Chapter Text
Dean was struggling a hell of a lot more than he ever let on.
Taking care of Sammy wasn't a new gig for him. In fact, it was the only job Dean had ever truly known. Even before John decided to bolt the exact day Dean turned eighteen, legally signing over guardianship of a teenage Sam before vanishing into the ether. Dean hadn't even been surprised. It wasn't like John had been much of a father before that anyway.
He tried not to blame his dad. He really did. Dean knew how much John had suffered after Mary's death, how the grief had hollowed the man out until there was nothing left but a ghost driving non-stop around the country looking for odd jobs. But now, sitting on the edge of a creaking bed in Bobby Singer's spare room, it was getting harder and harder not to resent the man who had left him to drown.
Sammy, bless his brilliant, stubborn mind, had made it to Stanford. He had gotten a scholarship, and Dean had never felt a more piercing, fierce sense of pride than the day that acceptance letter arrived. But a scholarship wasn't a full ride. Stanford was expensive, and the pressure was brutal. Sam needed to keep his grades sky-high to maintain his funding, which meant he couldn't afford to waste precious hours working a full-time job. He needed to study.
So, Dean did what he always did: he took the weight onto his own shoulders.
He became the one covering the massive chunks of tuition that the scholarship didn't touch, along with Sam's books, rent, and groceries. But a mechanic's salary at a local garage only stretched so far. Desperate to keep Sam's dream afloat, Dean had made a few incredibly bad decisions over the last year. He had taken out loans he couldn't afford, signed papers he shouldn't have, and now he was in some serious, terrifying debt.
He hadn't told a soul. Not Sam, who would drop out in a heartbeat if he knew, and not Bobby who would tell Sam in a second. But the reality of it had already caught up to him. He'd lost his apartment a few weeks ago, unable to juggle his rent and Sam's payments, and had been forced to pack his life into the trunk of the Impala again.
Now, he was living at Bobby's place. It was the same old routine, the same bitter pill he'd been forced to swallow every single time their dad had abandoned them and Dean had no other choice left. But this time, it felt worse. He was a kid back then, of course Bobby would take him in. Now, as a grown 25 year old alpha, he felt like a total burden.
Bobby had finally, finally, taken his head out of his alpha ass and asked Ellen out. She was living here now, transforming the gruff old salvage yard into something resembling a real, happy home for the two of them. Dean hated intruding on that. He hated being the third wheel taking up space in the spare room, but it wasn't like he could just pack up and live somewhere else.
Almost every single penny he made went straight to Sam and the aggressive monthly payments on his debt. And even then, it wasn't enough. He was already late on the latest installments. The interest was piling up by the week, he was sinking deeper and deeper into debt.
He was struggling real bad, pushed right to his absolute limit. To scrape together extra cash, Dean had started taking the night shift at the auto repair shop. It was the emergency on-call shift, which paid better but meant he spent his nights dealing with angry, entitled clients whose cars had broken down in the middle of the night. They were tired, pissed off, and they took it all out on Dean while he crawled under their rusted chassis in the freezing dark.
He'd tried getting a second job as a waiter to ease the burden, but that had blown up in his face real quick. A few weeks in, he'd ended up brutally beating some alpha guy for being a disgusting ass to a young omega at the restaurant. He'd gotten fired on the spot before the guy even hit the floor.
He woke up at four in the afternoon with a headache that felt like a rusty nail driven straight between his eyes.
Dean dragged himself out of the bed, his bones popping in protest as he stood up. He didn't bother changing out of his grease-stained gray t-shirt; he just shuffled down the hallway, completely exhausted, his boots dragging against Bobby's worn floorboards.
The house was quiet save for the low murmur of the TV and the rustle of a newspaper in the living room. Dean detoured into the kitchen first. He didn't have the energy to brew a fresh pot, so he just grabbed an already cold, half-empty mug of coffee left on the counter.
He walked into the living room, slumping heavily onto the opposite end of the couch where Ellen was sitting. He took a grimacing sip of the cold coffee and looked around.
"Bobby?" Dean asked.
Ellen didn't look up from her paper, just turned a page.
