CHAPTER 461: CHAPTER 461: DEAN

Marin swept into the room with the kind of brisk efficiency reserved for medical emergencies and Fitzgeralt-related chaos. She set down her bag, took one look at Dean’s flushed face and trembling hands, and sighed like a woman already drafting a report in her head.

"Vitals first," she said, snapping on gloves. "Then we stabilize him. Trevor, lift his hair. Lucas, cold pack on the back of the neck."

Sebastian stood aside, the rare image of someone attempting not to be in the way.

Dean groaned as the cold touched his skin. "That’s freezing."

"That’s the point," Marin replied dryly as she checked his pulse. "You’re running hot enough to set off the smoke alarms."

Sebastian snorted quietly.

Dean glared at him with bleary irritation. "Stop... being here."

"I live here," Sebastian countered. "Unfortunately for both of us."

Marin shot him a sharp look. "If you irritate my patient, I will eject you personally."

Sebastian shut up immediately, proving he had at least some survival instinct.

Trevor smoothed a hand down Dean’s back, grounding him. "Deep breaths."

Dean tried, inhaling shakily as if even that was too much effort. "Everything smells too strong," he muttered. "I don’t... I don’t like it."

Lucas’s hand was gentle against his cheek. "It’ll settle. It’s just the opening surge."

"Feels like... like everything around me is shouting."

"That’s the hormones," Marin said, attaching another monitor. "Your secondary gender is activating. Your receptors are firing off like fireworks. Your body wants information, and it wants it aggressively."

Dean blinked, struggling to focus. "I don’t want it."

Lucas pressed their foreheads together, a rare gesture that instantly softened the tension in the room. "I know. I didn’t want mine either."

Trevor swallowed quietly, remembering his own manifestation, the chaos, the confusion, and the feeling that the world around him had new edges.

Sebastian watched his brother closely, his expression shifting into something protective and achingly familiar. "Dean," he said softly, "it won’t feel like this forever. I promise."

Dean’s eyes fluttered shut. "But it feels like it now."

Marin adjusted the IV port and began preparing a syringe. "This will help. It won’t stop the transformation, but it’ll make it manageable. You’ll be able to rest."

Dean nodded weakly.

Lucas brushed his hair back. "You’re doing perfect."

Dean huffed a humorless laugh. "I bit a pillow."

Sebastian crossed his arms. "That’s nothing. I bit a door once."

Trevor blinked. "You what?"

"That was at the academy," Sebastian said quickly.

Trevor stared at Sebastian like he had just confessed to a felony. "A door."

Sebastian lifted a shoulder. "In my defense, it startled me."

Lucas blinked. "How does a door startle you?"

"It opened aggressively," Sebastian said, offended that this required explanation. "Very aggressively."

Marin didn’t even look up from the IV line. "He bit it hard enough to chip enamel. I had to give him a tetanus booster."

Trevor dragged a hand down his face like he wasn’t one of the DNA providers of the chaos. "God help us."

Dean let out a soft, pained sound somewhere between a groan and a laugh. "I don’t want to bite anything."

"You say that now," Sebastian said, green eyes glinting with mischief, "but manifestation gets weird."

Marin pointed her syringe at him. "Sebastian. Hush."

He hushed.

Dean’s breathing trembled again, the kind of shake that came from the body trying to fight instincts with willpower alone.

Trevor moved closer and set a soft hand against the back of his neck. "You’re safe. Breathe with me."

Dean followed the rhythm, though each inhale seemed to scrape along the inside of his ribs. "Everything... feels... wrong."

Lucas’s thumb brushed slow arcs against his cheek. "That’s because you’re overwhelmed. Your senses are wide open right now. Every scent, every sound, every temperature shift is hitting you at once."

Dean clenched his jaw. "I hate it."

"You won’t forever," Lucas murmured. "It’s just the first storm."

Marin finished adjusting the drip and pressed the medication into the line. "You’re lucky," she said. "Your family survived this enough times to know how to deal with it. I had to deal with a new manifestation patient last week who screamed at a lamp for breathing."

Dean blinked up at her, purple eyes foggy. "Lamps don’t breathe."

"And yet he insisted," Marin said. "Be grateful you’re not that dramatic."

Sebastian snorted. "He might be."

Dean glared at him again, though the fire was duller now, fading as the medication began to pull the edge off his senses.

Trevor stroked his back, steady and slow. "Just relax. Let it work."

Dean swayed a little, his eyelids fluttering. "Feels... heavy... like my head’s full."

Lucas carded gentle fingers through his hair. "That’s normal. Let it happen."

Dean’s voice dropped into a smaller sound. "Don’t... don’t go."

Trevor’s hand tightened. "We’re not moving."

Lucas kissed his temple. "We’ll stay right here."

Sebastian adjusted the chair, coming closer. "I’m staying too. Someone has to make sure you don’t bolt out a window."

Dean made a weak, offended noise. "I’m not a cat."

"You’re very catlike right now," Sebastian replied.

Marin gave him a look that promised consequences. "Sebastian."

"Right," he said quietly. "Supportive. Got it."

Dean breathed out slowly, the tension melting from his shoulders as the medication softened the worst of the surge. His head dipped against Lucas’s shoulder, the first true sign that the pain and panic were finally loosening their grip.

Trevor brushed his thumb over the back of his son’s hand. "There you go," he whispered. "You’re doing so well."

Dean murmured something unintelligible, his voice sinking into sleep.

Lucas leaned his forehead against Trevor’s. "He’s coming through the worst of it."

Trevor nodded gently. "He’s strong."

Sebastian folded his arms and watched his brother with a softness he rarely let anyone see. "He always was. Didn’t know how to show it yet."

Marin took a slow breath, observing the monitors. "He’ll sleep now. Two hours at least. When he wakes, the world won’t feel so loud."

Sebastian sank deeper into his chair. "Good. Because if he tries to fight gravity again, I’m dragging him back down."

Lucas gave him a look. "You’re very confident for someone who lost a fight with a door."

Sebastian opened his mouth, closed it again, and muttered, "It was an aggressive door."

Trevor chuckled quietly.

Dean slept, finally peaceful.

And for the first time since the fever began, the tension in the room eased, relieved, like a family weathering a familiar storm and knowing, without doubt, that this one would pass too.