Summary: Sam is infected with a demon parasite, and Dean's not doing too well either. Takes place mid-season 3, obviously before season four (so no rugaru yet) and before the finale of season 3. Spoilers could include anything up to the end of season 3. Warnings: Mpreg (sorta), language, abortion (again, sorta), some grossness, killing, etc, but if you don't like that kind of stuff, why do you watch Supernatural?
Disclaimer: Sam is not mine. Dean is not mine. Bobby is not mine. Nothing in, about, or around Supernatural is mine. It all belongs to other, far more deserving people.
Author's Note: I wrote this quite some time ago - about three and a half years ago, in fact. It has changed only very little since then, but I've been reticent to post it due to its mpreg-ward tendencies (though, really, it's not particularly mpreg-y). I finally posted it today because, well, come ON - posting a story on leap day? Classic! Since the story is finished, I will post it one chapter per day until finished (five days total). Enjoy!
Chapter 1: Just a little grenade
Sam was used to flying through the air. After all, he was a hunter, he went after supernatural things, all manner of ghosts, spirits, demons, and other assorted beings, and they all tended to be pretty strong. So yeah, getting tossed twenty feet and plowing into a wall really wasn't new.
It still hurt.
Sam lay face-down on the cold concrete and hoped his brother had finally managed to break the basement door open (why was it always the basement?), because it would be another few seconds before he was able to move again, let alone fight. A few shallow breaths, a quick check to make sure nothing was broken or otherwise seriously injured, and Sam was finally able to lift himself up on his hands enough to see what he'd missed.
It took a minute to focus his eyes, but it looked to Sam like his brother had, in fact, made it into the basement and was going head-to-head with the...demon. Or whatever it was, since it was definitely from hell, but it wasn't possessing a human body. It certainly wasn't susceptible to exorcisms, since that was what Sam had been doing when he'd been so unceremoniously launched.
A quick jab here, a fist to the face there - Dean seemed to be holding his own. Of course, as soon as he started to think things were looking up, the thing grabbed Dean's knife by the blade, ignoring the gashes it gave itself in favor of yanking the weapon from Dean's hand. Sam groaned as his brother's eyes went wide and startled, and he started to pick himself up from the dusty floor, only to hear Dean shout: "Sam! Down!"
Twenty years of teamwork counted for something, and Sam was flat on the floor when the blast came, followed immediately by a thick shower of something wet, warm, and thankfully unidentifiable.
"What the hell was that?" Sam asked as he pushed himself up off the floor, viscous fluids of various colors dripping from him to puddle on the floor. His brother poked his head up from behind a bureau on the far side of the room, grinning like an idiot and annoyingly clean.
"Grenade," Dean said proudly as he made his way over to help his brother. Sam's jaw dropped.
"A grenade?" he asked, incredulous. "You used a GRENADE? In an ENCLOSED SPACE?"
Dean shrugged. "I shoved it into the gash in her stomach - she muffled the blast. Besides," he continued, slapping Sam's fluid-covered shoulder with a wet splat. "It was just a little grenade."
Hours later, after Sam had scrubbed himself clean of multicolored demon slime, the boys shared a couple of celebratory beers.
"I still can't believe you brought a grenade," Sam said, taking a swig of his beer.
"Are you kidding, Sammy?" Dean replied, a smirk twisting one side of his mouth. "I brought six grenades." He raised his beer, smiling. "Just turned out I only needed one."
"Yeah, well your one grenade could've gotten us killed."
"Could've, but didn't," Dean pointed out, and Sam rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Another long pull of his beer and Sam turned his gaze to the newspaper clippings spread on the tiny table between them. "So, got any idea where we're goin' next?"
Dean shrugged. "Got a couple of animal mutilations down in Texas. Might be interesting."
"Texas it is."
So much for a "couple" of animal mutilations - it was more like thirty, mostly cattle, but with plenty of dogs and cats and other household pets thrown into the mix. It took the brothers a week to round up the werewolves behind the destruction, not to mention all the domestic animals that had been turned (ever seen a steer with fangs? You don't want to). The creatures weren't hard to find, there were just so darn many of them, and almost every one was a pain in the ass. By the end of each night, Sam and Dean stumbled into their motel room, dead on their feet.
They were so busy, in fact, that even after a good night's sleep, Dean was still dead tired. It didn't help that he'd caught some kind of stomach bug, and he was having trouble keeping food down. It didn't seem to be affecting the hunt, though, so Dean shrugged it off.
After five days of cleaning up the mess that had ultimately started with just one werewolf, Dean took what he considered a well-deserved reward: he slept in. Unfortunately, his brother, the bitch, insisted on getting him up at the crack of ten to go get breakfast.
