24. The Dice Are Loaded

Chapter Track: Everybody Knows (cover) – Elizabeth & the Catapult

The Dice Are Loaded

Kevin’s presence dredges up reminders of the way that Dean was when Cas first urged him into his Prius and out of the rain, and took him here. Dean remembers how overwhelming the scent of alpha was in the house: not as bad as the playrooms at the brothel, but enough to tell Dean that no one lived in the home but a single, lonely alpha. The key difference is that from the beginning, Cas emanated the aroma of mate. His brand of alpha smelled like comfort and safety and home, not like the sharp, testosterone-infused scents that soaked every inch of Alastair’s compound.

It makes Dean wonder what would have happened if Cas was any other alpha on the planet. A low, sick feeling deep in his gut tells him that instead of having a hormone implant removed from his leg and a hot meal, he would be on his knees sucking knot, or taking it just like he had in the brothel. That must be what Kevin smells – another threat and a promise of pain. That’s what alpha says to Kevin. It says danger.

At this epiphany, Dean resolves to make Kevin as comfortable as possible. He wakes early on the day after Kevin’s arrival, collects Mary from her crib in the nursery to feed and change her, and loops the sling around his shoulder to hold her against him while he whips up an awesome breakfast. For a few minutes, he fiddles with Castiel’s stereo and pulls up some music application on his iPad. It took at least three tries for Cas to show him how the damn thing worked, but he thinks he’s got the hang of it now. Dean maintains that they should move the record player up here so he can listen to music with some real quality to it, but the iPad isn’t terrible. He likes having all the songs that he wants right at the tips of his fingers.

Man, he missed a lot of tech stuff in his seven years in the basement of Alastair’s compound.

Sometimes he feels kind of shitty with that knowledge, but today he’s determined not to fall back into that crap. He’s gotta show Kevin that shit can be okay, that it’ll get better over time. Hell, Dean isn’t in great shape some days, but seeing Kevin…how he hangs his head, how he stands with his shoulders hunched in and his arms ready to defend – it reminds Dean of how he was.

And he has gotten somewhere, even if that somewhere is only a short distance down the road from where he was.

Dean picks out some AC/DC to get the day started on and glances down affectionately at Mary. She peers back up at him with her sweet little eyes.

“You like AC/DC, sweetheart?” he asks, and grins, “Good. Daddy’ll show you all the good stuff, don’t you worry.”

Mary wiggles her legs a little and kneads her tiny feet into Dean’s stomach. He chuckles and shuffles into the kitchen to get something goddamn delicious started. He begins by setting up the coffee pot with some fresh grounds for Cas and grabs the stuff he’ll need for sizzling up some chocolate chip pancakes from the cabinets, making inventory of the ingredients before he starts.

Dean used to make chocolate chip pancakes for Sammy all the time before he took off outta Kansas. Cooking seemed like the only thing his dad didn’t get on his case for. John Winchester wasn’t exactly complimentary of it, either, but he didn’t nitpick about Dean getting injured or inviting trouble, just ate what Dean produced. So making grub used to be what made him the most happy.

Now Mary and Cas make him happy more than anything else can, but he still likes cooking up the good stuff.

The song shaking through the stereo fades from You Shook Me All Night Long to T.N.T., and Dean can’t help the grin that rises on his face as he starts mixing up the ingredients for breakfast. He dips his head along to the beat and pauses whisking to slide across the kitchen floor in his socks, pretending that Mary in her sling is his electric guitar.

Mary presses her feet into his belly again as he moves, and Dean lets out a long, loud bark of laughter before patting her bottom through plaid cotton and returning to get cracking on pancakes.

When the smell of batter sizzling, chocolate chips melting, and fresh coffee brewing clouds air of the kitchen, Kevin peers around the corner. His cloudy eye scintillates guilt deep in Dean’s gut, but he still pastes a smile on his face and says, “Makin’ some breakfast, dude. You want a drink while I finish cranking out these pancakes?”

