The way in - Part 2
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They call Bobby. Considering Sam's current state, someone needs to watch over them while they're both under and unable to wake up.
Bobby knows of their relationship, even though he's never talking about it and does his best to ignore the fact that the brothers he treats like his sons are having sex together. He knows because he caught them once in the act. Bobby's not the kind to judge, but it's a big taboo they're trampling over. Yet Bobby only asked for them to keep it all between them, never make him feel that awkward again. Sam's best guess for Bobby's detachment is that there's too much sadness and horror in this world to make troubles about love and the one happy relationship the boys get to keep and enjoy.
In return, they do their best not to throw in his face anything that could potentially make him feel uneasy. They're not usually the touchy-feely kind, anyway.
But this time proves harder. Dean hasn't yet overcome his need for one of his hands to ensure constantly that Sam's here, solid and real. Sam can't say he's helping much, staying close to Dean at all times. And they're still having sex every day, most days more than once.
Sam looks Dean in the eyes and it's clear they're both thinking about it as they lie down on their bed, seconds before they drink the dream root. Seconds after, they're somewhere else. They're arguing, the way they did before Sam went to hunt alone and disappeared for almost two days.
They realize at the same time that they don't have to go through this again. Without a word, Sam turns and leaves, certain that this time Dean will follow. And then he finds himself in the motel room again, arguing once more with Dean over where to look for the monster they're hunting. After a few hurtful sentences, they come once again to the same conclusion, and try to leave again.
Back to square one, in the motel room, Sam insists that they have to stay here and search the Web, to which Dean answers they need to interview the one witness. It goes on like that at least three more times before Sam realizes that's not the way it happened. Not exactly anyway. Dean did want to meet with the witness first, but Sam wanted to follow the trail he had already found on the Net : the railroad station near which most victims were found. Horribly maimed, guts blown and open, face frozen in a rictus of horror to illustrate how terrifying and painful the last minutes of their lives had been. The victims had appeared at regular intervals over the last year, which seemed to imply that the killer either used the trains passing by in one way or another to subdue his victims, or that they hid the crimes under the noise made by the trains coming into the station. Both possibilities indicated that there was a will and probably a purpose at work here, not only the need to kill and harm.
Thinking about it is the key to unlock this part of his memories. Still, it feels like something's ripped inside of him when he forces his way out and to the railroad station. It's an old and dark building, surprisingly welcoming once inside, a cozy place for travelers to feel at home. Sam knows the danger's not here, that they have to go further, Dean two steps behind him.
Sam makes his way into the street behind the station, to a darker area that has been abandoned for a while by the looks of it. He's sure he's not spinning a yarn when he feels Dean worrying about him, questioning his judgment when he decided to investigate this place without backup. But Dean remains silent, maybe because he knows this is just a dream this time. Maybe his heart doesn't beat furiously, like Sam's, as they make their way into the former industrial area recession has turned into a ghost town.
There's a moving shadow a few feet away, tucked between two warehouses. As he remembers doing the first time, Sam chooses to follow it, something telling him he's on the right track. He also remembers hesitating for all of two seconds about calling Dean and waiting for his brother to come and back him up. But never let it be said that Sam Winchester's not a stubborn bitch. On the contrary, he turns his smartphone off to make sure it won't ring at a bad moment and reveal his presence to the monster in case he's indeed found it.
"Stubborn bitch !" Dean murmurs in echo, but still he follows Sam's lead.
Sam's as silent as Dad taught him. Comforted and heartened by Dean's familiar insulting endearment, he creeps up inside the warehouse the shimmery form entered. He feels his heart beating even faster as memories seem to invade his mind and he tries to flinch away. But there's no escaping the images suddenly coming fast, nor the spectacle as he now watches Dean standing a few steps back in the top main room while he himself is lying on the floor, the shadow turned naked man impaled deep inside his ass, fucking him like there's no tomorrow.
He closes his eyes, hard. He doesn't want to see that, and he wants even less Dean to see it. To think Sam ever desired someone else since they've been together. But it's no use, and the scene unravels like a ball of yarn, like his life torn apart. It goes on and on, Dean rooted to the spot, sorrow clouding his face and warring with anger.
Twice it goes back to the beginning, to the shadow-man whispering unknown words to immobilize him and Sam feels himself once more unable to move or refuse anything done to him. He feels his body getting cold as his clothes are taken off, the insufferable pain of forced penetration, the frozen blood in his arteries, the revolting touch of the skinny body settling on his. The utter violation he can't prevent draped in the induced fog of the moment, painful dichotomy with the rage he feels boiling inside as he remembers and relives his rape.
