You were downstairs in the kitchen, cutting strawberries into small pieces for your kid’s snack, humming under your breath. Something you and Dean had worked damn hard to build.

Upstairs, Dean was supposed to be watching your three-year-old. Just a few minutes of keeping him busy while you prepped food. But when Sam called—urgent, as always—Dean had stepped out of the room. Just to answer. Just for a second.

It only takes a second.

“Yeah, alright, I’ll look into it,” he muttered into the phone, pacing halfway down the hall. “But I’m not—”

Silence from the bedroom.

The kind of silence that felt wrong.

“Hey, buddy?” he called, stepping back into the room. And that’s when he saw it.

His son. Standing by the bed. Holding something far too heavy for his tiny hands. Dean’s gun.

The one he thought he’d hidden well enough—wedged under his pillow out of habit, out of paranoia, out of a lifetime of not being able to fully shut it off.

“Hey!” His voice ripped through the room. “Put that down!”

The toddler jumped, eyes wide, lower lip trembling as the weapon clattered to the carpet. Dean was across the room in two steps, scooping it up, flicking the safety back on with shaking fingers. His hands were trembling. His breath shallow.

“What the hell were you doing?!” he shouted, voice too loud, too sharp, too angry. “You don’t ever—ever—touch that! Do you hear me?! You could’ve—goddammit!”