Kevin finally rounds the corner and toes into the kitchen nervously. He asks, voice hardly audible over the sound of the guitar riff rolling from the speakers in the living room, “Do I smell coffee?”

“Yeah, man, let me grab you a mug,” Dean says. He reaches over to pat Kevin’s arm, but doesn’t even make contact before Kevin flinches back from the touch. Dean lowers his hand and casts an apologetic smile at Kevin before shifting and pouring some steaming joe into a mug. Dean places the coffee at the kitchen table and beside it places the sugar shaker and half-used carton of half-and-half from the fridge.

Kevin ignores the sugar but pours a conservative helping of cream into it.

“You’re different,” Kevin says, “than you used to be, I mean.”

That is all too true. Dean at the compound was an entirely different entity. Fuck, aside from the fact that Dean is happy now, he doesn’t feel like he has to be on the defensive all the damn time. He’s relaxed. He’s at home, literally. The smells here are the scents that make Dean’s muscles relax and a smile grow on his face.

“Well, yeah,” Dean agrees, and moves the skillet from the stove. He forks two pancakes onto Kevin’s plate and sets it in front of him with both synthetic and genuine maple syrup options. Kevin goes for the real stuff as Dean grabs at the back of his neck and says, “I mean, things are different.”

At Alastair’s, he was another man. Dean didn’t speak to most of the omegas, and when he did he snapped at them, shouted curses or bit out insults. They knew he was scared. You could smell fear on every omega’s skin. Worse than that, by the end, the other omegas were afraid of Dean just like they were afraid of Alastair and his alpha clients. Dean was a favorite, and that made Dean just as bad as the alphas that tortured them.

Dean never snapped at Kevin. He seemed too vulnerable, too good natured to deserve Dean’s wrath and general venom. Dean at Alastair’s was a snake, complicit in the schemes of pain and power that reigned in Alastair’s compound. He’ll spend his whole life paying for the shit that he did, that he said.

At the thought, Dean shifts his gaze to his daughter. Ugly, all-consuming self-hatred twists over him like a dozen slimy limbs. He doesn’t deserve Mary, doesn’t deserve the comfort and warmth that he’s basked in these past months with Cas and now with his pup. As if in protest of Dean's sweeping change in mood, Mary shakes a fist at him and kicks her legs out. 

For a long while, Dean and Kevin don’t talk. Disheartened, Dean retreats to the living room and switches off the music. When he returns to the kitchen, he takes a seat at the table and leaves a chair of space between himself and Kevin. He says, “I guess I don’t deserve any of this. I know that.”

Kevin pauses, swallows his pancakes, and sets his fork down with a soft clink against the plate.

“That’s…not it,” Kevin says. He studies Dean with his good eye and goes on, “You did what you had to, to get by. I get that. I’m just wondering if this is more of that. This alpha thing. Are you sure about him?”

“Dude, yeah,” Dean says, “Right from the start, Cas has been good to me. First thing he did was get me dry and give me food and take that damn hormone crap outta my leg. And he left me alone when I needed it, you know? Never pushed me, never treated me bad. Not that we always get along. We argue about crap…but. He loves me, you know?” Dean feels his face flush at that. His chest feels all sorts of weird at the words being said aloud, even though he knows it’s true. He coughs and adds, “And, uh. I love him too.”

Kevin shakes his head. He takes a drink of his coffee and says, “I just don’t understand how you can trust an alpha.”

Before Dean can respond, Cas shuffles into the kitchen, dark hair sticking up every which way. He yawns and offers Dean and Kevin a smile. Dean smiles back, but Kevin focuses his attention on his pancakes, chewing carefully. Cas makes his way to the pot of coffee, but Dean stands and stops him with a hand. He says, “Sit. I’ll get it.”

