Chapter 4: Banishment

"So why's it called a Surrogate?" Dean asked two hours later as he sat at the dining room table, pounding dried peppermint with a mortar and pestle. "Isn't Sam the surrogate?"

"Don't look at me," Bobby said over his shoulder. "I didn't name the thing." Shrugging, he went back to poking at the fire, making sure the sacred river stones were well distributed. When he was satisfied they were all heating properly, he turned to where Sam was going over the ritual once more.

"We got everything?" he asked, and Sam nodded.

"Looks good. Once the rest of the herbs are crushed and the stones are red-hot, we should be ready to go."

"Then here," Dean said, pushing himself up from the table and grabbing a second mortar and pestle. "You can crush the saffron."

Bobby shook his head. "I have never heard of a weirder ritual. Herbs I get, almost every ritual uses herbs of some kind, but not usually the kinds of herbs that go in food."

Dean shrugged, holding the mortar and pestle out towards his brother. "I don't pick 'em, I just mash 'em."

An hour later everything was pounded and mixed and ready to go. With some difficulty, Dean and Bobby helped Sam lever himself up off the sofa and waddle slowly towards the center of the mirrored ritual circles they'd drawn on ceiling and floor. Sam groaned as they lowered him into the floor circle.

"Man, I wish I didn't have to sit on the floor," he said, and Dean smirked.

"Gettin' soft there, Sammy boy," he said, grinning at the glare his brother tossed him.

"You try being seven months pregnant with some kind of creature's baby and THEN tell me how much fun it is to sit on the floor."

Once they'd gotten Sam settled, Dean and Bobby placed herb mixtures in brass chalices at fourteen points around the circle, then Bobby grabbed the fireplace tongs and put a single hot river rock in each of the herb mixtures. The herbs began to smoke instantly, perfuming the air with such a mixture of smells that it was impossible to separate out any one herb.

"Can we get this started?" Dean croaked. He rubbed his eyes, then sneezed. "All this crap is giving me a headache."

"Now who's going soft?" Sam said, snickering, but his brother ignored him and grabbed the book off the sofa.

"This the incant?" Dean asked, and Bobby nodded. Dean blinked at the page for a long moment, then shook his head and held out the book to Bobby. "I don't know how you can read this stuff. I sure as hell can't."

Bobby snorted. "Neither can I – it's a phonetic transcription of a dead language. We'll just have to muddle through as best we can." But he took the book and, as Dean lowered himself onto the sofa with a sigh, Bobby started to read.

"Mealak misutsu marami

Alemi aklanige asnala

Kama kamameta katsetse..."

Dean watched through watery eyes as the smoking herb mixtures began to flare up, one at a time, around the circle. Sam seemed to be fine, sitting mostly relaxed in the center, until the very end.

When the last smoking chalice flared, Sam groaned, his eyes squeezed shut and his teeth gritted in pain. Dean sat bolt upright, watching his brother as he curled around his stomach, but there wasn't anything he could do - if he stopped the ritual now, they'd just have to start over, and it would probably hurt just as much the second time around.

So Dean watched as Sam clutched his stomach and groaned, while Bobby kept reading the incantation. Suddenly Bobby shouted "Gamala mi aleyak!" and the flaming herbs sent out one last flash before dying down.

In the sudden darkness of the warm, smoke-filled room, Dean couldn't see anything. He could hear, though, and it sounded like his little brother was losing his lunch.

"Sam?" he called. "Sam, you okay?" The only response was more retching and the wet splats that accompanied it. "Sam?"

Slowly the smoke cleared, and Dean could just make out his brother, still crouched in the center of the circle. Aside from the vomiting, which hadn't let up, he seemed to be okay. Of course, that didn't stop Dean from crawling off the sofa and down to the edge of the circle.

"Sam?" he asked again, and this time he was rewarded with a wan smile, barely seen in the shadowed room.

"Yeah, Dean, I'm okay. I'm just getting rid of this thing." Sam's stomach spasmed again, and Dean could finally see that his brother was coughing up some kind of thick, dark fluid.