"At work." Dean hummed, leaning his head back against the cushions and closing his eyes. The cold mug rested against his knee. The omega sighed, folding the paper over her lap. "You look like hell, Dean."
"Thanks, Ellen. Always know just what to say to a guy."
"I'm serious," she said. "I heard you come in at six this morning. You're pulling sixty, seventy hours a week between your regular shifts and those emergency night ones. It's not sustainable. You're going to work yourself to the ground."
Dean rubbed a hand over his face, the stubble scratching against his palm.
"I'm fine. Just a long week."
"It's been a long four months," Ellen countered gently, shaking her head.
"I'm fine, Ellen. Really. The emergency shifts pay double, I need the cash."
Ellen stared at him for a long moment, clearly wanting to push further into why he needed the cash so badly, but she knew Dean. If she pushed too hard, he'd clam up completely. Instead, she leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees.
"You know, if this is only about the cash, then I may have a gig for you," Ellen said. "I was talking to Ms. Baker yesterday, she teaches third grade at the primary school, and she was telling me about a kid in her class. Samandriel.” Dean cracked an eye open, looking at her.
"Samandriel? Sounds like an antique."
"Well, the poor kid's family really needs a babysitter right now," Ellen continued, ignoring his poor attempt at a joke. "Apparently, they've been going through a real rough patch. Ms. Baker said it's been nearly impossible for them to find someone willing to take the job, they have two kids and a newborn. But they're willing to pay handsomely. I told her I would ask around."
She reached out, giving Dean's knee a firm, maternal pat.
"You could take this on and finally lower your hours at the auto shop. What do you think?"
Dean stared at his cold coffee. He shifted uncomfortably on the couch.
"I don't know…" Dean muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. "A babysitter? Come on. Those kinds of jobs... they're usually for omegas or beta women. It's a bit weird for a guy like me to be rocking a cradle and pureeing carrots."
Ellen leveled a flat, unimpressed glare at him.
"Don't give me that sexist bullshit, Dean Winchester," she said, her voice dry. "An alpha can watch a baby just fine without his knot falling off. You raised Sammy from the time he was in diapers, and you did a damn good job of it. You're great with kids, you're patient when you want to be, and frankly, you clearly need the money more than you need your pride right now."
Dean winced slightly, because she wasn't wrong. The word handsomely was still ringing in his ears, practically shouting over his bruised alpha ego.
"I'll think about it, okay?" Dean muttered, looking away as his foot started a restless tap against the floorboards. His jaw tightened. An alpha nanny. The guys at the autoshop would never let him hear the end of it if they found out. He could already picture the mocking grins.
Ellen stood up from the couch and left the paper on the coffe table.
"Good. I'll call Ms. Baker so she can get you in contact with the family."
"Hey! I said I'll think about it!" Dean called after her.
Ellen paused at the edge of the living room, turning just enough to throw a knowing, entirely unimpressed look over her shoulder. Like they both knew he'd already accepted the job the second she mentioned the good pay. She didn't say another word, just disappeared down the hallway towards her phone.
And now, a week later, there he was.
Dean was standing on a pristine sidewalk, staring up at the biggest damn house he had ever seen in his life. With large windows, an enormous and well decorated porch with a manicured lawn that probably cost more to maintain than Dean's entire monthly paycheck.
The phone call with Gabriel, the Beta of the house, had been an absolute whirlwind. The guy had sounded completely frazzled, speaking at a mile a minute.
They had hammered out a routine; Gabriel explained that he could easily drop the older kids off at their schools on his way to his job, Dean would come in in the morning to take care of the baby and manage the house. Then, come mid-afternoon, the eight-year-old, Samandriel, and the fifteen-year-old, Claire would come back from school on their own. From that moment on, Dean would be wrangling all three of them, keeping the household from imploding and getting dinner started until Gabriel finally dragged himself back from the office in the afternoon.
When Gabriel had thrown out the initial baseline figure, Dean's breath had caught in his throat. It wasn't just good money; it was really fucking good money. He literally couldn't afford to say no. His alpha pride could take a beating if it meant keeping Sammy at Stanford and getting the sharks off his own back.
