Chapter Text
“Hey Dean,” Uncle Bobby prodded me awake from my slumped position in front of the TV. “Get on up.”
“Not now Unca Bobby,” I murmured groggily, cheek nestled on a crayon, laying on the pile of drawings I’d been making for my mama. “I’s sleepy. Five more minutes.”
Bobby chuckled. “Alright then, kid. I guess if you don’t want to meet your little brother…”
At that, I jolted up, all signs of fatigue vanishing in an instant. “My brother! He’s here? He’s been borned?”
This was the news I’d been waiting for all night, why Bobby had let me stay up past my bedtime, though from the collection of half-finished drawings I don’t think I’d made it that much later than usual.
He was here! He was here! It was all I’d wanted, what I’d prayed for. A little brother. A little brother to play with so I wouldn’t feel so alone.
“Hold up just a second, champ,” Bobby said, grabbing hold of my shoulders to keep my three-year-old little body from zooming around the room. “He’s not born just yet, but your dad just called and said they’re prepping your mama for surgery. In another hour he’ll be here.”
I was ecstatic. “Can we meet him? Can we meet him, Unca Bobby?”
“Yes we can, champ,” he beamed at me, scratching my head. “Why don’t you grab some of those pictures for your mama and the gift we got for your brother, and I’ll take you down to the hospital.”
All I could do was grin, rushing about the room, grabbing everything I needed before taking my uncle by the hand and leading him out the door.
The drive to the hospital was quick. Bobby had an apartment downtown, which was much closer to the hospital than our home in the suburbs and was why dad had dropped me off there rather than having Bobby come watch me from our house. I was glad for multiple reasons, as Bobby had a nicer TV than we did and let me watch cartoons whenever I wanted.
I was too excited to keep up a conversation, gripping the stuffed owl Bobby and I had picked out from the toy store for my new brother and shaking. I was going to have a brother! I whispered a thank you to the angels, and as soon as we’d parked I’d bolted out the door, running towards the entryway and my new best friend.
“He’s gonna be smart,” I said, gripping Bobby’s hand as he led me down the gleaming, white halls of the nice, new hospital, not the VA hospital where we usually went. “And like trucks and racecars. We’ll fight monsters together, and play tag and hide and seek.”
I’d been listing all of the things I wanted from my brother as Bobby walked with me down the halls and up the elevator. Dad would have probably just lifted me so he could get places faster, but Bobby let me walk and set the pace, and I liked that about him. He also let me press the buttons on the elevator and didn’t yell at me when I hit the wrong one like Dad would have.
“The doctors said he’s big, and that’s why it’s taking mama so long with labor,” I continued. “I hope he grows up big and strong like daddy. I hope he’s an alpha like daddy, too. Daddy doesn’t want another omega like me.”
The reason why my mama was having the baby here rather than at the VA was partly because of that. Daddy had called mama’s doctor, wanting to make sure that the baby wouldn’t be like me, and he hadn’t liked the answer, shouting swear words that he usually only used when he was drunk.
I’d been hiding on the other side of the door frame so he couldn’t see me. When I was around, he tried not to say anything bad about omegas, but I knew he was disappointed that I hadn’t been the alpha he’d expected. Even mama wasn’t happy about it, the fact that I wasn’t a boy in the same way as daddy, that, while I had a peepee, I also had a gigi like her. She told me life was hard for omegas, even harder for boy omegas, and that’s why I couldn’t tell anybody else what I was.
I asked the angels why they’d made me an omega, but they didn’t answer. I only hoped this time Daddy would get the alpha he wanted so he’d be happy. Maybe then he wouldn’t drink so much.
Bobby stopped and looked down at me with a frown. I froze, tears starting to come as I thought that maybe he was going to get mad at me or hit me for saying I was an omega out loud, but he didn’t. He knelt down so that he was at eye level with me and spoke.
“Listen here, kid,” he said. “Your daddy is wrong. Omegas are the most special people on this planet, and if your daddy doesn’t appreciate you for the gift you are, then it just shows that he doesn’t deserve you.”
“But why?” I asked, rubbing my cheek with my sleeve as I sniffled. “Why are omegas the most special? Alphas are big and strong and protect people. What do omegas do?”