He wants to punch the criminal, push him away, but he's just as impotent as the first time, and hours stretch with no change in sight but the ceaseless, constant and recurring moves of shadow-man's hips pushing in and out of him. In these hours made minutes, he thinks he understands at last the depth of his brother's love for him when Dean, just as unable to move closer, holds a hand out for him to take. Dean never flinches or turns his head away. He's here, solid as a rock, last fort of sanity for Sam to keep afloat when he feels himself sinking into despair.
Shadow-man's name is so apt that Sam and Dean watch in horror as his body starts to disintegrate. It takes a short while this time around, but Sam remembers when it really happened, the slow sucking into nothingness of all the matter that made this man's body. And even though it goes so much faster now, he's completely freaked out to find himself fucked by a headless corpse. Not mentioning fucking himself with a body-less dick that never comes out and has to be still embedded deep inside him. Deep enough that all the sex he had with his brother these past weeks never made it apparent.
And then he's up and about, feeling rather good, considering, which means more than anything else that nothing is as it seems. Dean too is liberated from the force at work, able to take Sam in his arms at last, lending his warmth and support.
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Dean is leaning over him when Sam wakes up.
Unlike in the dream, he can't take so much concern, not right now, still reeling from the knowledge of his… ordeal. So he gets up and updates Bobby. Tells him the salient points like it's no big deal, water under the bridge. After all, his assailant is dead. Sam might be a little transparent now and then, but he's not disappearing like shadow-man did.
He doesn't realize his eyes and nose are leaking rivers until Bobby puts a comforting hand on his shoulder, offers him one of his old-fashioned fabric handkerchiefs, and orders him to sit down before he keels over, because there's no way he's carrying his giant ass back onto the bed. The bed Dean's still sitting on, arms tightly wrapped around himself as if to force his body to stay where it is and allow Sam to grieve in peace. Unless he's got no other way to keep his own grief inside.
Bobby's already making conjectures. Hypotheses about the nature of the monster who was possessing shadow-man and attacked Sam. Suppositions about the reason why it needed shadow-man's body, his life essence, to be kind of downloaded into Sam.
"We don't know if it's still inside you, son. We gotta know what this thing is, and what it might do to you if you're carrying it. If it's the reason why your body lacks consistence. If this guy…"
"Shadow-man," Sam interrupts, the guileless look on the man's face forever etched in his brain.
"What ?" Dean asks.
"Shadow-man, that's the name I gave him. Because he was turned into a shadow, even before he disappeared."
"Okay," Bobby nods, "if shadow-man was a willing participant, a real man who had been possessed or a product of witchcraft created for this single purpose."
There's so much sorrow in his eyes, and Bobby's not better equipped than they are to deal with this. He needs to be doing something, anything, to make sense of what's happening to Sam.
"His clothes !" Dean says, standing up at last. "He took his clothes off in that warehouse. Maybe they're still there, with his ID. If we can find the warehouse, we might have a lead. Know who he is, where he was coming from, where he was possessed."
He looks at Sam, and so does Bobby, and the excitement at this new idea dies in their eyes.
"Sam, if you're not up to it, I'm sure Dean can find the warehouse again. From what you told me, it seems he saw most of the whole way from the railroad station to the place where it happened."
Sam wants to let them go alone, so much. Never set foot again in the city where he was raped, even less in the building where it took place. But it's not in him to let his fears guide his path, and he doesn't want to be left behind.
"It's okay," he says, and he means it.
They somehow kept close to the place Sam disappeared, never leaving for a hunt more than a state over, and getting closer as soon as they could, as if something was telling them to be ready to go back. So they drive fast, Sam dozing in the passenger seat, lulled to an agitated sleep by the gentle rumble of the Impala and his brother's assured driving. Bobby follows in his own car.
Two hours later, Dean shakes Sam's shoulder and tells him they're there. Through the window, Sam recognizes the station, an odd building clearly brought to its current state by different constructions put together over time. The streetlights make it prettier than in his memories, turning the white walls yellow or red in places and animating the many graffiti.
"Sure you want to come ? You could wait here for us."
"I'm sure," Sam insists, and Bobby knocking on the window allows him to let this conversation go.