Taking a deep, stabilizing breath, Dean adjusted his jacket, marched up the walkway, and lifted his hand to rang the buzzer and waited, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as he scratched the back of his neck.
He felt entirely out of place. The sheer contrast between this world and his own was enough to make his skin itch. The family living here was clearly filthy rich. Dean, on the other hand, had spent half his life living in a car, drifting from one roach-infested motel to another, stealing just to buy a box of mac and cheese. Standing on this pristine porch in his faded flannel and scuffed boots, he felt less like a professional nanny and more like a stray dog that had wandered onto a golf course.
Before he could spiral too deeply into his own head, the front door swung open.
A shorter man with a tailored suit, and a look of pure, caffeinated exhaustion stood on the threshold. This had to be Gabriel.
"Dean? Thank god. Come in, come in, the clock is ticking," Gabriel said, waving Dean into the house.
Dean stepped over the threshold, his eyes widening as he looked around. The inside of the house was certainly impressive, with ceilings that stretched up two stories and a polished hardwood floor that practically mirrored his reflection, but it wasn't the pristine museum he had expected.
In fact, it was kind of a disaster zone.
It wasn't unlivable, but it was definitively how Dean imagined a house with three kids looked like. Bright plastic toys were scattered across the grand entryway, a trail of colorful socks and a discarded school hoodie along with other elements of clothing led down the hall, and through the open doorway to the kitchen, Dean could see a counter piled high with unwashed dishes and a bunch of forgotten snacks and empty cans sitting open on the island. The house itself was gorgeous and clearly expensive, but the sheer chaos of real life had completely taken over.
Dean actually felt a tiny knot of tension ease in his shoulders; a messy house was something he knew how to handle.
Gabriel immediately launched into a tour of the main floor while stepping over a plastic fire truck without even looking down. He pointed out the ultra-modern kitchen, the laundry room that looked nicer than any apartment Dean had ever rented despite the overflowing baskets of baby clothes and where the formula and diapers were kept. Dean just nodded along, trying to absorb the information while mentally shifting from intimidated mechanic to overqualified cleaning lady.
As they walked back toward the front entry, a door down the hall clicked open. A small, eight-year-old boy stepped out, a big backpack strapped tightly to his shoulders, practically swallowing his small frame. He was a pale kid with a mop of bright blonde hair and wide, striking blue eyes that blinked up at Dean through a pair of glasses.
"Hey, kiddo. This is Samandriel" Gabriel called out softly.
The boy froze when he noticed Dean standing there. His wide, nervous eyes locked onto the large alpha, and he immediately scrambled forward to hide behind Gabriel’s legs, gripping the fabric of his suit trousers.
Dean bent down, resting his hands on his knees to bring himself closer to the kid's eye level, offering a warm, easy smile.
"Hey there, buddy. I'm Dean."
Samandriel didn't say a word. He just buried his face further into Gabriel's coat, hiding entirely from view.
"Sorry, he is a little bit shy." Gabriel said, offering an apologetic smile as he patted the boy's head.
“It's alright, I bet he doesn't get that from you.”
Gabriel paused, blinking for a second before a sudden laugh burst from his chest.
"No, no. Kid 's not mine. I'm just the uncle."
Dean blinked, completely caught off guard. His brow furrowed in confusion. He had naturally assumed during their brief phone call that Gabriel was the father trying to hold the fort down alone. Why the hell did he get hired by the kid's uncle and not their parents?
"Wait. You're the uncle? Where are his parents?"
"Their omega dad is upstairs," Gabriel's tone shifted, losing its frantic humor and dropping into something heavy and fiercely guarded. He pointed a thumb toward the grand staircase. "First door on the second floor. Do not enter it, though. Don't go near it at all. He's…sick. He doesn't want to be disturbed, and he needs his space. Got it?"
