SPN fanfic: Same song, different verse, Part 2
She hadn’t sent them far, but by the time they made it back to the warehouse, there was nothing in it, not even the thing they’d painted out of angelic goop. Dean went to the place where Cas had disintegrated, looking for some sign of the angel who had been his friend, finding nothing. “Do you think she sent us to another time?” Sam wondered finally.
Dean took out his cell phone. “Nope,” he grunted, seeing the date and time were just as they should be.
“Do you think Claire made it?” Sam asked, more subdued.
“Nope,” said Dean, sighed heavily, and heaved himself to his feet.
They drove the Impala back to their house, silent the whole way. Sometimes when it was silent like this, Dean spent the whole time wondering what Sam was thinking about, what was going on in that freaky head of his, because it felt like he was a million miles away. Other times, they didn’t talk because they knew they were thinking exactly the same thing. This was one of those times.
Dean walked in the front door, already planning his drinking strategy to help him get through the night, to find Claire standing there in the middle of their livingroom as if waiting for them. He staggered back into Sam, who, after a moment’s shock, pushed past him to her, and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Claire?!” he said, beginning to grin.
“I am not Claire,” she said in a low monotone. Sam dropped his hands and stepped back uncertainly.
Dean would recognize that voice anywhere. Even in another body. “Cas,” he said. The look on her face, eyes deep and wise and compassionate--so different from any of the ways Claire ever looked--told him everything he needed to know. “She said yes,” Dean said flatly. “How’d you make her do it?”
“I did not make her. I asked, and she gave her consent.”
“You managed to talk her into it in, what, five seconds?”
“A great deal of information can pass between an angel in its original state and its vessel in a very brief period of time.”
“She was never gonna say yes,” Sam said, stepping forward, upset. “What did you do to make her do it? What did you say to her?”
“I told her the truth,” she said, with the tiniest hint of ... was that regret?
“... Which was?” Dean asked tightly. Cas had always been his friend--well, almost always, though there was some pretty dark water under that bridge, he guessed--but living with Claire all these months, he couldn’t help coming to see him from her perspective, too, and now that she’d been forced to submit, he was finding it hard not to hate the guy almost as much as she did.
“You saw the spell the angels drew on the wall, out of angelic essence.”
“Yeah, what was that?” asked Dean, stepping forward a little. He didn’t really want to know, but he knew he had to.
“It’s a ... it’s difficult to explain, but I will try. Angels are made of the ... connective energy of the universe, the essence that ties you to your brother, for instance, or that which brings lovers together. Some would call it love, but it’s more than that; it is also the story of humankind, cause and effect, the passage of time: anything that is connected to another through blood, event, or feeling. Such connective energy exists between you and everyone you have ever saved, for instance, and those connections are all of a certain flavor, whereas the connecting energy between you and your father, and his father, and so on, through your whole family tree, is of a different, generally stronger, flavor. The angels found a way to use that energy to destroy all of my remaining vessels at once, utilizing that connective energy. They couldn’t kill Claire; she was too lethal to them. Nor could they kill Jimmy; I had evaded them consistently. So they ... found this way ....” She faltered, then looked up at them with familiar, haunted eyes. “I never ... it is not in an angel’s nature to even be able to conceive of doing something like this, to actually sacrifice one of their .... They must have been quite desperate.” She was plainly deeply disturbed.
She wasn’t the only one. “Yeah, well, the important thing is that they failed and you’re still alive,” Dean said.
“They did not fail,” Cas said, regret plain on her face.
“But you’re still here. Oh, did you bring her back?”
“No, Dean. Jimmy, and Claire ... both are dead.”
“But you--”
“That is why she said yes. I made her understand that since the spell had already been set in motion as soon as the angelic essence touched her father’s body, she had very little time before the spell traced down the remaining connective energy between my vessels and ended her life. The angelic essence that touched me was too powerful for me to save Jimmy’s body, but Anna was able to send me out of the warehouse in Claire’s body before they were able to destroy it with more essence.”
“So ...,” said Sam, “her body was left alive, but her soul was ... huh?”
“She said yes in the few seconds she had to live. Had she not, I would have been left with only a dead body that could not consent. There was only a brief time in which she could give her body to me before she was torn out of it.”
“So, wait a minute, are you saying she’s not in there with you?” Dean demanded.
“That is what I am saying. The souls of both Claire and Jimmy are together at last ... in heaven.”
