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Dean wakes up dizzy.
He hasn’t been sleeping well as it is, but today the universe seems to really want to fuck him over. Everything is spinning before he even opens his eyes, and when he does manage to crack them open things get ten times worse, and Dean nearly chokes his dinner all over the sheets with a pitiful groan.
Sweat soaks his clothes, his sheets, and smells harsh and acidic. Shaking, he sucks in an uneven breath, which only highlights the burning ache in his already tight chest. The water stained ceiling swoops, and Dean shuts his eyes before he really does hurl. His body pulses with an overwhelming heat, and he grabs weakly at the thin, scratchy motel sheets, wishing they were something softer. The heavier blanket is suffocatingly hot, and Dean wants nothing more than to throw it off of himself and cool the fuck down, but knows the effort it will take to remove the cover wouldn’t be worth it.
Damn rut, Dean thinks to himself as he shudders. He had thought it wouldn’t come for another few days, but it had snuck up on him for the first time in years. The pills he is on usually regulate things pretty normally, but that doesn’t mean everything always goes off without a hitch. It’s just Dean’s luck, anyway. Things had been going too well for too long at this point.
He bites his tongue with a grimace and prepares to try and sit up in the hope that will alleviate the horrible, pressured burn in his chest. A weak whimper escapes him as he begins to sit up, and his stomach swoops again.
Fuck this, he thinks, laying back. Not like he had done much more than raise his head a couple inches anyway.
The door to the motel squeals open, and Dean breathes a quiet sigh of relief. Sam must have gone out to pick up coffee, or for a jog or something, and just come back. If Dean is lucky, he’ll be able to beg some ibuprofen off Sam and at least manage to stand and maybe take a shower before rut hormones entirely overwhelm him and leave him all but paralyzed.
Sam coughs, loudly, something that is no doubt due to the positively putrid scent of Dean’s rut. Dean can’t usually scent much of anything, but the acrid, burnt smell of his rut is flooding his nose is overwhelming. He can almost taste it.
“Rut?” From the sound of Sam’s voice, he’s holding his nose. Dean would have the decency to be embarrassed if he wasn’t in so much main.
Dean groans, an obvious affirmation.
It’s times like this when he wishes he didn’t need to take the pills.
(Well, he doesn’t need to, but Dad would probably beat him within an inch of his life if he stopped again. He can’t be a disappointment of an alpha when they finally find Dad.)
It takes a moment for Dean to gather his strength, but he manages to turn his head, open his eyes, and focus on Sam. It’s fucking agonizing, but he manages. The room is still spinning, but not nearly as bad as it had been earlier.
“Painkillers?” He asks, voice raspy and weak and sounding absolutely nothing like the sex-crazed knothead he should be.
“I think we’re out,” Sam says. He walks over to Dean’s duffle and unzips the small side pocket where Dean’s basic first aid supplies are stored, then looks inside. “Definitely out.”
“Damnit,” Dean mumbles into his pillow. He tries to force a bit of alpha growl into his voice, but it barely comes through, and hurts his throat.
“Can I——“ Sam clears his throat awkwardly. “Get you a, a toy?”
“No.” Dean shuts his eyes and shakes his head a bit, which only aggravates his headache.
“I could see if this town has omega services——“
“No!” Dean snaps. He doesn’t want to have sex at all. Just the idea of all the exertion it would take is exhausting, and even if Sam did end up getting some poor omega over here, Dean doesn’t think he’d be able to get it up, and he definitely wouldn’t be able to pop a knot. He just needs to wait for this to pass, like he always has.
“You can’t just ignore it,” Sam says, more quietly. He sounds a little more close, too. “It’ll hurt you. It’s already hurting you.”
“I’m not horny,” Dean grumbles, turning onto his side. I just need my damned painkillers. He sighs. Maybe a more comfortable bed.
Sam goes quiet, which should be Dean’s first red flag. Then he sits down at the foot of Dean’s bed, and alarm bells start going off in Dean’s head because he’s almost certain that Sam is about to spout some stupid biology shit that he learned when he was away at college.
“Dean,” Sam says, in that gentle tone of voice he pulls out when he’s trying to pull information out of someone. “Were you assigned omega when you presented?”
Shit.
“What the Hell kind of question is that?” Dean fires back, talking mostly into his pillow. “I’m an alpha, Sam.” The statement feels wrong on Dean’s tongue. It is wrong, but he can’t let Sam know that.
