This is the 13-plus version, with the juicy parts cut out. For the full M version, please visit me on AO3!

Dagon pushes the envelope, satisfyingly thick, into the pocket of her black leather jacket.

"Hope that helps," she calls to the retreating back of her buyer. Her breath forms a wisp on the icy air. It doesn't feel right, ending this transaction at a handoff in an unlit parking lot on a night colder than the rear end of Hell, but as soon as she says it she feels stupid. "Or, y'know. Whatever."

"I'm sure it will." As though all of this were on the up and up, the beta woman turns back with a you're my new bestie-type smile. She keeps her gloved hand in her trench coat pocket, probably curled around the trio of medication cards she just bought. Each one is punched with a foil-sealed blister containing a single blue pill. She palmed them so casually she impressed Dagon, who honestly didn't think this cow-splat of a city could handle such a soul; between herself and her conscience, this chick knew who was boss. "It's been a pleasure, Dagon. It is just Dagon, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Just Dagon." One name, though it's not what's printed on her driver's license. Life's complicated, and she's not one to lug old associations around. She's been using the name of an ancient Mesopotamian god turned Biblical demon for so long that she probably wouldn't answer if someone used her birth name.

Not that the other woman is asking. "I hope I can count on you again in future, then, Dagon."

She shrugs, focusing on her nails, short and smoothed round and painted black the way she likes them. She's not sure she appreciates the sense of wicked kinship she's feeling at the moment. Plus, she can smell the other woman's partner. The chill off the river, fouled by runoff from farms and slaughterhouses upstream, can't mask omega pheromones, though she doubts this "Alex" is aware of them. The omega is almost ripe, too, the cycle markers standing out sharp and strong. The scent irritates her, making her fantasize about stabbing something. Or someone. Forced abstinence is a special brand of torture for an alpha. "Yeah, whatever. Maybe."

It's not as though stealing from her employer is easy. Pharmaceutical companies tend to frown on misappropriation of product. But come on! Thousands of tiny blue pills like those she gave to Alex are just sitting there, packed away in the warehouses, waiting for release once the ban on Ctrl-Alt-Del lifts, so she helped herself. Skimmed a bit off the top. It took weeks of planning, and a lot of creative editing of the files, and then the actual smuggling. There's no way to know if she can pull off a job like this a second time. It pays well, however, if the fat envelope in her possession is any indication. Maybe she could branch out.

Alex grins. "How about I text you."

" 'K, fine. I guess."

"All right. Bye, now!"

Neither of them shut off their engines. Dagon slips inside her Z-28, low and black and rumbling like a panther in a dim spot between diffuse streetlights. She doesn't shift into gear until Alex's trim silver SL 550 zooms jauntily away as if its driver doesn't have a care in the world.

She lets out a heavy breath, but then grimaces on the inhale. Ugh, the omega's stink wafted in with her. The other alphas at work nicknamed the heat-suppressant pills "blue balls" for a reason; it can curb the symptoms of heat, but it can't entirely erase the scent. Ctrl-Alt-Del changes it instead, mixes a hint of sterility in there, confusing alpha instincts and leaving them high but dry, like desert sand. Dagon flips the heat to full blast so that it blows her hair from her face, and then points the Camaro's nose toward home. That Alex chick paid five thousand dollars for a month's worth of blue balls for her pampered lover, and now Dagon's five grand up on the world. She finally has the means to alleviate some of Kelly's anxiety and depression, which have grown along with her belly.

Speaking of Kelly, where is she?

Gran's farmhouse is brightly lit, and smells of sugar and spice. It's quiet, though. Dagon scowls at the uninhabited living room. Nothing is out of place, nothing appears used. The kitchen shows no sign anyone was in there baking, either practicing for next week or maybe just filling the lonely hours.

"Yo, Rosemary! Complete with baby! You here?" she calls. She sets aside the bag of Chinese takeout so she can remove her heels and slip out of her jacket. "Come out, come out, wherever you are!"

Nothing answers, not even whispers of tedious Thanksgivings past. Huh. Usually that crack fires Kelly up like nothing else. Dagon ventures farther inside. "You better be here, girl. You're supposed to be on bed rest."