Dean tried to get past the blow he felt at the news, but he couldn’t seem to. It felt like he’d been socked in the heart. Sam, ever the more level-headed one, questioned Cas for more details, but Dean could hardly follow the conversation. Claire ... she was gone? This morning, she was all stoked about a roadtrip, and tonight, she was dead, because of some stupid recon he and Sam wanted to do? A trap the angels had lured them into? That was her life?: fucked over by angels since she was just a kid, basically destroyed, then finally forced to do the thing she feared more than anything in the world in the two seconds before she was killed by a freakin’ spell, nothing she could fight or even anticipate, just completely screwed out of everything right up ‘til the very end?
He needed to punch something, now, but there was nothing to punch ... except that goddamn shifter that had put her in the hospital. Dean wished with all his heart that Sam hadn’t tried to fix her; at least she wouldn’t have had to go through all that before she finally lost her life. That made him want to punch Sam, really a lot, but he knew from experience that that would only make things worse. He grabbed the map of where they’d decided the shifter’s lair must be, picked up the weapons duffle, and headed for the door without a word.
He felt Sam’s baffled gaze on him, and Cas’s impassive one. “... Dean?” said Sam.
“Don’t say anything to me, Sam. I mean it, not one word.” Sam was a smart kid; he didn’t say a thing.
That shifter was a brute, all right, but Dean finally ganked it. Actually, the beatdown it gave him first made him feel better somehow. Dean dragged into the house in the middle of the night, groaning quietly, and cleaned off all the blood in the bathroom before heading for his bed ... only to find Sam in it. Huh, weird. So Dean headed for Sam’s bed ... only to find Claire in it. Cas. Asleep. Much weirder; angels don’t sleep. He thought about getting in there with her, but asleep, Cas looked too much like Claire, and that seemed wrong on so many levels--because she was just a kid, because Sam had been sleeping with her all this time even if it was nothing like that, because she was Cas/Jimmy’s daughter and on some level he would expect to get his ass kicked if he tried, because now she was dead .... He went back to the bed Sam was in, but there was no way he could fit in the bed with that monster sprawled all over it ... so he settled down on the couch, which was still way more comfortable than the Impala, and even some of the hotel beds he’d slept in, and went to sleep.
In the morning, Cas ate breakfast with them--really fucking weird, since angels don’t eat, either. Dean waited for Cas to disappear so he could ask Sam what the hell was going on, but after breakfast she went and stood around in the livingroom, looking idly at their maps and lore and printouts.
“So,” said Sam, sitting down at the crappy kitchen table with Dean. “I guess ... I guess now that Claire’s ....” He looked sad. “Anyway, uh ... we could move on, if you wanted, get back to hunting. What do you want to do? I don’t think Cas will be in the way ... any more than he’s ever been--I mean, she.” Sam chuckled softly, subdued. “Are you having as much trouble with the pronoun thing as I am? Weird, that he’s suddenly a girl.”
“Yeah, tell me about it--but what? ‘In the way’?”
“I mean, I don’t think she’s gonna be much help, but ... shit, maybe we have to always be with her like we were always with Claire, since she can’t defend herself very well now.”
“Wait, what? What the hell are you talking about, Sam?”
“You know, because she’s ... were you even listening last night?”
“No,” Dean said belligerently. “Kinda had a lot on my mind.”
Sam looked troubled, like he was really unhappy Dean didn’t already know this, like he thought Dean wouldn’t take the news well. Dean scowled at him. “Uh ... well, since the soul is gone ... basically, she’s human now. She’ll age and everything. And ...,” he lowered his voice, “I don’t think she has any powers anymore, either.”
“Is that why she’s not disappearing?” Dean barked gruffly.
Cas must have overheard them; she came into the kitchen where they sat and took the third chair. “Yes,” she said.
“So, what, you’re just gonna live with us now?” Dean said, barely even bothering to try to hide his hostility. It hadn’t exactly been fun to live with Claire, but he’d gotten used to it--even come to like it--but he was pretty sure Cas would make the world’s shittiest roommate. Cas was hard enough to take in small doses.
“I don’t have anywhere else to go,” Cas said, with such vulnerable sincerity, Dean could only subside, glaring. “And ... I don’t know how to live ... as a human.”
“Well, don’t look at me!” Dean said, since they both were. “I’m not gonna hold it for ya.”
“Hold what?” Cas asked innocently.
Sam just smiled faintly and shook his head. “Dean, I already covered the, um ... basics with her, so you don’t have to, and ....”
“Sure about that? You’re kinda ripe, Cas.”
Cas looked down quickly at herself, confused.
“... And Cas is smart; I’m sure she’ll be able to figure things out pretty fast ....”
“Wait a minute,” Dean said, starting to realize all the implications. “This is the only vessel Cas has now, and if the soul is never coming back, does that mean we’re gonna be stuck with her forever?! She’s gonna die eventually, anyhow! What’s even the point of all this, if--”
“I must procreate,” Cas said, gazing up at some distant point through the ceiling with those warm, glowing eyes, rather dreamily.
