"We really need to tell Sam," Dean choked out between a gag and another round of retching. When it passed, he swallowed reflexively and closed his eyes as he took deep breaths through his mouth. "He's only gonna tolerate 'I'm fine' for long before he starts to worry and then he'll start being a pain in the ass until we tell him."
"We could tell him now," Castiel offered, slipping a hand under Dean's t-shirt to rub gentle circles over his abdomen. "I don't see any reason to wait. Besides, you are carrying three eggs; that won't be easy to hide for long." Already, he could feel a slight swelling to Dean's middle where the usually was none.
Finally deciding his body was done trying to turn his empty stomach inside out, Dean flushed the toilet then slumped against Castiel's chest, letting his angel continue rubbing his stomach. "Yeah, I guess," he mumbled.
When Dean felt ready to move, Castiel helped him up and the hunter quickly brushed his teeth. Then they exited their bathroom and slowly made their way back through the bunker toward the kitchen. Before entering, Dean gently nudged Castiel in first.
"Make sure that shit's gone," he grumbled.
Castiel nodded and went into the kitchen to speak to Sam first. After only a minute, he returned and told Dean he was safe to enter.
"Are you okay?" Sam asked as Dean entered the kitchen, the younger hunter's brow knitted in worried confusion. "You usually can't even function without coffee yet all I did was set your mug in front of you and you bolted. And then Cas tells me to get rid of it all? What's up with you lately, man? You're still sick."
"Smell made me sick," Dean sighed, scrubbing a hand down his face.
"Okay?" Sam said, drawing the word out in a prompt for Dean to continue.
"Look, Sammy, Cas and I gotta tell you something," Dean said. "It's kinda big so just… don't freak out. Okay?"
Sam nodded, seeing the underlying nervous edge to Dean's demeanor. Much as his big brother tried to act casual about this, Sam could see that his reaction was important to Dean. "Yeah, course, Dean."
Dean took a big breath and slowly let it out then resolutely met his brother's eyes. "I'm pregnant."
Sam frowned deeply in clear confusion, "Huh? Dude, that's not possible."
"It is," Castiel interjected. "When one parent is an angel."
"Cas's grace makes a lot of this possible," Dean added.
"Okay, wait, wait," Sam said, holding his hands up, palms outward. "Back the fuck up a second, okay? You're not kidding?"
Dean shook his head. "No, I swear this is real."
Sam nodded, understanding that part. "And you're the father? Or, other father?" he asked, turning to Castiel.
The angel nodded. "I am."
"Who else would it be?" Dean snorted.
"I'm just trying to wrap my head around this!" Sam said defensively. "Let me process this one piece at a time. So, you two," he said, gesturing with a pointed finger between the two, "are having a baby. Which is only possible, even though Dean is a man, because Cas is an angel. That about sum it up?"
Dean nodded. "Yeah, but you got one thing a little wrong."
Sam's confused frown deepened as he eyed his brother. "What?"
"We're not having a baby. There's three of 'em in there," Dean said, one hand splaying across the small swell of his abdomen.
"Triplets?!" Sam exclaimed, eyes widening in shock.
Dean nodded. "Yeah. Triplets."
Sam stared at his brother then his eyes slowly slid down to where Dean's hand covered his middle. "Three…" he said in a breathless whisper. "Three babies?"
"Eggs."
Sam blinked back into focus and turned confused eyes toward the angel who had remained mostly silent through the big reveal. "What'd you say?"
"Eggs," Castiel repeated. "An angel impregnates their mates with eggs that will be laid and then hatch. While the fledglings inside will have human vessels as I do, they are developing inside eggs."
"We wanted to tell you this now because I knew you'd freak out the longer I kept getting sick without any answers and because with three eggs in there, I won't stay small as long," Dean explained.
"I get that," Sam agreed, eyes lowering back down to Dean's middle. "How far along are you anyway? It doesn't really look like anything."
"Just over two months?" Dean said, posing it more like a question as he tried to think back and do math in his head. "It doesn't look like much but I can feel a difference to my body when I touch it. Like I said, I won't stay small long with three of them in there."
"Can I…?" Sam asked, lifting a hand up toward Dean's middle.
Dean rolled his eyes but pushed his hands into the small of his back and pushed his hips out a little bit, offering his abdomen for Sam to touch. "Knock yourself out."
Sam carefully placed his palm over Dean's middle, gasping faintly when he realized it wasn't as soft as it should be but didn't have the same kind of firmness as muscle did. He gave an experimental push with his fingertips, the flesh giving slightly but not as soft as flab. Flattening his palm again, he smoothed it back and forth across the small swell.
"Holy shit," he breathed, slowly retracting his hand. "This is real."
"As much as I love teasing my pain in the ass little brother, we wouldn't lie about something like this," Dean said as he relaxed his posture again. "Are you okay with this? I mean, this isn't affecting just Cas and me. Three babies is a lot and we're a family. Shit's gonna change for all of us."
"Yeah, no, I get it," Sam assured. "It's a big change and I think I'm still processing even though I just had my hands on it and everything, y'know? But I'm not… I'm not mad or… strangely enough, weirded out by this."
Dean snorted in amusement, a grin spreading across his face. "Yeah, we see enough weird that a man being pregnant with angel eggs doesn't phase us."