Castiel hums and scratches his fingers over his rumpled t-shirt before he obeys Dean’s command and sits at the other end of the kitchen table from Kevin, as far as he can manage. Dean sets a mug of hot, black coffee in front of Cas and serves him some pancakes. When he takes a step back, Cas coils an arm around Dean’s waist and reels him back in. Sleepily, Cas nuzzles into Dean’s side and murmurs, “Thank you, Dean.”

“Nothin’ to it, little alpha,” Dean says back, and makes off to grab his own meal.

Cas doesn’t say much at first, just drizzles maple syrup over his pancakes and downs his coffee in generous, sloppy gulps. He starts to look a little more alive when the caffeine hits, and asks, “How are you feeling, Kevin?”

Kevin glances up, a panicked expression on his face. He looks at Dean, and then back to Cas again. After a beat, the only response that Kevin musters up is a tight, forced shrug. Then, he dips into his breakfast with renewed vigor and finishes every last bite on the plate until it is completely clean.

Without a word, Kevin stands, and bustles out of the kitchen. The sound of the guest bedroom door swinging open and being locked behind him echoes in the wake of his absence.

Dean sighs and strokes his fingers over Mary’s head before he says, “I’m working on it. He’s real scared of alphas, worse off than me, ‘cause you just smelled like my mate, even when I was freaked out by you.”

“It’s a process,” Castiel agrees, “I’m not offended by it.”

Dean rubs an aggravated hand over his face and says, “Yeah, I get that. But, Cas. He said to me this morning that I act different here than I did back in the joint. I was a real piece a’ work over there. Not to him, really, but to the others? I was terrible. I was fucking poison. I just keep wondering if somebody like that really deserves something as good as…this.” Dean makes a vague gesture toward Cas and out to their surroundings.

Cas frowns.

“I just ain’t that great a person,” Dean says quietly.

“Dean,” Castiel says, voice all alpha reason and eerie calm, “You did what you had to survive. You did what you thought was right. No one blames you for that.”

“I do,” Dean says, “I blame me for that.” With that bitter note, Dean leaves his breakfast half-untouched and stands. He makes a hasty exit and goes for the first place he can think of – downstairs, to Cas’ LP collection.

In her sling, Mary fusses. Dean hushes her as he thumbs through the faded and creased sleeves that make up the selection of records, and pulls out Zep II. Nothing like a good old classic to keep his head on straight. After the soft crackle-pop of static of the needle on vinyl, Whole Lotta Love starts to play. Dean maneuvers Mary out of her sling as the music plays. Red-faced, she bats at him.

Dean presses a soft kiss to her forehead and apologizes, “Sorry things have been so scary, pup.” He rubs his palm over her back, and her heartbeat against his shoulder threads a string of peace through him.

Maybe he doesn’t deserve that small peace, but it settles warmly in the chambers of his heart anyway. And as his pulse slows to steady, Mary stops crying. She presses her tiny nose into Dean’s neck and huffs as she scents.

Dean may not have done many things right in his life, but at least he can say that cookin’ up his sweet pup counts among the best.

X

Later in the afternoon, after Dean finishes recuperating via getting the Led out, he knocks on Kevin’s bedroom door and says, “Hey, it’s me. I brought Mary. Thought maybe you could use some company.”

A long roll of silence has Dean about to turn away, but just as he starts to back off, the noise of the lock clicking undone sounds from the other side of the door, and it cracks open to reveal Kevin’s tired, stress-lined face. He studies Dean and Mary for a moment before he ushers them in, and closes the door behind them, locking it once more.

“I brought her blanket and some toys and crap,” Dean says, “It okay if I set her up on the bed?”

“That’s fine,” answers Kevin. He hugs his arms around himself like it’s cold, even though Cas keeps the house at a comfortable seventy degrees at all times.

Dean places Mary on the bedspread and rolls out her guitar blanket. He transfers her there and parks himself on the edge of the mattress, dangling a rope of plastic, rainbow-colored chain links above her head. He explains, “She’s kind of too little to really appreciate toys, but she’s a big fan of colorful crap and shit that makes a lot of noise.”

