A Womb of His Own - 16/21
Masterpost
Spring flew by in a series of hunts, and Sam and Dean were working together better with each case. Though Dean was happy they were back to their old routine, it was still in the back of his mind that their relationship was based on a lie. He knew it would all come crashing down eventually, which left him feeling off his game sometimes and sometimes faking it. But it was important to appreciate the good times, he knew, while he had them.
Bobby went back to hunting, too. He did phone duty more often than he left home on cases, but he was back, and that’s what mattered.
When they had down time, they compared notes on Crowley and Cas. There wasn’t much news on that front. Dean felt anxious for July to roll around - D-Day - so they could finally find out what those two were up to and put a stop to it.
Soon it was May, and they were facing Sam’s birthday. A birthday was never really a big deal for a Winchester. Case in point: everybody had forgotten Dean’s in January - including Dean. While Sam’s was a nice reminder that he’d managed to defy the odds by getting one step closer to thirty, it coincided with some pretty awful things Dean didn’t really need to remember. Both he and Sam had died on May 2, after all.
But it wasn’t every birthday that your brother could celebrate two years since he’d given himself over to Lucifer to save the planet from roasting, and it was even rarer that said brother would be in a family way while celebrating. So the situation seemed to warrant milkshakes at a Braum’s in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
“I have something to talk to you about,” Sam said seriously.
Dean held his breath. Yeah, it had been going well lately, but it had been going well with Lisa and Ben, too, and then all of a sudden he was having secret sex with his back-from-the-dead brother right before Lisa told him to take a hike.
“I think it’s time to take a break,” Sam continued. “I know we have two more months, but we don’t know how long it will take to find a host, and it’s not like we know the exact date the soul’s going to come out. We should get a start now.”
Sam looked nervous, like he thought Dean was going to veto the idea. That’d be a pretty dick move, and anyway Dean had wanted to pin down their plan of action since Balthazar told them the options. Hunting was in his blood, but this was more important. Much more important.
“Okay, I’m in,” he said easily. “On one condition.”
Sam’s eyebrows tried to reach his hairline, but since the dude had a sixhead, it wasn’t going to happen any time soon. “What’s that?”
“I’m gonna grow a beard.” Dean gazed at his reflection in the rearview mirror and imagined just how ruggedly handsome it would make him. He could totally rock it.
“We’ve taken breaks from hunting before, and you’ve never grown a beard.”
“Yeah, but this time it feels different.” Dean moved the mirror back into position and took a slurp of his chocolate goodness. “It’s a planned break. Makes it kind of like a vacation.”
“We’re going to spend the whole time looking for a body that doesn’t have a soul. Not exactly like building sand castles at the beach.”
“Okay, you know what, Debbie Downer? I want to enjoy this milkshake and the sunshine.”
Sam smiled before taking a sip of his strawberry. “What if I told you I didn’t want it to come out?”
“The soul? You scared of how it’s going to happen?”
“No, I - actually, we should probably talk about that at some point - but, no, I meant…it’s, like, been inside me for six months. I’ve gotten used to it. I kind of don’t want to be separated from it. Does that sound stupid?”
“No.”
“Really?”
“It makes you a big sap, but it’s not stupid.”
“Thanks.”
Dean pulled a few pickles off his sandwich and dunked them in his shake.
“That’s disgusting.”
He plopped the pickles in his mouth and tasted the briny-sweet goodness going down. “That is delicious.”
They drank for a minute with only the sound of Toto playing quietly on the radio.
“This song’s as old as you,” Dean informed his brother.
“Really? How do you know that?”
“I’m a treasure trove of useless information.” He tapped the steering wheel to the beat. “Gonna take me a lot to drag me away from you,” he couldn’t help singing quietly. It was a compulsion, really. If he knew the words to a song, they were going to come out, no matter how bad the song was. “There’s nothing that a hundred men or more -”
Sam snapped off the radio. “Dude, no.”
Dean clenched his jaw. Not being able to finish the chorus was like getting up before you were finished pooping. Or, okay, if that analogy was maybe a little gross, then being left with blue balls. Cramming your raging hard-on back into your jeans before you left the apartment of some girl whose name you only vaguely remembered and who, by the way, had just completely conned you into getting her off and left you hanging - yeah, that’s what not getting to sing the part about blessing the rains down in Africa felt like.
“I missed this,” Sam said.
“We’ve been together every day for the last two months.”
“You know what I mean,” Sam said, giving him a pointed look.
“Yeah, I do,” he said quietly. “Happy birthday, man.”
“Hey, uh,” Sam cleared his throat, “I, uh, have something for you.”
“For me? It’s your birthday.”
“Nothing big. Don’t get excited. Just…” Sam put his milkshake on the dash and then turned to reach over the seat. While he was rooting around back there, Dean made a point to look straight ahead and not, you know, at the ass that was practically wiggling in his face. “Here,” Sam said, coming forward.
It was a plain envelope. Dean looked at it curiously, looked at his brother, and opened it. Inside was the picture they’d taken in front of Mount Rushmore. Right before Sam found out about the paternity of his soul-baby and everything went to hell.
“Despite what happened after,” Sam explained, as if he could read Dean’s mind, “it was an awesome day.”
