A/N: Ok, folks! Another chapter worked up. This one is pretty much fluff but don't worry, I have plans to get the action going again soon. For now, enjoy adorableness.
Also, thank you so much to all those who have reviewed! You help make writing this a lot more fun. ^_^
Supernatural belongs to Kripke. I own nothing.
Chapter 4: Two men and an angel
Dean's eyes went wide as saucers and he felt like his heart had just stopped for a moment as he met the unblinking stare leveled at him. The boy looked startlingly like the angel that had helped them out numerous times with his mat of dark fluffy hair and those keen blue eyes that Dean had come to know so well. "Not possible," he breathed, "not freakin' possible." The boy seemed just as genuinely confounded by the whole situation as the hunter was and the small wings fluttered uncertainly as the boy looked over his new surroundings. Dean's mind was racing a mile a minute as he tried to puzzle together exactly what he was seeing. The child sitting in front of him certainly shared many of the same traits that he'd come to associate with his friend Cas but he knew that the form the angel took around him and his brother was only a vessel and that his true form was one very few humans could even look upon. The blue eyes and dark tousled hair he'd come to recognize actually belonged to a man named Jimmy Novak and as far as Dean was aware, Jimmy had never hatched out of an egg. If this was indeed Castiel, why wasn't he some glowing ball of pure light that was burning out Dean's retinas from the moment that shell cracked? Instead, Dean was faced with what looked for all intents and purposes like a normal human infant, save for the glowing appendages periodically fluttering on his back.
"Ok, this is surreal." Dean eased down to sit on the bed, studiously avoiding the fragments of shell that littered his comforter. He couldn't take his eyes off the cherubic face that was turned in his direction. His friend was a powerful angel of the Lord, not the poster child for extremely soft toilet paper that was sitting in front of him but Dean couldn't shake the feeling that there was something horribly familiar about the way the infant kept tilting his head. The baby prodded at the covers under him with chubby little fingers and then turned its attention to a few nearby remnants of shell. "Cas…man, what the hell happened to you?" Dean whispered. The infant ignored him in favor of turning to look at the tv that was still playing in the background. Dean wasn't sure if that was a sign that maybe he was entirely wrong about his assumption. After all, surely there were other angels in heaven with hosts that had dark hair and blue eyes, right? "Castiel," he said again with a little more authority. Much to Dean's surprise and dismay, the infant turned its head in his direction and small pink lips curved up into a shy smile. One hand stretched out eagerly in Dean's direction accompanied by a high nasal grunt that suggested a desire to be held, something Dean wasn't sure he was quite ready for yet. He closed his eyes with a few choice curses and rubbed the bridge of his nose but when he looked up again, Castiel was still holding out his tiny arms expectantly with a patience that certainly had never belonged to any human child that age.
Dean sighed in defeat and got up to rifle through his duffle bag, emerging shortly thereafter with a well worn t-shirt. It was one of his favorites, having been washed so many times that the cotton fabric had become thin and comfy, and he laid it out on the bed next to where Cas was sprawled. "You pee on this, man, and we ain't friends anymore," Dean warned. Castiel blinked up at him with a puzzled expression and then repeated his gesture of outstretched arms though admittedly with more uncertainty this time. Dean reached down and carefully lifted the infant, settling him in the center of the t-shirt before tucking the folds of loose fabric around him into a neat cocoon. Castiel looked utterly perplexed by this action but didn't fuss about it and instead settled for looking expectantly at the man hovering over him. He was rewarded a moment later when Dean finally picked up the whole bundle and brought it to his shoulder and after a few seconds of wriggling within the confines of the t-shirt, Cas managed to get one arm free which he promptly used to grab hold on Dean's clothing. He tucked his head under the stubbled chin above him and curled himself as much as possible into the hollow of Dean's collarbone.
Memories of holding his infant brother flashed through Dean's mind as he cradled the warm parcel in his arms and a sad smile pulled at one corner of his lips. Things had been much simpler in those days even if they hadn't seemed like it at the time. He had practically raised Sammy while their father was out hunting and he could remember many nights spent feeding and rocking his brother to sleep with a .45 at his side just in case. The child in his arms wasn't Sam though and the reality of the situation came sinking back in. What kind of creature could have done something like this and why? He'd only just begun to try wrapping his brain around those questions, giving himself a lovely headache in the process, when the bathroom door opened and Sam stepped out with a towel around his waist. "Forgot to grab clean clothes," he said sheepishly as he entered the room. The words died on his lips as he gawked at Dean, his eyes flicking to the shattered egg shell still scattered across his brother's bed and then to the infant clinging to Dean's shirt. "Is…is that…did we just hatch a baby?" he finally stammered.
"WE didn't hatch anything," Dean snarked, "You left me out here to fend for myself."