Nesting, those smug "What to Expect" books call it. Steadily, whenever she isn't looking, Kelly changes something in the miserable old house, covering Dagon's miserable old memories. She swapped Gran's threadbare furniture for modern, worn-out appliances for shiny and new, stained wallpaper for fresh paint, damaged hardwood for plush carpet, heavy drapery for smooth curtains. A ceiling fan. Clean light switch and outlet plates. Matching doorknobs. Signs of Kelly's handiwork are everywhere, but the woman herself is nowhere to be seen.

Dagon deposits their supper on the dining room table. It's not like all these improvements are cheap. But now Dagon has the cash Kelly needs. There's no reason for her housemate to hide. She closes her eyes and inhales, but all she gets are discordant layers of lo mein and pumpkin pie. Kelly is beta. She can't be tracked by scent. As Dagon grumbles over this fact yet again, she hears a noise from upstairs.

A faint voice. Feminine, familiar.

Kelly's talking to someone.

Frustrated rage swells up and crashes in faster than an ocean breaker. She's talking to someone! Abandoning all else, Dagon rushes to the stairs. Her anger bursts like sparks from a roman candle behind her retinas, spurring her on and up. The whole reason they're here in this creaky old farmhouse, the whole reason she asked Kelly to move in with her, is to keep her safe. To keep her damn baby safe.

Did Kelly finally break? She may be strong—or rather, stubborn—about some things, but she can be pathetically weak about others. She's so weepy nowadays, she might as well be omega. Is it her hormones? Or the bed rest, about which she's vocally unhappy? She has so much time home alone to overthink and agonize over literally everything. It would be just like her to give in to her guilty conscience and call that goody two-shoes ex of hers so she can confess her sins—

Goddamnit, Dagon did not go through the last eight months working her butt off giving Kelly the shelter and care she deserves to have her go crawling back to another alpha at the finish line!

The wind rattles the black windows on the landing, but Kelly's voice is clearer here. Huh. Why does she sound like that? Is she reading a book out loud or something? Dagon steps into the wedge of light originating from within the unfinished nursery, and then she pauses to reassess her position. She goes in there guns blazing, and Kelly will retreat into her rigid shell of defiance. Or throw another tantrum that will leave her gasping and white-lipped, clutching her heart and her belly like last time.

Slapping on a teasing smile, Dagon pushes the door all the way inward and leans her shoulder against the frame. "Hey, girl. Making a phone call?"

"Oh. Hi." Kelly, though she sounds choked up, doesn't sound alarmed. As if every motion exhausts her, she reaches to switch off her tablet, propped on the desk in prime video-recording position, and then pushes in the chair. "I was just, um, leaving a message. For Jack."

Her puffy eyes and flushed cheeks don't make Dagon happy, but they do mollify her. It's so hilariously easy to tell when Kelly is trying to lie, and she isn't. Not this time. Dagon lets out her breath and relaxes her smile.

Kelly smiles back at her, all trusting and oblivious, completely unaware of the pheromones meant to entice and invite and seduce that cling to her hair, her flowery dress, her pale skin. They float, invisible, intangible, and they may as well be bouncing off shrink wrap for all the good they're doing.

Dagon closes her eyes, this time to get her longing and her desire under control. This isn't the time. Kelly is carrying another alpha's baby and keeping it secret from him. She doesn't have the headspace to recognize or return Dagon's feelings. Not yet. But she will, once the bundle of joy is out and breathing on his own.

Just a little longer.

Dagon saunters into the unfinished room, smirking at the assembled and stocked changing table, the neat stacks of diapers and wipes and the blanket of soft yellow and tangerine. Oh! and the little lamb plushie. It's all so gosh darn precious. Gag. But hey, whatever makes the girl happy. "Is there some reason you won't be giving Jack this message personally?"

Kelly plucks a thumb drive from the tablet, speaks to it as it sits in her palm. "I wanted to leave something for him, in case I . . ."

She doesn't finish. Her thick, reddish hair curtains her face. Her hand slides over her stomach, her mind clearly on the innocent life beneath her loving palm. "I have to tell him, Dagon," she whispers, no longer talking about her unborn son. "He has the right to know."