Night is falling, the sky that deep blue that never fails to make him feel at peace with the world, but tonight is the exception. He has to grit his teeth and close his fists as they walk towards the station, and then past it. Sam doesn't need precise memories to find his way into the maze of the warehouses. Something seems to lead him, his senses alive with the certainty that they're on the right track, as if shadow-man was still there to show them the way.
Dean finds the right building first.
"Just like in the dream," he says. "Maybe I should go in first, make sure nothing's waiting in the dark to jump on us."
"No way," Sam denies him. "We're all going."
He's playing brave, but his heart threatens to run out of his ribcage by the time they stand in the big, dusty room where he was assaulted a few weeks prior.
And yet there's nothing here but dust and cobwebs, and a few bags of items so uninteresting that no one bothered to steal them. The sound of their feet echoes in the vast, empty space, and Bobby's voice is worse.
"Damn !"
Dean and Sam turn from their recollection, staring at the spot Sam had occupied for a while, still marked out by the absence of a years-thick layer of dust. Bobby has found the clothes they came for and the same kind of faux leather card holder they use when impersonating federal agents.
They get closer to take a look at what's Bobby's holding in his hands. The ID reads FBI Special Agent Walton Turbo and reeks of fake.
"Bobby ? You knew that guy ?" Sam wonders, recognizing his assailant on the ID photo.
"I did. He was a hunter, Sam. Garth Fitzgerald, a good kid."
Watching more unshed tears in Bobby's eyes is terrible and neither he nor Dean knows how to make it better for their friend.
"Well, at least we know he was human first," Dean concludes. "Not what he was doing here and why he attacked Sam, but him being a hunter adds to the abundance of evidence that he was possessed by something that made him do it."
It's too soon to know if being raped by a human instead of a monster is a relief. He doesn't think it will make much of a difference, but maybe knowing this guy didn't want to harm him, and that he would never have done anything to him in his right mind, will help him deal with the outcome. Help him add this ordeal to the collateral damage box that comes with being a hunter of all things supernatural. Help him forget and overlook.
They search the warehouse some more but nothing else was left by the monster. Right now, Sam and his symptoms are probably the better clues they have and they desperately need more. When Bobby drives back home, it's with the promise that he's doing nothing but research in the foreseeable future to find out what happened to Sam and how to make sure there will be no after-effect.
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At some point, the process seems to reverse. Sam is relieved at first. Two days pass and there’s no new episode of waning, no other try for a disappearing act. Three, four, five days, and he feels cautiously optimistic that his body's beaten whatever it was that he suffered from.
Until he begins to feel off in a new way. He feels... full, almost nauseous. But at least he stays solid so, really, no need for complaining.
Dean agrees. He doesn’t comment but shows his relief in the way he keeps stroking Sam’s body every chance he gets when they’re in bed. Relieved too, for sure, but not quite yet believing they're through, Sam safe and sound.
He's right, of course. They're never that lucky.
This feeling of fullness, it keeps growing. Sam was so afraid of disappearing, and now he can almost feel himself putting on weight. Getting heavier by the hour. And soon the heartburn begins, closely followed by the retching, and then he's throwing up. Twice an hour for two days, and then it stops. He feels full once more, and the smell of vomit is all around him, but he knows this phase is over.
That's how he stands once more in front of a mirror, looking at himself with horror as he takes in his rounded belly.
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Dean's never been adept at sorting his feelings out. Since Sam was raped, he takes each new development like a blow to the guts, or like someone's pushing his face under the water. Either case, he's running out of air.
He can't begin to imagine how Sam's feeling now that it's become obvious he's carrying excess luggage.
His natural inclination is to shoot and punch, but they're no closer to finding who or what turned Sam into a bun-friendly oven. So he just stands there, waiting on Sam hand and foot, cleaning up his mess when he's sick, wiping his brow when he's feverish, ignoring his own feeling of jealousy at the idea that if anyone had a right to knock Sam up, it should have been him.
Calling Bobby ten times a day in hope he will tell him who to shoot and punch.
It doesn't help that Sam's not taking this unplanned pregnancy very well. Even though Sam's craving sex once again after his bout of sickness is over, Dean soon realizes he has to tread carefully for Sam is very sensitive about numerous topics. In retrospect, joking about Sam turning into a woman might have been the wrong thing to say. But everyone's a critic, and the lamp thrown at his head was really uncalled for.
