There Was A Time -DeanXCas

Chapter 2 - Unexpected News

This was a bad idea. Dean was well aware of that, but even as he pulled into the parking lot and cut the Impala's engine and let the heavy silence fill his ears, he couldn't bring himself to care. He looked up at the building, immediately noticing that it was heads above what he was used to. The outside was clean and well maintained - there were even flowers planted around the front door for god's sake - and the inside was probably just as nice. He didn't belong here. It would be better for everyone involved if he turned and left.

But he'd never been able to deny Sam anything, whether it was radio silence for over four years or an out-of-the-blue request for Dean to travel halfway across the country. He still had no clue how Sam had gotten his phone number. He'd given up on ever hearing from his little brother again after the second year, when their father got in over his head fighting some vampires and never came back up. Sam hadn't even come to the funeral, and, much as it ached, Dean had written off the remainder of his family.

Now there was this, though. A phone call in the middle of the night and Sam's hoarse voice, asking him to come for a freaking visit, like that was something they did. Dean shook his head and sighed, slowly pushing the door open and easing himself into a standing position after way too many hours spent behind a wheel. A young couple walking over to their car looked at him, and he knew he wasn't imagining the distrust in their expressions, practically shouting the fact that he didn't belong here and was an intruder.

He forced a fake smile just so that they wouldn't call the cops - the last thing Sam needed was to bail him out of jail - and turned to slam the car door shut. He stopped at the sight of his shoulder, and more specifically the countdown. Sam didn't know he was an omega. Bobby was the only one privy to that information; John had died before Dean had the chance to see him face to face and decide whether or not to admit it. Over two years later, Dean still wasn't sure if that was a blessing in disguise or not.

The countdown said just over 1,900 hours left to go. Which, Dean had calculated it out roughly, was a little under two months. It made him feel weird to think that his soul mate, his alpha, was that close. Especially when he considered the last time... but no. When he'd finally confessed to Bobby that he was an omega (and hadn't it been a shock when Bobby slapped him upside the head for hiding it so long and then hugged him), Bobby had told him that he'd probably hallucinated the whole thing. It wasn't uncommon, apparently, for the first heat to be bad enough to throw your mind out of whack. Which did make sense, considering that Dean had woken up in a different, way more secure hotel some hundred miles away.

Except. He couldn't forget the sight of those burning blue eyes. Every time he tried, they invaded his dreams. He'd jacked off countless times thinking about them and that gravelly voice, and the way his name had sounded, and how for a split second Dean Winchester had actually felt safe. If it was a hallucination like Bobby said, it was a damn strong one and there was a possibility his alpha was going to be a real disappointment. It was something he tried not to think about too much.

And then there was the other side of it all, the part that he hadn't dared mention to Bobby, the part that made him glad that John was gone because his father would've thrown a fit if he'd known, the part he tried even harder not to think about. Sam asking countless questions wouldn't help. He snagged his leather jacket and threw it on before he closed the door and strode across the parking lot.

There was no doorman, and thank god for that or he might've turned tail and run, but a nice girl was coming out just as he walked up, and she smiled and stepped aside to let him in. Dean smiled back, appreciating it more than she knew: now he didn't have to go through the stress of buzzing Sam's number and hoping that he hadn't dreamed the phone call. He'd spent the past couple thousand miles wondering if he had and not daring to call Sam back in case it turned out to be true.