“You want to see what omegas do?” he asked, his frown only deepening. “Come here and I’ll show you.”
He picked me up, raising my small body until I was sitting on his shoulders.
“Look,” he said and pointed to the windows in front of him.
“Babies?” I said, staring into the nursery before us.
“Do you know where babies come from?” he asked.
I frowned, thinking that a stupid question. We were on our way to see a baby be born. How could I not know!
“From mommies,” I answered him.
“And what kind of people are mommies?” he asked.
Screwing up my cheeks, I thought deeply. “Ladies.”
“Not just ladies,” Bobby said.
What did he mean by that, I wondered. Boys couldn’t have babies, could they? Then I thought about the part I had that most boys didn’t.
“Omegas?”
“Yep, buddy,” he said. “Omegas can get pregnant regardless of primary sex. When you get older, you’ll be able to have a baby of your own.”
I felt a warm feeling in my belly and smiled. “I think I’d like a baby.”
Bobby brought me into the crook of his arm. “I think you’ll be a good mommy one day, buddy. You’ll have lots of practice helping your mommy with your little brother. You want to go and meet him?”
I nodded fiercely. “Uh-huh! Please, Unca Bobby!”
“Okay, kiddo. Let’s go!”
As we made our way past the nurse’s station and towards mama’s room, I was so lost thinking about my brother, what he’d look like, how he would behave, that I didn’t pay any mind to the shouting at the end of the hall or the nurses and residents running in and out of the recovery room. Luckily, Bobby was more observant.
“Something’s going on,” he said, stirring me from my daydreaming.
As I raised my head, looking down the hall, I could see a familiar figure at the center of the turmoil, and my blood ran cold.
I’d never seen daddy that angry.
“Dean, I need you to wait here for me while I go see what’s wrong, ok?” he said, staring down at me, waiting for me to nod my assent, and then he was off.
Where was mama? Where was my baby brother? Were they still in the operating room, having a “Caesarian” or something? Why was daddy yelling so loudly, and–Oh God! Did he just punch one of the doctors?
I knew Uncle Bobby had told me to stay here in the hall, but I needed to know what was going on. Bobby was holding back daddy and therefore distracted, so I took my chance to move further down the hall, sneaking into the large room.
All of the adults were running around or trying to calm down daddy. One lady came out from behind a curtain carrying white towels completely soaked in blood. Another was calling for a coroner. Where was mama?
I looked around, trying to pick out anything meaningful from the chaos of sound around me.
“They killed her. They fucking killed her!” Daddy was yelling.
“John, they’re going to tranq you if you don’t calm down. Breathe, brother, breathe! You can’t bring her back by fighting,” Bobby said.
Was mama dead?
Another lady in blue scrubs came out from behind the curtains carrying more bloody linens.
In the midst of the mayhem, I stepped across the floor, avoiding bodies who didn’t notice me. Slipping around the curtain, I saw a large bed that was occupied by a pale person who wasn’t moving. Their face was blocked off by a sheet, as was most of the rest of them, aside from their belly, which had been slashed open, revealing the insides of the human body.
I was reminded of the dear carcass daddy had brought home that time he and Bobby had gone hunting, and I knew that this person, whoever they were, was dead.
It was then that the person’s arm fell from where it had been covered by the sheet, revealing glossy, pale nails and a curling tattoo about the wrist that I recognized.
“Mama?” I murmured.
Before I could walk forward, take that hand that had held me, washed me, cared for me my whole life, before I could even cry, I heard a sound that would change my life forever.
Baby… My baby…
A wail. A baby’s wail coming from the bassinet against the opposite wall. His wail.
My brother. My little brother.
Something within me awakened, some urge to provide for and protect. If mama wasn’t here to help him. I would.
And as he cried, somehow I knew, without words, without language. I knew what the baby wanted, and my body was prepared to give it.
Gasping at the sudden painful pressure in my chest, I reached up to touch my nipple underneath the cheap sweater I was wearing to find that it was leaking.
That same part of me, the omega part, I supposed, that had me wanting to care for him, pulled me across the floor, had me stripping out of my shirt, grabbing my little brother from out of the crib, and holding him up to my chest.
