A Womb of His Own - 13/21
Masterpost
Souls, they learned, didn’t take up any physical space, but they did produce effects on the body. It wasn’t as if Sam suddenly popped a baby bump or got cankles after a long day - and Dean was honest enough to admit his hope that would happen, partly out of morbid curiosity and partly of the sadistic pleasure mocking a brother could bring.
Instead, although Sam was eating more and working out more, the soul was taking so much of his energy that Sam was still losing weight. His once washboard abs had evened out, and his jeans hung baggier in the ass than usual. His shirt sleeves hung past his wrists. If he keep shrinking, he and Dean would soon be able to look each other straight in the eye.
Assuming they would ever want to look each other in the eye again.
As the days passed, Sam was also getting better and better at his Scarlett O’Hara impression. “It’s not swooning, Dean,” he snapped after the third time Dean had to manhandle him back to the couch. “You try being a human battery and having something drain you.”
Dean bit back any retort about how he was the Energizer bunny.
Every now and then Dean forgot that he was Public Enemy Number One and lapsed back into the familiarity of simultaneously taunting and taking care of Sam. Then something would happen - like Sam sniping or Bobby sighing - and Dean would have to excuse himself to the bathroom to throw up. It was a good thing Sam didn’t have morning sickness, or there’d have been a war over the toilet.
Apart from those brief moments of interaction, Sam and Dean weren’t really in the same hemisphere. They talked - they asked each other to pass napkins, greeted each other in the morning, made small talk about items in the newspaper during meals - but they weren’t really saying anything. Dean hated the estrangement more than he’d hated it when Sam had disappeared for four years. At least then he hadn’t had to constantly face Sam, knowing that he didn’t want to be around Dean. Watching Sam move through the motions of his day, keeping him at arm’s length - that was worse than Sam’s absence.
Most of the time, while Sam read his new books, Dean flipped through Bobby’s ancient texts, looking for the magical incantation that would desoulify his brother. He thought it might be a little like popping a zit or passing a kidney stone. Painful if not done correctly, but not without the hope of everything being just fine afterward.
Except he really had no proof of that. There were so many things to consider: ruining Sam’s regular soul, making the wall come down, the two souls fusing together, where to put the second soul when it came out (if it didn’t just die). Knowing that a physician thought Sam was a-okay only granted Dean a minor reprieve from worry.
Probably the worst part of the situation was that he had been reduced to research assistant. Sam made it clear that whatever options they discovered, it was his decision alone to make. Bobby was pretty supportive, reading whatever Sam told him to and making quiet suggestions when he thought he had a new idea.
It was at the end of the tenth day that Dean stared down at a nine-hundred page text in ancient Greek. He had no idea what he was reading. He was just comparing letters in the book with a cheat sheet Bobby and Sam had prepared for him, and he hadn’t felt more useless in a long time. He was itching for a hunt, but, of course, Sam was their case at present. Their monster, their victim, and their leader all rolled up into one.
He slammed the book closed so hard that dust fluttered up from the pages. Bobby and Sam looked up with curiosity.
“I get a say, too.”
Bobby shook his head and went back to reading, but Sam gave a quiet, unnerving chuckle. “Uh, no, you don’t.”
“Yeah, I do. It’s the elephant in the room, isn’t it?” Dean got out of his seat and turned to face Sam. “Let’s just say it. I made that soul. So now I should get to decide what we’re doing here.”
He didn’t have to look over to know that the scraping noise was Bobby pushing back from his chair and leaving the room.
“Shut up,” Sam warned.
“Or what? You’ll leave again? Look, I know this isn’t an ideal situation, but we’ll figure it out. Together.”
“Are you kidding me? Just when I thought I had reached the pinnacle of freakdom, you find some way to take me to a whole new level. There’s just -” Sam choked a little. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter and shakier. “I just don’t see how we can recover from this.” He pushed past Dean and headed upstairs to the guest room, leaving Dean alone and stunned.
Three slow claps caught his attention, and Dean turned around to find Balthazar sitting with his legs crossed in the chair Bobby had vacated. “Brilliantly done. Bravo.”
“What do you want?”
Balthazar gave him a smile that said he knew the anger was being misdirected and didn’t mind. “I just wanted to see how our little mother-to-be was doing. Or should I say uncle?”
“He’s fine, go away.”
“Hmm, trouble in the domestic sphere.” Balthazar rose from the chair and meandered about the living room, taking it in with a look of displeasure. He ran a finger along the mantle and frowned at the dust. “By the way, I also wanted to offer my congratulations to you as well.”
