wasn't sure if the words left his mouth as a sneer or tinged with grief. "What's she going to do with the baby that'll pop out maybe three weeks before she's due to move into her dorm?"
Sam's jaw locked, the muscles jumping under his greyish tinged skin. "She has to go to Brown. And I'm going to Stanford."
Dean felt his fangs descend from aching gums. "Oh, so this is just a loose brick on the Yellow Brick Road to the Ivy League? Nothing to worry about?"
"That's not what I'm saying, Dean!" Sam snapped, glaring at him in tearful frustration. "I'm just—"
"Just fucking what? Plans are gonna have to change here, Sam—"
"Adoption," Bobby cut in. "It'll be tight, but we'll probably be able to arrange it pretty swiftly."
"Maybe," Dean choked out cynically, traitorous tears blurring his vision. "Or just long-term foster care, if it's sick, disabled or hell, just a male Omega like its uncle. God-fearing folks will just be lining up to take in a seventeen-year-old foster kid's baby, whose dad was also a deadbeat—"
"Dean," Bobby interrupted, voice low and hard. "Enough."
"What do you want me and Sarah to do?" Sam demanded. "Barely finish high school and settle for whatever dead-end jobs around here we can get? What kind of life is that for any of us? At least if we go to college, we can make something of ourselves! Do you want me to give up on that?"
"Hell no, Sam, what do you think I've been working for, huh?" He hadn't fucked off as far as College Station, let alone California!
Tears burned traitorously at his eyes, and he pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes until they hurt. "Of course I don't," he muttered ruefully. Sam didn't want to end up like him, and Dean sure as hell didn't want that either.
"I…I could work a little at Stanford," Sam pleaded. "I already planned to, but now I'd just send money back! And after I've graduated and have an apartment and a real job, then I could—"
When Dean met Sam's wet eyes in that moment, he felt familiar expectations close in on him like a steel trap. His gaze cut to Bobby, who grimaced but didn't look away.
"This is what you meant by cleaning up the mess, huh?" Sam let out a ragged, choked sob and all the hairs on the back of Dean's neck rose up. "Good ol' Dean, staying in my small-town comfort zone, in a dead-end job, why not complete the stereotype and leave a pup on my lap, huh?"
"It's not like that!" Sam cried, hyperventilating now. "No, Dean! That's not what I'm saying, I'm just—!"
"Grasping at straws?" Dean spat, shoving himself away from the table and back up onto his feet.
Sam cringed, and Dean remembered how often John had pulled himself into this same raging stance, head bowed like a bull, fists ready. He already had the damn leather jacket; all he was missing was the whiskey flask. Bobby rose wearily to his feet, undaunted, but fuck, Dean felt a hot spike of self-hatred. He sucked in a sickened breath, stumbling back in retreat instead of lunging forward, shrinking in on himself.
"I, uh." He shook his head frantically in denial. "I gotta get outta here—"
Sam gulped back his tears, his stricken expression scarring over with betrayal as his scent turned even more astringent.
"You're gonna tell Cas, aren't you? Dean, Sarah doesn't want anyone else to know yet, not until we've decided what to do!" He wrung his hands as he finally rose to his feet, the movement creaky despite his overgrown pup lankiness. "I promised her, Dean!"
"Like hell I'm not telling Cas!" Dean shot back desperately, still backing away down the hallway.
Bobby grabbed the back of Sam's too loose and too short shirt, and looked like he wanted to grab Dean's head and smack the two brothers' heads together.
"Castiel ain't just anyone, Sam, come on now," he said lowly, gently pushing Sam's swaying frame back into the chair.
He regarded Dean steadily. "Take what time you need, son, but then you gotta come back so we can come up with a plan together. Nothing half-assed and roughshod like joining the fucking Marines or running for the hills tonight, understood?"
Dean stared at him, wide-eyed, but nodded mechanically in his haste to bolt. He didn't look at Sam, but couldn't help but hear the pup's whimper as he slumped into Bobby's arms. He both ached for a hug and felt himself shudder at the thought of touch. His hand hit one of the hallway walls for balance as he backtracked, and he winced in horror when he saw that he'd knocked their one Winchester family picture— the one Karen had hung up so carefully for them against the faded paisley wallpaper— askew. Mary was still in her hospital gown, sweat-damp blonde hair like a flattened halo, blue-green eyes lifted to her mate smiling proudly down at her. John's whole stance over the bed was protective, encompassing. One big hand kept little Dean from sticking pointy elbows and knees into his mother as he crawled over the bed, staring at the baby safely snuggled in the circle of Mary's arms in wondrous awe.
The photograph was crisscossed with creases, the ill-fitting frame didn't quite hide the tears in the corners— it had had a rough life being kept safe in whatever pants pocket Dean wore that day, or inside a backpack if he were feeling particularly secure— yet, its message was clear. Family loved each other. Family protected each other.
He straightened the frame again, but could no longer look at it and what it told him to do. He sprinted down the hallway, out the door and down the porch steps. He caught his foot on the last, sagging step before he remembered to turn back and snatch up his boots from the shoe rack. Snatching them up, he ran barefoot halfway to the Impala, then as he dragged his feet, and loose grass and stones, into his boots, he had to turn his head to the side and puke.
Heaving, then coughing, he eventually staggered back from the latest mess he'd made and blindly made his way over to Baby, wrenching her door open too harshly as he dropped back into the driver's seat. He should've just gone over to the Gas n' Sip in the first place, avoided finding out about this for a few more hours. Served him right for believing everything was going smoothly.