"There is something I probably should have told you." Castiel said.
Dean and Sam just stood there, naked, sweaty, and smeared with blood and semen, staring at him.
"You can get pregnant in that form... if the spell is still on?"
Dean rolled his eyes. "No, it's off. I just decided I liked it so much I went in for a friggin' sex change!"
"That doesn't seem like you." Castiel remarked.
Dean smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand, and counted to three.
"The spell is still on."
"Ah. Well, technically, you're not pregnant yet, but it will happen."
"I'm not even going to ask how. Magic, biology, I don't give a crap." Dean said.
Sam however, had been thinking hard.
"That's it!" he exclaimed.
"What?"
"That must be what Griselda meant, about "a woman's pain". What is the most painful thing that happens to most women? Childbirth." Sam explained.
"You're kidding me." Dean said, but he looked intrigued.
"Dean, you can't have a baby."
"Shouldn't, probably, but I don't see us coming up with anything else to fix me, and I am so not living with these periods for the rest of my life.
"Dean..."
"Not happening." Dean replied, heading into the bathroom to use up all the hot water. When Sam moved to follow, he stuck his head back out. "Oh, and Sam, the whole joint-shower offer is revoked now. Cas, you're in."
Sam sat outside in the hotel room's recliner, listening to the water run and watching the boring news channels. It was a big shower. They could totally have fit three. Not that he was really interested in seeing Cas naked, but it was the thought that counts, right? Sam was sad.
2 Days Pregnant.
Later... Dean was lying on the bed, trying to watch the TV. Sam was trying to impede his concentration by continually going on about the pregnancy situation. Castiel was watching Dean.
"You know," Dean said, stuffing more chips into his mouth. " I should be weirded out by this, but it's kind of cool, having a kid."
"There's nothing "cool" about this, Dean. What kind of life is this kid going to have? We can't give up the life and go live in the 'burbs, not with you changing into a woman every week and then back."
"Oh come on! You're the one who said having this kid will remove the spell."
"I think it will remove it, but we don't know that for sure, Dean."
Dean rolled his eyes and reached for a beer.
"Plus you won't be able to drink during your pregnancy."
"You're shitting me." Dean said, raising an eyebrow. "Okay, maybe it's not such a great idea."
He thought about it some. "You mean you really can't drink when you're pregnant? Not even beer? I thought it was just the hard stuff you have to lay off."
"No, you can't drink at all Dean."
"Actually," Castiel said, from his perch on the bed behind Dean, "Studies have failed to show that light drinking causes harm in pregnancies. So Dean can have his beer—in moderation."
"How do you know that?" Sam asked.
"It was on the TV." Castiel pointed for emphasis.
Sam sighed, exasperated. "Look, there's enough of a chance this kid will have a birth defect, what with its parents being siblings.
"Don't even start in on that. I didn't hear you saying anything about that two hours ago, when you were pounding me into the mattress. Besides, it only increases the chances of a birth defect by like, 8%, and that's less than chicks have when they decide to have kids after they're like, 35. And you don't see anyone getting all morality police on them."
"How do you know that?" Sam asked, again.
"I looked it up. You're not the only one who can do research, you know. There's a link to all the studies on sibling incest on that website of Becky's... what was that, ? Heh, who'd have known she'd be right?"
6 Months Pregnant.
Once the point of no return was reached...
"You know, you could always give it up for adoption. Then it could have a nice, normal life..."
"I am not giving up John Jr. Dad didn't give us up when he became a hunter, and chances are there would have been angels and demons knocking on our door anyway. Do you know how many things there out there that would love to get a hold of one of our kids, if we left them alone and defenseless?"
"That's a great reason not to have any in the first place." Sam said.
"Says the guy who's always trying to shack up and play Norman Normal." Dean said, snorting.
"Why do you have such a bug up your ass over this anyway?" he continued.
"You know what Dean? It doesn't matter. You're just going to do whatever you want, so there's no point talking about it." Sam said.
He grabbed the keys off the nightstand and walked over to the door.
"Where're you going?" Dean called.
"Out." Was all Sam said, before slamming the door and leaving.
Dean just raised his eyebrows, took a sip of beer, and went back to perusing his copy of What To Expect When You're Expecting.
He personally thought it was a very shitty move to leave the mother of your children alone when he was six months pregnant and there was a very evil Herecgunina on the loose. Not that he couldn't defend himself, but his back hurt, his knees hurt, and his ankles were killing him. He didn't even feel like he had feet anymore, just bruised lumps that barely cushioned his ankles from the harsh ground.
And Sam was a selfish bastard who didn't like giving foot-rubs. Worst baby daddy ever.
9 Months Pregnant.
They were in the tiny town of Ponce de Leon, Missouri. It actually wasn't much of a town at all. Only a handful of people lived in the area, and only a handful of tourists ever came there. They were drawn there by the old mineral springs, which had been reported to have mysterious healing powers.
It was a remote area, with few businesses to stop by, and so, fewer people to identify that a missing person had been through there, headed up to the hotsprings.
In fact, the disappearances had never been linked to the town. It was simply noted that there were a lot of tourists going missing on their way to Branson. One thing they all had in common was that prior to their disappearance, they had all been spotted in various stores or eateries in Nixa, meaning that only Branson-bound tourists who were taking Highway 13 into Branson were being taken.