Dean nodded slowly, a little weirded out by the sudden tension in the room. This definitely hadn't been explained to him during their phone call. Gabriel had never mentioned that a parent would actually be inside the house. In fact, Dean had assumed he was taking care of the kids for the long haul, not just a week until their father got better. If the guy was right upstairs, why the hell couldn't he take care of his own children? Maybe the guy was just temporarily bedridden, and even when he got better, he'd have to go straight back to work and need a babysitter anyways.
Another door opened then and a fifteen-year-old girl walked down the stairs. Dean stood up.
Claire had her headphones shoved into her ears and her eyes completely glued to the screen of her phone. Her blonde hair was a bit messy, and she carried her school bag carelessly over one shoulder.
"Hey, you must be Claire," Dean offered, trying to be friendly as he gave a small wave. "I'm Dean."
Claire didn't even acknowledge him. She didn't look up and barely even slowed her pace as she walked right past him toward the front door.
Gabriel sighed heavily, stepping in front of her to block her path.
"Claire, seriously? Pull the plugs out for two seconds. This is Dean. He's going to be helping out around here."
Claire finally looked up, throwing a thoroughly annoyed, teenage glare at her uncle, completely ignoring Dean as if he were a piece of furniture. She yanked one headphone out, muttered a sarcastic, "Great. Fantastic," and shoved it right back in before pushing past Gabriel, taking her little brother’s hand to wait by the car outside.
Gabriel shook his head, looking completely exhausted.
"Yeah. She's a joy in the mornings. Alright, I gotta get these two to school before I'm late for my morning meeting. Let me take you to little Jack first."
Gabriel led Dean down the hallway toward a small room near the back of the house. As they approached, Gabriel pushed the door open with agonizing slowness. Inside, the room was dimly lit, a soft white-noise machine humming quietly in the corner. In the center of the room was a dark wooden crib.
Dean stepped inside quietly, his boots barely making a sound on the soft rug. He peered over the edge and saw a tiny baby sleeping soundly under a light blanket. Dean knew from experience exactly how hard it was to get a baby to sleep and how much harder it was to keep them that way so he instinctively held his breath, not wanting to disturb the kid.
"He just went down about thirty minutes ago," Gabriel whispered, nodding toward the crib. "He should sleep for another hour or two. Everything you need for the little one is in the kitchen and the cabinets here."
Dean nodded, keeping his eyes on the baby.
"Got it. Go ahead, man. Don't be late."
Gabriel gave him a grateful, fleeting pat on the shoulder, turned on his heel, and hurried out of the house. A moment later, the heavy oak door clicked shut and the messy house fell completely silent.
With the baby monitor clipped firmly to his belt, Dean started to work around the house. He put away the stray shoes and plastic landmine toys, then attacked the mountain of dishes in the kitchen, scrubbing until the counters were empty. He gathered the discarded clothes from the hallway and threw a heavy load of laundry into the wash. He wasn’t the best at cleaning, but he was a firm believer in fake it until you make it.
Around mid-morning, the baby monitor burst to life with a sharp cry. Dean prepped the formula before heading into the nursery to scoop the squirming bundle out of the crib.
"Alright, alright, I gotcha, little guy," Dean murmured. He sat in the reclining chair by the window, propping Jack up against his arm. The baby latched onto the bottle instantly, his tiny hands blindly resting on Dean’s thumb.
Once Jack finished the bottle, Dean hoisted him over his shoulder, gently patting his back until a loud burp echoed through the room.
He tried to make him go back to sleep, but the kid was wide awake, blinking up at Dean with bright, happy eyes. Dean carried him over to the playmat in the corner of the room, setting him down carefully in the middle. He sat down right besides the mat to supervise, watching as the newborn immediately began to enthusiastically extend his hands towards the hanging toys.
A little while passed like that, with Dean just sitting on the floor, occasionally shaking a rattle or making a goofy face that made Jack squeal with delight. He was surprised about how giddy and joyful this baby was. It was a jarring contrast to his brother. Dean loves him, but god, he was such a big crier. If this had been Sammy at that age, he would have been crying for hours non-stop, utterly inconsolable.