Sam grinned, huffing a laugh. "We're so fucked up." Then his smile fell and his expression turned thoughtful as he turned to Castiel. "Wait, you said angels impregnate their mates with eggs, plural. Did you know Dean could wind up pregnant with a large number of babies?"
Castiel tilted his head thoughtfully, speaking slowly as he chose his words carefully. "I… wasn't sure if Dean would be responsive to implantation. I've never heard of an angel laying their eggs in a male human. As he said, my grace is aiding him greatly."
"How?" Sam asked, interrupting the answer to his first question with another.
"Just like two humans combining DNA to create new life, my grace is required to create life in this circumstance, combining with Dean's… DNA. Dean and I having intercourse would accomplish nothing without my grace.
"Small portions of an angel's grace break away from the whole in the form of small eggs, barely the size of a marble at first, and are implanted in the angel's mate. In our case, my grace absorbed the genetic material in Dean's semen to begin new life.
"I have no way of controlling how many eggs are implanted but it is usually a fairly large number. It is rare for an angel to sire only one fledgling. It is also rare for every egg to catch. So in answer to your question, yes, I knew Dean could become pregnant with more than one baby but I wasn't worried it would be too great a number for him to handle," Castiel explained.
Dean snorted. "I've never been pregnant before but I'm pretty sure three babies ain't gonna be a piece of pie."
Sam rolled his eyes at his brother's own version of the common phrase but ignored him. "So what happens when the eggs are fully mature and ready to come out?"
"I lay them," Dean said with a roll of his eyes as if the answer were obvious.
"That is an oversimplified version of the answer but, essentially, yes, he lays them," Castiel affirmed. "As soon as they're laid, I will help the fledglings out of their eggs."
"What's the not oversimplified version?" Sam asked.
"The eggs can't just come out. It would be too painful and likely cause damage if they… fell out," Castiel said, trying to find the right way to explain. "I imagine it will be much like a human labor. Contractions of the abdomen will slowly and safely work the eggs down and Dean will push them out."
"Huh," Sam said thoughtfully, nodding in understanding. "Makes sense. As much as this whole process can make any sense…"
"So, we all on the same page?" Dean asked impatiently, tired of his body being the center of attention. Especially since Sam could nerd out and quiz Cas without him.
"I'm pregnant with three angel egg babies, Cas put them there, and when they're ready, I go into egg labor and lay them and then Cas gets them out of the eggs and then we'll have triplets to raise. We good? Great. I'm hungry," he mumbled, moving away from them to begin hunting through the fridge for something simple for breakfast that he'd, hopefully, keep down.
"Speaking of having triplets to raise," Sam said and Dean inwardly groaned because Sam could be like a dog with a bone about things that piqued his interest and, of fucking course, this would be one of them. "You do get how much is going to change, right? This isn't like getting a dog that you can leave at a kennel or something to go on a hunt. A baby – especially three – is a big deal. I mean, we're gonna need a room for them, you at least can't hunt while pregnant, and-" He broke off and turned back to Cas. "Does he have to watch what he eats? I mean, do the eggs take anything from him?"
"Technically, no," Castiel said, a crease forming in his brow as he eyed Dean while the hunter moved to digging through the cupboard where they kept their cereals, doing his best to ignore the conversation. "Fledgling eggs do not connect to their host like a human fetus to its mother. Dean could, theoretically, eat whatever he wants without affecting the eggs. However, I would feel better if he refrained from certain things such as alcohol for the duration of the incubation."
"What?!" Dean cried, finally rejoining the conversation, spinning around to pin his angel with wide eyes. "So, let me get this straight. I can eat whatever the hell I want because the eggs will develop just fine but you still don't want me to?"
"Dean, it makes sense," Sam added. "I mean, Cas even said he's never heard of an angel laying their eggs in a man before. We don't know everything that could happen. Yeah, maybe they don't have cords like human babies that take nutrients from you but maybe what you eat will matter later. We just don't know. It's better to be safe than sorry, right?"
Dean glared at a spot on the floor, absently tracing a hand down his middle. Much as he hated it, Sam had a point. And he didn't want to risk harming his babies. Less than three months in and he was already attached to them. He hadn't even felt them – and he wasn't even sure if that was possible if their bodies were contained in eggs – but he still cared about them already. Pregnant women avoided alcohol and some of them probably hated it, too. Why couldn't he? It's not like he drank a lot. A beer at dinner or in the evenings hanging out with Sam and Cas were about it for him lately anyway.
"Yeah, okay," he finally agreed, returning to his hunt for breakfast. "No alcohol."
"Sam, we'd like to turn my old room into a nursery for them," Castiel said. "I would prefer Dean not try to do a lot of moving. Could you help me clear out the old furniture?"
"Yeah! I'd love to help you guys put together a nursery!" Sam said excitedly, grinning so hard his dimples showed. "Just let me know when and what you need help with any time and I'll do it."
While Dean listened to them talk and plan out the clearing away of old furniture, he hid a small smile, his back still to the room, as he poured a bowl of Froot Loops. He knew it'd be a lot of work preparing for and raising triplets and he wasn't looking forward to getting huge or the process of laying them but hearing how excited Sam and Cas were about this whole thing made his chest feel warm in a way he'd never admit to. His kids were already loved so much.