Dean looked at Sam, deeply alarmed, and Sam kept his eyes carefully averted. “You knew about this?” Dean demanded, aghast.
“No, she hadn’t said anything, but ... I kinda figured that was the plan ....”
“Claire’s body is useless without her soul in it,” said Cas.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Dean demanded angrily.
“How many times have you been told now, Dean? Souls are power. Why do you think angels are so much more powerful than demons, which can possess a dead body even more easily than a living one? Why do you think we require consent? When a vessel consents, it becomes possible for the angel to utilize the power of that soul. Now, with Claire gone, I have no more power than a demon,” she sighed.
“At least demons can throw people around,” Dean said rudely.
Cas lifted her hand, and with a flick, lifted him out of his chair and threw him back against the wall, before dropping him back down to his feet dispiritedly. “Yes,” Cas said depressedly, “that’s all the power I have anymore, it seems.”
“Thanks a lot, Cas,” Dean grunted. She’d managed to re-bruise all kinds of stuff.
“Claire gave her body to me so that I could perpetuate my line, so that I could ensure there would be vessels in the future as I may come to need them.”
“She would never do that! She hated you!”
“We came to a far greater mutual understanding than any we had ever had before, during those moments when we were one. She understands my needs, Dean, and she understood her place in the grand scheme of things. I have her full blessing to do as I wish, and as I must, for the good of humanity.”
“Wow. Every time I think my life couldn’t get any weirder ...,” Dean muttered.
“I suppose you may as well decide amongst yourselves which one of you will father my child.”
Dean jumped out of his chair like it had bitten him on the ass. Even Sam seemed stunned. Dean turned to Sam. “Please tell me this is some hell-induced flashback and I’m hallucinating. Please, Sam,” he begged.
Cas turned to Sam. “How does a human ripen, and is it undesirable for them to do so?”
Sam managed to stutter out something about taking a shower, and Cas left the room, thank the good lord. Sam and Dean very carefully didn’t look at each other. “You realize, this is not happening,” Dean barked roughly. “We are not about to have sex with Cas.”
“No, of course not,” Sam agreed shakily.
“Cas is just gonna have to go out and find someone else to do it.”
“Right. Sure.”
“How can he even ...,” Dean fumed, then turned on Sam, demanding, “You’re okay with this?”
“Do I look like I’m okay with this?”
“Okay, then,” Dean said, mollified, and sat down, jumping out of his chair again when Sam said, “But would he even know how to take care of a baby?”
“What the-- Sam! No,” Dean said determinedly. “We are not about to become three men and a baby.”
“Well, he’s ... not exactly a man, anymore ....”
“No!”
“Yeah,” Sam agreed, but Dean hated his tone, like he was considering it logically, when anyone could see logic didn’t belong anywhere near this discussion. “It’s just that, who else but us could keep his ... progeny safe? And you know if he’s pregnant, he’s not going to have anywhere else he can go--”
“She!” Dean screamed. “If SHE’S pregnant! Clearly Cas is just going to have to wait to have a baby until she’s happily married to some dude.”
There was a long silence, during which Dean valiantly resisted threatening Sam with bodily harm, knowing he was sure to hate whatever he was about to say. “But ... who would marry him? I mean, he’s gonna be lucky if he can have a one-night stand. He couldn’t even get laid in a brothel.”
“SHE!” Dean shrieked. “And there are guys who’ll have sex with anyone, Sam. Trust me: ANYONE.”
“And ... these are the guys you want to have fathered the kid we’re probably going to have to raise?” Seeing the look on Dean’s face, Sam said, “I know, I know. But, you know ... dad did it. Raising a kid, even when you’re a hunter ... it’s not the end of the world.”
“We are NOT going to do it like dad did it!” Dean said, more sharply than he ever said anything, feeling like something was rising up in his chest, about to electrocute him.
“No, of course not. We could ... you know ... do it right.”
Dean resisted the almost overpowering urge to go for his gun. Guns were the only thing that usually helped when he felt like this. “Sam, how did we get from ‘Cas is human and has to shower now’ to ‘we’re about to raise a kid’? Gotta be some kind of hallucination,” Dean muttered to himself. “Can’t be a djinn, or this sure as hell wouldn’t be my happy fake life.” Still, he grabbed at his neck, feeling for a needle. “What was that--what’s that other thing that makes you hallucinate--it’s a wraith!” he shouted triumphantly. “Or possibly a Starship. Sam, all we’ve gotta do is kill it, and all of this will go away!” he cried excitedly.
Sam looked at him with pity. Oh, no! Somehow Sam didn’t realize that they had to be hallucinating! He had to convince him.
