Chapter Four
Everything changes, but no one mentions it. Dean can't resume any of the open closeness they had when he was playing girl.
And now Dean sees it plainly: he had been pretending without acknowledging that it wasn't a fucking game. There were feelings and implications and he shouldn't have given in. Not when he knew he couldn't hack it in the long haul.
Because he can't. He tries to bring himself to embrace all those feelings - still there, never gone - but an extra dick to the mix changes everything.
Even knowing that the problem is entirely in him, Dean doesn't know how to want this. He can't reach out to Castiel. He can't possibly ask Castiel to make that first move. So he falls back on the standby: he shoves it down and pretends it doesn't exist.
Castiel crashes on a fold-out couch and doesn't press the issue.
Three glorious weeks pass without a care in the world. Sort of.
On one hand, Castiel's visits go from entire weekends to Saturdays to every other Sunday for lunch. Sam, either in self-preservation or because he recognizes that something is amiss, doesn't act like this is unusual.
On the other hand, Dean really enjoys his life. The occasional pang of loss sucks, but not so hard that it can't be hidden under moderate drinking. And he's working on cars every day. They're making a steady enough income that they can call it income instead of hustling. They pay bills. And taxes.
They're practically civilians.
But then he starts to ache, low on the left side of his body. After ignoring it for awhile, he finally finds himself with an ache deep enough that he sits inside, nursing a handful of pain killers and a shot glass of vodka.
"That's really not how you're supposed to handle pain," Sam says, looking up from a book he's reading for some case Garth is running. "I'm pretty sure you're actually making your liver worse."
"I'll worry about that when my liver hurts," Dean snaps, throwing back the pills and the shot in one go before reclining back on the couch. It's a weird intermittent throb that feels entirely too much like being stabbed.
Sam closes the book and hovers over Dean; while Sam was always a whiz with the whiskey-and-dental-floss method of medical care, this sort of shit is clearly out of his comfort zone. "Pulled a muscle?"
"Probably." Dean stretches and massages the sore point, trying to work it out, but instead ends up curled inward and swearing. He wastes the entire afternoon in dull, boring pain watching shitty daytime television.
For once, he handles the phones and Sam handles the cars.
It goes on for weeks, with Dean limping around the yard and wondering if the maximum milligrams per day is a suggestion or a hard rule.
"Just make a doctor's appointment," Sam says as he helps Dean haul the engine out of wrecked Chevy Nova. "This is getting ridiculous."
"I've survived worse." Fuck it - it's probably just a suggestion. As Dean dumps two more pills from the bottle, Sam shoots forward and knocks them from his hand. "What the fuck?"
"Get in the car." Sam wipes his hands on his pants and puts their tools away quickly, but with precision; Sam hates when the tools are awry. "I'm driving you to the ER, and that's all there is to it. You look like you're going to fall over any minute."
"I'm not," even though yeah, Dean sort of feels like he might just tip over. Still, he helps Sam put everything away, and makes sure that the front gate is locked and the sign turned to "Closed" before they leave.
The ER is mostly empty when they arrive. There's a small child crying on his mother's lap in one corner, and a nonchalant guy with a hand wrapped in a blood-soaked towel. The nurse behind the admissions desk chews gum in a slow circular bites.
Sam handles all the paperwork and insurance nonsense, while Dean sits in a chair with his hand over his abdomen and wonders who he pissed off this time. Maybe Castiel was trying to -
No. Of all the people in the world, Sam was more likely to kill him slowly than Castiel. Dean recognizes the idea for what it is; a way to force an artificial schism between them. He refuses to do that, not again.
When the doctor calls Dean back, he's smiling. He looks like the colonel from KFC, but Dean keeps that to himself. "It sounds like a case of appendicitis," the Doctor says as he closes the exam room door. "If it is, we'll probably have you into surgery post-haste, just to get that sucker out. Lay back on the table."