Sam raised an eyebrow and gestured toward the baby in Dean's arms. "Oh yeah, looks like it was a horrible fight. Sorry about that." Sarcasm dripped off every word but it was quickly replaced with a lopsided grin as Sam approached to take a closer look. "He's cute. See? Now aren't you glad we didn't shoot him?" He reached out to smooth down a wayward lock of downy hair.
"It's Cas." Dean's voice was flat and entirely un-amused, sinking home the realization that he wasn't joking in the least and Sam's hand froze in mid-air. His eyes widened and he looked from Dean to the infant again as he tried to process what he'd just been told. Sure enough, the face staring up at him, while infinitely younger than the person he knew, bore a striking resemblance to the very angel that had pulled him out of hell itself.
"Are you serious? I mean, how do you know that? Dean, Cas is thousands of years old.."
"I KNOW," Dean stated emphatically, "Something musta happened to him. Hell if I know what. I mean, look at him! What the hell are we dealing with that can potentially kill an archangel and turn Cas into an egg?"
Sam didn't have an answer and they both knew it. Truthfully, the very idea scared the crap out of them both. "Well…I called Bobby while you were in the shower. I guess I better call him back and let him know that we know what the egg is now. Maybe he can dig up something on what kind of demon could do this."
Dean nodded and rubbed his eyes, stifling a yawn. It was almost four in the morning by that point and both brothers were exhausted but he wasn't sure he could sleep knowing that something out there had potentially offed an archangel and then turned his friend into a baby, all within the confines of their hotel room. They were going to need sleep however if they were going to be in any shape to make the drive up to Bobby's place and that was precisely where they needed to head in Dean's opinion. Sam agreed, snatched up his clothes along with his cellphone and returned to the bathroom to get dressed and call Bobby back. Dean halfheartedly swept the eggshell from his bed, supporting Castiel with one hand as he did so, and then tugged back his covers to crawl in. He wasn't quite sure what arrangement they were going to make as far as where Cas was going to sleep that night but Dean knew he needed to catch at least a few hours if he was going to be any use at all the next day. He scooted down until he was laying flat, shifting Castiel until the angel was laying on his chest, and then bunkered down to wait for Sam to emerge. He had intended to work out a sleeping arrangement where one of them would watch Cas while the other rested but the bundle on his chest was warm and he found his eyelids drooping heavily after a few minutes. Castiel didn't stir in the least as Dean's head began to nod and by the time Sam came back out the bathroom, the infant angel was bobbing slowly up and down with each deep snore Dean was taking.
The next morning Dean finally opened his eyes to find sunlight pouring in through the crack in the heavy drapes. He had barely moved an inch during his sleep and he reached up to rub groggily at his eyes. The weight on his chest brought reality crashing back in around him and Dean blinked the last of the sleep away as he looked down to find Castiel perched up on his elbows, blue eyes watching him intently. A frown creased Dean's brow and he rubbed at his eyes again. He could swear Cas had gotten bigger while he was sleeping. The angel was still an infant but he looked as if he'd aged a good two months over night and he now had the strength to prop himself up to some extent. Maybe that was a good sign. Perhaps the spell that had turned Castiel into a child in the first place had a time limit, Dean thought, and the idea of that took a little of the tension out of the situation. A yawn forced its way out of the older Winchester and he stretched as much as he could without rolling his friend off of his chest. The almost inaudible flap of wings caught Dean's attention and he found Castiel quirking his head again as he watched the hunter wake. The t-shirt he had been swaddled in had come undone during the night and the diminutive wings were once again exposed to the air. It struck Dean that they were almost the same color as the sunlight pouring through the curtains, as if someone had carved a chunk of the morning off and strapped it to the angel's back, and it earned the infant a reticent smile. As much as Dean hated to admit it, Cas was pretty damn adorable this way.
Within the span of fifteen minutes, the Winchesters were once more on the road, Dean having rushed Sam through getting ready with the lure of breakfast on the go. He had been grateful for the fact that Castiel had sat contentedly on the bed without needing monitoring while the brothers hurriedly packed and brushed their teeth, even if it was slightly disquieting the way the infant didn't make any noise. There was no crying from hunger, no demand for attention other than the initial request to be picked up that had been issued the night before, and no sign of an accident having happened to Dean's t-shirt during the night. In fact, outside of initial appearances, Castiel wasn't acting like any baby Dean had ever seen. As they headed out of town, Dean glanced over to the passenger seat where Sam was holding Castiel in his lap. The child was practically drowning in the gray t-shirt since Dean had decided to pull it on over his head instead of just wrapping him in it like a blanket. The collar was so large on the little angel that his whole left shoulder was jutting out of it along with one shimmering wing which Sam was staring at with a dumbfounded look on his face. He had finally seen the wings just that morning and had been rather pissy that Dean had missed pointing out that rather large detail before he had called Bobby back.