Dean’s chest tightened as he remembered those brutal nights in dark motel rooms, wrapping a screaming baby Sam in a blanket and hiding in the bathroom. He remembered locking the door as best as he could because John would start screaming when Sammy cried too much, finding the noise intolerable. Dean had spent hours sitting on cold tubs, rocking Sam in the dark and praying his dad wouldn't snap.
When Jack finally started getting a little fuzzy, Dean scooped him up. He walked laps around the nursery, bouncing the baby gently in his arms and humming a low, rumbling tune until Jack’s eyelids fluttered shut and his breathing went deep and even. Carefully, Dean laid him back down in the crib, slipped out of the room, and set up the baby monitor on the kitchen counter.
A bit after that, the front door unlocked, signaling the return of the older kids.
Claire came in first, she marched straight down the hall toward the nursery to check on her baby brother. Dean followed at a distance, watching from the doorway as she leaned over the crib. She turned around and noticed Dean, her jaw tight.
"Did he eat?” She asked. Dean blinked
“Yeah, of course. I-”
“Did you change him?”
“He hasn’t pooped yet.” Dean replied back, feeling tested.
“Did you actually make sure the formula wasn't too hot?"
“Like a million times, he-”
“Because he gets nasty colics if his bottles aren’t done right.”
“He doesn’t have a colic, he barely cried all day.”
“Did he? Or did you just set up the baby monitor wrong?”
“Wha-” He shook his head, knowing he couldn't win over a very overprotective older sister. “Gabriel set it up for me.”
"Fine. But I'm watching you."
"Fair enough," Dean said easily.
Without another word, she brushed past his shoulder. She marched into the hallway and guided the quiet Samandriel over to the dining room table to help him with his homework.
Claire had definitely presented as an alpha not so long ago, and she hadn't learned how to mask her pheromones yet, or maybe she just didn’t want to. She was practically radiating a putrid, aggressively sour, protective alpha smell, a textbook warning to the new guy that she was guarding her territory and her siblings.
Dean got the message loud and clear. He backed off into the kitchen to start working on dinner, leaving the territorial young alpha to her devices.
Over the next few weeks, a new routine locked into place. He’d arrive at the house in the morning just as Gabriel was rushing out, spend the day taking care of baby Jack, and then manage the afternoon rush once the older kids came home from school. By afternoon, Gabriel would return, giving him a wad of cash and freeing Dean to head straight over to the auto shop for his regular evening shift.
The job itself was actually great, and the money was life-changing, but by the second week, the situation on the second floor was starting to seriously weird him out.
The omega dad never came out of that first room at the top of the stairs. Not once. Not even to say hi or check up on his own children.
Honestly, Dean would have suspected they were lying to him, or that they were hiding a rotting body up there, if it wasn't for the fact that he regularly saw Claire head up the stairs. She would knock softly on the wooden frame and speak to the closed door. The door was never opened, and Dean never heard a voice answer from the other side, but Claire would just stand there, whispering to the wood. Every single time Dean caught her doing it, she would glance down the stairs, frown fiercely at him for lingering, and stomp away to her room.
Claire clearly still didn't like him. She remained incredibly protective over her brothers, hovering like a hawk every time Dean so much as breathed near Jack. She watched his hands while he prepped bottles and kept a harsh, alpha-scented perimeter around the living room.
Samandriel, on the other hand, was just quiet and shy. For the first weeks, the eight-year-old spent half his time hiding behind furniture or ducking into his room the second Dean made eye contact.
Until the third week, when everything changed because of the Impala.
Dean had been pulling up to the driveway just as Gabriel was loading the kids into the SUV for the morning drop-off. Samandriel froze on the sidewalk, his wide blue eyes completely locking onto the sleek, roaring black lines of the '67 Chevy. The kid looked like he’d just seen a spaceship.
Noticing the stare, Dean grinned and let the engine idle for a second before shutting it off.
"You like the car, buddy?"
Samandriel nodded fast, taking a tentative step forward, completely forgetting his usual terror. It turned out the kid was a massive car fan. Seizing the opportunity to bridge the gap, Dean opened the door and let the kid walk all the way around the Impala, pointing out the chrome trim and letting him peer through the window at the pristine interior. The sheer joy on the kid’s face was unmistakable.
