Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dean POV

The rain fell like a punishment.
Every drop smelled of iron and mud, and Dean Winchester breathed like a man who no longer knew if he was truly alive.
The earth had spat him out.
Hell had given him back.
And something — someone — had touched him.
The handprint on his shoulder burned and called at the same time.
But who was calling?

Since his return, the world had been too much.
Sounds pierced through his skull, smells burned inside him, his skin was a minefield of nerves.
Every sense was dialed to maximum.
All those years without hormones or suppressants...
His body didn’t belong to him anymore.

Bobby said it was post-traumatic shock.
But Bobby couldn’t understand — he was just a Beta, after all.
Dean knew it was something deeper. Much deeper.
He had spent forty years in Hell.
Now every heartbeat was a fire.

Then came the voice.
At night.
A fissure in the air — a whisper that wasn’t sound but pressure.

Dean.

A single word that exploded in his chest like a bullet.
He jolted upright in bed, heart pounding.
Bobby rushed in, then froze.
The air vibrated.
Ozone. Metal. Rain.
And beneath it, something lower, older.
A scent his body recognized before his mind did.

Alpha.

The next day, Pamela.
The psychic with chestnut hair and a grin that could melt steel, her scent of whiskey and patchouli filling the room.
Dean tried to pretend everything was normal.
But when Pamela took his wrist to summon the name, his blood turned to ice.
Her voice shifted, deepened — no longer human.

«Tell me your name!»
Pamela’s tone pressed like a blade.

Then the light.
The flash exploded behind her eyes — and Pamela screamed.
Bobby grabbed her, but it was too late.
Dean staggered back, heart racing, skin burning as if branded.

The voice came again — clear, resonant, inevitable.

Dean Winchester.

And with it, a name.

Castiel.

The barn was ready.
Sigils on the beams, rings of salt, trembling candles, crucifixes.
Bobby stood by the table, Dean at the center, gun loaded, silver knife at his belt.
Outside, the storm roared.
Inside, only Dean’s heartbeat — too fast, too alive.

«Boy, that ain’t no demon,» Bobby muttered.
«Then what is it?»
«Don’t know. But it wants you alive.»

Those words hung in the air a second before the light exploded.
A blinding flash — the sound of the world cracking.
Candles snuffed out, glass shattered, symbols scorched into wood.
Bobby fired.
Dean fired too.
The bullets hit the figure that kept walking — as if through air.

The light faded.
And there stood a man.
Dusty trench coat, loosened tie, rain-dark hair.

And those eyes.
Blue like the sky before a storm.

Dean took a step back, gun raised.

«Who the hell are you?»

The man spoke in a calm, resonant voice.

«Dean Winchester. Don’t be afraid.»
«Why the hell not? I shot you!»
«And I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition.»

The sound of that phrase hit him like a shock to the heart.
«Bullshit!» he shouted, stabbing the knife into the man’s chest.

No blood.
No cry.
Only the metallic clang of the blade falling to the ground.

The stranger barely moved.
The lights flickered.

«Castiel,» he said, as if reciting his name for the first time.
«I’m an Angel of the Lord.»

Dean froze.
His skin burned under his jacket.
The handprint on his shoulder — the one he’d never been able to explain — pulsed with living light.

And then it came — the scent.
Ozone. Burnt honey. Angel dust and rain.
A fragrance that didn’t belong to this world.
Beneath it, warmer, metallic, alive.
Alpha pheromones.

Dean’s body surrendered.
A wave of heat erupted from his chest, climbing his throat.
His breath turned ragged, his heart drumming. His gaze fixed on the being before him.

Castiel watched him, unaware of the biological and spiritual disaster his presence was unleashing.

«I saved you.»

The voice was warm, total — almost liquid.
Dean stumbled, aware of Bobby behind him but deaf to everything but that voice.
Every instinct screamed to move closer. To touch. To offer himself.

«I don’t— I don’t know what the hell you’re doing to me…» he gasped, falling to his knees, a low, broken sound escaping him.
«But I can feel you. God, I can feel you everywhere…»

The mark on his shoulder pulsed brighter, alive — the heat spreading like wildfire, like a bond igniting.

«Y-you’re him… I found you! Alpha…»

Castiel took a step forward, the movement of his coat echoing wings unseen.
Those eyes — infinite, sky-blue — lowered to meet his, calm, almost tender.

«Don’t be afraid, Dean Winchester. We have work for you.»

The sound of the words broke him open.
Heat that wasn’t heat. Grace that wasn’t light.
Pheromones and divinity intertwined, creating something new.

Bobby lunged, grabbing him from behind and yanking him back with all his strength.

«NO! BOBBY! IT’S HIM! NO!»

Dean screamed, the sound low, cracked — more animal than human.
The connection snapped like a cord under tension.

The angel stood motionless, eyes distant, as if he didn’t understand.
Only a faint tremor in his grace, like a string touched by wind.
Then the light swallowed him whole.

And he was gone.

Silence returned to the barn.
Dean collapsed to the floor, gasping, unable even to kneel.
Bobby held him as he shook. Dean clung to him — to the only father he had left.
The mark on his shoulder pulsed like a second heart. Terror. Confusion. Need.

«You found him, huh?» Bobby murmured, voice rough.
«Or worse… he found you.»

Dean didn’t answer. He only curled tighter in Bobby’s arms.
He still had the taste of Castiel’s voice on his tongue.
And he knew — with the blind certainty of instinct — that from that moment on, he would never be free again.

The angel’s scent faded with the storm,
but in Dean’s blood it still burned —
a call that would never fade.

The imprint had been sealed.