"That sucks." Dean hisses when the doctor palpates the region that hurts the most. Despite this, the doctor seems calm and even a bit pleased. "So, appendicitis?"
"Looks like. I want to get a look, really quick, before we admit you..." The doctor leaves, and comes back wheeling in a small ultrasound machine. Dean closes his eyes.
Last time he was in the hospital was when Alistair had nearly killed him. Dean still remembers Castiel, sitting there and quietly explaining that Dean was the only person who could end the Apocalypse that he had single-handedly started. He'd been so fucking terrified, so done with the world right then.
And here he is, getting his appendix looked at by a fast food mascot. Go figure.
"Huh."
Dean opens his eyes. "Huh?"
"That's - " The doctor's laugh is thin; he rubs his beard and leans closer to the screen. "That seems quite unlikely. Maybe there's a disc in here..." While the doctor checks the machine, Dean peers at it. It just looks like a bunch of static to him. The doctor stares at the screen again. "Well, it's not appendicitis."
"But?"
The doctor moves the slick wand over the part that hurts the most, why the fuck, and makes another noise of surprise. "Some sort of growth. It just looks peculiar."
Dean's blood runs cold, and he peers at the growth. Something flutters in the middle of the screen in grainy black and white. "Peculiar how? Cancer peculiar?" He almost says I had stomach cancer for four minutes once, but then remembers that it would make no sense to Colonel Doctor.
When the doctor speaks, he does so with a forced sense of cheer. "I'm going to schedule a biopsy and an OR. Whatever it is, it's not supposed to be growing there. Excuse me for a few minutes."
Dean has his phone out the second the doctor leaves. There's something growing on my organs.
Castiel replies after a few excruciating long minutes. What is it?
Fuck if I know. The doctor didn't say.
That's enough to bring Castiel; he walks in as though he had been waiting outside.
"Hey, can you come give this a look?" Dean holds out the discarded wand, still covered in gel.
"I don't need it." Castiel touches Dean's forehead with two fingers and yanks them away as though burned. He's staring at Dean as though there's something horrible under his skin.
"What?" Castiel doesn't move or speak, which only worries Dean more. "What is it?"
Moving slowly, Castiel touches his forehead again, eyes closed and head tilted as though he's listening very carefully.
"I'm not dying of cancer, man," Dean says, because Castiel is being too quiet for his comfort. "I've been killed plenty of times, but cancer? No. I will take a long drive off a short cliff before I die slowly in a hospital."
"You're not dying." Castiel frowns, pinches the bridge of his nose, and squeezes his eyes shut, looking more exhausted and bedraggled than when Dean was a chick. He picks up the wand and stares at it intently. It doesn't take him more than a minute to absorb how to work the machine, and he's got the wand pressed too hard on Dean's sore spot.
"That," Castiel says, jabbing his finger at the screen, "is a human life."
The world stops.
Literally. The doctor opens the door; Castiel flings an arm out and the doctor freezes in place, one foot in the air and a hand on the doorknob. Castiel replaces the wand on the machine. He takes a deep breath, and stares at Dean as though he's going to find some answer there.
"No fucking way." Dean stares at the screen, then down at his slick and throbbing abdomen. Nope. Impossible.
"We're talking about a dying human - I am incredibly serious," Castiel says. He sits on the rolling stool in the room, elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. "I was quite unaware this sort of thing happened to males. I thought I knew how humans worked in their entirety."
"This thing doesn't happen to - did she fucking put a - " Dean almost wishes he has the boobs back. The boobs were fine, the boobs were a fucking cake walk compared to - to - "Dying?"
Castiel nods, peering at the image frozen on the screen. "There's no residual magic," he says. "It seems more likely that this was something left behind. It did not exist when your body was changed; it remained when the witch took back her curse."
"Let's go back to dying," Dean says. "So, this is going to fix itself. Just - problem solved?"
"It risks your health; it would be far wiser to let me handle it now."
Handle it makes Dean raise an eyebrow. How exactly does an angel go about erasing a fetus from a dude's organs? He can't imagine it comes up very often.