"I can't stand looking at myself !" Sam yells. "It's not me. I'm turning into some kind of hybrid monster, and I hate it ! My nipples are so sensitive, like a woman's I guess, and every time you touch them I feel like I'm gonna come right then. More sensitive than my dick or my balls, touching me there doesn't even do much for me anymore. All I want, all I dream of, is you sucking on my nipples and fucking me over and over again."
Dean finds he can't speak, torn between offering his help in any capacity - and god, he's so down with sucking Sam's nipples for hours and fucking him again and again ! - and swearing he'll find a way out of this for his little brother. It probably shows on his face, because Sam sends him The Stare, the one that should burn and incinerate Dean, no Phoenix trick to bring him back later.
They get over this in the same way they get over everything : with more sex, of course. Sam's given him his personal map to bliss-central, and Dean is quite adept at finding his way between the legs of his lover.
If Dean wasn't so worried, life would be great.
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The pregnancy is unwelcome in more ways than one. Sam's not only craving sex, food has become his second obsession. And not the healthy, vegetal meals he used to enjoy. No, he takes more and more after his brother and stuffs his face with burgers and fries, swearing it's the food of gods. Knowing it's probably because of his child drawing on his reserves and that he needs to replenish his energy level doesn't help when he's got to deal with people other than Dean.
"Sure you want the extra burrito, sweetheart ?" a motherly waitress asks him on their way to Dr. Robert's, eyeing his overstretched shirt. "Seems to me you've eaten a few too many already."
Sam can see it's not said to hurt, but it does anyway. And there's no way he can tell he's not carrying a beer gut, that he's just pregnant. No way for him to joke about it, and the truth would get the woman running for the hills, possibly calling the shrinks to lock him up and keep him drugged until he stopped spouting nonsense. Even knowing he's got a brother to help him out doesn't make it worth the risk. So he looks the woman in the eyes and insists.
"Yes, I'm sure."
"Suit yourself," she answers, suddenly a lot less motherly.
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Eva lets them in, indifferent as usual until her eyes fall on Sam's soon-to-come bundle of joy, and then it's like a switch has been turned on, making Dr. Robert's assistant act like one at last.
She helps Sam out of his jacket and shirts and then gets him on the table to lie down.
"Dean ! And Sam !" Dr. Robert exclaims when he comes into the room. "Always a pleasure to see you."
The man passes by Eva who still leans over Sam, checking his temperature and showing off her cleavage at the same time, and comes next to the table to discover Sam's more than prominent belly.
"And aren't you boys always full of surprises !"
His hands are cold on Sam's belly, calloused.
"So how did you catch this ?" he wonders as he kneads, pokes and prods.
"We're not sure yet," Dean answers to spare Sam. "We're working on it, but in the meanwhile it seems best to take it out."
"Yeah ? Well, we can try."
"Try ?" Sam repeats.
"Supernatural offspring tend to prove resistant to removal. Let's see what it looks like."
The doctor retrieves from a corner of the room an ultrasound scanner that he wheels back to Sam. It's third-hand material and looks like something teenage Dean could have worked on, back when his brother loved nothing more than tinkering with any device falling into his hands to create new hunting tools, until life squashed all the pleasure out of this hobby and turned Dean into a killing machine. Sam still wonders what part he had in this, mocking his brother's ability every chance he got before he left for Stanford, simply because he felt bad and trapped in this life he didn't want while Dean looked happy and carefree.
The lubricant gel applied to his belly is cold and takes him out of his bittersweet memories.
"So you've seen this before ?" Dean asks, full of hope.
"Not me. But I heard rumors."
"And ?"
"And let's not get ahead of ourselves."
Dean's not any happier with this answer than Sam, but Dr. Robert shuts them up by moving the sensor over Sam's belly. His brow furrows as he focuses on the tablet only he can see. That doesn't deter Dean - on the contrary ! - who skirts around the table and plants himself next to the smaller man, displaying through his whole body how willing he is to do harm if he's not allowed to watch.
Dr. Robert has no death wish, so he turns the tablet enough for Dean to be able to see in real time what's growing inside Sam. And a few seconds later, both men grow pale.
Sam panics.
"What is it ?" he demands, gripping Dean's wrist.
His brother seems at a loss for words. He opens his mouth and gapes at him. Dr. Robert does not fare better, adding his own impersonation of a fish out of water. Eva keeps stroking Sam's shoulder to console her patient, although she's as clueless as him. So Sam wrenches the tablet out of the doctor's hands and gapes in his turn.