"That's not blood, is it?" he asked, worried, but his brother shook his head.

"Nope. Liquified monster baby."

Dean swallowed heavily, backing slowly away from the pile of gunk in front of his brother. "I did not need to know that."

Bobby snorted from the far side of the room, where he was opening a window to air the place out. "You asked."

"Okay," Sam groaned, rolling over onto his back, away from the puddle of demon baby. "I think I'm done." He rubbed his aching stomach which, while still round, was decidedly smaller. "Let's never do that again."

"Hell no," Dean said, reaching a hand down into the circle to pull his brother to his feet. Sam grabbed the hand, then paused, nearly pulling Dean off his feet. Dean was about to snap at his brother when he saw the weird look on Sam's face.

"Sam?" he said, a cold lump forming in his stomach. "Sam, what's wrong?"

Slowly Sam turned a horrified gaze to his brother.

"There's still something in here."

"TWINS? These things can have TWINS?" Dean was ranting, pacing back and forth in the still-smoky room.

"Apparently," Bobby said. "But the ritual only works on one kid at a time." He shrugged. "I guess we have to do it again."

Sam, for his part, was taking the news remarkably well. Dean had finally gotten him to the sofa, and he sat there, rubbing his still-distended stomach as he watched his brother rant. That didn't, however, mean he wasn't listening.

"Do we have enough supplies to run the ritual again?" Sam asked Bobby.

The older man considered for a moment, then nodded. "Probably. We should be okay for another run, but we can't screw it up - we definitely don't have enough for a third time."

Dean snorted. "Let's hope it was only twins in there, not triplets, or we're screwed."

A horrified look flashed across Bobby's face, not to mention Sam's, but neither wanted to comment on that awful thought. Instead, Bobby grabbed up the mortars and pestles and handed a set to each of the boys.

"Here," he said. "You two start crushing herbs again. I'll clean up the circle and start the stones heating."

The second ritual was much like the first, except that the room was still hot and smoky from the last ritual, so while he was, for the first time in days, warm, Dean spent the whole thing sneezing. Luckily, that didn't seem to affect anything, since within a few minutes Bobby was done with the incant and Sam was once again crouched in the center of the circle, yakking up demon baby. This time, when Sam climbed to his feet and walked out of the circle, his stomach, though still a little rounded, was clearly much smaller than it had started out.

"You okay, Sammy?" Dean asked, reaching for his brother's shoulder. "That stuff looks terrible."

"It tastes worse," Sam grumbled, but then he paused, his attention focused internally.

"Aw Christ," Bobby groaned, seeing Sam's distracted look. "Don't tell me there's another one."

Suddenly Sam shook his head, blinking. "What? Oh, no Bobby, we're good." He grinned at the two men, his eyes shining. "I just realized that, for the first time in two weeks, I'm not hungry."

They slept well that night, safe and accomplished – two monster parasite babies down, and no losses on their side. The next morning saw Sam and Bobby in the kitchen, having a leisurely breakfast of toast and eggs. Sam was perfectly content with his plate of food, relishing the fact that he didn't need six more.

When they were done, Sam and Bobby sipped their coffee in companionable silence.

"So," Bobby finally said. "What was it like?"

Sam arched an eyebrow. "Being pregnant with creature spawn?"

"Um hm."

Sam thought about it for a second, then shrugged. "It didn't feel weird at all, actually. I mean, I was huge, I could barely move, and I was hungry all the time, not to mention the fact that there was something doing cartwheels in my stomach..." He paused, considering what he'd said. "Come to think about it, that sounds perfectly normal. For a pregnant woman, that is."

Bobby nodded slowly, taking another long drag of his coffee before changing the subject. "Where's your brother, anyway?" he asked, and Sam shrugged again.

"Probably still asleep," Sam said. "Considering how run-down he's been lately, I didn't want to wake him if I didn't have to. We can figure out what's going on when he wakes up."