Dean relaxes. He's had his fill of impossible for the last couple months, and isn't looking to add to the list. He opens his mouth to say yes, and then it hits him
It was something that did not exist.
Now it does.
"You knocked me up!" Dean sits upright and stares down at Castiel, still sitting on the stool and staring at the monitor. It's nothing. It's a little parasitic blob leeching off one of his organs and quietly ruining his life by existing.
"It would look that way. I had no way of knowing you would be fertile."
"Why are you so fucking calm about this?"
"The poor creature doesn't have much time left. This is the best mercy I can do it."
"It's - " Oh fuck him, he's not going to say it. He's got all these nostalgic images of Ben, baby pictures and his tenth birthday and listening to Led Zeppelin in the truck on a hot summer afternoon. This isn't the same thing. "Aren't there other options?"
Castiel frowns. "No."
"Come on, you can't tell me there's nothing better than a mercy killing in my gut, because that's pretty much the most depressing end of the day I can imagine." Dean looks at the doctor frozen in time, and wonders if Sam is suffering the same fate in the waiting room. "I could do the girl thing a bit longer, if I have to," he says, and hates it. It's the very last thing in the world he wants. He's already mourning his penis.
It's almost a relief when Castiel says, "No. The witch can't control her powers that well, and I don't have that kind of power over you. I wouldn't, even if I did."
"A middle ground, then," Dean snaps. "Throw a - throw a fucking uterus in there, since I apparently had one for a while."
Castiel stands to pace; he runs his hands through his hair and shoves them in his pockets. He scowls over his shoulder at each rotation. "Why?"
"Because," Dean says as though that's an argument at all. Because he remembers trying to talk his mother out of having him once, and he remembers the look in her eyes. Because something stupid is happening to him, and he's trying to find a silver lining in life.
Because it's something that belongs to Castiel, and Dean feels like that should count for something.
"It probably won't work," Castiel mutters as he approaches Dean, his expression dark. "It may not even survive." He leans in close and presses both hands hard against Dean's pelvis. "And it will hurt."
That's not a lie. The throb and ache that's dominated Dean's life the past few weeks grows into something more, something searing and wrenching. His insides are ripping apart. He screams; throws his head back and outright roars as his insides are moved and recreated under his skin. He's going to die. Covered in sweat, Dean wonders if Castiel decided to kill him after all. At least it isn't cancer.
Then it's over.
Castiel looks just as exhausted as Dean feels, but more serene. He stares at his hands where they're pressed fast to Dean's abdomen. He inhales deep, and holds for a moment before he exhales. "Consider this a miracle."
"It worked?"
"For now. I can't tell how long it will hold. I am not as strong as I was; perhaps I can't bind a body properly anymore." Castiel leans away from him.
Dean sits up, stretching experimentally. He doesn't hurt. The ache is gone, and it doesn't feel like his organs are about to come spilling out his stomach. He feels... normal. Just completely normal.
Castiel crosses to the doctor and pats his shoulder.
The world begins to move again, the transition non-existent; it makes Dean queasy.
The doctor smiles again. "Nothing to worry about, Mr. Winchester; just a pulled muscle."
Dean nods. "Of course. Thanks, Doc."
Castiel is gone before Dean hits the lobby, and he realizes - he's going to have to tell Sam.
Dean lets Sam drive home, mostly because he's starting to get shaky as the reality of his situation sinks in. It seemed so noble at the time. Saving lives is exactly what their dad raised them to do.
Oh shit, a life? This was going to end in a baby.
"Cas knocked me up," he says in one rushed breath. That's the way to do it. Like pulling duct tape off a hostage's mouth - better to do it quickly.
It's several minutes before Sam says, "So I wasn't imagining the loud sex, then." He shakes his head. "Man, didn't Dad give you the uncomfortable talk about condoms? Because I was 15 and - "
"Alright, that's enough! How was I supposed to think that I was Fully Functioning Barbie?"