“I, uh, I took a gender studies class at Stanford.” Sam sounds nervous. Dean fucking hopes he is, serves him right for bringing this up. “And the teacher talked about how some people… don’t like their gender. Or secondary gender.”
Sam pauses then, and Dean can practically feel him preparing for what he’s going to say next, recalling information and figuring out to word it.
“I know what trans people are,” Dean says shortly. He can feel anger and irritation creeping into his voice, but can’t bring himself to stop it. He doesn’t need “transgender” defined. Dad certainly wasn’t the most open-minded alpha, but that doesn’t mean Dean is entirely in the dark about transgender people.
“She mentioned some of the side effects that alpha hormones could have on omegas, and some of them sounded familiar. Like you.” Sam pauses for a moment. “And I’ve seen your pill bottles, Dean. They’re high-dose alpha hormones——“
“I’m not an omega,” Dean insists.
“I know.” Again, Sam’s quiet, persuasive tone trickles into his words, and Dean feels like kicking his brother. The kid would have made a damn good lawyer, but Dean hates it when that tone is used on him. “You’re an alpha,” Sam continues, gentle and reassuring. “And I accept you. You’re still my brother.” He pauses, like he’s letting the words sink in, waiting for the relief to wash through Dean.
It won’t.
“I just want to make sure the hormones aren’t hurting you.”
They’ve been hurting me since the day I started taking them.
“The balance is delicate, and if it’s wrong it can make you sick.” Sam pauses, lets that sink in. “You look really sick, from what I’ve read it sounds like you’ve been sick for years——“
“I’m not a fucking alpha,” Dean chokes out. “And I’m not an omega.”
“Dean——“
“Don’t.” Dean can feel shame pooling in his already cramped stomach. “Don’t tell Dad you know. Don’t tell Bobby.” He kind of wants to cry, but the pills make it so difficult sometimes, and the best Dean can manage is burning eyes.
“You’re a beta?”
Silence hangs in the air like tension before a thunderstorm.
Dean doesn’t want to answer. He can’t say it, because saying it out loud means it’s real, means that someone other than Dad knows what a biological fuck-up he is. It means that someone else knows that his secondary gender is all but nonexistent, and that they can use it against him.
What now? Dean knows that Sam seems not to care now, but he’s heard the way Sam——and society, for that matter——treats betas, and it’s not good. There are so few betas out there that it doesn’t get the same attention as omega prejudice does, and Dean knows that the moment he tells someone who he is, the moment someone else knows what a freak of nature he is, he’s at risk. Risk of attack, murder, among other unsavory things.
But this is Sam.
(Sam who did nothing but fight with him for years before he ran away, Sam who left for college without so much as a second thought and left Dean alone with Dad.)
(Sammy who looked up to Dean when he was younger, Sammy who cares more than anyone else ever did.)
Dean nods.
“Then the hormones…”
“Dad made me take ‘em,” Dean says, still raspy from the dry rut-fever pulsing through him. “After I didn’t present.” He grimaces after saying that, both from the new wave of nausea sweeping through him, and the mortifying ordeal of being known. “Remember when he took me to the doctor? They poked around, found out I was fucked up inside, and Dad had me on pills the next day.”
Sympathy radiates off of Sam like heat from the sun, and it makes Dean sick. He’s supposed to be the strong alpha older brother, not some pathetic beta who can’t handle symptoms of his synthetic rut and bares his soul when he’s asked one question he could easily lie his way out of.
Look at him now.
“I’m not an alpha,” Dean says, half to himself, and he hates to admit it, but it feels so good to say. “I don’t want to be an alpha.” He doesn’t want the knothead anger and irritation that constantly follows him around when he’s popping pills to make Dad happy, doesn’t want the fake, sexless ruts that make him feel like he’s dying, he doesn’t want any of it.
Nervously, he glances Sam’s way, and watches the shadowed silhouette of his brother’s side profile nod in acceptance.
“Okay,” Sam says, nodding again. He looks over to Dean, meets his eyes. “I’ll go out and get some painkillers for you.” He glances over to the small table with a couple of cups and a paper bag on it, then back to Dean. “Do you still want coffee?”
Dean is stunned. Sam doesn’t seem phased in the slightest, and it’s a relieving surprise. Dean’s rut is still burning something fierce, and he knows he’ll be out of commission for a few days, but he still feels like a weight has been lifted off of his chest.
He nods. “Uh, yeah, sure.” Arms shaking, he pushes himself into a sitting position, then leans back against the headboard. “Thanks.”
And that’s that.