Kevin sits on the mattress and scoots up beside Mary, crisscrossing his legs. He stares at Dean’s pup for a good, long while before he finally reaches out. Mary seems entertained enough by Kevin, scenting the air with her nose all scrunched up. Kevin touches the tip of his finger to her fat cheek. Mary reacts by reaching up and closing her itty-bitty fist around Kevin’s finger.

“You ever worry about her alpha dad?” asks Kevin, “Her real one.”

“Not really,” Dean answers, “I mean, you and I both know that plenty of alphas paid extra to knot us raw. There are a baker’s dozen dudes it could be and I don’t think any one of them would give a shit that an omega he paid to screw over birthed a pup.”

“Yeah,” Kevin says, and holds out his hand for Mary’s chain link toy. Dean passes it to him, and Kevin jangles it a little over Mary’s head. She doesn’t let go over his finger, but does stare with fascination as the plastic bounces.

“Hey,” Dean says, and Kevin looks up, “Look, I’m real sorry about breakfast. I trust Cas, but that doesn’t mean you have to. And I get it. If you want, I can bring your food here. You won’t have to come outta this room, just have to unlock the door long enough for me to get your meals inside.”

Kevin licks his lips. A dent forms between his brows as he thinks it over, and remains as he gives Dean a nod. He says, “That’s…probably best. Thanks.”

“No problem, man,” Dean says, “and hey, Cas has got this massive collection of books if you want me to bring you some. I’ve read a bunch now if you wanna check out the ones I liked. You like Star Wars? He’s got a lot of Star Wars books.”

“That sounds nice.”

Dean leaves it at that, and he and Kevin spend the next half-hour talking about inane crap, the kind of stuff they used to talk about when one or the other of them was in ugly shape and needed a pick-me-up. Dean tells him that he’ll snag Cas’ VCR and the Star Wars tapes so that Kevin can rewatch them, and Kevin seems cheered by the prospect.

Mary’s presence, too, does some good. She bats at Kevin and holds onto him, and even though his little sweetheart is so young, she’s a smart fucking cookie. She picks up from Kevin’s scent that he’s tense and afraid, maybe, and in her little pup way wants to make him feel better.

Still, when Dean slips out later, he worries. He feels better, and he knows Kevin feels better – he could smell it on the kid – but he can’t help the itch of concern at Kevin’s distress. Dean wants to help Kevin heal, but he doesn’t know how. He doesn’t have a magic cure-all, just like Cas didn’t have a magic cure-all for Dean. Difference is, Cas had the advantage of an appealing scent. Dean probably just smells like an idiot. But he’s an idiot that’s trying, and that’s the best that he’s got.

X

A handful of days later finds Dean dozing on the couch with Mary on his chest while Cas washes the dishes from that night’s supper. He made black bean soup with red pepper and smoked cheddar, and afterward Dean was so full he could burst – he fed Mary on the couch just after. Now, they’re both about to sleep off respective food comas.

Kevin, as he’s been doing, took his meal from Dean at his bedroom door, and locked it behind himself. Sometime in the middle of the night, Kevin leaves the dishes from the day outside the bedroom door, as well as any books that he’s finished.

The kid is a freaking reading machine. He’s put away more books in the short time that he’s been staying with them than Dean has managed to get through in months. To be fair, his reading time and patience has been limited since Mary arrived on the scene. But before her birth, he was still a slow reader.

Castiel’s ringtone, London Calling, blares out from the kitchen, over the sound of the water running in the sink and the white noise of the nine o’clock news on the television. Dean makes a noise of complaint, but Cas is quick to the draw. He hears the rumble of his mate’s voice, and then:

“Yes, just a moment. I think he’s still awake. Dean?”

Dean cracks open one eye to glare at Cas, who’s standing over the couch with his palm over his cell phone’s receiver.

“It’s Victor,” Castiel explains, “He wants to talk to you.”

Dean groans, but extends his hand for the phone and presses it against the shell of his ear, answering, “What’s going on?”

“Hey, Dean,” Victor says, “So, I’ve been talking with the prosecutor that’ll be working with us on this case, and she’s asked me to ask you if you’d be willing to be taped giving us a tour of the compound facility.”

Dean’s mouth goes dry in an instant.

“Why?” he asks.

“Well, for starters, there’s only so much that we can glean from physical evidence,” Victor says, “and we’ve got evidence that’ll be a good jumping point for us, but none of that is the emotional ammo that Ms. Talbot says we’re gonna need to take Alastair down. She thinks if we’ve got a victim explaining different parts of Alastair’s compound that we’re far more likely to win a jury over.”

“So it’s going to trial,” Dean says.

“Yeah, Alastair’s arraignment was yesterday. Bail set at two mil.”

Two million. Dean’s toes curl and he wonders if that’s a sum of money that Alastair would be able to make.  

Dean doesn’t like this. Dread like ice water fills his veins from his heart out. He wonders if Victor can feel his panic over the phone, if he knows just how heavy the metal weight of his question is as it coils inside Dean’s intestines like a thick, black snake.

“Dean, listen,” Victor goes on after Dean has been silent for too long, “I want you to know that you do not have to do this. We are not going to make you. But we need everything to get Alastair. Bringing him to justice is not going to be cut and dry, and I got a feeling that this is gonna be ugly. We need all we can get on our side to put him away for good.”

“I know,” Dean answers, voice weak. Above him, Cas studies him through serious, concerned eyes. Dean massages his temple and says, “Um. Would it be all right if my mate tagged along for this shit show? For moral support. He wouldn’t be in the video. Just. You know. There.”

“I don’t see why not,” Victor responds.

Dean exhales and says, “Then I guess I’d better do this crap.”

“This means a lot,” Victor says, “For you and for the others. Only reason I’m not askin’ one of them is because none of the other victims have had any time to heal. They’re all terrified.”

“I am too, man.”

“I know, but you got a lot of good people backing you up,” Victor says, “We need to do this as soon as we can. Everything’s kind of chaos over here, but it looks like we could all do late morning on the day after next. How does that sound to you?”

“Yeah, I can make that,” answers Dean.

“Great,” Victor says, “You’re doing some real good, kid. Some real damn good. We all appreciate it. Just know that.”

Dean doesn’t know how to answer that other than with an awkward, stilted, “Yeah, all right,” and then a terse goodbye.

When he hangs up the phone and hands it back to Cas, Castiel asks, “What’s going on?”

“Victor says the prosecutor wants to film me givin’ a tour of Alastair’s joint.”

“Why?” Cas asks. There’s an edge to his voice, something verging on alpha anger and the instinct to protect.

“‘Emotional ammo’ were the words that Victor used,” Dean responds, “and there ain’t no one else that’s gonna do it, so it’s left up to me. We gotta do all we can to get Alastair. He’s not gonna go easy, you know? You’re coming with me, though.”

“What about Mary?”

“I’ll call Sammy,” Dean replies, “He won’t mind some babysitting duty.”

Castiel lets out a long breath and then rounds the couch. He sits on the unoccupied cushion near Dean’s feet, and rests his palm on Dean’s calf. Neither of them says anything, but the gesture is all that either needs. Just a little warmth, a little comfort, before it all goes straight to hell.

X

On the day of the videotaping, Dean checks Mary’s diaper bag at least six times. He’s counted three diapers and two bottles and she has her guitar blanket and some toys, but he’s still worried. He knows he shouldn’t be, that his anxiety is bleeding from one place to another, but he doesn’t care. He counts her things again.

It’s a cold day. Frost covers the hills with a fine, grayish layer of damp, and a chill makes the air sting when Dean and Castiel tread out to the Impala. Dean tucks Mary into her seat and fusses with the tiny booties that Cas knitted for her a night ago. She needs them for her toes to stay warm, but she seems determined to keep kicking the damn things off.

Dean drives. He keeps one eye on the road at all times and the other at the rearview mirror, where the reflection of a grumpy-faced pup stares back at him. Dean can’t tell if Mary is pissed off because she couldn’t sleep for shit last night, because Dean reeks of stress, or because it’s cold. It’s probably a combination of all three.

He wishes that he and Cas had something to say to break up the silence in the car, but neither of them does. This whole thing is one giant clusterfuck crapfest, and there’s nothing that either of them can say that’ll change that, and certainly nothing that’s going to distract them from the reality of it. So Dean and Castiel keep quiet for the entire forty-five minutes that it takes to get to Sam’s bright blue condo.

When Dean knocks on the door with Mary’s seat in tow, Sam answers with a cup of yogurt in his hand and a spoon in his mouth. His casual attitude swings into concern as soon as he smells the tumult of emotion radiating off of Dean, but Dean ignores his brother’s badgering and shoulders his way into the house. He sets Mary’s carrier on the carpet, and lowers the diaper bag next to it.

“All right,” Dean says, “Just so you know, she’s like, ten kinds of cranky right now. I packed some bottles that you’ll wanna stick in your fridge, and make sure you heat ‘em up a little before you try and feed her. If she’s pissy, just hold her and let her scent you. I think that’s all. Um. I should be good to pick her up in a couple hours, but we’ll call you when we’re on our way.”

“Dean,” Sam says, and sets aside his half-eaten yogurt cup on an unopened box. He crouches down to undo the buckles on Mary’s seat and lifts her out, tucking her into the crook of his arm before he stands. He goes on, “I’m really sorry about all this crap. It’s not fair, and I. I got your back, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean says, and waves Sam off, “Just don’t drop my pup and give her the same brain damage you got, okay?”

Sam rolls his eyes and says, “If by ‘brain damage’ you mean ‘concern,’ then maybe it’ll do her some good.”

Dean rolls his eyes right back and makes for the door.

“And Dean?”

He half-turns, “Yeah?”

“Good luck, okay?”

“Thanks,” Dean manages, and makes his escape from Sam’s condo before the festival of emotions can get any more freaking festive.

Cas doesn’t say anything when Dean climbs back into the driver’s seat of the Impala and turns her out of Sam’s neighborhood. Dean appreciates the hell out of that. He doesn’t say as much.

As they drive back up from town and turn onto the dirt road snaking through the mountains, the tension in the car mounts. The sound of the classic rock station, instead of making Dean feel better, sends his heart pumping so hard that he can hear his blood rush in his ears, and he has to switch it off and leave them to painful quiet.

When they make it to the entrance to Alastair’s compound, a police officer stops them and has to wave them through, up the hidden, twisting road. Dean’s knuckles whiten on the steering wheel as he drives. He’s never been up this far during the day, and he never saw the outside of the brothel even once. When he ran for it, he didn’t turn to look back. He didn’t want to know.

It’s huge, bigger than he imagined. The place looks like one of those woodland retreats where hunters congregate and folks hold family reunions. The roof is red-tiled and expensive looking, and the outside is built with log cabin style in mind. It doesn’t look anything like the terrible place that Dean knows it to be. It looks like a cozy bed and breakfast that serves food made from scratch for every meal and has handmade quilts on the beds.

It makes him feel sick to his stomach.

Dean parks the Impala alongside a sleek, silver Lexus. He spots Victor on the stoop of the joint, engaged in conversation with a youngish omega woman with well-styled hair and a charcoal-gray pencil skirt on. She’s wearing heels, which seems impractical for this area, but whatever.

Victor waves Dean and Castiel over with a flick of his wrist and says, “Hey, guys. You doing okay this morning?”

