So I have this inability to write long things lately, but I want to write longer things. So I found a solution - very short pieces looped together make longer things!
Title: How to End the Apocalypse in Twelve "Easy" Steps
Rating: PG-13
Words: 1403
Summary: Sometimes you really have to hit a man where it hurts. Written for
epiphanyx7 because she wants a baby.
There really ought to be, Dean decided, more monsters in Canada.
A straightforward case that had gotten his heart pounding and his blood pumping, then a few very good drinks in a bustling bar, then he’d gone home with a little sexy minx that he’d originally approached because she’d reminded him of Cassie. (By the end of the night, however, she’d made him forget he’d ever known anyone by that name. Damn, that had been... wow.)
And then she’d woken him in the morning with a cup of coffee, and he’d sat there with her cat (Fred the ho-bag or something) as she ran around half naked.
He’d gotten one last kiss (and wasn’t that one to remember?!) then met a grumpy didn’t-get-any-did-you? Sam at the car.
“Yep,” he’d declared. “I like Canada.”
---
Apocalypses tend to be a bit distracting. They come down, and your sense of time goes to shit. Things that feel like they were months ago might have been last week, and things that feel a lifetime ago might have only been a few months.
So when the feminine voice on the other end of the line said, “It’s Claudine. You know? The chick you slept with eight months ago?” it was perfectly reasonable for Dean to say, again, “Who?”
She sighed, heavily. “Short? I had a cat? We met at Cecil’s Beer Society? I stuck my - “
“Right! Got it,” he cut her off, deliberately ignoring the very bizarre look Sam was giving him. “Um. Right. So? What’s the reason for the emergency call?”
There was a moment of silence, then: “We need to talk.”
“So talk.” He shifted the phone so he could hold it with his shoulder, and juggled with his coffee and his fork, wondering if he could manage to finish his breakfast and hear whatever it was she wanted him to hear. He was starving.
“Actually, I really need to see you in person. That possible?”
During the Apocalypse? Not likely. “I don’t think so - “
He heard another voice in the background, words indistinct, then a far more familiar voice was suddenly on the other line.
“Dean.” Castiel said. “You need to be here.”
---
It was Castiel who opened the door, as “pinched” as normal, but Dean was pretty sure he saw palpable relief flit over the angel’s face when he opened the door wider for them.
The apartment was the same as he remembered from his drunken haze - large and mostly empty - but there was something distinctly different about the woman he remembered and the tiny, barely contained spitfire standing next to Castiel.
When he’d slept with her, she definitely hadn’t been heavily pregnant.
“Oh shit,” Dean squeaked.
Claudine arched a brow, crossing her arms over her chest, which only made it all the more obvious that she had to be at least eight months along.
Sam turned, silently, to look at him, his expression clearly one of Dean, you got some ‘splainin’ to do.
Then Castiel started talking. “As you can see, we have a minor problem.”
“Minor?” Sam repeated. “Dean knocked someone up! Again!”
“Um, still standing right here, thanks,” Claudine reminded him.
“Um.” Dean tried. “I didn’t mean to?”
---
Sam and Castiel were yelling at each other. It was kind of a bizarre sight, actually, as Sam was yielding every ounce of his angst muffin “my life sucks because I’m Satan” fury, while Castiel seemed to be trying to desperately reign in his “I will wreck the full fury of heaven on your everloving ass” power, making the air sort of crackle with tension and fury. Apparently Sam took offense at Castiel not telling them that they were tied up in yet another prophesy (this one slightly important since it sort of involved the actual ending - ending of the world and the baby that would be the key to all that) and Castiel was furious that Sam didn’t have faith in God’s timing. Or something like that.
Dean and Claudine sat side by side on her couch, sipping decaf tea, and watching.
“How come you didn’t tell me earlier?” Dean asked, suddenly.
