Chapter Text
[10:00am 2nd Saturday of December, mated for three weeks]
“NO!”
The yell is coming from the ground floor bathroom where Dean and Castiel excused themselves less than two minutes ago, because Dean was feeling slightly nauseated. Jimmy rushes from the couch, down the hall until he is standing right outside of the bathroom, taking in the scene.
Dean is backing away from Castiel, looking at him as if he transformed into a demon right in front of his eyes. His arms are protectively curling around his still-flat belly, and his legs are slightly shaking.
“You’re not taking my pup”
Castiel takes a tentative step towards his omega, slowly extending his hands. “Dee, that’s not-“
“STAY AWAY FROM ME!”
The alpha stops dead in his tracks, completely heart broken.
“Dee …” His voice is cracking, tears about to spill from his eyes. Meanwhile, Dean is slumping down the countertop to the ground, a high-pitched whine coming from his throat. He is folding protectively around himself, but still looking at Castiel, refusing to look away from the threat.
Jimmy realizes it’s time to intervene. No matter how much they love each other, Dean still has trouble trusting Castiel. Because Castiel took the role of “his alpha”, the one person in the world who can do anything and get away with it. He will not be able to listen before he calms down.
Jimmy slowly enters the room and gently places a hand on his brother’s shoulder.
“Cas, go out for a while, talk with Manny.”
“But, I …” Castiel is looking at him with so much anguish it’s becoming difficult to resist the urge to comfort him, but right now their father needs his help more than Castiel does.
“Go talk with Manny, I’ll take care of daddy, okay?”
Clearly Castiel doesn’t want to go away from his pregnant mate, but Jimmy is his brother, and an omega. He is not considered a threat by the alpha part of Castiel’s brain.
Castiel looks back to Dean, who is still whining and monitoring his every move, before giving up and finally backing out of the room. Jimmy then closes and locks the door before tucking a towel on the sill to stop any more alpha pheromones from entering the room. Next, he grabs one of the huge bath towels suspended on the radiator, blankets Dean’s back, and finally crouches in front of him.
“Da-dee?”
Dean unfurls from his ball of limbs, and his arms swiftly grab his son before tucking him against his chest, including him in his protective cocoon.
Jimmy know not to interrupt. Dean is letting his omega instincts take over. They covered the matter extensively in school last year, as recently presented omegas can easily be overcome by the urge to keep safe any unpresented child or omegas they consider family. Alpha pheromones tend to worsen the urge, while omegas blood relative allow the person to come back to themselves more quickly. The only other thing to do is wait, and keep the environment soothing. So Jimmy lets himself be held like when he was just a pup, bathing in his omega-daddy’s scent.
Dean starts to relax, slowly filling the room with calming omega comfort. His eyes are closed and he is gently rubbing his face on Jimmy’s hair, humming Hey Jude. They stay like that for a while. He is changing songs every now and then, lazily rocking to the rhythm.
After about an hour (maybe longer, if Jimmy’s nap was longer than he estimates), Jimmy slowly pulls his head away from Dean and tries to talk to him.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
He can feel the older omega’s arms tightening their hold a little, hesitating, before loosening again. Dean stays silent for a moment, but he is clearly readying himself, so Jimmy waits for him to talk.
“He said he could have me get an abortion.”
Jimmy frowns at that. “What?”
“He said that as he is my alpha, he could get a physician do an abortion on me.” His voice is unsteady when he talks, slowly turning to sobs. “He said he loved me, and a minute later he said he could take my pup away.”
Jimmy can’t believe what he is hearing. There has to be a major misunderstanding here, because when Castiel and him talked in the morning, he was thrilled to be a father (and scared shitless, but that goes without saying). And he is madly in love. And he is pro omega-rights. So there is no way he would say that to Dean. No way in hell.
Still, if that is what Dean understood, it’s completely understandable that he freaked out. Jimmy presented 23 days ago, and he already has a growing urge to protect children. He’s scared to imagine what his daddy is feeling right now. And Cas has always been a bit inept with his people skills, so it’s entirely possible he said something insensitive without meaning to.
Dean is silent crying, eyes screwed shut, when someone lightly knocks on the door.
“Can I come in?” The voice is muffled through the wooden door, making it hard to identify the person it belongs to.
Jimmy feels Dean tensing against him. He has to be careful, or the situation will quickly deteriorate.
“Who is it? I can’t smell you from here.”
“It’s Emmanuel. Cas is in the kitchen, and he will not to come out until I go pick him up.”
Jimmy looks up to his father.
“Can I go talk to him? To see what he has to say.”
Dean swallows, takes a big breath before nodding.
“I’ll be right back.”
Jimmy gets out of Dean’s embrace and stands up, careful to keep his movements calm and slow. He walks to the door, unlocks it and leaves the room before closing the door again.
He stares into Emmanuel’s eyes, and readies himself for the talk.
“Cas really fucked up.”
His brother sighs and look up to the ceiling.
“I know.”
“What was he trying to say? Because I’m guessing there is a misunderstanding here.”
“Yes, there is. Should I tell you, or do you want to hear it from him?”
“Tell me yourself. I’m angry on da-dee’s behalf right now.”
“Okay. It’s really stupid, you have been warned.” He takes a big inspiration, before launching himself. “Apparently, da-dee is scared because Cas is thirteen, and –” he is using finger quotes “‘still a kid’, and da-dee’s son, so it’s going to be hard for him to be a father this young. Moreover it isn’t a planned pregnancy and da-dee feels ‘old, broken and used’. So he’s obviously very nervous. And Cas wanted to tell him that if he really wasn’t feeling okay to have kids now, or even ever, he could get an abortion from a physician and Cas would help him get one as his alpha, and that they could never have kids if Dean didn’t want to. Instead what came out was ‘I could get you to have an abortion as your alpha’.”