Now he sat watching with utter fascination as the wing fluttered every now and then. It seemed to Sam that the wings showed more of the angel's emotions than his face ever did and he half wondered if the same were true for Castiel as an adult. If he could see the grown wings of his friend, would they be just as much of an indicator? The wing would flutter just slightly when a song came on too loud or when they would pass something large enough for the infant to see it from his vantage point. They also tended to flicker just slightly any time Dean started talking and to Sam it was as much an indicator as anything that the child was listening intently. He wasn't sure how much of their friend still remained in the infant sitting in his lap but the child's rare requests to be picked up for no other reason than to be held indicated that Casitel's mind had not remained an adult when his body had been changed. Sam doubted the adult Castiel had ever been hugged in his life and it actually drew a slight chuckle out of him when he thought of Cas asking someone to do so. As he sat smiling down at the child silently examining his seat belt with an earnestness no three month old baby should posses, it occurred to Sam again just how odd it was that Cas had retained a human vessel even after having been turned into a child. Even stranger was the fact that the wings were now visible when they hadn't been before.
Curiosity reared up in Sam's brain as he watched the light flicker again. Were the wings solid? Were there actual feathers that were simply glowing too bright to make out any individual one? His hand paused to hover over the angel as he reached for the little wing, uncertain how Castiel would react to having them examined more closely, but he decided that the infant hadn't raised a fuss so far and so closed his fingers ever so gently around the source of the light. Castiel made a high pitched unhappy noise and the wing jerked loose from Sam's hand. "Ssh, it's ok. I'm not going to hurt them, I just wanna see, Cas." Sam tried to make his voice as soothing as possible as he reached for the appendage once again. They were definitely solid and as his fingers made contact a second time he could make out an incredibly downy set of feathers at the top curve of the wing giving way to longer, smoother ones below. His examination didn't last long however as Castiel once again plucked his wing free and looked up at Sam with an expression that said clearly he wasn't happy with the attention.
"Dude, would you stop harassing the angel already?" Dean interjected from the other side of the car, "He's gonna get big again at some point and trust me, you do NOT want to piss him off." Dean had learned the hard way that Castiel's heavenly patience had its limits and he'd paid the price for stepping too far outside of them once.
Sam snorted in amusement. "Yeah, I remember that. Nerd angels hit hard. Sorry, I won't do it again," he said by way of apology to the frazzled looking cherub in his lap before turning back to Dean. "They're solid, Dean. I thought Cas's wings were made out of light. Actually, I thought CAS was made out of light. Whatever it was that did this to him not only made him little, it made his wings turn flesh and bone too." His tone turned serious as he looked down again. It bothered him on several levels that this was the same being that had fought its way through hell itself to reclaim him from the pit after Lucifer had been sealed back in his cage and now his friend was barely managing to sit upright on his own. Sam wouldn't admit it out loud but he felt an obligation beyond just friendship to help Castiel return to his normal self.
"It's freakin me out too, Sammy," Dean said with a sigh. He shot a sideways look at where Castiel sat clinging to Sam's shirt with one hand while he peered down at the contents of the cup-holder between their seats. "You know he hasn't even pooped yet? He doesn't drool, he doesn't cry, he doesn't even freakin' eat. He's the weirdest damn baby I've ever seen."
"He's not really a baby, Dean," Sam offered helpfully, "he's an angel. Cas hardly ever ate when he was big. It makes sense that wouldn't change just because he's little now."
"Yeah, well, it's freaky," Dean repeated sullenly, "You used to throw up on me at least once a week when you were that age."
Sam laughed and leaned back in his seat, his arm wrapping around Cas in an unconscious gesture of protection which the angel happily curled into. "You want him to throw up on you?" he asked with an incredulous chuckle.
"NO! I just want him to either act like a normal freakin' baby or grow back into an adult." Dean's proclamation was interrupted by his own stomach gurgling. "Speakin' of which, I'm starving. We're pulling over at the next rest stop."
"Sounds good to me." Sam reached down and tugged up the collar of Dean's shirt to once more envelop the wing that had slipped free but it didn't last long as Castiel tugged it back down a moment later. The angel craned his head up to cast Sam an unfathomable look and when the younger Winchester tried once more to cover the wing, he found his efforts thwarted as the angel spread his feathers out to make the task more difficult. Sighing in defeat, Sam left well enough alone. "You know, we're going to have to get him some different clothes, Dean. We can't take him into a restaurant wearing just your shirt. It's not like we can just explain away his wings to anyone who sees them."
"Yeah, good point," Dean mused as he pulled onto the exit ramp, "Ok, first things first. We go shopping, get Cas something to wear and then go eat but let's make this quick, ok? I think my stomach is actually eating my spine."