Later that day, after school, Samandriel shyly approached the kitchen island where Dean was chopping vegetables. Without a word, he set down a small, plastic die-cast car. Then another. And another.
Dean smiled, wiping his hands on a towel. He picked up one of the miniatures.
"No way. A '69 Dodge Charger Daytona? With the high wing? Nice choice, man."
Samandriel’s face lit up. He began showing Dean his entire toy car collection, and he seemed absolutely thrilled that Dean knew every single make, model, and engine type without having to read the boxes. The kid sat there, chin cupped in his hands, completely spellbound as Dean talked about his work at the auto shop.
"That is so cool," Samandriel whispered, his eyes wide behind his glasses.
The kid had clearly warmed up to him. The second Samandriel burst through the front door after school, he went straight to the kitchen, the laundry room, or the nursery to find Dean, bursting with questions about cars and chatting happily until Claire would march in, throw Dean a warning look, and drag her little brother away to the dining table to do his homework.
Dean stopped focusing so much on Claire’s hostile glare and started looking at what she was actually doing.
The kid wasn't just a bossy teenager; she was effectively running the house. Dean clocked it early on, and the realization left a bitter taste in his mouth. Claire didn't act like a fifteen-year-old sister. She acted like a parent.
Dean watched her sit on the floor and patiently build Lego towers with Samandriel, asking about his day with an exhausting, maternal focus. When Jack woke up cranky from his afternoon nap, Claire would scoop him up, rocking him with a practiced sway, pacing the living room floor while reading aloud from a picture book until the baby’s head finally drooped against her shoulder.
If Dean left a single stray dish in the sink because he’d been busy changing a blowout diaper, Claire was there, scrubbing it fiercely before he could even turn around. She was the one who marched Samandriel into the bathroom for his nightly bath, and she was the one stubbornly insisting she could cook dinner for the family herself. Dean literally had to box her out of the kitchen with his large frame, using his own scent just to force her to sit down and let him do the job he was actually being paid for.
It made Dean’s stomach turn.
She was fifteen. She was supposed to be a messy, irresponsible teenager. She should have been staying out late after school, gossiping on her phone, dating and complaining about curfew. Instead, she was carrying the crushing weight of an entire household on her young alpha shoulders. She never went out with friends. She didn't seem to have any. Her entire world was bounded by the walls of this mansion and the needs of her siblings.
And every time Dean looked at her tired eyes and the rigid, defensive set of her jaw, a deep, ugly resentment began to fester in his chest.
His anger wasn't directed at Claire. It was directed upstairs.
Every single day, Dean walked past that first door on the second floor, and every single day, his scowl deepened. He stared at the smooth, expensive wood of the closed door, his fists clenching in the pockets of his jeans.
What kind of parent did that? What kind of omega just locked themselves away in a room, entirely checked out, letting a child do the laundry, bathe the baby, and play mother to a family that wasn't hers to raise? Sick or not, you don't let your fifteen-year-old drown under the weight of your responsibilities. You don't let them lose their childhood.
He knew exactly what that kind of exhaustion felt like. He knew the permanent ache in the bones, the constant, low-humming panic that if you stopped moving for even a second, the whole world would collapse on top of the brother you were trying to protect. He remembered being twelve, thirteen, fourteen, standing over a stove making Kraft mac and cheese, checking Sam's homework, and hiding away while his dad stared blankly at a wall or disappeared for days on end.
But as furious as it made him, he couldn't risk his job. He couldn't just march up those grand stairs, knock on the guy's door, and yell at him for being a lousy father. He really, desperately needed this gig.
A few days later, Dean was in the kitchen waiting for Gabriel to arrive. The house was relatively quiet; Samandriel and Claire were upstairs in their respective bedrooms and the baby had been down for a nap.
The baby monitor rang when Jack let out a sharp, sudden shriek that escalated into a full-blown cry. He dropped the dishtowel he was holding and hurried down the hall into the nursery.
"What is going on buddy?" Dean murmured, scooping the squirming, red-faced baby out of his crib.
But no matter what he did, the baby didn't stop crying.