His baby is already very well developed, and as far as Sam can tell, it seems big and healthy. The problem is, it looks nothing like its genitor.
Not the human one, anyway, which means the thing that made Sam pregnant is probably not that easy on the eyes. And considering the size of the spawn he's been carrying for about two months now, the adult model must be enormous. And its teeth and claws thrice bigger than the small daggers the cub's sporting.
Sam feels like fainting when he imagines how big this thing will have grown in seven months, and remembers he has no natural way to expel it.
"How…" he begins. "Can you do a C-section ?"
"I can, but I'm not sure…"
"Get it out of me !" Sam yells.
"Sam, listen…" Dr. Robert tries again.
"You heard my brother, doc. He wants it out, so do it."
"But there's no way of being sure…"
"I don't care ! I can't keep this thing inside me, waiting for it to devour me alive."
This puts the physician in gear at last, moving around the room to gather scalpels and gauze, a few vials as well as other tools Sam has no name for. Eva pushes a three-wheeled tray that she sticks in place with three books next to the table. Then she turns to Sam, takes his shoes and jeans off, and then his boxers. Next she covers him again with a sheet that hardly hides his privates while Dr. Robert uncorks a vial and pours some of its contents on a cotton ball.
"Last chance to change your mind, Sam. I can't assure you this is risk free."
"Do it."
Sam searches for Dean's eyes and squeezes his hand one last time. If he has to die, then he'll be the one to decide how and when. Not the parasite that planted itself in his guts to feed on him.
Dean squeezes back when Dr. Robert finally brings the chloroform down to his nose.
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Dean watches Sam's eyes closing with a feeling of dread. Dr. Robert's admonition runs through his mind, and he wonders what could happen. Could Sam's heart stop, or his lungs, keeping oxygen from flowing to his big brain ? That would be a terrible loss for this world, and no one but a small group of people would be aware of it. Dean's angry suddenly, more than he's ever been since they realized Sam had been raped by some monster and made pregnant by it. Sam didn't deserve this, not him, not again. It shouldn't have happened after all the drama he went through already, all the sacrifices he's agreed to for the world to be able to go on and people to live free of Lucifer.
Eva slips a hand under the sheet and grips Sam's cock.
"Hey !" Dean protests, grabbing her arm.
She shoots him a cool look but doesn't let go. On the contrary, she seems to grip harder, in the kind of move that generally sends Sam to heaven but this time doesn't make him twitch at all.
"He's under," she declares, and then lets go of Sam.
Robert dabs Sam's skin with some disinfectant before he chooses a scalpel. His hand is firm as he begins to incise.
And then all hell breaks loose.
As deeply asleep as he seemed to be, Sam suddenly sits and clasps the doctor's wrist, twisting hard until he lets go of the scalpel but not soon enough before the bone snaps, breaking where Sam's inhuman power is still holding him. Once Sam is standing up, advancing on Dean in all his naked glory, Eva tries to shoot him with a syringe full of some unknown liquid but she's no match against Sam and one small punch is enough for her to go crashing into the nearest furniture, down for the count.
Then Sam turns back towards him so Dean holds his hands up to appease the beast controlling his brother.
"It's okay, I'm not gonna hurt you. I get it, no cutting Sam's belly. I promise. We okay ?"
Sam watches warily, or rather the thing in charge at the moment. He seems shaky on his legs, taking in his surroundings in search of a way out, certainly, but Dean is not about to let him run, especially in this state. He manages to reach the tray, miraculously still standing, and finds the vial of chloroform that he throws at Sam's face, hoping it will work.
The effect is immediate, so quick that Dean doesn't have time to break Sam's fall.
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He feels bad when he wakes up, but it's nothing compared to learning that he's still with child. That the monster defended itself once again by using his body to harm the ones who were trying to help him.
In a moment of sheer insanity brought on by despair, he grabs the demon knife he knows where to find in Dean's jacket and cuts his own belly. Dean shouts at him, tries to take the knife from his hands, but Sam's on a mission and he keeps cutting deeper.
Then his heart stops beating.
He wakes up again, feeling worse than the first time. His face is secured between Dean's hands who repeats his name again and again with the same despair Sam was feeling a few moments before. There's blood everywhere, and yet his stomach doesn't hurt.
