Mind sluggish with sleep, Dean struggled to open his eyes. All around, he was surrounded with warmth. He felt a downy comforter on his bare back, and his legs slipped along silky sheets. Then there was a scratchy feeling too. It wasn't unpleasant, quite comforting, in fact, but unfamiliar, all the same. Under his chest, he felt another warm, textured surface, and the steady rise and fall of his breathing created a gentle friction. His mind slowly pulled away from the lull of drowsy unconscious, and he gradually became aware of a noise. It was loud and invasive, tearing away the sleep that clung to his mind. He finally recognized the noise. It wasn't something he'd heard often, but it was still unmistakable. Baby cries. Even though Dean didn't have a baby.

It was taking Dean longer than usual to wake up, but he was starting to absorb more of the details of his surroundings. Extending over the edge of the mattress, his uncovered fingers were cold. His boxers were pulled around too far on one side. A current of air was tickling his ear. One of his knees was tucked under a heavy leg. He was laying on top of someone.

In the space of a second, Dean's eyes flew open and he shot up, entangling himself in the sheets and flailing around like an animal caught in a trap. A small cry escaped from whomever was under him, and just before he fell off the bed, he met eyes of a deep, startling blue.

Cas.

He had been cuddling with Cas.

"What the hell, man?" He gasped over the noise of the baby crying, heart pounding a million miles a minute. He glanced around the room, rage abating as he took in entirely unfamiliar surroundings.

"Dean," he heard from the bed, and a head popped over the edge a moment later, "What is going on?"

"Hell if I know, I just woke up and—" He stopped mid-sentence. Maybe it was in both of their interests not to mention the mortifying snuggling that had been taking place moments ago. "And I was in this place. Didn't we crash at some skeevy motel last night? Unless you popped us into some swanky-ass—" But Dean cut himself off once again, staring at a framed picture on the bedside table. It depicted two men, smiling, with a blurry outline of what had to be the Eiffel Tower. It wasn't so much the monument that caught his attention. It was him. Literally, him. His own face, right next to Castiel's, was staring back at him behind the glass of the picture frame. If Dean wasn't mistaken, they had never been to Paris.

Ignoring the continued screams from a room down, he rose quickly and grabbed the frame. At a loss, he turned to Castiel.

"I don't remember going to the city of love, do you?"

The angel's expression crumpled into confusion, and he stared, first at the picture, then at the room around them, then at Dean. "What are you talking about?"

He thrust the picture at him, shaking the frame so hard the metal and glass rattled. "Paris, Cas, when the fuck have we ever been to Paris?"

"I cannot recollect any time either you or I have traveled to France. Do you know where we are currently? And what is that noise?"

Dean dropped it onto the bed and ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the ends. "Fuck, Cas, I don't know." Then he froze. "Where's Sammy?" His eyes turned panicked and the angel watched as the man, still clad in only his boxers, ran from the room. The crying reached a near-deafening pitch, and Dean thundered down the hallway, yanking open doors and looking into rooms, to no avail. He finally reached the source of the noise and hesitated before pulling on the doorknob.

He had never been good with babies.

He swore under his breath and opened the door.

The crying was so loud and so obtrusive that Dean couldn't form so much as a thought as he entered the nursery. It took less than a glance to tell that Sam wasn't in the room, hulking man-giant that he was, but Dean couldn't bring himself to leave without at least looking at the infant. You know, to make sure it wasn't… dying or… something.

Cautiously, he peeked over the edge of the crib and stared down. A tiny boy with wispy brown hair and matching brown eyes stared back up at him, all crying ceasing the second he came into view.

Dean's stomach dropped.

"Aw, fuck." He whispered. "Cas? You need to come in here."

Soft padding behind him indicated Castiel's arrival. He, too, looked down at the squirming baby, half-wrapped in a blue blanket.

"Oh."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Thanks, Cas, very helpful."

The angel cleared his throat. "That, uh, appears to be…"

"Ya," Dean said, voice low and tired, "it's Sam."

They continued to stare down at the child, and it— Sam— kicked his legs and whimpered. Castiel leaned forward into the crib and took him by the armpits, heaving him out of the bed. After settling the boy in the crook of his arm and grabbing the blue blanket, he turned to find Dean staring at him in incredulity.

"What?"

"What do you mean, 'What'? What are you doing?" His eyes felt like they were going to pop out of his head. This was weird. He was watching Castiel, and angel of the lord, cuddle his 27-year-old baby brother in an unknown house in an unknown place where, just minutes ago, he had woken up, half naked and on top of said angel.

Cas, with a holy righteousness behind his eyes, glared at Dean. "Your brother was crying. I am comforting him. He may also require sustenance."

Dean gawked after him as the man left the room, not believing his eyes or ears. "You don't even know anything about babies," he shouted, breaking his trance and following him down the hallway. Cas had turned back into the bedroom, and was going through the closet, looking for clothes, with Sam squirming on the bed. The angel pulled out two teeshirts, throwing one to Dean and pulling the other over his bare chest. Dean caught it and mimicked the motion, feeling eerily domestic as Castiel walked to a set of drawers and opened several, looking for pants. He found them, tossing a pair to Dean. Now it was just getting weird. They dressed in silence, Dean quiet in the awkwardness of the situation and Cas because he just didn't know how to react or interpret what was happening.

"So…" Dean started, "what do you think's going on?"

The angel turned to him and his face settled into an expression of quiet contemplation. "I'm not sure. It could be several things, such as djinn, tricksters, gods, angels, and Elbert's Mirror."

"Elbert's Mirror?"

"A cursed mirror that traps the looker in a parallel universe. But the mirror and the djinn couldn't take two people in. Also, neither of those explain Sam's transformation. And it is still Sam," he reassured Dean as the taller man walked to the bed and picked up his brother, looking into familiar eyes, "I can still feel his individual soul. And he is hungry, so we should feed him."

"What, we just play house and wait for whatever trapped us here to kill us?"

The older man shot him a dark look and crossed his arms. "I doubt the entity behind this would create this house and all the details in it just to kill us now. I think that we should participate until we find a solution."

With that, he strode from the room, leaving Dean and his brother behind him.

He looked down at the baby. "Sammy," he sighed, "our lives are so fucked up."

They went down a set of stairs and come out into a spacious, well-lit living area. A quick glance around affirmed Dean's suspicions that, yes, there were more creepy pictures of Dean and Cas scattered around the room, a few including baby Sam. Cas was already in the chrome-covered kitchen, sifting through the fridge like he owned the place. Now that he thought about it, Dean suspected, judging by the pictures, that he might actually own the place. He placed Sam in a blue high chair, and he promptly shoved a tiny fist in his mouth.

"Dean," Castiel called out, a question in his voice. "Is this acceptable human baby food?" He held up a brown jar of Gerbers and Dean could do nothing but nod in reply, once again dumbstruck. The angel turned away from him and opened a drawer. He shut it closed and then repeated the process, opening another one. Dean watched in silence as Cas went through three more drawers, and he spit, "Why are there so many different drawers for— Ah, here we are." He lifted out a spoon with a blue plastic tip, holding it up for Dean to see. From his place at across the kitchen, Dean moved in front of Castiel, crossing his arms and blocking him as he swiveled to return to Sam.

"Cas."

"Yes, Dean?"

Dean watched him carefully, observing him the same way Castiel usually stared at him. He looked the same, with deep lines etched into his face and his big eyes glowing impossibly blue. But something had changed. He felt different. The intensity was still there, in the way his eyes bore into Dean's own, but the edge was gone, the sharpness of it.

"Cas, are you still… Do you still have… I mean, is there anything you want to tell me? Anything changed or weird?"

And he saw it. A flicker of fear deep in the blue wells of his eyes. "I'm fine."

He narrowed his eyes. "Tell me. Are you an angel still?"

The flicker returned, this time warping into a full blown panic, and Cas's mask dropped as he was consumed by the wave of distress. "Dean, I can't access it. My grace, I think it might still be there, but I can't use it, and I don't know where we are and I don't know what to do or how to get us back or how to get Sam back and—"

"Cas," Dean said forcefully, more than a little shocked at the sudden outpouring of emotion in the other-wise reserved angel. "Calm down." When Castiel looked to him in total desperation, Dean moved automatically, lifting both hands to his friend's shoulders. He looked a little shocked, but otherwise calmed down enough to start to breath evenly again. "I'm freaked out too, alright? But the only way we're going to work this out is if we both stay calm." Under his palms, Castiel's shoulders slumped and his dead dropped to hang low on his chest.