Dean bounced him gently in his arms, walking rhythmic laps around the room, but Jack’s tiny body was rigid, his little fists clenched as he cried so hard he was running out of breath. Dean immediately went into checklist mode. He laid Jack on the changing table to check his diaper, but it was completely clean and dry. He picked him back up, propping him over his shoulder and patting his back to see if it was gas, but no burp came. He hurried to the kitchen and tried to offer a freshly prepped bottle of formula, but the second the bottle touched Jack’s lips, the baby wailed harder, turning his head away.
Panic started to claw at the back of Dean's throat. He began walking around the house, bouncing the baby continuously, his large alpha frame trying to project a calm, solid presence, letting out a familiar and protective alpha scent but Jack was completely inconsolable. His tiny wails echoed loudly through the high-ceilinged rooms.
Dean was getting really fucking worried. In all the weeks he'd been working here, Jack had never had a crying fit like this. He was usually pure sunshine, so this desperate, unending screaming was a red flag. Dean’s heart hammered against his ribs as he rocked the screeching baby.
He pressed a palm against Jack’s small forehead, and his blood ran cold. The kid was burning up.
"Shit!" Dean swore under his breath. He checked again, his hand brushing the baby’s neck and chest. Jack was clearly running a fever.
Panic fully setting in, Dean kept bouncing Jack in a desperate bid to calm him down while pulling his phone out of his pocket with his free hand. He dialed Gabriel's number, pressing the phone to his ear, pacing the kitchen floor.
“Come on, come on, pick up.” He wanted to tell Gabriel what was going on, to ask if he should just load the kid into the Impala and drive straight to the emergency room. But the line just rang and rang until it hit voicemail.
Dean cursed, hanging up and dialing again. And again. Nothing. Gabriel was quite literally not answering, and Dean was getting more desperate by the second as the baby lay against his chest, screaming himself hoarse.
The frantic noise finally drew the older kids out of their rooms. Heavy, rushed footsteps thudded on the stairs, and Claire came rushing into the kitchen with Samandriel hovering fearfully right behind her.
"That is not a normal cry," she said, her voice sharp. "What did you do to him?"
Dean was visibly sweating, his own alpha instincts screaming at him to fix the danger.
"I didn't do anything! I think he has a fever, he's burning up. I tried calling Gabriel, but he's not answering and-"
Before Dean could even finish his sentence, another sound suddenly struck the house. It left Dean completely paralyzed in his tracks.
It was a voice he had never heard before, raspy, utterly hollow, and laced with a profound, terrifying sadness. And it was screaming.
From the second floor, a bloody-murder shriek ripped through the air, a sound of pure, unadulterated agony that made everyone in the kitchen instantly freeze. Claire's protective, tough-girl facade vanished entirely, her face pale and slack with sheer shock as the screams upstairs morphed into a frantic, broken voice yelling down the hallway.
"Shut him up! Please, just make it shut up!"
The voice belonged to a man, but it was completely unraveled, choked with heavy, violent sobs that echoed down the grand staircase.
"I can't-I can't take it! Make it stop! Please, just make him shut up!"
The man's voice broke completely, the frantic words dissolving into raw, panicked shrieks.
Samandriel let out a frightened sob, his small face twisting in terror. He dropped to his knees, pressing his hands tightly over his ears to block out the screaming, but it was impossible. Between Jack’s shrill, feverish wails and the agonizing screeches from the second floor, the entire house was entirely consumed by a deafening chorus of panic.
Claire tried to force her way through the chaos. She stepped directly into Dean’s space, reaching out with trembling hands to pull the infant away from him.
"Give him to me!" she yelled over the noise, her voice cracking. "Dean, give me the baby! I'll-
Dean didn't hear her.
He couldn't hear anything over the roaring in his ears. The sound of a grown man screaming bloody murder at a crying baby slammed into him. Dean began to hyperventilate, his chest heaving in short, jagged gasps as his vision tunneled. Every muscle in his body went rigid. His arms clamped around Jack with a desperate strength, pulling the burning-hot infant flush against his chest, shielding the baby's head with his large hand. Claire was shouting, her hands tugging at his flannel shirt, but her voice was just a distant echo.