“What? How could he possibly miss the mark like that?”
“Because he was distressed just thinking about Dean rejecting him, or about losing his pups. I think he sounded heartless because he was trying to distance himself from his feelings.”
Jimmy groans aloud. He knew it was something dumb like that.
“Okay, go coach him up on how to say what you just said to me, I’ll try to convince da-dee to give him a chance to explain himself.”
It takes a lot of I swear it’s just a misunderstanding and it will be alright if you both just talk without expecting the worst to happen before Dean is ready to let anyone other than Jimmy to enter the bathroom (which is now very warm, covered in bath towels and dirty clothes, making an emergency nest from whatever the omega could find).
Emmanuel and he stay right outside of the bathroom, keeping an eye on the troubled mates to make sure they don’t fail at communicating again. Castiel is standing just inside, probably wanting to let Dean have his space. But the omega is apparently imagining the worst thing possible if his face is anything to go by.
Jimmy really hopes they’ll stop being idiots soon because all this drama and stress hormones can’t be good for a fetus.
Shit, he is thinking like a stereotypical omega again. But this isn’t about him, so he focuses on his brother again. He can worry about his own hormonal urges later.
Castiel inhales deeply, before launching himself.
“I love you and part of me wants you barefoot and pregnant, but more than anything I want you to be happy. I know you didn’t choose to have us, and I don’t want to be like Michael who used you like that, so I’m ready to help you get an abortion if you want one because you’re more important than anything, even if the idea of anyone hurting my pup makes me want to scream and tear everything apart.”
He looks ready to have his heart torn out, strong yet resolved.
On the other side of the room, Dean is visibly flabbergast with his mouth hanging open.
“I –”
It takes him a few tries before he finds his voice again, clearly not prepared for what Cas told him.
“I want to keep my pups. I want to keep all the pups we could ever have together.” It’s like a weight is immediately lifted from Castiel’s shoulder. “But I’m scared because you’re thirteen, and I want you to have the time to be a teenager, not a teenage-father like I was. You should be enjoying junior high and high-school like those stupid teenagers on tv, not worrying about a pregnant mate and pups.”
“I want you, I just want to be the best alpha I can for you, and to take care of our family.”
Dean is crying now, but it doesn’t seem to be sadness. It’s more relief than anything.
“I love you too, baby alpha.”
Castiel looks like he has trouble restraining himself from moving. Dean extends his right hand towards him.
“Come here.”
Suddenly the dam’s been opened, and he’s rushing to his mate faster than either brothers have seen.
Castiel straddles Dean’s lap and cradles his head between his hands.
“I love you, I love you, I love you” They start franticly kissing each other, before hugging like their lives depend on it, staying silent, simply enjoying each other’s scent and warmth.
Emmanuel nudges his shoulder, whispering “I think they’re okay now, we should let them have some time.”
“Yeah.”
They have been settled on the couch reading for less than five minutes when Emmanuel sniffs they air.
He turn his head towards the hallway, sniffing again.
“Oh, come oooooon.”
“What?”
Then Jimmy hears it. Not quite silent moaning is coming from inside the house and yep, that's dad I just heard. He gets up and goes to put on his shoes and jacket.
“I don’t know about you but I’m not staying here listening to them”
“Me either. Do you want to go to Balthazar’s?”
“Anywhere away from here, please.”
Later that night, once the boys are back at home, they get pizza delivered because Dean is too tired to cook.
Receiving their six pizzas (because since they presented, the alphas of the house have been wolfing food down), they settle on the couch to eat while watching the news (a new couch, because the last one had stains that simply weren’t tolerable).
“By the way, I’m honestly happy for you two, but please refrain from having loud sex when we are in hearing distance. It was quite disturbing for us to smell and hear you from the living room.”
Dean and Castiel are furiously blushing, eyes locked on their pizza.
“Duly noted.”
Jimmy is snickering when something occurs to him. Something big, even if it’s just semantics. He is scrunching his nose, before asking “So are we going to be uncles, or big brothers?
“Huuuuuh…”
Dean and Castiel look each other, then back at him, at loss for words. Emmanuel is the one to decide.
“Since we’re both legally of age, and they’re going to be our brother’s pups, I think we should be considered uncles. Moreover, they’re going to be genetically very close to us since we’re identical triplets.”
Jimmy muses the idea before agreeing. “Uncles it is, then.” And everyone goes back to eating and listening to the journalist talking about a sordid case. Some alpha who mated with five omegas, getting rid of every alpha and beta pregnancies and selling the omega a few days after they were born. He apparently got very rich.
As the journalist finishes explaining the legal technicalities of the case, and Dean mutes the television.
“Boys, there is something you need to understand, all three of you.”
They all look up at him, gulping their current mouthful of pizza but not biting again.
“No matter what your father did, no matter how it came to happen,”
Dean is very serious compared to a few minutes earlier, and the triplets pick up on it, listening closely.
“You are the most beautiful thing that happened in my life, and I never regretted having you. Not for one second.”
Jimmy drops his pizza back in the carton and lurches at Dean, hugging him with everything he has. Because his dad noticed he was nervous about being a bad reminder of their alpha-father. Because his dad is awesome like that, and knows what to say when it’s needed.
Suddenly there is a heavy weight on his back, because Emmanuel and Castiel are hugging Dean too, the four of them making a giant, hormonal puppy-pile.