When he's strong enough to look at it, he can see that, despite all the blood, the skin is unmarked where he cut it.
He throws his head back and shuts his eyes to stop the tears.
How is he supposed to beat a monster who can stop his heart and sew his skin back at will ?
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They arrive in Sioux Falls to listen to more bad news.
With his usual efficiency, Bobby has discovered the culprit behind Sam's pregnancy and he shows them the old grimoire written in a language Sam can hardly decipher.
"It's a Leenox," he tells them. "And if it took me so long to find it, it's because this monster is not from our world."
"Then where's it from ?" Dean asks in surprise.
"One of many parallel universes, I guess. Either it used a tear between universes to hop in here, or someone summoned it."
"Who would be stupid enough to summon something that dangerous ?! Don't answer that. I know, dumb question."
"So what is it ?" Sam asks instead. "And what does it want here ?"
"Far as I can tell, it's a parasite, or at least that's the way it appears in our world. It's nothing more at first than a spirit, an essence, so it needs a vessel to colonize. That's what happened to Garth but also to those victims you were investigating, right before it crossed Sam's path."
"The victims were mauled from the inside out, and Garth dissolved. What's the connection ?"
"They served different purposes. Kind of one played the male and the other the female. Maybe this alien doesn't know about genders, or doesn't care. Its essence first found a body to inhabit that would stand as both protection and genitor / feeding source. That would be Garth's fate, but also of the many other guys it worked with before. And of course, no one would know about it, unless they witnessed the whole thing like Sam did."
Bobby pauses then, not sure how he should bring the next part up.
"And then, there's the hunt for another kind of vessel."
Sam's too scared to ask, pretty sure he knows already what kind of fate awaits him at the end of this pregnancy. The illustrations in the old book Bobby found are terrifying, too close to his nightmares, and he refuses to follow Bobby's hand as it punctuates his explanations with visuals.
"Then you have the carrying vessels : the victims you found mutilated. They were the wombs, the entity's first failed attempts to become corporeal. And clearly something went wrong each time since it tried again and again."
"You say those five guys and girls were pregnant with the entity's child already ?" Dean takes over when he realizes it's all too much for Sam to ask for more details.
"Not its child. With the entity trying to create its own body. But I guess those people weren't strong enough so it jumped ship and found another womb."
"It just… what ? Popped out, like Alien ?"
Dean winces at the sound of his own words while Bobby and Sam stare him down for the images he brought to their mind.
"Ignore the idjit," Bobby advises Sam. "You've got something all the others didn't. There's a real chance it will keep you strong enough to withstand whatever Junior will throw at you."
"You mean my demon blood ?"
"About time it proves useful, right ?"
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Now they know what they're fighting against, but they're no closer to finding a solution to get rid of the baby monster. Dean's comparison with Alien keeps turning in Sam's head, imagining himself with a giant hole in his torso like all the victims, and somehow it seems worse than integrally disappearing. Maybe because Garth didn't seem to suffer - at least when he still had a face and a mouth to show and express pain - whereas the victims looked like they were still screaming when they were found.
Sam's feeling of dissociation grows with his rounding belly and days passing. Accepting this new silhouette is beyond him. He's tried to hide behind huge shirts, from Dean especially, but nothing has worked. Not even mentioning that he's getting so big that moving fast and noiselessly starts to become a challenge, Dean, with his usual subtlety, won't let him get away with it. Every time they have sex, his hands, like magnets, always end up on his belly. And to his utter shame, Sam takes comfort in it, in the feel of Dean's strong and warm body, when his own deformed one horrifies him.
Work might alleviate his worry, but he can't do much in his state, save for research, and he's read twenty times already the translations Bobby made of his findings about the Leenox. He's going stir crazy, and his sleep pattern is totally disrupted. He often ends up in the middle of the night in front of the TV - sometimes Dean joins him and promptly falls asleep again, his ear against Sam's belly, always alert to danger.
Sam keeps to himself the visions his mind is filled with every time he closes his eyes. Unlike that time when Dean came for him at Stanford, he's not trying to hide an ability that freaks him. It's the thing in his womb that forces him to shut up. That's also why he believes there's a very good chance this is the monster's world he's seeing, and not just hallucinations. If the Leenox is able to influence him and take control of his body, even for a limited time, it makes sense that Sam be able to capture images of grey and brownish creatures who live to fight and defeat their opponents, always winning more space to extend themselves to everyone else's detriment. The ones who don't expand die.