They weren’t hallucinating. In fact, after they refused Cas’s request and watched her walk out the front door and proposition the first guy she encountered on the street (their friendliest neighbor, no less--a devout Christian with a large family), Sam had, most reluctantly, agreed to do it. “For the future,” Sam kept repeating to himself, dissociating. “For all of humanity. Come on, you can do it, Sam.”
“What about artificial insemination?” Dean suggested, alarmed.
“With what money?” Sam retorted. “It costs thousands of dollars for each attempt, and it usually fails.”
“Then how ’bout a turkey baster?”
“Cas ... Cas said ... something about the lord frowning upon the lack of intimacy between a man and woman, like ‘a child is conceived out of love,’ or ... something. He won’t do it that way.”
Dean shook him by the shoulders. “There’s gotta be another option! Think, Sammy, think!”
Then Cas came into the room, looking at a thermometer with a beatific smile on her face. “I believe I may be ovulating. This is the opportune moment. Sam?” She dragged Sam down the hall. The last look Dean got of his face left the overwhelming impression of a man being dragged to the chopping block.
It was all moot anyway, as Sam came scrambling down the hall two minutes later, huge-eyed, buttoning up. He grabbed his coat and the Impala’s keys. Dean quirked an eyebrow. “Sam?”
“I’m leaving,” Sam said breathlessly. “I’m not coming back. Ever again. Sorry, Dean.” He looked back toward the hallway, from which Cas called after him, confused. Sam ran out the door, slamming it behind him, and the Impala started and peeled out less than eight seconds later, pretty much a new record.
Cas emerged from the hallway. “What did you do to him?” Dean asked incredulously.
Cas frowned quizzically at the door from which Sam had departed. “I did nothing harmful or unkind.”
Her eyes turned expectantly to Dean. “I am ovulating.”
“I’m happy for ya.”
“I ... I may not have long before the angels find me and destroy this vessel.”
“Best case, you’d still need a good nine months.”
“Yes, but ten is ... worse. Each extra month makes my chances of success that much less likely ....”
“Look, if you think you’re talking me into this, you’ve got another think coming.”
“This surprises me.”
Dean knew he wasn’t going to like this. “Why?” he said coolly.
“When it comes to sex, you have traditionally taken advantage of any opportunity based on convenience, access, and willingness of a female partner, all of which apply in this case.”
“Yeah .... No.”
Cas tilted her head. “Do you find this body unappealing?”
“It’s fine.”
“Then why?”
“Just forget about it.”
“When Claire and I united, I got the impression you shared a great fondness for one another. Was I mistaken?”
“No, I’d say that’s about right. She and Sam were closer, though.”
“Still, Claire loved you. She didn’t give her consent until I told her if she did, I would be more likely to be able to save you and Sam.”
Dean frowned slightly, and the news made it hard for him to breathe for a little while.
“You and Sam were the only males of her acquaintance besides her father, the only men she ever trusted. I am quite certain that if she were able to choose--”
“Cas!” Dean spat discouragingly.
Cas looked thoughtful for a long few seconds. At last, she said, “I am unable to uncover her desires for this body now. But she was aware of my intentions, and she was ... pleased to imagine some part of her living on, carrying her genes to a new generation, hoping her children would know of her and her story. It made her feel perhaps her life was not worthless--”
“CAS!”
“Please tell me why not, Dean.”
Dean glared at her. “Because the last thing anyone needs is another Winchester in the world! We’re freakin’ cursed! Besides, what, is the kid gonna be a vessel for both you AND Michael, if it runs in families? Why would I do that to some poor kid? You see how well it turned out for Claire, and for me, and Sam .... Anyway, who wants my DNA? May as well stamp ‘dumbass loser’ on its forehead. At least Sam’s smart ... and good.”
“You are good, Dean,” Cas said softly.
“Whatever.”
She looked toward the door. “Perhaps that neighbor ....”
Dean jumped off the couch. “No!”
“I have no time to waste. I know, from your human perspective, the minor discomforts of the present situation may seem somehow insurmountable, but if you look at time from beginning to end--”
“Goddammit,” Dean whispered, steeling himself for a long minute or two. Then, at regular volume, he said, “What the hell did you do to Sam?”
Cas looked shocked anew. “I am as flummoxed as you. I only tried to make things easier for him by attempting to appear more ... alluring--”
Dean gasped, and grabbed Cas by the arm. “Whatever you do, don’t do that,” he growled, dragging her down the hallway. “I don’t want to hear a word outta you, do you understand?”
“It is not customary to speak, then?”
“Not when it’s you, because I can picture what it would be like.” He imitated Cas’s preternaturally calm modes of speech: “’Thank you for assisting me in creating a new vessel, Dean. A higher angle is more conducive to conception, Dean.’ Not sexy!” he barked.