Dean wasn’t going to take the bait. “Me? Why me?”
The look Balthazar gave reminded Dean exactly how stupid it was to try to bluff an angel.
“Sam keeps getting sick. Do you know what that thing is doing to him? I mean, should we be trying to kill that thing?”
“He’ll expel it.”
“What?”
“When it’s fully matured,” Balthazar explained, “Sam’s body will expel it.”
“Do I even want to ask how?”
Balthazar grinned. “It will be unpleasant, but he’ll survive.”
“Cas said -”
“Cassie’s full of bullshit sometimes, love. I would have thought you’d have figured that out by now.”
“And when Sam…expels it,” Dean prompted, “what then?”
“One of three things happens. Either the soul finds another suitable body to house it, or it finds someone to take it to heaven -”
“Like a reaper?”
“Or…” Balthazar gave a dramatic pause.
“Or what?”
“Or it dies.”
A soul is not a kid had become Dean’s new mantra - ever since Sam rejected the pregnancy book with the duck on the cover (which, by the way, Dean was secretly reading and finding immensely helpful). A soul was not a kid, but a soul was still alive, and it could have been inside a person, and he didn’t like the idea of someone dying unnecessarily.
Dean sighed. “Okay, well, let’s say we want to go with option one or two. How long do we wait? Should we be doing anything in the meantime?”
“What happened? Your regular angel tell you to sod off?”
“Uh…”
“Castiel? The one in the dirty trenchcoat who’s in love with you? Why aren’t you asking him these questions instead of me?”
“Yeah, I guess you could say he told me to ‘sod off,’” Dean admitted.
“I told you to be careful,” Balthazar reminded him, and for that moment he looked the way he had in the garage the first time Dean had summoned him: serious and trustworthy. “Babies are born with souls, Dean. They take the same amount of time to mature. Sam will be fine. You’ll both know when it’s time. Now I really should be going. I was on my way to Japan, just popped in here to say hi.”
“What are you doing in Japan?” Dean heard himself asking. He didn’t know if he really cared.
“Watch the news,” Balthazar said cryptically. “You’ll find out in a few days. Now I’ll be off, but do call if there are any interesting developments.”
“Like what?” Dean asked, but he was already gone.
Dean stood for a moment in the middle of the living room, taking in what Balthazar had told him. If there was no worry that the soul was hurting Sam, it seemed more important than ever that they find a way for Sam to carry it to term. Sam, he knew, would like hearing this. If he’d listen to Dean.
With a sigh he mounted the stairs.
As soon as he’d woken up from his coma, Sam had taken over the upstairs guest room. He hadn’t even asked Dean if he or Rufus were already crashing there. But that was the brother Dean knew and loved - incredibly giving sometimes, but also selfish to a fault.
Dean knocked on the door but didn’t wait for Sam to tell him to come in. Sam was lying on his back on the bed, with his hands behind his head. For once there weren’t any books lying around. The computer wasn’t out. The radio was off.
“Sam? You okay?” Dean asked as he stepped into the room.
“Yeah, just thinking.”
“’Bout what?”
Sam shook his head and sat up. “I guess I’m sorry I yelled at you earlier,” he offered. “I’m just feeling a little out of control, you know?”
“Pregnancy hormones?” Dean offered, but neither of them found it particularly funny. He perched on the edge of the bed, careful to keep a distance from his brother. “No, I, uh, I get it, Sam. I do. What happened with me and you - him - it was…unforgiveable.”
Once the words were out, Dean realized he was waiting for Sam to either confirm them, in which case he’d probably just want to kill himself, or deny them, in which case they could hurry up and get back to being brothers. But Sam didn’t say anything, and after a moment Dean felt itchy to relieve the tense silence.
“You missed Balthazar.”
“Yeah, not sure I really want to see him again.”
“He seemed to know more about all this than Cas.”
Sam perked up at that. “What’d he say?”
“What do you want to happen, Sam? What do you really want?”
“Well,” Sam said carefully, “I guess I feel responsible for this thing. I don’t want you and Bobby to find some way to get rid of it. It’s not a monster.”
No, I am, Dean couldn’t help thinking. He was glad Sam wanted to find a way to let the soul incubate. After that it probably made the most sense to find a way to get the soul to heaven. Life on earth sucked ass in many ways, and they didn’t know if having a soul that they’d created would be some kind of impediment - what if the soul wanted to take off on its own? - but when Dean opened his mouth to explain the options to Sam, he found he could only voice one.