He thinks he understands now why this one came to their Earth. It's been its own doing, or an opportunity it seized to expand like no other member of its species had ever done by populating a whole planet by itself. If Sam carries this pregnancy to the end at last, if the monster gets a body of its own, it will be all too easy for it to enslave humans and absorb the planet to change it into its playground.
So Sam racks his brains again and again and decides that if the monster doesn't play fair, he'd better follow the same rules.
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Sam's idea is to seek a mage's help.
He's not even sure what a mage - sorcerer, wizard, witch - could do for him. But if the direct approach has failed, it means the answer is probably less natural and more magical. Supernatural, just as this pregnancy itself is. Hence the need for an expert in the peculiar art of witchcraft.
Which is easier said than done since the Winchesters are not really popular in those circles. One might even say that most witches would be quite relieved to see one of them die in the most horrible way, never to come back to hunt them, and his brother left to despair.
The first one he meets laughs for ten long minutes after seeing his belly. Sam leaves in the foulest mood ever, as illustrated by the fact that Dean and Bobby make themselves scarce for two days after his return. But they don't even hold a grudge against him, considering mood swings are par for the course in his current state. Which pisses him off even more, because he's not a girl, okay ? He might be with something akin to a child, but that doesn't make him a woman and mood swings, probably like bizarre cravings, come from hormonal changes.
The fact that he craves tons of things, including banana truffles and sex on the salvage yard's roof, and that his hormones do play games with his moods ? Still. doesn't. make. him. a. woman. Understood ?!
The next sorcerer probably uses his talent to get what he wants, and that includes sexual favors. Under the pretext of trying to see what he could do about Sam's growing problem, he gets him naked, intending to take advantage of him in his turn. Sam doesn't need magical power to fight off the magical bindings and knock him unconscious.
The third one, that he visits with Dean to make sure there won't be a repeat performance of the previous misunderstanding, doesn't have a great sense of humor, taking himself very seriously indeed. He's a true fanatic who tells him square and front that he brought his fall onto himself and has to live it through. Or rather die.
After two more attempts that prove just as unsuccessful, Sam gives up.
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Bobby wakes Sam up from his slight doze in the middle of the afternoon. He fell asleep, face in Dean's lap, while his brother watched some telenovela Sam could almost appreciate too with the level of hormones flowing inside his veins these days. He likes how over the top all the characters are, the height of their feelings, hormones turning him into a kindred spirit. But he fell asleep anyway, and his eyes close again of their own volition, Dean's hand in his hair lulling him back into oblivion.
"Sam, you have a guest," Bobby shakes his shoulder again.
Sam blearily looks at the entrance to find Crowley, casual and cool as usual, leaning against the doorframe.
"Hello, Moose."
The king of hell comes closer as both Sam and Dean stand up. With a marked disinterest for tact, Crowley stares at Sam's belly and even goes as far as putting one hand on it. Instinctively, Sam takes a step back and Crowley just smiles.
"I'd ask if this is your brother's lovechild, but this thing reeks of evil to such levels you pussycats couldn't ever dream to reach. A child fathered by you two, Dumb and Dumber, would only prove dumberer."
Dean isn't amused and he steps forward, protecting Sam from a closer inspection of his outgrown midriff.
"Unless you're in possession of any relevant information that will help us remove this monster safely, you can shut up now, Crowley."
"Now, now. Where's the love, boys ?"
Sam finds he has no patience for Crowley's regular comedic show and what it might hide today.
"Why are you here ?" he cuts in.
Crowley considers him for a minute.
"Word on the streets of hell is that you're looking for a powerful witch. Powerful and forgiving enough to help two hunters who never had any qualm killing their kind."
"And what if we were ?"
"Then I'd tell you that I do know such a witch."
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They don't trust Crowley, of course, but they don't have much choice. So they agree to meet with the witch and Crowley brings her the next day.
She's called Olivette and doesn't look like one of the oldest witches walking among humans. More like a forty-something elegant woman, attractive and down-to-earth.
"Crowley tells me you boys are in a bit of a pinch. Although now that I see you, I'd qualify this as a big one."
Sam is getting tired of being the butt of everyone's poor sense of humor.
"Can you help ?" he simply asks.
"Help with what ? Giving birth ?"
"Making it disappear would be my first choice. I don't really care to be devoured by my offspring."
Olivette seems taken aback.
"I can understand that, but I think I need a bit more information."