“I remember that pornographic movie I watched. I could attempt to imitate--”
“NO! Cas, get on the bed. All the lights will be off, and you don’t say anything, not one word.”
“I could perhaps offer some encouragement--”
“I don’t need encouragement! Just don’t distract me! This is gonna be hard enough already.”
“I am only attempting to help. It seems like ... certain kinds of noises are beneficial to creating a mood--”
Dean growled. “Seriously, Cas, one more word--or sound--and this is all over. If Sam hadn’t taken the Impala, that’s where I’d be, right now, driving as far and as fast as I can, away from you. Nowhere in the world would be far enough, the way I will feel if you do anything--anything! Do you understand me?” He eyed Cas darkly. Cas pressed her lips together, and nodded. “All right,” Dean said. He turned off all the lights, closed the door, and, taking a deep breath, stripped.
Dean sent a text to Sam: “Deed done.” Then he took three showers in a row. Then he got drunk, barricaded the door to Sam’s room after harshly cautioning Cas not to come anywhere near him, got in Sam’s bed, and dropped into merciful oblivion. When Sam came home the next day, they left immediately on a four-day hunt after Sam pointed out that if Cas really needed protection, she could pray to Anna.
There just wasn’t enough alcohol in the world to make Dean forget that experience. Of course, Cas couldn’t keep her mouth shut, and it was even worse than Dean had ever feared. He shuddered every time the memories sprang unbidden to his mind. Angels ... they just didn’t get “sexy.” They were like the anti-sexy. Well, all of them except Anna, but that was because she was human, too. Ugh, Cas. The only thing worse than him lying there like a dead fish was him attempting to participate. “I really hope it worked,” Sam kept saying, and his eyes would get far away and kind of glazed when he said it, both of them trying their hardest not to think about what the future would hold if it hadn’t. “I really hope she was ovulating, and that ... you know ... your boys were ... up to the task.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my ‘boys’!” Dean snapped. “If it didn’t work, it wasn’t me!”
“Oh my God!” said Sam suddenly. “What if--what if she’s infertile?”
That thought was so depressing on so many levels, they stopped talking about it and threw themselves into hunting this monster, so for four blissful days at least, they wouldn’t have to think about Claire or Cas or the future.
Upon their return, Cas and Anna had good news for them: now that the enemy angels had used that spell, the secret was out and everyone had that particular nuke in their arsenal, so they were afraid to attack them so openly again. Consequently, they were willing to begin negotiations, which apparently were going well. Initially upset that they hadn’t succeeded in leaving Cas without a vessel, once they learned he’d been nonetheless rendered essentially powerless, they were even more pleased than if he had reverted to his true form, since stuck on earth, subject to all the limitations of being human, he was even less of a threat. Anna didn’t think it would occur to them that Cas was planning to create himself more vessels--angels just didn’t think in such human terms--but in any case, they probably had months or years to come up with a solution to that particular problem, if it ever did become a problem, by which time the war in heaven might well be over.
“Sure is good to see you again, Anna,” Dean said, trying not to act like a shy little wuss. “How, uh ...?”
Anna smiled at Cas, who listened distantly, gazing at her own stomach. “We’re not sure. It was either Cas, or God. Or both.” She stood up. “Anyway, now that you guys are back to watch over Cas, I have stuff to do. I’ll be around. Oh,” she said, remembering something, then handed a small box to Dean with a smirk. It was a pregnancy test. “Have fun,” she said wickedly, and disappeared.
“Oh, why?” Dean groaned. “Anna, you couldn’t have done it while it was just you two girls? You two angels??” he shouted after her, but it was no use. Actually, angels often heard you and just didn’t make themselves visible, which was probably exactly what was going on here. All the more proof that angels were pure evil. Dean tried to hand off the pregnancy test to Sam, who wouldn’t take it. They had a mostly silent argument over it, which soon devolved into wrestling. This finally attracted Cas’s attention.
“What’s in the box?” she asked.
Dean had really only been wrestling with Sam to pick his pocket. Once he had the Impala’s keys back, he was at the front door in no time flat. “See you guys.” He smiled to himself with a truly satisfying sense of victory, and went out for a burger.
When he returned, Sam had that evil smile he used to flash when he had no soul, and ice shot through Dean. “We waited for you,” Sam said, mock generously, and nodded to Cas, who went into the bathroom, holding the pregnancy test like a royal scepter. He got Sam in a headlock. Sam elbowed him in the ribs, so Dean rushed him and knocked him off-balance onto the couch. Sam got him down onto the floor, knees pinning his elbows, and Dean was just about to throw him off with his legs, when Cas came back out of the bathroom, holding up the pregnancy test.