The police were of the belief that the tourists had gone into Holland State Forest and gotten their damn fool selves lost. It wouldn't be the first time and it wouldn't be the last. They were still focused on searching the woods for them.
The other thing being whispered was that someone (or something, Dean and Sam automatically translated) was taking the tourists, preying on them along the route to Branson.
If the tourists were legitimately lost—and that was doubtful, given that ten of them had gone missing in the last two months, and there was rarely more than one lost a year—then the cops and wildlife service would find them.
If, as they suspected, it was something more, than they would find them. They started by searching through local lore—not dismissing the Ozark Howler, as so many did—but not jumping to the conclusion that that was it.
It was during a routine check of Ponce de Leon (they would have had to be stupid to ignore a local place along the route that had magical properties supposedly attributed to it) that the worker in the sole convenience store let it slip that there'd been several people going up there lately.
Upon questioning, it was further revealed that no, the poor terrified teenager had not seen them passing back through, either by stopping in at the gas station again or just driving by on the seldom-traveled road.
They were on the trail.
Unfortunately, they didn't exactly know who—or what's—trail they were on. For all they knew it was some lunatic human hiding out by the springs ganking people, in which case it really wasn't their domain. Either way, it wasn't good to go into a fight unknowing.
They cruised through the town slowly, scouting things out. It didn't take them long to find the mineral springs; there wasn't much else around.
Sam was hesitant to let Dean come along on the hunt. He shot a glance over at his brother, who had his swollen belly arched out, rubbing the small of his back tiredly.
"You know, Dean, maybe you should stay in that church while I check out the springs. I mean, you could pop at any second, and—"
"I'm not too pregnant to kick your ass." Dean warned.
Sam sighed. "Fine, Dean. Have it your way."
"What are you, the Burger King?"
Sam parked the Impala outside the cave.
The sun shone brightly down on the two men as they slammed the Impala's heavy doors and headed inside.
Inside, a huge murky pool of strange, brownish orange water was visible.
Sam cautiously approached the edge of it, kneeling down and trailing his finger over the water.
"It's warm." Sam said.
"Go ahead and take a bath if you want." Dean joked.
He was walking around, peering around the rocky crevices and alcoves.
He saw something laying behind a stalagmite. He began to awkwardly lean over to pick it up, before a twinge in his back made him rethink that.
"Hey Sam, come check this out."
Sam turned away from the mineral pool.
"What is it?" he asked, walking over.
He had barely taken two steps away from the water when a large shining purple tentacle wrapped itself around his waist and yanked him down into the water.
"Dean!" Sam hollered, before another cephalopod limb, this one the girth of a man's forearm and covered in little blue suction cups, attempted to shove itself down his throat.
Dean was already in action, moving faster than any pregnant woman since the dawn of man had moved.
In only seconds he had a machete out and was hacking at the overly-friendly tentacles. The water wasn't particularly deep, coming up only to Sam's waist and Dean's breasts. The tentacles began withdrawing back into the deeper part of the pool, apparently deciding to wait for easier prey, and Sam and Dean stumbled out of the water and back onto the cave floor.
Sam could only rasp dryly for a few minutes, struggling to breathe, while Dean watched warily for the return of the tentacle beast.
"What was that thing?" he finally managed to ask.
"Hell if I know. Pretty sure that was someone's Northface jacket over there behind that rock though." Dean gestured toward the stalagmite.
Sam headed over in the direction he pointed. Sure enough, he returned holding an expensive, bright-yellow jacket. A second of fishing through the pockets, and he had a wallet, and a Minnesota driver's license.
"George M. Carlisle, 614 Beechwood Drive
Windsor Mill, MN 21244 ".
"Not from around here." Dean remarked.
Sam searched around in his own pocket, coming up with a sopping-wet list of the missing victims. The pencil lines were faded but legible.
"He's one of the missing tourists."
"Well, that's enough to sign a death warrant for Barney-with-Tentacles in my book." Dean said.
"Yeah, but how? We don't even know what it is, let alone how to kill it."
"Look." Dean grabbed the collar of of his thin white t-shirt and pulled the fabric outward. It was soaked, not just with murky brown water of the springs, but with a thick purple sludge.
"You cut it, it bleeds."
Sam looked unconvinced. "I'd still like to do some research before I go wading in there after it."
The shadowed pool did look ominous.
"Plus, that thing tastes disgusting." he added, wrinkling his nose and sticking out his tongue.
It was, Dean was amused to see, stained quite purple.
"Alright." Dean acquiesced.
"Really?" Sam asked.
"Yeah. I think my water broke and there is no way I am having my baby in here with Purple People Eater from hell lurking around."
"Damnit, Dean!"
"Don't give me any I-told-you-so crap. Just get me to a hospital 'cause there is no way I am having a natural childbirth. I want lots of drugs."
Sam, still flustered and slightly pissed, hustled him to the Impala.
The cussing that ensued when Dean refused to get in until many, many towels were laid down on the seat, could be heard even by the apprehensive purple monster lurking in the cave.
Mpreg: what a plot twist. Not :P I bet everyone saw that coming... Still, I apologize for skipping through 9 months of pregnancy in one chapter. That seems a little ridiculously speedy, even for me... Also, I apologize for the horrible lateness of this chapter. My hard drive failed on me and I had to replace it :O (good thing I back-up my fic folder, right?)
As always, review if you can, 'cause I love to hear people's thoughts :D