“You gave me a fake name and a fake number,” she said, sipping at her tea. “So I said, ‘fine, I’ll do this by myself’. Then your angel friend showed up talking about angels and vessels and shit. Dunno how I feel about my baby being an angel so you don’t have to be, but he - “ she pointed at Castiel “ - says it’s the only way this’ll work.”
“...and the kid’s definitely mine?”
Claudine rolled her eyes, and sipped at her tea. “Yes, Dean. The baby’s definitely yours.”
He considered that for a minute, then grinned kind of dopily. “Cool.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes more, watching the verbal war unfold before them, then Claudine declared, “They really just need to fuck already, and get it out of their systems.”
“...huh. Yeah, they really do.” He agreed a minute later.
---
“Are you sure you want to do this, Dean?” Sam asked, later that night, in a hushed, fevered voice, as Dean fluffed the pillows on his bed at the motel less than a block from Claudine’s apartment.
“And what exactly do you suggest I do instead, Sammy?”
“Well, you could - “ Sam hesitated.
Dean arched a brow, waiting.
“It’s kinda... too late to do anything, isn’t it?”
“Just a little.”
Dean flopped in his bed, tugging the blankets up, determined to sleep, not just think about this.
“And you’re okay with all this?” Sam persisted.
“...yeah, Sammy. I kinda am.”
---
“Motherfucker I am going to fucking kill you, you son of a bitch!”
Dean winced, pretty sure he’d just felt a bone in his hand crack. “Um... you’re doing... great... keep... uh... breathing?”
“I’ll breath you, you little auuuuugh!” Claudine howled, trying to curl in on herself.
“Good job!” the doctor chirped uselessly.
Dean really wanted to shoot him.
---
The nurse was smiling way too much, but that was okay, because she was smiling as she carefully took the little blue bundle from the arms of the woman on the bed, and set it with exaggerated gentleness in Dean’s eager arms, so that was okay. “Remember to support his head,” she reminded him, but Dean wasn’t stupid.
Unfocused green eyes blinked up at him, which was weird, because he thought all babies had blue eyes. Green eyes in a round, chubby face, a shock of curly, jet black fuzz curling on his brow. Fat little sausage fingers reached upwards, and awed, he offered a finger, watching as itty bitty tiny person fingers, like perfectly miniature versions of his (though a little darker and a lot chubbier) curled around his calloused finger.
“Congratulations, daddy!” the nurse chirped.
Dean looked up, and met Claudine’s eyes. She was smiling. Tired, but smiling.
“Holy shit,” he said.
---
Castiel was clearly waiting for him, hands in his pockets of his trenchcoat.
“Holy shit,” Dean said. He’d said that a lot today.
“Pleased?”
“...what?”
“The child is born.” Castiel said dryly. “The burden of Michael has passed from you to your son.”
“...about that.”
“Yes?”
“I... I can’t let that happen. My god, Cas, did you see him? He’s perfect! He’s absolutely perfect.”
“The war must end, Dean.” Castiel said, as though explaining this concept to a small child. “And if you will not accept the mantle of Michael, than your son must do so.”
“About that,” he said, again.
The angel waited.
“I can’t let that happen.” Dean tried crossing his arms, but it felt wrong, so he switched to just hooking his thumbs in his pocket. “He’s my son, Cas. I can’t let him get messed up like Raphael’s host did. He’s too perfect.”
“What do you suggest, then?”
“I’ll do it.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes, dammit, Cas, I’m sure!” Dean bellowed. “Go find your damn buddy Michael and tell him I’ll do - “
He calmed suddenly, looking levelly and calmly at Castiel.
“Hello, Michael.”
“Hello, Castiel.”
---
“You’re not my brother!”
“No. I’m not.”
---
Sam let Lucifer in.
---
“Are you ready?”
Dean/Michael held up a hand, motioning for Castiel to wait a moment, then bent to kiss two brows - one of a sleeping woman, the other of a downy haired infant.
“Just in case,” he murmured, then disappeared in the sound of whispering wings.