Dean smiled and tucked the picture up under the sun visor. “Thanks, Sammy.”
“No, thank you, Dean. I mean it. Probably nobody else in the world would get into the situations we get ourselves into, but, you know, at the same time I’m glad we get into them together.”
He almost told him. He was five seconds away from spilling everything, even if it meant Sam would hate him, because he just couldn’t bear how sincere and open Sam was. But then he got a sharp pain in his side and doubled over with a groan.
“Hey, hey, hey, talk to me.” Sam rushed around to the driver’s side and yanked the door open. Dean fell out to slouch over his knees. “Deep breaths.”
He looked at up at his brother, whose head was framed by a halo of sunlight. “I’m good,” he promised, signaling Sam to step back.
“What was that?”
“Just a cramp.” He took a deep breath and rubbed his left side. “They’re common.”
“Common to what?” Sam asked, but he returned to the passenger side.
“You look like you’re getting along better,” Bobby muttered as he opened the door for them. “Sam, happy birthday.”
“Thanks, Bobby.”
They gave each other a man-hug, and then Bobby turned to Dean.
“Not that much better,” he said quietly as Bobby clapped him on the back. Bobby nodded in understanding, which was a relief because the last thing Dean wanted was for him to think they were doing the dirty behind his back and under his roof.
“Come on in, boys. You hungry?”
Bobby decided they should play house. He ended up in the kitchen, fussing over pots and pans, banging around cabinets, and swearing a lot - his version of the happy homemaker. Sam and Dean, as the ungrateful children, were sent outside to play, which, in their world, meant drinking beer.
Dean’s back was killing him from the drive, so he sank down on the front stoop with an exaggerated groan. Sam, who was as restless as ever, scuffed around the yard. He squinted into the sunshine as the wind blew strands of hair across his face. With his clothes hanging so loose, he looked younger and more vulnerable. But also content. Dean didn’t think he’d ever looked better.
“So, about what you said earlier, about wanting to keep it…”
“I won’t,” Sam assured him. “I mean, I know that’s not really a possibility.”
“Not if it keeps feeding on you.” He would have made a joke about it being the child of a vampire, but that would have made Sam uncomfortable.
“No, I know, we’re gonna find a body,” Sam said, like he was reminding himself. “Somebody will get a second chance at life, right? And I’ll get my body back.”
“How much weight have you lost now anyway?”
Sam shrugged. “I think my feet got smaller, too. These boots feel pretty loose. I just…” He sighed and turned around to face Dean. “I just wish I was doing a better job.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Being its mother - or whatever.”
Dean’s lips quirked at the corner. “Its mother?” he repeated, careful to keep his voice even.
“Lots of men are mothers.” Sam kicked a stray pebble defensively.
“Last time I checked, ‘mother’ meant ‘girl,’ Sam.”
“Well, no, I mean, yeah, but think about,” Sam replied, in that slightly confused but about to become totally profound way he always had of presenting an argument. “Like, fathers kick their kids out of the nest because they’re a threat to authority, right? Think about Oedipus. Or -” he gave a cynical half-snort - “Dad telling me never to come back. But mothers are the ones who always let you back in the door.” Sam gave a shrug and then an adorably dimpled smile. “And have cookies waiting.”
Dean glanced over his shoulder. He couldn’t actually see Bobby inside the house, but, okay, Sam had made his point. A dude could be a mom. Except Bobby had never played house with their dad. Not like that. Dear god, why did he even let himself think it because now the mental images -
“Dean?”
“Bobby never has cookies for us.”
“Well, okay, then free beer.”
“Okay, I’m sold, you’re right,” Dean agreed, raising his bottle in mock-salute. “So if Bobby’s like our adoptive mom, what am I?” As soon as the words were out, he licked his lips and swallowed because he had to go and ruin everything by reminding them both that he was Uncle Baby Daddy.
Sam smiled, affectionate but wistful, sincere and appreciative. “You’re the brother.”
“The brother, hmm? What do brothers do?” Dear god, his mouth really ought to have come with an automatic shut-off valve. He stole a glance at Sam, who fortunately didn’t seem to hear any innuendo in the question.
“They’re the ones who run after you when you’ve been kicked out. They bring you home.”
Dean blinked a few times because, fuck, that was the most important and maudlin thing Sam had ever said, and he needed Sam to know he got it, but he also needed the conversation to stop right there. Sam thought he was unwilling or unable to share his emotions, but sometimes it felt like if you kept talking about these things, you’d ruin them. “I still want the damn cookies.”
“Hey, Bobby!”
“What?” came the annoyed reply from inside the house.
“Dean wants cookies!” Sam yelled back, taking a seat next to Dean on the steps.
“I look like a Keebler elf to you?” Bobby responded. “Hy-Vee’s open twenty-four hours!”
Sam and Dean laughed quietly together, and Dean praised his brother’s audacity by clinking their beers together. So much of their adult lives had been spent on doom and gloom that it was easy to forget this Sam, the one who’d gotten away with all kinds of shit when they were younger by simply batting his eyelashes and busting out his dimples. If Dean had been the one to yell at Bobby, he probably would have gotten smacked upside the head.
“I think you’re losing your charm. He’s not giving in.”
“I know, and me in my condition, too,” