"We should come up with some name options." Cas suggested one morning before Dean left for his day.
"What were you thinking of going with?" Dean asked, pulling on his shoes from a standing position, jumping up and down.
"That's why I'm asking you, I'm at a loss. How do people normally name their children?"
Dean paused for a second, not knowing how to answer that question. There were some pretty stupid names out there, and even stupider reasons.
"It's a toss-up, Cas. There aren't any specific rules to naming your kid. I'm named after my grandma for God sake. Since it's a girl though, we can't call her Roy."
"How about calling her after Mom, Dean?" Sam asked, having clearly overheard the conversation when he came to meet up with his brother on their way to 'work'.
"There's one idea." Cas agreed.
"How about Candy?" Dean suggested.
"No, Dean. Candy is a stripper name. I don't want our child to be a stripper…lest I kill scores of men." Cas replied.
"Naming a child after things you like isn't always the best bet. What's next, calling the kid Impala?" Sam joked.
"Or pie." Dean corrected.
"Pie Winchester. There's a name she won't resent you for." Cas said.
"We could call her Lisa." Dean winked.
This was obviously not well-received. Castiel looked at the love of his life with burning eyes.
"Dean Winchester, I should send you straight back to Hell and I'll be damned if I bail you out again."
The phone in Bobby's kitchen that Cas was responsible for answering started to ring and he padded off to answer it before Bobby got mad about having missed the call.
"FBI. Mercury speaking." There was a pause. "Yes he is. Uh huh. Well, if he wasn't, then how the Hell do you think he got an FBI badge and my direct number? Is that so? Well I'm glad they don't pay you to think, you dumb son of a bitch. We're *only* the FBI, sometimes we have to double check. What? Okay, calm down. Here's what you should do. Go to your office, take your car keys, and go home because you have no idea what you're doing." He hung up, looking satisfied as he went to the counter to smell the coffee pot. Dean didn't let him drink coffee anymore, now that he was drinking for two. So with the delightful smell in his nostrils, he opened the fridge, took out a Perrier and said 'bottoms up' to his lower belly before taking a drink of the refreshing bubbly liquid.
"I think he's mad at you." Sam whispered as they headed out the door.
"Nah, he'll be fine. It's the hormones."
"No it isn't. That was actually pretty assy, man." Sam insisted as they got to the front porch.
"Sam, I didn't know, I'm so sorry."
"For what?"
"I had no idea that you had a sense-of-humor-ectomy."
Ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo
"Sammy. Get over here and help me with this." Dean yelled from the back yard. It was that time of year again, which never made any sense to anyone. The time of the hottest part of the summer, where people think it's the best time to do some cleaning out of their homes, yards, garages, etc. Dean and Sam were in the back, and while Sam was dragging some yard garbage to the curb, Dean was trying to shove some items back into the shed.
The younger brother came to help while Cas stepped onto the porch, having taken a break from rewiring a light to heat up a generic cup-o-noodles.
"What's that buzzing noise?" Sam asked. There was a sound coming from one of the nearby trees that sounded almost like a weed-wacker running in the distance.
"Oh, heyyy. A wasp nest." Dean pointed to the watermelon-sized brownish object hanging up in the tree not three feet away. That was the source of the buzzing sound and wasps surrounding their hive were clearly visible now.
Dean, with a grin on his face took his lighter out of his pocket and motioned to Sam.
"Dean, no. Come on. This didn't work the last time you tried it." Sam moaned, shifting on his feet like a tired child. Dean had tried setting fire to a wasp nest when they were kids, and he managed to knock it down. It broke open and wasps chased them into the lake.
"Sammy. Please. I'm not an idiot. I got it this time."
"What is it you've 'got'?" Castiel asked, now standing by Sam to observe what it was his human was about to do. Sam gave the angel an uncomfortable, worried look before looking straight ahead.
Dean inched closer to the base of the tree, hoisting himself onto a low branch before bringing his lighter almost to the base of the hive before, again, it fell from the tree and smashed open on the ground. The sound of buzzing grew instantly more aggressive and a black cloud flooded into the air.
"Dammit." Dean groaned.
"Wasps!" Cas squeaked, throwing the cup of hot ramen he had in his hand into the cloud and taking off with the other two men as they scrambled to the open gun shed, which was closer than trying to make it into the house. The three of them made it into the confined area before pulling the door closed, plunging them into darkness and dust.
"Good going." Sam whispered. He was only quiet because if he shouted like he wanted to, dust would have been disturbed and everyone would be coughing more than they did after just closing the door.
"What are the odds of that happening again?" Dean asked aloud, laughing to himself.
"This is just terrific." Cas added, eyes easily adapted to the darkness, but the dust wasn't anything to be excited about. The angel was not a fan of dirt or dust.
"Cas, why did you run? You're an angel. Wasps can't hurt you." Sam said, confused.
"Let me explain something to you. Bees, I can handle. But nobody alive or undead likes wasps. A bee can only sting once. A wasp can sting repeatedly just because. They truly are the muggers of this world." Cas explained. It was true. Wasp stings hurt everyone. He'd been stung by a wasp before. That was the first thing he killed on Earth.
"Well, you're not going to swell up like we are. How about going in the house to get Bobby?" Sam requested, pressing himself into the wall so that he didn't have to be the other side of a Winchester sandwich with angel in the middle.
"I don't want to get stung, Sam. I would be fine, but what if it hurt the baby? We could just wait here for him to come and help."
"No, Cas. That's gonna be a long time to wait. He probably won't notice we're gone for a couple hours." Dean assured, taking this moment in the dark to wrap an arm around his angel's ribs.
"I don't see why I have to be the one to- I can't even run quickly." Castiel noted. It was true. This was the sixth month in gestation. Even though his abdomen was only slightly more swollen than the month previous, it slowed his endurance. The way he looked now only gave the appearance of having a basketball, cutting it in half, and placing one of the semi-circle halves into his shirt. Though six months had gone by, he was still self-conscious about his hardly noted shape, and wore something loose to cover the bump whenever possible.
"Yeah, Sammy, that's true. He'll get eaten alive out there. You're big. If you wave your arms around and roar at them, maybe-"
"No. I'm not going out there."
"Sam."
"NO!"
10 minutes later…
"Sam, now that we have this time together, I spoke to Meg the other day. She wanted me to ask you something." Castiel started, the darkness masking mischief in his eyes.
"About what?" Dean asked.
"You didn't tell Dean?" Cas added subtly.
"Must have slipped my mind." Sam muttered, with his face reddening slightly, trying to steer the conversation away from anything to do with Meg.
"You should really explain to your brother-"
"Okay! I'll go get Bobby. Judas." Sam snapped, before opening the shed door and disappearing into the yard. The two men in the shed could hear Sam slapping at himself and running in spurts up toward the house.
"What did Meg tell you?" Dean asked, in that tone of voice that said he wasn't sure if he wanted to know.
His angel started to speak, but before he could get any descriptive information out, Bobby had come and opened the door. The wasps were flying overhead, but they'd gone from the direct path into the house. Bobby looked annoyed, muttering about how pathetic it was for three grown men to be trapped in a shed because of stupid wasps.
"You're just in time." The old man added, "Carrie is here."
Castiel huffed, jerking one of his arms in noted irritation. It wasn't that he didn't like Carrie, because she was very nice. He wasn't a fan of the touching, especially now that his belly had gotten bigger. The skin was tight and itchy, and he hated the roundness and discoloration of the entire situation. Why couldn't angels just lay eggs? No, instead, I'm chosen to be a genetic anomaly, a pregnant angel in a man's form.
"But…I look like home-made sin." Cas started to say.
Sam and Bobby both looked at Dean as if to say, 'this is the part where you say something nice.'
"Come on. No you don't. You've barely gained any weight at all. You look fine, man." Dean started to say.
"I've put on 13 pounds, Dean." Cas replied, doubtful.
"Hi Castiel!" Carrie said, smiling, hugging the angel as she entered the room, dropping her backpack on the floor.
"Wow," She started, "It's already been a month? You look exactly the same as you did a month ago." She wasn't lying, but she was also saying this to be kind to the angel. As a scanner, she could sense imbalances of hormones and intense emotions.
Ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo
"Fully developed fat layers. Maturing lungs. She has hair, and weighs about 4 pounds at the moment. She is 17 inches long, and laying on her back at the moment, sucking her thumb." Carrie said, smiling during her scan.
Dean laughed at this. He was a thumb sucker as a kid and his mother used to tell him that he was going to wake up without a thumb if he didn't stop. It scared the hell out of him, and he would wake up in the middle of the night and make sure his thumb was still there. Out of spite, he used to suck on baby Sam's thumb, because he didn't care if his brother had one less thumb at the time. Mary and John found this incredibly weird, and John told him that baby Sam picked his butt with that same thumb. Dean never did this again.
"Is that normal?" Bobby asked, taking notes.
"Well yes, for a baby that's around 32 to 34 weeks in gestation. This little one is just shy of full-term size and development."
"Is there some reason that Cas isn't gaining anymore weight?" Dean asked, placing a hand gently on his man's bump, earning a sigh and roll of the eyes from the angel.
"Just the position that she's laying in. She's on his liver, remember, so she's pressed more into the ribcage instead of forward like a uterus would. His organs are pretty much thinning to make room. It's rather amazing, actually." Carrie replied, noting her scan confidently.
"They're thinning?" Sam asked, as if this shouldn't be something said casually.
"Yes, thinning." Carrie replied.
"At least something on me is thinning. I'm never going to get my figure back after this." Cas sighed, not really angry or disappointed. Seeing the scans of the baby, the sketches that Carrie drew of what she was seeing each time, actually cheered him up exponentially. He liked seeing that this discomfort was not for nothing. Soon, he and Dean were going to be parents, which filled the angel with a sense of pride…and fear.
"Is it bad?" Bobby asked, this time concerned. Though he was a gruff old chap, he'd grown attached to the angel, and had come to care for him just as he had for the Winchesters. He usually referred to Cas as a Winchester as well. In basics, he was one. He'd known Dean and Sam since they were young, when John was still alive, and he couldn't help but feel gratitude for someone that truly made Dean happy. The kid was pretty damn close to Bobby's son, and Dean said numerous times that Bobby was a better father to him than John. He could always talk to Bobby and expect a straight answer, always depend on the older man for help. As a younger man, Dean could tell Bobby things without worrying about being hit.
"It would be deadly…if Castiel wasn't anchored in this vessel. Had this been Jimmy Novak that I was scanning, I'd likely be scanning a corpse. It's probable that his liver would have started having serious problems, intestines as well. The fetal movements alone could have caused internal bleeding."
"The baby does kick a good deal. She has inherited Dean's ability to beat me senseless." Cas smiled to himself, but Dean looked away, remembering all the times he'd actually done these things to the man he loved. They'd fought with one another a handful of times, and for being a human, Dean dished out a world of hurt with his punches and kicks. This was years ago, but the shame of the memories reminded him of how much like John he really was.
"It's good that you're actually feeling movement." Carrie urged, smiling again.
"Feeling movement? I've had cramps for a week." Cas assured. He wasn't kidding. The weight and pressure on his abdomen had increased a good deal. His feet started to hurt and swell when he walked around for a good deal of time.
Ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo
Dean and Sam were both busy on an assignment. They each had a loose end to tie up that lead to the same place. Dean's took him two hours away, investigating some missing people. He'd been working for a week, corresponding with Sam who was in the very next town. The two had the same problem. They'd come home to regroup before setting out again to take down the demon den that the two towns shared. Yes, it had been some time since the apocalypse was thwarted, and generally, demons still walked the Earth. It was only when they combined numbers and started getting ideas that they needed to be dealt with. The Winchesters were outnumbered in this endeavor, and in Castiel's slowed condition, Dean refused to let him accompany them. Bobby couldn't leave his home. They needed a partner.
"Meg, please don't let anything happen to him." Cas pleaded to her as she helped the Winchesters get the last of their items into the car.
"I promise I'll bring him back wrapped in ribbons and bells." She assured, smiling and placing a kiss on her favorite angel's cheek, much to Dean's seething jealousy. It was odd how much the two of them disliked each other, being that they were very much alike. Both were possessive, both were tough as nails and determined to have the last word. Both liked almost the same kind of music, but Meg threw in some deeper, darker heavy metal into her play list. Cas was sure that it was the fact that Meg was a demon that made their relationship so rocky. Ruby really had ruined any chance of any other demons being redeemed in the eyes of Dean Winchester.
"Hey, go get your own." Dean called, and it was time to go.
Castiel practically jumped into his human's arms, hugging him tight. "Are you sure you don't want me to go with?"
"It's going to be dangerous, and I wouldn't want anything to happen to you."
"I love you, Dean."
"I'll be fine. I love you too."
Ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo
The three left for their destination, with Meg stretched out in the back seat, in deep thought. She was putting herself at risk to protect Castiel's humans. These demons that they were going against saw her as a traitor and given the chance, they would rip her apart. There were many of them, and she was only one. She'd been rusty from her time spent in a human-esque life, and of course she was feeling doubt. The two humans she accompanied were not ordinary. She had a chance in their presence, but this was still a horrible idea.
It was even more horrible that once they'd set foot in the demon den, Dean insisted that Meg should stick with Sam, even though she'd been sworn to protect him. This human was stubborn as Hell though, and once he told her that she was going with Sam, that was it.
"Come on, big boy." Meg said suggestively, looking back at Dean with a wink as she linked her arm into Sam's. The two of them headed in one direction, while Dean headed in the other.
Watching Sam walk away with a demon girl still caused Dean some level of worry, but it was better than sending him off alone. Yes, it'd been a long time since Sam felt the hunger for demon blood, but Dean always wondered how dangerous the time bomb was that ticked away in his brother. There was no doubt that Meg could take care of herself if it came to a scuffle with Sam, but Dean didn't think she would even put up a fight at all. Demons were tricky, and if she could throw Sam under the bus to spite Dean, she would.
The thoughts of Sam had sent the older Winchester off of his A-game and he practically walked right into a small group of the demons that inhabited the den. They took off in a chase and Dean had no other choice but to run. He had no idea where he was heading, down dark halls, stumbling about over things that scattered the floor. It wasn't fair, demons were faster and more enduring of a long run than a human. Dean was losing ground to them, and just before he felt the scrapes of fingernails attempting to grip his jacket, he felt arms grasp him and before he had time to react, he was in a different place, with a familiar hand over his mouth.
He was in a small space. It was a walk-in closet, only about four paces wide, and it was less dark suddenly, the room bathed in green light that could only come from a glow stick. On the walls were a couple sigils, mold grew in the corners. This room had been forgotten, but the sigils were new.
"Shit." said a deep, monotone voice.
"Cas?" Dean called quietly when his mouth was released. He turned his head to find his angel standing before him, bracing his arm on the wall, leaning against it for support. He had a sheen of sweat on his forehead.
"They don't know we're here." Cas whispered as Dean reached for him.
"How did you get here? Where is here?" Dean asked, feeling the warmth of the other's body against his.
"My abilities are so weak in this stage of my life. I only had enough juice in my batteries to 'zap' here. We're in the same den. This is nothing more than a closet. See the sigils? They can't get in…But I can't get out." Cas replied.
"Jesus, Cas. Why?" Dean was now distraught for beloved than feeling worried about himself as he was moments ago.
"You called me." Cas answered, sinking against the support of the bigger man, trying to catch his breath.
I did, Dean questioned himself. Did I call to him? I'm so used to doing it when I need help, I might have, without thinking about it.
"Shit." Dean replied.
"It's okay. You're safe. I got here just in time." Cas said, breathing now calm.
"No, we're stuck in this closet now. I'm so sorry I trapped you here."
"Shhh" Cas assured, running his fingers through Dean's hair. "We'll figure this out, one step at a time. Where's Meg?"
"I sent her with Sam." Dean replied, knowing he'd been caught.
"See, had you listened to me, this wouldn't have happened." Said a tone Dean knew all to well as 'Cas-knows-everything'.
His voice held pain. Dean noticed that, too. When Castiel was hurting, his voice got even more deep and gravelly than usual.
"Are you okay?"
"No." Cas answered flatly.
"We've talked about this. Elaborate." Dean insisted.
"Pressure. I have been cramping. It feels like I have to…go to the bathroom. But that's not it. I haven't had to. Not since I was human that time. Not at all while growing our baby. She has used every molecule of nutrients I have taken in."
"Does it hurt?" Dean asked, now concerned even more than he'd been.
"Yes, it certainly does hurt. Very much." Castiel replied, still holding an air of calm, though his eyes showed the pain he was trying to mask.
"Sit down." Dean insisted, worry now pulsing through his veins. Sam, where are you? Damn, you're never around when I need you. We have no one, here. He's stuck here with me, and I'm the one to blame.
"Please try not to be scared for me." Cas requested, taking Dean's hand in his, interlacing their fingers while he rested.
Ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ooo
An hour had gone by, and the two of them had been mostly quiet, especially when demons passed the hallway outside. Castiel had slipped into almost a dozing state a couple of times, only to jerk awake violently. His sweating intensified throughout the hour and it now practically poured as if he'd been exercising with great vigor. The white t-shirt he wore clung to his skin. His breathing was more rapid, now panting. He kept moans of pain to a minimum in front of Dean, not wanting him to see that he was hurting this badly. Blood started to appear from his nostrils, which he would quickly wipe away, but the scent of sweat and blood in the room became overpowering.
"You're bleeding."
"I'm hemorrhaging inside." Cas replied, in a voice that was inappropriately calm.
"What?! No!" Dean pleaded, not wanting to believe that the blood coming out of the most precious thing in his life was from a pool forming inside.
"It's okay, Dean. Everything will be okay."
"No. You're bleeding. We can't get out of this damn closet. You need a doctor. What the hell am I supposed to do?" His voice was choked up and scared.
"I'm prepared to go down with this ship." Cas whispered, reaching a hand up to cup the side of Dean's face, trying to be comforting, using his thumb to wipe away a tear that trickled down.
"You've been listening to Dido?" Dean asked, still unable to resist the urge to make fun.
"This is hardly the time or place to criticize my musical choices, but yes."