“I have peed on the stick, and the stick has turned blue,” she announced, eyes brimming with pleasure.
“Why do I have to go?” Sam whined as Dean subtly checked him so he stumbled forward down the hospital hallway he was just then trying to back out of.
“Because this baby is just as much yours as mine,” Dean said gruffly.
“How do you figure that?” Sam huffed. “I’m pretty sure a DNA test would point out the flaw in your logic.”
“A: because you were the first one to agree to do Cas, you were just too much of a pussy to go through with it. B: because you’re the one who decided we would raise the thing. And C: because you’re more of a girl than Cas will ever be, and there has to be at least one girl in the room.”
Cas walked along beside them, untroubled by their scuffle, hand on her stomach, where it usually was nowadays, as if trying to use her former powers to get a bead on whatever was in there. “So this ultrasound will show us what the baby looks like?” she said.
“Guess so,” said Dean, holding open the door for her. Why did he do that? He hated when he did that. She wasn’t even showing; she didn’t need his chivalry--not yet, anyway.
“Does it hurt?”
“Nope,” said Sam, helping her up onto the exam table.
“She can climb onto a table by herself, Sam,” Dean snapped. Maybe it was because she looked like Claire that they were always doing that stuff for her now, but it drove Dean up a wall.
When the doctor came in, he looked startled to see two guys in the room. He’d be a lot more startled if he knew they were all more or less guys, Dean thought with wry amusement. The doctor shook both their hands, obviously wanting to ask, and Sam, the wuss, pointed instantly at Dean. “He’s the father,” he said quickly. Dean shook his head at him.
“Ah, I see. And you ...?”
“I’m his brother,” Sam explained in his innocent way, then the innocence turned false--at least, Dean could see it. “He, uh ... Dean was too scared to come by himself, so I ....” Dean couldn’t slug him right in front of a doctor, so he just glared daggers at him.
“He is my friend,” Cas offered calmly, gazing at Sam, and was that a flare of jealousy Dean felt at the warmth of that look, and the memory that Sam was supposed to be the father? What the--?!
“Oh, okay,” said the doctor easily as he got everything ready. “So you’re comfortable having both of them in the room? Not that we have to unveil too much of you to do this, but ....”
“I have no shame about this body,” Cas said calmly, leaning back, and Dean died a little inside, same as he did when Cas had announced to everyone in the checkout lane at the grocery store that Dean had assisted to create some progeny--in those words--for his “future needs,” when she described everything she’d learned from the pregnancy books Sam bought her in skin-crawling detail to a gaggle of drug dealers in front of the convenience store, and when she cheerfully told a stranger at the gas station that she’d eaten so seldom in her life that she frequently didn’t even know what it was she was craving.
The doctor was obviously given pause by her phrasing, but finally he said only, “Glad to hear it,” and got started. Dean couldn’t make out anything in the fuzzy lines on the monitor, but he heard Sam gasp softly beside him. The doctor moved the thing around on Cas’s stomach a little longer before finally saying with a smile, “Well, I have some big news for you--you’re having twins.”
Dean saw Sam’s big, goofy grin, and he couldn’t understand it. Then Sam stood up, grabbed Dean, and gave him a huge bear hug, and Dean caught his reflection in the monitor, seeing an equally giant grin on his own face. What the hell?
Cas looked positively suffused with bliss. “Twins,” she breathed.
The next day, Dean sat by the river next to the bridge about a mile from their house. He’d been there a while. He heard Sam walk up and sit down beside him on the long dry grass of the slope, stilt-like legs stretched out in front of him easily. Neither of them said anything for a while.
“How’d you find me?” Dean asked impassively.
Sam shook his cell phone at him. “GPS. Turned it on last night, ‘cos I was afraid you might bolt.”
“Thinking about it,” Dean said calmly.
“Yeah. I figured.”
“How’s Cas?”
“I think he’s doing his version of nesting. He isn’t buying baby blankets or car seats; he’s collecting bibles and writing down the names of his favorite angels in various first-and-middle-name combinations.”
“You’ve pretty much given up on calling him ‘she,’ haven’t you?”
Sam shrugged. “Yeah. He’ll always be ... you know, Cas to me.” There it was, that pang at losing ... Jimmy, Dean guessed. He hadn’t ever thought much about the guy--the human who’d given his life to Cas for Claire’s sake, in hopes that she’d be able to live a normal, happy life, alas--but that was how Dean would always think of Cas, too. “So ... what’s going on?” said Sam casually.