Winchester. Dagon crosses the room and folds Kelly's shoulders into her embrace. She squeezes, wishing she could impart a fraction of her own determination to the frail woman in her arms. "We talked about this."

"We did." Kelly sounds sleepy. Her head plops onto Dagon's shoulder. Her hand continues to rub tight circles. She's constantly doing that. Soothing her child, soothing herself.

"Well, maybe we need to say it again," Dagon says, struggling to speak nicely when she wants to scream at Kelly's stupidity. "Jack is your baby. You don't want to hand your baby to a man who doesn't deserve you. A man who made no effort to find out how you are, where you are, for the past eight months. Oh, did I say man? Sorry. I meant self-centered boy. He was content to sit back and let you go! If you call him, if you let him in, he'll take Jack away from you, and you'll never be free of him or that weird family of his."

Dagon presses her hand over Kelly's, stilling the endless motion, cutting off her half-hearted protest. "I can protect you. I can protect your son."

"And if I die? You can't stop that no matter how hard you try."

"You won't die." Dagon grins down at Kelly's wide green cat eyes, sunken in their bags, the skepticism and despair that show so clearly there. "We're following doctor's orders, aren't we? We're doing everything we can. You and that baby are going to come out of this just fine. I promise."

Though Dagon speaks the words of comfort, her thoughts tread a different path. Truth is, the pregnancy has not been kind to Kelly. The vomiting, the swelling of her face and ankles, the blurriness in her vision, the fatigue and the dizziness, the migraines she has no choice but to suffer through unaided. It's put tremendous strain on her body and her mental health. They're fighting the odds and complications brought on by the ash sickness she suffered as a child, but right from the start, she refused to entertain any course of action that did not involve her bringing her Jack into the world. The law, skewed toward boosting the country's birthrate, is on her side.

And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Fact is, Kelly may not be strong enough for this. Dagon might not be strong enough for this. If she had her way, she would chain the stubborn mother-to-be to a bed in the basement, where she could force rest and nutrition into her. Where she wouldn't come home one day to find her submerged in their antique claw-footed tub, both her body and the blood-tinged water rapidly cooling. Dagon's no fool. Kelly's been rocky for months. Suicide isn't out of the realm of possibility. If confining her would save her, if it would keep her alive and by her side, Dagon would do it.

It's amazing how appealing the mental image is, how vivid the handcuffs and Kelly's peacefully sleeping form are in her mind's eye. She dares to bury her nose in Kelly's hair, breathing in the sweet scent of her shampoo, searching for the pheromones, for the alpha-drugging chemicals, for the high that isn't there. "Winchester is not going to ruin this for you. No matter what, Jack is going to have a loving mother. Best case scenario, he'll have two. I'm not abandoning either of you. I'll always be here. You don't have to run anymore."

At that Kelly pulls away, folding her blue cardigan closed. Agitated, annoyed, she paces the small room. "Do you think I wanted this to happen?"

Why is every interaction between them turning into a fight these days? How much more can Dagon do? Resentment swells in her throat, forming into sullen words. "So you think I'm the bad guy in all this. Please."

"Of course not." Kelly sniffles, casts her a scathing look through lashes clumped together by tears. She cradles her belly in both of her arms, rubbing, stroking, petting. "He used me, Dagon, but I love this child."

"That's right," Dagon purrs, coming close again. "Your baby's a little angel, just like I've been saying. He's going to do everything he can to make sure he and his mommy come out of this alive."

The waterworks intensify, and she decides to leave it there. Any more and her kind words will have the opposite effect. But Kelly's so beautiful, weepy mess or not, because of the glowing look she gives Dagon, like Dagon is her literal lifeline.

Dagon smirks. That's right, she tells herself. Kelly needs her. Not the cop, not anybody else in the world. Just her.

xXx

Mary Winchester scowls out the front windows, their old, discolored blinds drawn up. Lines of snow, scoured off the ground by the wind, blow horizontally across the windowpanes, obscuring her view of the gray November sky.