“Peachy,” answers Dean.

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that,” Victor says. He sounds sincere. He cocks his head at the woman and says, “Dean, this is Bela Talbot. She’s the prosecutor for the case, real good at what she does.”

Bela offers Dean a white-toothed grin and a manicured hand. When Dean shakes, she says, “Pleased to meet you.”

“Same,” Dean grumbles, even though this is one of the least pleasurable things that he has ever had to do in his entire life.

Victor moves on to introduce the police officer that’ll be in charge of handling the camera, some bright-eyed guy named Ash that looks like he tumbled out of the nineteen eighties. Dean shakes his hand and offers a stiff greeting. His only comfort is the scent of Cas a foot behind him.

“Let’s do this shit,” Victor finally says, and he guides the entourage past yellow crime scene tape and into the building.

“There’s a lobby,” Dean says, bewildered. He’s never seen this part of the place. It follows the pattern of hunting lodge décor, with the taxidermy head of a stag on one side of the room, staring down the glass-eyed head of a buffalo on the opposite. Below them erotic paintings of omegas hang, wide-eyed beauties kneeling down and presenting, mouths parted and expressions needy.

“I take it that you’ve never seen this part of the place,” Victor says.

“No,” Dean responds, “I guess when we got herded around, it was through service stairways?” He never saw anything that wasn’t cold, hard concrete unless it was the room belonging to an alpha client.

“Why don’t we start there?” suggests Victor, “We’ve been through that area.”

Dean clenches his jaw and agrees. He has to follow Victor through the plush parts of the compound, since he’s never laid eyes on them before, but once he unlocks a heavy, metal door and they step through to narrow, cold stairs, it’s hell sweet hell all over again.

Dean can’t count how many times he was brought up and down these stairs by Alastair’s muscle. Sometimes if the client fucked him up nice and good, they’d have to carry him up from the playrooms or down from the nice bedrooms. Dean would bleed all over them and they’d complain about having to bleach out the stains from their shirts.

“Dean?” Victor says, “Can you tell us about this area?”

Dean shakes himself out of the nightmare and says, “These stairs are how Alastair’s muscle took us from our cells to clients. Either upstairs to the bedrooms or down to the playrooms. Um. Sometimes, if you got hurt real bad, they had to carry you.”

“Can you show us the bedrooms?”

Dean marches up the stairs and picks the first level he recognizes as a client floor. They use a key to open up one of the bedrooms. The familiarity of it strikes Dean to the core. The room is comfortable, fitted with a queen-sized bed and television, hardly different than a regular room at your average bed and breakfast, were it not for the collection of complimentary toys displayed on a set of shelves beside the TV stand, each labeled with the price it cost to use them.

“This, uh,” Dean swallows the lump in his throat, “This is the best place you could end up. Alphas that like their omegas here were better than the kind that took you to the playrooms. Usually they just knotted you and wanted to watch TV or something. Sometimes they liked to use the toys, other times they paid extra for you stay and, ah. Cuddle, I guess. And let them talk to you.”

“Can you elaborate on that?” asks Victor.

“Yeah, um. There were alphas that liked to play house, I guess,” Dean says, balling his hands into fists at his side, “That was why Alastair didn’t kill my pup off right away when I got knocked up. There are alphas that’ll pay through the nose to knot a pregnant omega and pretend that they’re yours.”

All bred up with my pup, they’d say, all cloying sweetness, you’ll get fat with my pups and as soon as you birth them I’ll catch you with a litter all over again. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?

When Dean finishes showing them the bedroom, they return to the stairs and venture down into the belly of the beast. He takes them to the omega cells, right to the one that he slept in. He explains the old mattresses and how they shackled you up the wall if you couldn’t behave, how the small space on the sides of the barred doors were so the muscle could slide you food, usually slop or drugged.