She turns to Crowley as if the king of hell might be responsible for Sam's pregnancy.
"Don't look at me, sweetheart. I'm just the messenger. Believe me when I say I wouldn’t choose Moose here to carry my child if I ever desired one."
Dean comes forward and attempts to explain the situation.
"My little brother here was made pregnant against his will by a monster we believe to be called a Leenox. It killed the other "father" already and Sam is next in line as far as we were able to find out. We need to avoid delivery at all costs, and that's why you're here."
Olivette turns back to Sam. She closes her eyes, hands slowly rising to approach his belly like it's a frightened animal she has to placate first before it will accept her caresses. Sam actually feels her power when she finally joins her palms to his distended stomach, and it's like a zing of pleasure going through him, so good he can't help moaning.
"I will help," Olivette says when she takes her hands back, "but only if I get full latitude to operate."
"What do you mean ?" Dean asks, wary.
"First, I need four assistants."
"No way," Dean answers.
"One assistant," Bobby compromises when he sees Olivette turning to leave.
"Three," she shoots back.
"Two," Sam settles.
Olivette watches him for a long moment and he wonders what she sees.
"Very well, two, but it can't be less. This is a powerful enchantment, and I need the back-up for my counter spells to work. I'll have to use the most powerful witches I know to help here."
"We get it," Bobby says. "What else ?"
"You do as I say. For starters," she turns to Dean, "you build a delivery seat with the specs I'll give you."
"You mean he'll still have to deliver the baby monster ?"
"Killing it inside him would kill your brother too. Is that what you want ?"
Dean places a hand on Sam's shoulder.
"Of course not."
"I didn't think so. Which means yes, he'll have to deliver the baby, and then I'll deal with it, once it's outside Samuel."
"How is he going to deliver it ?" Bobby worries. "In case it escaped your attention, Sam is male. He was not exactly created to give birth."
"Which is why I'm going to transform him for a little while. Turn him into something that can give birth anyway."
"You want to turn him into a woman ?!" Dean cries out.
"That's not what she's thinking of, Dean," Sam calms him down. "Right, Olivette ?"
Olivette smiles, clearly enjoying what she's going to tell them.
"Turning your whole body into another sex would require much energy, especially on your part, and you don't have that much to begin with, since a lot of it is pumped by the baby. Giving you the parts you need to be able to bear children without a sweat and give birth to them is much easier."
"And you know a species that can do that," Bobby concludes.
"I do."
Olivette watches them all, managing her effect, before her eyes settle on Sam.
"There's this species, close to werewolves, in which both genders can get pregnant as long as they are what they inappropriately call weaklings. Very rare, and they're good at hiding, but I know where to find them and the way to make you one of them temporarily."
The silence surrounding her statement is pregnant with incredulity.
"You want to turn Sam into a monster ?!" Dean is the first to react. "One of those monsters we hunt down ?"
Olivette positively glows with mirth.
"Absolutely. He'll get to experience not only what being a womb in this society means, but also the constant fear for your life that knowing you're different and chased for it brings to your everyday life. Isn't that poetic justice ?"
"Don't give me that bullshit ! We hunt and put down the monsters that arm people. Sam most of all is the kind of bleeding heart who will think twice about killing anything. If there ever was a need for justice, then it should have been me in his place."
"Well, maybe you weren't pretty enough for this entity."
Dean gratifies her with a fake hurt look and puts a hand to his heart.
"Oh, witch, how you wound me !"
"I doubt that very much."
They look at each other with a semblance of smile and Sam can see the thaw happening in front of him. Dean is nowhere near trusting her, but he's willing to work on it. Sam is in the same place, and desperation over his fate is only a part of it. They've never heard of Olivette, and never has Bobby, or John Winchester if his journal can be trusted, in all the years they've hunted monsters, which means she probably minded her own business and never tried to take over the world.
"How can we be sure you won't turn on Sam ?" Dean asks, showing his thoughts have somewhat taken the same direction as Sam's. "That instead of helping him, you're not trying to make sure he has no chance to survive ?"
"You can't, not really. The only expectation you might have is that I realize that, however dangerous you are to my kind, and however pleasant the idea of your disappearance, never to come back, is to us witches, you and your brother are still preferable to a monster like the Leenox taking over our planet. If my plan was to kill you, I could just let fate happen. Because right now, Samuel is nothing but a dead man walking."
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Part 3