Seriously, this weather is such nonsense. She was supposed to spend her holiday break with Uncle Sammy and Aunt Jess and her cousin Robert. She was supposed to be preparing for next semester on their back patio under blue California skies and temps in the sixties, not exiled to SoDak where it's a real possibility her nose hairs will freeze the instant she steps outside.

She stretches, then reaches for her Stanford pullover to snuggle deep in its oversized folds. Granddad's cluttered library is warm, musty, nostalgic. It reminds her of her high school years. She used to take refuge here of an evening, buried in her studies at the big oak desk with its scarred leather blotter, preferring the bustle and interruptions of Granddad's constantly ringing phones and his dubious cooking to the squabbling of her little brothers.

A rumble of male voices drifts from the kitchen. Dad used to come up to the house to fetch her after leaving the closing of the garage to Garth, and always ended up on the couch with her, content to comfortably bicker with Granddad until she finished her homework. Sometimes, he would mutter helpful advice around the open mouth of a beer bottle when it became clear she wasn't getting herself unstuck from a problem any time soon.

He inherited one family business on the merit of his skill rather than blood. In spite of his GED and his assertions to the contrary, Dad is every bit as smart as his little brother, the fancy-pants lawyer. She is one of three kids, and the only beta in their family aside from Aunt Jess. The fact that Dad made the effort to look out for her made her feel loved in ways for which she's still grateful. So, with Dad's support and Uncle Sammy's guidance, she's studying to continue the other family business.

She spins her stylus in her fingers, and then swipes up on her tablet, mulling over her Civil Procedure outline. That's not the only thing she and Dad have in common, either. They're both the eldest. The ones in charge. The responsible ones. The second Jimmy made that call, she dropped everything for him. There was no question about it, no hesitation. Bringing her distraught twin home for the holiday was the right thing to do.

She glances at the ceiling. When they arrived yesterday evening, Jimmy holed up in what used to be the kids' room. They're all content to leave him be. It's not like this is anything new. He'll come down when he's ready.

She sighs, rakes her fingers through her hair. Okay, so, it's not new, but maybe it's been a while since it was this extreme. Dad didn't take it well, as evinced by the clatter and exasperated muttering from the kitchen, which sounds more like tussling with a vampire than cooking. And if he didn't take it well, then how's Hunter going to react? He's been a pain in the butt ever since he presented as alpha at fourteen, trying to boss Jimmy around, who's two years older.

Mary flicks a piece of lint off her keyboard. Das says that sort of behavior is instinctual and fighting it is about as futile as exterminating an ant colony one worker at a time. Jimmy won't let his brother take it too far. She just has to trust them.

They're family. They don't keep secrets. What will be, will be. Determined to focus, she uploads the changes to her file, then opens another. It's not so disagreeable being here, even if half the library is off limits because it's been converted into Granddad's bedroom. If all goes well, she should be able to focus on her Contracts outline and squeeze in a few practice questions this afternoon while Granddad snoozes to the football game in his chair.

Just then, Dad yells from the kitchen, "Mary! Is Hunter here yet?"

"Not yet!" she yells back.

"How long does it take to go to the store?" Dad's voice drops to a grumble, and Das responds in a murmur.

Dishes clink, signaling Das stepping in to help. Traditionally, Thanksgiving dinner is the job of the king, according to him; his doctor's hands, so gentle, are better suited to cleanup. As she hears them contentedly settle into a one-sided argument, Mary smiles. Home will always be home.

The front door judders open, its old hinges protesting the weather. Mary glances up when Hunter turns into the library from the hall.

"What are you doing here?" he blurts, surprised but pleased to see his big sister.

"Hello to you, too," she says, coming for a hug with her arms held straight in front of her.

"Das said you weren't coming this year."

She chopped her hair again. The dark locks bounce around her face in untamable ringlets. He tilts her gently against his side, careful not to whack her with the cloth grocery bag on his wrist.

That's not enough for her. She gives him a two-armed, rib-cracking squeeze, and then she lets go when she does get whacked. "Change in plans, lil' bro! It happens. So how've you been? I haven't seen you in ages."

"Subtle," he teases. The prickle of his brother's soft presence both makes him happy and saddens him. He can guess what prompted the change in plans. "Again, huh? How bad is it this time?"