"Sure, sure," Bobby agreed. "You have any idea what might've happened? Do you think it's something to hunt or something medical?"

"I'm not sure," Sam said, his gaze falling to his cup. "I'm not even quite sure how long it's been going on. All I do know is that he's been vomiting a lot, and he's been tired. Worn-out looking. And I know he's lost weight."

"You can say that again. He looked like a pile of sticks when you two turned up," Bobby said.

"Thanks a lot," a gravelly voice said from the direction of the staircase. "Nice to know you think so highly of me."

Sam turned to watch his brother trudge into the kitchen, taking note of the grey pallor and the loose layers of clothing. "Yeah well," he said. "You do look like shit."

Dean grumbled something incomprehensible and made his way to the coffee maker to pour himself a cup of black gold. He stared at the pan of eggs for a moment, considering, then shook his head and snagged a piece of toast before sitting at the table with the other two hunters.

"Toast?" Bobby asked incredulously. "You're eating toast?"

"Nothin' wrong with toast," Dean replied, nibbling on one corner of the crispy bread. "Everyone loves toast."

Except apparently not everyone loved toast, because within seconds Dean had turned green and was sprinting for the nearest bathroom. Bobby shot Sam a look over the table, his eyes wide.

"That's not normal," Bobby said. "Something is definitely wrong."

"I didn't think he was THAT bad," Sam replied worriedly, pushing back his chair so he could go help his brother. Bobby stayed behind to start clearing the table, but Sam's shouted "Dean!" made him drop what he was doing and hurry after the brothers.

He found them on the floor in the bathroom, Sam kneeling next to his brother and calling his name. Dean appeared to be out cold, and he wasn't rousing, not even when Sam slapped his face a couple of times.

"Call 911," Sam ordered without glancing behind him, but Bobby shook his head.

"We should check him for wounds first, and weird marks. It could be that we'd be more help than a doctor."

Sam clearly didn't want to take the time, but he finally nodded. The brothers had long ago discovered it was easier to avoid some questions than to answer them, and, while Dean was unconscious, he was still breathing easily, and his pulse was steady.

"Let's get him to the couch," Bobby suggested, and Sam nodded. Bobby positioned himself at Dean's feet, and Sam maneuvered for a better position under his shoulders. After a count of three, they heaved...and nearly overbalanced when their load proved to be much lighter than they'd expected.

"Shit," Bobby swore under his breath. "I knew he'd lost weight, but this is ridiculous." After a moment of juggling, they shifted Dean into Sam's arms, where Sam cradled his brother easily, the older man being far too light for comfort. Bobby led the way to the sofa, shoving pillows off onto the floor, and Sam laid him gently down.

Running his hands through his brother's hair, Sam checked Dean for head injuries. "Nope," he said after a moment. "Everything seems fine there. We're gonna have to take off his clothes." Knowing Dean would kill them if they cut through his shirts, Sam took the time to strip him without scissors while Bobby started on his boots.

Once four layers of fabric were gone, however, Sam gasped. Dean had always been the stocky one, the muscled one, the one built like a brick wall, but at the moment his brother looked more like a skeleton with skin. Every one of Dean's ribs was clearly delineated, as were his collar bones, and his skin was pale enough as to be somewhat translucent. Where once there had been hard swells of muscle, now Sam could see a knobbly breastbone and, quivering between some of the left-hand ribs, the rhythmic pulsing of his brother's heart.

"My God, Dean," Sam mumbled. "Why didn't you tell me it was this bad?" Sam was afraid to touch his brother, afraid he'd break something, though he knew he'd have to move him to check for wounds or other marks.

Sam had just about brought himself to turn Dean over when Bobby interrupted his train of thought.

"I think we've found the problem," Bobby said, and Sam started, then turned to where Bobby was pointing.

"What is THAT?" Sam breathed, and Bobby snorted.

"You'd think you'd have figured that out over the past few days."

Below Dean's wasted chest, his stomach swelled outward into a small, but very obviously pregnant, belly.