Dean didn’t want to talk about it. He never wanted to talk about it. But this ... there wasn’t any way to run away from this, or forget about it, or anything. After the joy of the news yesterday had faded into the reality that there really was new life brewing inside Cas, he’d been haunted by cascading memories, fears, and implications. No matter what he did now, there would be another Winchester in the world--two little Winchesters, like him and Sam. “I dunno, Sam. What have I done? Seriously? Is it all just gonna begin again?”
Sam gazed off into the distance. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“I mean, why ...? How could I be that stupid? I tried to say no, Sam, I really did.”
“I know. So did I. I gave in before you did.”
“We really aren’t the brightest bulbs on the tree. I keep going over and over it in my mind, and ... I still don’t know how I could have done anything different. Cas ... I can’t leave him without a vessel, you know? After everything. He’s the only good one left, him and Anna. And Claire, things he told me about what she wanted, how she felt, about us .... Just ... I screwed things up so bad with you when you were growing up, Sammy, and ....” He had to stop, because his throat was getting thick.
“Dean, you were only four years older than me, and just as fucked up, after everything that had already happened to us, and what dad was like .... How were you supposed to know how to raise a kid? You shouldn’t have even had to.”
Dean wiped his eyes, giving fierce thanks that Sam was the only one there who could see him reduced to this. “I don’t wanna ... I don’t wanna fuck up some kid ....”
“Dean--”
“No, Sam, because even if we somehow get our shit together and figure out how to do this-- You know our lives! You know what it’s like! Something’s bound to happen, and ... I don’t want to bring a kid into this, Sammy. I really don’t.”
“Well,” Sam said after a while. “I know I’m glad to be alive, even after everything we’ve been through. Are you?” He turned and watched Dean with frank curiosity, and Dean got the sense he’d been wanting to ask that for a long time.
Dean thought about it. “Yeah,” he said finally, wiping his face again surreptitiously. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
“So ... I guess we’ve got to have faith that everything happens for a reason, and that this--these kids ... you know, are gonna be okay, like us. I mean, if nothing else ... at least they’ll always have each other.”
That was the first thing that had made Dean feel any better about any of this, and he grasped at it like he grasped Sam any time he was going down, and Sam always somehow managed to pull him back up. “Yeah,” he said shakily, starting to be able to breathe again. “Yeah.”
“Dean.” Dean rolled over, away from the deadpan voice. He slept with Cas these days. They only had the two beds, and Sam was too freakin’ huge to sleep with. Cas hardly moved all night, and, you know, it was just Cas. Actually, Dean wanted to stay close, just in case something happened and Cas needed help. It wasn’t like Cas was good at being an expectant mother or anything; Dean had been three when Mary got pregnant with Sam, and he’d lived the rest of his life pretty much entirely around other guys, and still, he knew more about pregnancy than Cas did. She sometimes got concerned about some sensation, and typically, either it was something totally normal and human, or something very wrong, and because she’d never had to be human before, she simply couldn’t tell the difference. So Dean wanted to be there, just in case.
“Dean,” came the voice again, low and resonant. “Dean. Dean.”
Dean finally woke up enough to realize it was Cas, standing in the dark beside their bed, looking at him. Dean rolled over to squint up at her. “Cas? What’s going on?”
“Water flushed in a great torrent out of my body. It’s on the floor now. I don’t want to clean it up, because my abdomen seems to be twitching. I’m afraid it might disturb the fetuses for me to crouch in that position. They have, as you are aware, grown very large within me. Also, I don’t like cleaning. I think you should do it.”
“Wait, what? What?” Dean sat up and turned on the light. Man, Cas was a big as a house. Cas directed his attention to the water on the floor. Dean took in the scene for less than a second before he was on his feet, pulling on a shirt over the jeans he still slept in. He pounded on Sam’s door right across the hall. “Sammy, wake up! It’s time!”
Dean put his arm around Cas and walked her to the door, grabbing her a coat on the way, then helping her down the steps. Sam came running after them, wide-eyed. He drove while Dean sat close to Cas in the backseat, peppering her with questions. They were almost there before Cas thought to ask, “Where are we going?”
“We’re going to have a baby,” Dean said, as calmly as he could manage. “Well, two babies.”
Cas looked down at herself, then back up at him slowly. “I ... was hoping we were going to the store for pork rinds.”
“We can do that,” Dean said casually. “Sam, store?”
Pork rinds in hand, they arrived at the hospital, where a nurse took one look at Cas and whisked her to a delivery room, Sam and Dean right behind. Oops; maybe they shouldn’t have stopped for pork rinds. There wasn’t time for anyone to throw one or both of them out; the first baby was on its way even before they got a doctor in there. Soon there were three or four doctors and nurses in there, and it was loud and scary and there was no way of stopping this anymore, not like there ever had been. Cas looked uncharacteristically anxious as she met Dean’s eyes. “This is extremely painful,” she informed him.