Sam shrugs. "So, um, did you...?" Eventually he gets there; he swerves onto the shoulder of the road and slams on the brakes. A passing SUV honks, but Sam doesn't seem to notice. He stares right at Dean like he can read the details right off of Dean's body. "You mean that's what all this was? Shouldn't you be in an operating room, with your body on its way to medical science?"
Dean looks out the window, unable to look Sam in the eye. "I sort of had Cas, um, fix it. So that it doesn't die and slowly rot attached to my - appendix, I think." He should have checked that.
Leaning back in his seat, Sam stares out the windshield at the cars rushing past. "You're not fucking with me?"
"I wish I were."
"Huh." Sam looks over his shoulder before pulling into traffic again. They cruise at the speed limit on the short drive back to the yard. "So, you're definitely doing this?"
"As long as it holds together - Cas wasn't exactly confident that it would. But, you know. Fighting chance." He's suddenly uncomfortable, and he knows what Sam is going to ask next.
"Why?"
Dean shrugs. "Why not? It was already there."
It's 2AM, and Sam's snoring could wake the dead. Downstairs on the couch, Dean couldn't sleep even if he had tried. He doesn't know if Castiel is suffering similarly, or if he somehow knew that Dean was still awake, but he's suddenly there. He sits beside Dean on the couch.
"Have you told him?"
"He's still in shock."
"He is not alone."
"Nope."
Dean focuses on the television rather than the angel sitting to his right. He wants to say everything, so instead he says nothing at all.
"This is a long shot," Castiel finally says. "Not just because it's unlikely, but because my abilities are waning with time."
"You rewired my guts just fine."
"I used you as a battery. You contain more than a little of my previous grace," Castiel says. "Six months ago I didn't need sleep or sustenance. Two months ago I couldn't feel pain. For all I know, when my grace is gone, anything created with it will fail as well."
"It's better than no shot at all, right?"
Castiel's expression is peculiar - he's puzzled and weary, yes, but also maybe a little pleased. Or maybe Dean imagines that. It's too dim to tell. "Is this something you actually want? I always assumed you left your life with Lisa because you did not enjoy it."
"I enjoyed it," Dean says, instantly defensive. "Lisa was great. I consider my time with her and Ben as one of best things I ever did. But it didn't fit. You can't force these things."
"I'm aware."
Ah. Awkward silence - Dean's least favorite thing in the world. A part of him wants to clap Castiel on the shoulder and make some lewd comment, something about drinking or whores or anything but what he actually says: "I wouldn't take it back."
Castiel stares resolutely at the television, his expression stone still and illuminated in the tinted light of the television. "Is it so different now?"
"Absolutely," but even Dean knows that's a half-truth. Castiel is so close and he smells just the same. Dean already knows him so completely, but it would be something different now. He shakes his head and forces himself to look away from Castiel. "Probably not, but yes."
Castiel reaches forward and touches his cheek, like maybe he's going to kiss Dean anyway. Instead he pulls his hand back. All too suddenly he stands. "The child is fine for now."
"Cas, wait." Dean leans forward. It should be different; there should be some difference to the way he feels when he moves, but nothing feels strange at all within him. This is so fucked up. "How are we..." Nope, that question is too big. Try smaller. "What should I expect?"
Castiel falls back into his seat with a huff of laughter. "You think I know?" But he seems to give it some thought, because eventually he starts speaking like a kid reciting a paper. "The child will grow and displace your organs. It will leech nutrients from your body, especially if your intake is insufficient. Your abdomen will distend, and - "
"Okay, okay, but that's - " Dean rubs his face with his hands and wonders for about the millionth time if he's made the right decision. "What if something goes wrong?" What he wants to ask is where will you be?
Sometimes, it seems like Castiel can read his mind. Looking off toward the door, he says, "I can be here in an instant. I will know. Above all else, I will not allow you to die."
That's enough. It's more than Dean deserves.