Then Dean takes them down further, to the playrooms. He explains the chase room, where omegas were just supposed to run so that an alpha could chase them, tackle them down and knot them.

“Those alphas usually liked it good and bloody,” he says, furious at the weakness in his own voice. He also shows them where alphas could chain you up on a wall or suspend you, gag your mouth and hurt you with whips or knives or toys that hurt when you put them inside. He starts to shake, starts to feel like he might vomit, but he knows there’s one place left that he has to show them.

Dean takes them to The Chair.

Objectively, The Chair looks like a weird wooden piece of crap. There’s no way that he can explain it without visuals – so Dean casts a shaken glance back at the camera and the grave faces of Bela, Victor and Cas, and climbs up on The Chair just like he was born to do it. He legs shake so hard that the restraints on it jostle, and the legs of The Chair scrape against the floor.

“This was…t-this w-was,” Dean pauses, breathes in, and explains, “This was where you ended up if you got a real mean alpha. It’s also where you got put if Alastair thought you needed to be put in your place. Um. Your…your hands went here,” he splays his arms out, wrists on either side of his head, “legs here,” he rests his ankles against the restraints meant to tug your legs apart, “and then you got your neck put down here, so they make you present.”

Dean climbs off, eyes wet and shame burning through his entire body. He feels dirty, so dirty, so, so, dirty –

Dean throws up.

“Fuck,” he says.

“Dean,” Victor says, “If you need to stop, we can go back upstairs.”

“No,” Dean says, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, “This is the last place. I’m not feeling too great but I gotta make sure everyone knows.”

He wraps his arms around himself. Instinct makes him retreat into himself, shoulders hunching in and head hanging low, but Dean forces himself to look directly at the camera as he says, “When you got sent to The Chair, you never came back okay. You got beat up so bad it felt like your whole skin was just bruises. Other times, you got whipped,” he pulls up the hem of his shirt and turns his back to say, “That big, thick one? I got that scar on The Chair. Alpha hit me so hard I thought I was gonna die. I was hoping I would die, actually.”

When Dean turns back and stares into the menacing eye of the video camera, he continues, “When I got put in The Chair, alphas knotted me so hard I could feel blood running down my legs by the end of it. Once, I had an alpha rip his knot right out of me when it hadn’t even gone down yet, not even a little. I don’t really remember much of what happened after that.”

Dean takes in a rib-rattling breath and concludes, “That’s what kind of place this is. This place is hell.”

“Ash, shut off the camera,” Victor instructs. His voice is flat with anger.

As soon as Ash obeys, Dean flings himself forward and into Cas’ chest. Cas wraps his arms around Dean’s back and crushes them together. Dean buries his face in Cas’ neck and Cas burrows into his hair. Fearfearfearfearfear clangs around in his head like warfare, but as tears leak out of the corners of Dean’s eyes into Cas’ shirt, mate and safe and Cas leak in at the edges.

Dean trembles all the way back up from The Chair, up the concrete stairs and through the lobby and back outside, where blessedly, Dean has no memories to assault him. He shivers in Cas’ arms and clings to him. Cas holds him close, and doesn’t let him go.

When Dean dares to look up at Cas’ face, his alpha’s eyes are red-rimmed and his cheeks are tearstained. It makes Dean burrow into him all over again, clutching Cas’ cotton t-shirt in handfuls. He’s only vaguely aware that there are others around them watching it all unfold, but he doesn’t care. He hears Victor and Ash’s voices, and the shrill ring of a cellphone going off, but all he wants to hear is the heartbeat of his alpha.

Castiel rocks Dean in his arms and just says, “I love you,” in his deep, rumbling voice.

It’s enough for Dean to find strength to pull away. A few paces from them, Bela flicks her phone into her purse and pulls Victor forward to murmur something in his ear.

“What?” Dean says, “What is it? Tell me.”

The words that spill from Victor’s lips make Dean dizzy with terror.

“Alastair just made bail.”