"Come ON, Dean, I'm starving!" the brat had said, and he must've been, because once they'd made it to the little diner they liked, Sam plowed through more food than Dean had ever seen anyone eat in a single sitting. Ever.
And so began what Dean began to think of as "Sammy's Neverending Buffet." That day they started on their way to Arizona looking for what sounded like a traditional haunting. Dean, as always, packed the Impala full of snacks, even though he'd lost his breakfast of bacon and a couple of pancakes within minutes of eating it. Damn stomach bug. Anyway, that wasn't the weird part. The weird part was that the treasure trove of snacks was gone before they even made it out of Texas, and Sam insisted that they stop and get more. In fact, they had to stop for snacks or meals at least five times that day - Sam needed fuel more often than the car, for Christ's sake.
"Hey, we just came off one of the longest hunts of our lives," Sam whined when Dean brought it up, as they were cruising through New Mexico. "My reserves are a little low."
"Yeah, well, you keep goin' like this and you're not gonna fit in the car," Dean grumbled mildly, glancing over in time to catch his brother's rolled eyes.
"It won't keep going on like this," Sam replied. "Trust me, a day or two and everything will be normal again."
It wasn't.
Over the next few days, it seemed like every time Dean looked at Sam, he was eating. Jerky, fries, chips, even fruit, nothing seemed to satisfy the boy. At meals Sam snarfed down three or four entrees, and he never passed up dessert. They rolled into a little no-name town in Arizona with Sammy munching on an italian sub, and they rolled out three days later with him sucking down a double cheeseburger.
The haunting did turn out to be pretty traditional, but it was anything but straightforward. The little town with no name was insular to a fault, and no one would talk to Sam OR Dean, no matter how many sad puppy dog faces or incredibly sexy smiles they pulled out. They did eventually manage to find someone who would talk to them, but even then it took forever to find the one bit of remains (a finger bone) that had been plastered over when the old house in question was renovated.
All in all, they were at the No-Name Motel for three days, and during those days Dean mostly avoided food, as his stomach was still rebelling on him, and Sammy ate everything in sight.
It was a long last night in little no-name. The ghost had finally been taken care of, but after three days of research, dead ends, and digging through perfectly plastered walls, Dean was exhausted. The fact that he was nursing a glass of water rather than beer wasn't helping his mood, and neither was the fact that he was still covered in plaster and dirt - Sam had won first dibs on the shower. So it was possible that he was a little harsh when his brother came out of the steamy bathroom looking for some clothes, holding a towel wrapped around his hips.
"Lookin' a little soft there, Sammy-boy," Dean drawled, eyeing his brother over the top of his glass. His brother's normally flat stomach had bowed outward, forming a shallow half-sphere over the edge of the towel. "Can't let yourself go in this life or you won't be in this life anymore." Sam glared at his brother but didn't look down.
"I'm fine, Dean," he snapped, and Dean blinked in surprise at the sharpness of his brother's tone. "Leave it alone."
He almost did - Sam was clearly annoyed, but...for a hunter, ten extra pounds could mean the difference between outrunning the thing chasing you and...not.
"I told you all the stuff you've been plowin' through would come back to haunt you, I mean-"
"Dean!" Sam barked, eyes flashing. "Drop it!"
For a long moment, Dean just watched his brother, then he nodded and, setting his glass on the table, disappeared into the bathroom and started his own shower.
Plaster and assorted other types of dirt sifted down from his skin and hair as Dean stripped, but he barely noticed - his mind was on his brother. In fact, he was so occupied that it wasn't until he was finished cleaning off the last of the grime that he noticed that the world was moving in an unsettling way. Only a quick grab for the handicapped bar in the shower kept Dean from ending up on his ass in the tub.
Hoping Sam hadn't heard his near miss, Dean turned off the water and carefully climbed out of the tub, grabbing hold of the sink for support. After a few long moments of standing there, leaning on the sink with his eyes closed tight, the world seemed to steady again.
What was that? Dean thought to himself as he wiped the fog off the mirror. The face looking back at him seemed like the same handsome devil he'd always seen, at least at first. But as he dried off his hair and brushed his teeth, every time he caught his reflection he looked paler, more gaunt. By the time he was ready for bed Dean was not only avoiding the mirror, he was trying not to look down at himself as well. He was obviously so tired he was seeing things, and the skinny, almost fragile version of his body that his exhausted brain had cooked up was freaking him out.
He'd figured Sam would be, if not asleep, then at least pretending to be by the time he finished in the bathroom, and he was right. Dean watched the lump of sheets that was his brother for a long moment, then he shivered – it was colder than he'd thought in the room. Worried about Sam and unnerved by what he'd been seeing in the bathroom, Dean grabbed some clean clothes and climbed into bed, knowing that sleep would be a long time coming.