"You don't understand," he said, voice low and gravelly as always, if a little more defeated that usual. "I'm useless. The only helpful part about me is my grace, and if that's gone, there is no longer a reason for you to keep me around."

Dean balked. "Keep you around? Cas, it doesn't matter if you're human or angel or whatever; you're family." Cas flinched at the word "human," but lifted his head hopefully, looking like a goddamn puppy. Their eyes met and Dean continued, pouring as much sincerity as he could into the statement, "You know the Winchesters never abandon family. If that's what you're worried about, it's a goddamn stupid thing to freak out over." He clapped Castiel on the shoulder and grabbed the jar of baby food off the counter. "Enough with all the chick flick stuff, let's feed my baby brother some pureed— peas? This is mashed up peas? Well that's just disgusting." Behind him, Castiel smiled.

With nothing else to do and a grumpy baby on their hands, the two men fed Sam. While Cas spooned green mush into his open, drooling mouth, Dean stood by with a towel, wiping at the mess his little brother was making. He was never letting him live this down. Between them, the two managed to feed Sam only a fraction of the container. Dean was becoming increasingly frustrated and grumpy, and Castiel's calm, patient demeanor did nothing to help. By the umpteenth time Sam let the food slide from his mouth, down his chin, and onto the improvised dish towel-bib, he let out a growled "Son of a bitch!" that started Sam so much he started to cry.

Castiel shot him a glare of admonishment, which Dean returned with a surly look of his own. He watched Castiel lift his baby brother from the high chair and remove the towel, bouncing him gently against his shoulder. "If you're not going to be accommodating," he said, glancing over Sam's round, nearly-bald head, "could you, at the very least, grab a new dish towel from the bottom drawer by the sink?" Dean muttered to himself about "having to play the goddamn housewife" under his breath, but retrieved the towel and tossed to the angel. He held Sam away from him, now only sniffling, and draped the towel over his shoulder. Dean watched in begrudging interest. He then settled Sam back onto his chest and patted his back lightly until Dean heard a small "brup" and the smell of sick met his nostrils.

Worried, Dean crossed the small space and touched Sam's back. "What'd you do? He's not supposed to throw up like that, is he?"

Castiel responded with the patience of thousands of years behind him, reminding Dean of his considerable age advantage. "It's called burping. The air sallowed when they feed has to be removed to prevent gas and cramps."

"I know that you're a million-year-old angel or whatever, but how do you know that?"

Castiel looked distraught for a moment, then his face went blank, and he started to bounce Sam gently. "Jimmy Novak cared for Claire when she was a baby, and the knowledge is still there."

"Oh." Dean shifted uncomfortably. "Is he, uh, is Jimmy still kicking around up there?"

Again, shorter man's face fell and he turned away from Dean. Sam's giant brown eyes gazed back at him over Cas, and he watched as the baby opened and closed his lips like a fish. "Jimmy died when he was stabbed in that warehouse. His consciousness has left this vessel and his soul is in heaven."

"Sorry, Cas."

"Why are you sorry?" he snapped. "It was like torture for him to be trapped in his own body with no control, unable to get back to his wife and daughter. And you are not the one who allowed him to die."

He stepped back, feeling like he'd been slapped. "I just mean that you probably miss him. Sorry if I was off the mark." He turned and opened the fridge. "I'm going to make breakfast," he mumbled gruffly. He heard Castiel, Sam in tow, walk away, and a soft sigh of couch cushions as he sank onto the sofa.

Dean rifled through the fridge, wading through stack after stack of jarred baby food. Finally, he found a carton of eggs, cheese, and a small package of bacon. It didn't take as long to find the frying pan, a bowl, and some utensils, and he set to work making an omelet. He couldn't remember the last time he cooked for himself, on a real stove, with real ingredients.

He took his time, relishing the feeling of being able to watch his food being made, as opposed to opening a greasy paper bag. He had just finished flipping his last piece of bacon onto his crowded plate when the phone rang.