“I can tell,” Dean said, wincing. Sam was sitting beside her, holding her hand, encouraging her, while Dean stood around feeling useless.
“Perhaps pork rinds will help,” Cas suggested to Dean helplessly. Dean went for the pork rinds--hey, in her position, he’d want them, too--when the sudden flurry of activity and noise behind him heralded the arrival of baby number one, and Dean forgot all about pork rinds and everything else, staring at that tiny living thing he had so carelessly created.
Baby number two was on its heels, the staff was busy, and a nurse, looking around for some place to put baby number one, handed him to Dean. When that weight landed in his arms, he could have sworn he was four years old again. “Sammy?” he called anxiously. “Little help, here?”
“You’re doing fine,” said Sam. Just seeing Sam’s wondering grin, staring at the baby in Dean’s arms, made Dean feel a million times better. Not like he could do this--not that much better--but like he could stand here and hold this thing and probably manage not to accidentally kill it before a nurse finally took it back.
Baby number two came along even faster than baby number one, which they handed to Cas, who took it awkwardly. With shining eyes and a maternal smile, she said, “My progeny.”
Doctors and nurses were making notes, weighing and cleaning off the kids--somehow Dean hated it when they took baby number one out of his arms--and then a cheerful nurse sat down next to Cas with a clipboard. “And what do we want to call the little boy?”
Dean and Sam both looked with interest at Cas. This whole pregnancy thing had been her deal from the first; they’d never discussed names at all. Cas stared through the walls, past the horizon, for a few long seconds, and finally said in her deep monotone, “The first will be called Dean.”
“Dean, okay. Middle name?”
Cas only thought for a second or two. “Jimmy.”
“James,” Sam said quickly.
“Dean James, okay. Last name?”
“Winchester,” Cas said without hesitation. Dean’s face fell and he tried to keep a hold on his increasing heart rate. So close to his own name. This wasn’t right. There shouldn’t be another Dean Winchester. He tried to intervene, but they were already talking about the other baby’s name. “Sam,” said Cas loudly.
“Oh ... kay, uh, Samantha?” the nurse suggested.
“Yes, Samantha,” Sam said quickly, and Cas sat impassively, making no objection, so the nurse wrote that down and asked for a middle name.
“Claire,” Cas said easily.
“Samantha Claire Winchester, that’s pretty,” said the nurse, collected her things, and was already leaving before Dean was able to say a word.
“What the hell, ‘Dean and Sam Winchester’?” Dean gasped as soon as all the doctors and nurses were out of the room. “Why don’t you just name ’em Angel Bait and Monster Fodder?”
“I prefer Dean and Sam Winchester,” Cas said, completely serious.
Dean turned on Sam, who had that new-father glow, which Dean knew he certainly did not share. “You’re okay with this?!”
Sam smiled, all blissed out, and shrugged. “You know, Dean, there are worse things than being us.”
Sam was asleep in a chair, Samantha drooling face-down on his chest, also asleep. Cas was also sleeping, baby Dean asleep beside her on the hospital bed, as Dean watched them. Somehow they’d gone from just him and Sam to a family of five in one night. Well, Cas had been there for a while. That house wasn’t going to be big enough for them all for long.
Baby Dean’s eyes opened, and he looked up at the ceiling, like he was thinking about crying. “Hey, there you are,” Dean said quietly as he picked him up and took him back to the chair he’d been napping in earlier that day. He held him just like he had the night before, cradled in his arms, since the kid had survived that. Anyway, no one could look more awkward holding a baby than Cas; Dean hadn’t missed the glances she’d been getting from the hospital staff since the babies were delivered. Despite the fact that Dean and Sam had gotten Cas a super-deluxe insurance card in preparation for this day, they should take off soon, for good measure. Dean just wanted to spend as much time here as possible, where they actually knew how to take care of babies, before the kids had to be in mortal danger from the ignorance of their pathetic set of parents. Still, Sam had been reading parenting books like crazy, and if Cas and Dean weren’t too ham-handed, maybe the kids would survive.
“Dean, you raised me from the time I was six months old,” Sam kept telling him these past few weeks. “If any one of us knows how to do this, it’s you.”
“Dad was there,” Dean said shortly.
“Yeah, and what good was he?” Sam said brusquely. “And you raised Ben for a year!”
“His mom was there. Anyway, ten-year-olds are easy.”
“What, and babies are hard? They just lie there!”
Dean thought of this, and swallowed back tears a lot, and looked at little Dean, and knew that he would do whatever it took--absolutely whatever it took--to make sure he and his sister made it through okay.
~The End~
Comments and recs will always, always be welcome!!