“Balthazar said if we can find an empty body, it can live there.”
“How are we going to find an empty body?” Sam asked, but there was something hopeful in his eyes.
“I don’t know,” Dean admitted. “But we’re gonna look, right?” Sam nodded, and Dean felt a rush of relief that there were once again on the same page. “Sam, I’m sorry. I am. You gotta believe me.”
“Okay,” Sam said flatly.
“I never - I didn’t mean for this happen.”
“Stop.”
“I’m just trying to make it up to you, Sammy. I don’t -”
“Dean, shut up, I mean it,” Sam warned. “I don’t want to hear it.” He licked his lips. “I just - I forgive you for the fact that I’m in this situation that you know could happen and are as responsible for as soulless me was, okay?”
Dean narrowed his eyes. That sounded a little too calculated. Sack up, Dean, he told himself. “And what about the other thing? The, uh, part that made the soul in the first place?”
“If you can’t say it, you shouldn’t be doing it,” Sam said, echoing some advice from their dad when Sam was a horny sixteen-year-old.
“I’m not doing it,” Dean couldn’t help mumbling.
“Yeah, well…” Sam’s voice trailed off because there was no real way to finish that sentence.
Dean dared to look up and found Sam staring back at him with quiet intensity. Sam’s eyes looked one part inviting, one part needy, and Dean took it as an invitation to lean forward and kiss Sam very gently. Before he could pull back, Sam’s hand was around his neck, holding him in place as the kiss deepened.
“I’m jealous because he got you first,” Sam confessed in a whisper.
Dean didn’t know how to respond. He loved Sam - all the versions of him - but, yeah, the other guy had been more confident and he’d been the one who caused Dean to finally succumb to his desires. But it didn’t mean it was because Dean liked that Sam more. It was just because that Sam didn’t have the sense of restraint this one did. That Sam had been willing to say yes.
“Do you want me, or am I just a substitute for him?”
“Don’t,” Dean whispered back. “Don’t do that.”
“Yeah,” Sam agreed. He leaned in for another kiss, this time less tentative and more possessive, though not quite as forceful as the first time in the motel room. Pretty soon they were moving down the mattress together. “Shirt off,” Sam instructed between kisses. It was hard to comply without breaking the groping and kissing, but Dean wasn’t a beginning player at this game. In a few moments he had them down to t-shirts and shaking in anticipation.
“Did you lock the door?” Sam asked.
It was a bit of a mood killer to pad over to the door to lock it, but, Dean reminded himself, it would be well worth it if he got laid without having to worry about Bobby busting in. And the angels, well, if they busted in, then they deserved whatever they saw.
When he climbed back onto the bed a moment later, Sam was sitting up against the pillows, looking undebauched and contemplative. It was not promising. Dean tried to make his move so fast that Sam wouldn’t have a chance to think himself out of it - he called it the Lightning McQueen - but Sam turned his head so that Dean ended up with a mouthful of neck. He licked and sucked until he was certain there was going to be a bruise, but apart from a few little shudders, Sam didn’t react. He certainly didn’t melt into a pool of brainless oh god yes, which was kind of the purpose of the Lightning McQueen in the first place. “You okay?”
“You’re not fucking me.”
“Okay…”
“I mean, you are not fucking me,” Sam clarified. “Look what happened. No way are you sticking it in me again.”
“Oh.” So the sex was still on, apparently. That was good. The not fucking Sam part, that wasn’t so great. “Think of it this way,” Dean suggested. “You’re already pregnant. What’s the harm now?”
Sam glared until Dean could feel his erection wither. “I’m fucking you, or we’re not doing this.”
Dean was just about ready to say that he didn’t care - he just wanted to be with Sam and to prove to him that he was the one who mattered, not that soulless asshole who’d been a pale imitation. But there was something different in Sam’s eyes now. No passion or lust, no neediness. Just defiance and curiosity.
It was a test, Dean realized. A game. Sam wanted to see if Dean would say yes. He wanted to make sure he got what the other guy got, just like the way Dad could never give Dean a cookie or a popsicle without giving one to Sam, too, because Sam would cry and bitch about being left out and unloved. As if Sam wasn’t always the one they both loved best. As if Dean sleeping with the soulless guy somehow meant he loved this Sam less.
“Forget it,” Sam said.
“Yeah,” Dean agreed. He got up from the bed and tried to zip his fly with as much dignity as possible. “Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.” He stormed out of the room before Sam had a chance to throw him out.
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