He had to hide him. He had to keep him safe. If the screaming didn't stop, John was going to break the door down. John was going to kill them. He was going to kill Sammy.
He couldn't be inside these walls. He couldn't be trapped in this house.
Before Claire could even grasp what was happening, Dean whirled around and bolted. He lunged past Claire, ignored Samandriel on the floor, and threw himself weight-first against the heavy front door. He burst out into the cool evening air, his heavy boots slamming against the stone walkway as he practically flew toward the driveway, desperate to put distance between the screaming upstairs and the child in his arms.
Everything blurred into a roaring static that filled his head. He didn't know what he was doing or where he was going. His brain was entirely trapped in a white-hot fight-or-flight response, screaming at him to just run, to hide, to keep the pup safe from the monster in the dark.
He was so deeply lost in the panic that he didn't even notice the bright headlights cutting through the dusk, or the loud screech of tires as Gabriel’s SUV violently pulled into the driveway, blocking his path.
The driver's side door flew open, and Gabriel slammed it shut, his face twisted in fury.
"What the fuck is going on?!" Gabriel yelled, sprinting toward him.
The sudden, harsh shout slammed Dean right back into reality. The sensory overload rushed back in all at once: Jack was still burning hot and shrieking in his arms, Samandriel was wailing from the open front doorway, and Claire was suddenly right there on his heels, her face wild and furious as she demanded, "Give him back! Give me Jack right now!"
And above it all, the muffled, agonizing screams of the omega dad were still echoing out of the open second-story windows, cutting through the neighborhood.
Dean froze, his chest heaving as he gasped for air, his eyes wide and bloodshot.
"I-I…" he stammered, his voice cracking violently. He looked down at the baby, then at Gabriel, trying to force his brain to form a coherent sentence, to explain the fever, to explain the screaming, to explain why the hell he had run out of the house. "I-he was…the screaming-"
"Get your hands off him!" Gabriel snapped. He stepped firmly into his space and forcefully snatched the screaming baby out of Dean's iron grip. Gabriel cradled Jack close as he glared at the trembling mechanic.
"Get out!" Gabriel yelled, completely deaf to whatever Dean was trying to say. "Get the hell out of here! Now!" Dean didn't protest. He couldn't.
He stumbled backward and practically threw himself into the driver's seat of the Impala. He slammed the door shut, instantly cutting off a fraction of the noise, and gripped the steering wheel. His knuckles turned a ghost-white, his fingers digging into the worn leather until they ached.
He dropped his head forward, resting his forehead against the cold metal of the wheel, and tried to breathe. But his lungs refused to cooperate. He was still panicking, his chest heaving in short, jagged gasps. Trembling, he forced his head up just enough to look through the windshield.
Out in the driveway, Gabriel was rushing toward the porch, cradling a still-screaming Jack. He swept an arm around Samandriel, ushering the sobbing boy back inside, while Claire followed close behind, her rigid shoulders finally slumping as she crossed the threshold. A second later, the massive oak front door slammed shut.
Just like that, the chaotic wall of sound muffled into a suffocating, distant hum.
Dean sat frozen in the quiet cabin of his car, his breath rattling in his throat, but his mind refused to let go of the noise. The screams from the second floor were still ringing in his ears, vibrating in his teeth. It was a sick, twisted carbon copy of his own childhood. Those kids were suffering. They were trapped in the exact same loop he had been living under the shadow of a broken parent, watching a fifteen-year-old alpha ruin her life trying to play protector, waiting for the next explosion.
"Shut up," He told his own brain. "Just shut the fuck up."
With a violently trembling hand, he reached out and shoved the first cassette tape his fingers brushed against into the dash. He didn't care what it was. He just slammed his palm against the volume knob, cranking it all the way to the maximum until the speakers rattled and a wall of heavy classic rock exploded through the car, obliterating the silence.
Dean slammed the Impala into reverse, threw his arm over the passenger seat, and tore out of the driveway, the tires screaming against the asphalt as he drowned out the world.