"Gruesome." Mary rubs her arms through the thick sleeves of her sweatshirt. "He went to the neighbor's to invite them over for drinks. Rodger's a nice enough guy, youngish, got a wife but no kids, we didn't think much of it. Right next door, yeah? Thought they were taking a while, must have got to talking. Then I got this call . . ." Fire blazes behind Mary's expression. "Busted into the house in time to see Jimmy throw salt in Rodger's eyes. Jennie wasn't there, whole place was a wreck. Trail led to the pantry. Jimmy could barely see but that wasn't stopping him from bloodying the bastard's face to match. I had to pull him off and drag him away. He was screaming and calling Rodger a demon and telling me to get out and save myself, the whole bit. It was a nightmare."

"Did anyone call the police?" he asks her bowed head.

She nods, not showing her face, which makes him suspect she's holding in tears. This is her younger twin brother they're talking about, after all. "Some other neighbor heard the noise before we did. Rodger isn't pressing charges. He knows he messed up because Uncle Sammy told him exactly that and that we were taking Jimmy and that he better not try anything or he's setting our whole family on his tail."

Hunter hums knowingly. Less than the words, it was probably Uncle Sammy himself that got Rodger to agree. Six feet five inches of livid and territorial alpha could make a lot of people rethink their life choices. Even another alpha.

"Anyway, Rodger kept whining that he must have been possessed, that he's happily married and he never meant to go after Jimmy. Possessed." Her angry snort sounds remarkably like Uncle Sammy's. "Got started with the drinks early, more like. I don't know what else could turn a boy next door-type into such a monster."

"It's been, what, half a year since the last one?" Hunter can't quell the embarrassment at having to ask, but Mary's faint, understanding smile eases it some.

"Yeah, about. I know you've been dealing with your own stuff, kiddo. It's all right." Neither of them come any closer to the subject of Kelly than that. His sister gazes in the direction of their absent brother. "I really thought he would be able to live his life the way he wants, without all of us breathing down his neck. Then this happens."

They heave sighs in unison.

"Sometime today!" Dad hollers from the kitchen.

Mary snorts again, but this time with laughter. "It's not you. Dad's mad Granddad wouldn't let him make a turducken this year. Said something like, bunch of birds shoved up inside each other, shouldn't play God like that."

"So now Dad's punishing him with—" Hunter pulls a little square tub from the bag, one of the last-minute items he was instructed to bring on his way— "extra virgin olive oil buttery spread?"

Mary finger-guns him. "Yahtzee."

Hunter accepts her push that propels him into the kitchen. He sees Das and Granddad in the dining section leaning over a tablet, their faces serious, as he swings around the counter to deposit the grocery bag next to the sink.

"Awesome, thanks." Dad digs into it and immediately comes up with the fake butter.

"Don't you put that plant-based swill in my food, Dean," Granddad snaps, white hair sticking out from under the stained, frayed trucker's cap pulled low over his brow.

"Hey, Bobby, don't look at me sideways from that Chinese chicken geezer salad I saw you eating yesterday, okay?" Dad retorts, already scooping dollops of the stuff into the potatoes for mashing.

Granddad scowls so hard his mouth disappears under his mustache and beard, but he can't say anything back because it's true. Hunter grins as he gets out of the way of a masterpiece in the making and goes over to shake Granddad's hand. He also accepts the back pat from him.

"Good to see ya, boy," Granddad says. And there it is. The love that ties their eclectic family together, gruffly spoken or thrown around in arguments, without which each and every one of them would feel lost.

Das, however, says nothing. He stares with such intensity at the tablet that Hunter is surprised it doesn't crack in half.

"What's got you so engrossed?" he asks his alpha parent.

Das blinks as though coming back from a long way, blue eyes bright but defined by tired rings, his pale jaw and upper lip shadowed with dark stubble. This is the face of a father Hunter has always known, though Das's hair is more gray than brunet now. He must be pulling some long shifts to look that tired.

He licks dry lips, speaks in a voice even creakier than Granddad's, like he's overused it. "There's been an increase of patients being admitted to the hospital suffering the effects of drug misuse. Specifically, omegas who have been dosed with impure Ctrl-Alt-Del, which is partially a GnRH agonist and shouldn't do this much damage. Since it is banned, however, they or their alphas or family members are seeking other sources, but it seems the supply is being inflated with more harmful drugs such as Fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, and Slick. The results are devastating."

"Yeah, I've seen doctored drugs, in the evidence locker. The stuff we seize is—" Hunter breaks off and casts an uneasy glance into the kitchen, where Dad's back is turned. He's radiating anger and helplessness in equal measure; what with his omega son just coming home from a nasty encounter with an alpha, he's gotta be feeling ultra-sensitive about a topic like this.

Das senses it too. "The word is getting out," he tells his husband in his inflectionless manner, a leftover from his long-past days as a priest in the Catholic Church. "The news is spreading."

"Ctrl is illegal, Cas. Doesn't stop people from taking it." Dad slams a drawer shut. Then he leans over it, hands grasping the counter's edge as though it is the only anchor capable of keeping his emotions in check. "A handful of omegas dying in a hospital isn't going to mean jack to them, not unless it's someone they know, someone they care for. By then, it'll be too late."

Pain skitters across Das's face, and Hunter knows, right then, that this is worse than a handful of people. Das has already lost more than that to whatever is happening with the world, this fresh hell omegas are marching willingly into. Omegas like his brother, maybe, or . . .

Or Rylie Hayes.

The instant her face flashes across his thoughts, everything inside his ribcage clenches. It's a face he's seen several ways. Cheerful and engaging, like in her videos. Suspicious and snarky, like the two times he's been with her in person. Curious and calculating, her scent intoxicating, promising so much—then horrified, ashamed, as she looks up at him from their joined hands.

Then a way he hasn't seen it. Slack and lifeless, hooked up to the beeping, clicking, and whooshing life support that keeps her tied to this world—

"Ctrl. Control. They're an illusion we're all desperate to claim for ourselves, and desperation makes people do funny things. Omegas, we're an inconvenience even to ourselves," Jimmy says from the doorway, Mary hovering at his shoulder.

There are cries of welcome, a general bustle, an air of willingness to let the subject drop and enjoy a holiday spent together, as a family, like they did when he and his siblings were small.

Hunter can't hear a word of it past "we're an inconvenience" through the buzzing in his blood. It's awful that Jimmy would think, let alone say, something like that. Is that how all omegas think? Is that how Rylie thinks? Yet, of the omegas in the room, neither one of them is her. She's out there, living her own life, completely separate from his. He swallows, struggling for orientation, to separate reality from the fictional horrors his own brain insists on showing him.

His brother's pheromones will never appeal to him, not like they do to other alphas, but he can still smell them. He is alpha, and he is programmed to receive.

And because of Rylie Hayes, he's been triggered.

Now he understands what Mary meant by gruesome, and Jimmy bloodying Rodger's face "to match." Hunter stares at the marks, the black eye, the welt scabbed across the bridge of his nose, the swollen, lopsided mouth. He sees the hesitant smile of greeting, but what he detects is the shame, the self-loathing, the anxiety.

Someone did that. Someone hurt his brother. Someone didn't take no for an answer.

Someone laid hands on his family.

Without thinking, he shoves forward. He seizes Jimmy by the clothes and hustles him backward into the library, Mary squawking indignantly at his shoulder.

"Hey! Let him go! What do you think you're doing?"

He doesn't know, so he doesn't let go. He hears their parents scrambling after them, hears Granddad go off like a firecracker as the door swings into his wheelchair, preventing all three of them from following.

While the brothers stumble to a halt, Jimmy watches Hunter with their dad's summery eyes, fringed with dark lashes. The mask of his beaten face gives nothing away but his pheromones tell the true story. "You can't do anything about it, lil' bro."

"I know," Hunter manages to say. "I know that, but—"

But he's furious. Jimmy's looks tend to draw people in, but none of them stay. They always leave, for someone else, for their own selfish reasons. This cycle cuts him a little deeper each time, leaves pieces of him a little more broken.

Jimmy doesn't resist, standing pliant while Hunter's hands begin to shake, fisted in his sweatshirt and the t-shirt beneath. "All alphas are attracted to omega pheromones. No matter who they are, my pheromones are still an omega's pheromones."