He was the most beautiful baby I’d ever seen, and my heart soared as I stared into his little eyes.
“Hey there, squirt,” I said. “It’s okay, baby. I’ve got you. I’ll always have you.”
He stopped his crying, looking up at me with recognition. He knew me, even then. He knew I would love him for as long as I lived. He reached his stubby little hands up to grab me, still sticky with that white stuff newborns are covered in, grabbing at my cheek with the sweetest of toothless smiles. Love at literal first sight. My baby.
I helped him find my nipple, my inner omega knowing what to do even if my conscious mind couldn’t understand. As his mouth latched onto my sensitive orifice, I keened, feeling a previously unknown pleasure, and through the heady rapture, I noticed a wet heat coming from my gigi, some watery substance leaking into my panties.
It was only then that I was finally noticed.
The nurses talked at me, and then to each other, something about “early carrier” and “imprinting”, but I didn’t understand them. They had originally tried to take the baby away from me, but after seeing that he was feeding from me, they’d stopped. In the end, they directed me to an armchair, helping me hold him better, which I was grateful for, as my little brother was big, almost 11 pounds, and I wasn’t much bigger than that, myself, and was getting tired.
After more shouting and the doors slamming, I looked up to see Uncle Bobby come in looking exhausted, sporting a swollen cheek from where daddy must have punched him. Turning from mama’s body to me and my brother, I could see tears welling in his eyes.
“Oh, Dean,” he looked down to see my baby continuing to suckle from me. “Thank god you didn’t listen,” he chuckled. “Don’t know what this little one would have done without his big brother.”
I smiled, petting his little head, letting him wrap his tiny fingers around one of mine.
Bobby crossed to us, kneeling down, petting my head and looking at the little boy in my arms, who, noticing someone else’s approach, had released my nipple to look back at his uncle and frown.
“Well, it looks like you got that baby a little sooner than expected,” he said.
I nodded, letting the tears flow. “I miss mama,” I said.
“I miss your mama, too, buddy,” he said, reaching up to pet my cheek only to stop after the angry squawk coming from the now irate and wiggling bundle in my arms.
Bobby laughed, a rich, mirthful chuckle, putting his hands up like he was in a stickup. “Alright, little alpha. I won’t touch your omega.”
The baby seemed to calm down as soon as Bobby stood back, still eyeing him warily, but I was deeply confused.
“What’s wrong, baby?” I asked him. “Unca Bobby is good. He won’t hurt you.”
“Dean, it’s not himself he’s worried about. It’s you,” Bobby said.
“But…” I said, letting out an involuntary moan as my brother latched onto my nipple once more, Bobby watching us with a quizzical expression. “Why? You weren’t trying to hurt me.”
“That won’t matter to him,” Bobby answered. “You got your wish, by the way. That boy is clearly an alpha, and he sees you as his omega. He’s not going to let any alpha get near you. At least not until he knows who he can trust.”
I frowned, unsure of how to take this. “What about Daddy?” I asked.
Bobby’s expression soured. “Hopefully this little guy never trusts that son-of-a-bitch.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” Bobby sighed, running his hands through his hair. “Just forget I said anything. Your daddy’s a… complicated man… Anyways, got any idea what you want to name the little guy?”
I blanched. “Me?” I asked. “I get to name him?”
“Well, I don’t see your dad anywhere, and seeing as you’re the only one taking care of him, I feel like you deserve the honor.”
I loured. None of this was what I’d expected. Mama was dead. Daddy was gone. If it weren’t for Bobby, I would be all alone. I hadn’t even been able to give my presents, and that’s when I realized.
“Sammy,” I said.
It was the name the stuffed owl had come with.
“Sammy?” Bobby pondered. “I like it. Sammy.”
“Baby Sammy,” I echoed, cooing at that sweet face.
Bobby sighed, watching me and Sammy cuddling. My little baby. The center of my heart.
“You’ve got the best big brother ever, you know that?” Bobby said to the baby. “You better be good for him, you hear.”
Sammy’s eye’s found his uncle, glaring and thrusting his hands against me, as if saying, “Mine!”
“I think you two are going to be all right.”
I nodded. So long as I had my Sammy, I could survive anything. So long as I had my Sammy, I was complete.