"Don't!" Hunter gasps. God, this is worse than before. Every word Jimmy speaks tears at him. "Don't you make excuses for him—"

Because he didn't do this. Not even when shut in a small space with an omega he can't get out of his head, an omega making it clear she didn't find him totally abhorrent, and he didn't do this. "You can't go back there. You need to stay here, with us—"

Mary smacks his shoulder. Better if she smacked his face, but she, at least, is mindful of where they are and why. "What are you barking at him for? He was the one who got attacked! You let him go right now. Now, Hunter!"

Granddad rolls up next to them. He slips off his hat, mangles it in his gnarled hands. After an apologetic glance at Jimmy, he says, "I hate seeing him like this, too, boy, but it's his life. He's the one's gotta live it, whether the mistakes are his or someone else's. You keep your opinions out of it, unless he asks you for your input."

This is different, he thinks wildly. It's different, but he doesn't know how to explain why.

Granddad's brows beetle. "You wanna uphold what your parents fought for with their lives? Then you gotta accept the good with the bad. You try to take away his choice, then we're all right back where we started."

"This isn't about that!" The shaking in his hands transfers to Jimmy so that tremors run through both of them, or maybe he actually shakes his brother, his barely-begun-to-heal brother, and that's a whole new level of distress with which he can't deal. "Dad, Das, c'mon, we can't let this keep happening to him! He's gonna wind up dead!"

Jimmy's face isn't the only one that pales. Mary stumbles back, her hand over her mouth.

"Hunter!"

He can't tell who yells that time. Maybe everyone.

Angry and upset, Jimmy wordlessly extricates himself and then beats a retreat.

His mouth hanging open, his fingers frozen like rusty hinges, Hunter watches him go, listens to his hurried footsteps up the stairs, the squeaky floorboards in the hall, the closing of a door. Shutting them out. All of them. Because of him.

"Oh, nicely done. Do I have to remind you that we're older than you are?" Mary snaps. She, too, deserts him, calling after her twin.

How? he asks himself. How could you say that to his face?

Granddad slaps his thigh with his cap. "Don't come crying to me when your daddy sends you to the hot box postage due." He executes a spin and wheels back into the kitchen, grousing about "damn Winchesters, damn fools every one of 'em."

The adrenaline drains away, leaving lead in his veins, numbness in his extremities. He'd deserve it. He's never acted like this before, lashing out at his family. What on earth possessed him to talk like that to his older brother? In front of their parents?

He knows. It's fear. The fear of losing something that isn't even in his grasp.

Meeting his father's eyes is the wrong thing to do. Dad glares at him, jaw clenched, eyes flinty, nostrils flared.

He looks at his son like he is some other alpha. An intruder. A threat.

Is he?

The question has no answer, or if it does it isn't discernible in the turmoil raging inside him. He realizes he can't stay there. Not after ruining the family holiday.

To renewed shouts, he strides in the opposite direction of his brother and sister.

A/N: Hello, folks! Wowee, was this chapter ever hard for me to finish. I get these grand ideas and realize too late that I'm reaching beyond my capabilities...but I did my best and now I'm handing it over to you!

Some acknowledgments here. First, to my ever-patient and wise beta reader, St4r Hunter. He also gave me some possible names for Ctrl a while ago that I didn't end up choosing, but managed to sneak in here, hehe. You deserve the world, kiddo!

Second, I tried so many combinations of "father" words for Hunter's two dads. I even tried just Dad and Dad, but while that may work in real life (as my research suggests) it's impossible to get clean in writing. But nothing felt right! Until I remembered another fanfic, The Mirror-and it's an EXCELLENT fic, you can find it on A03-where the author cloudyjenn came up with the kee-yootest "father" name for Cas: Das. And I have borrowed it. Stolen it? At least we all know now. I can't claim this piece of genius.

Third, many thanks go to Darwin for helping me figure out the proper tone for getting Hunter to kick himself out of Thanksgiving. It worked, chica!

I think that's it. I hope you liked the chapter!

Thank you so much for reading! Luv ya!

~ Anne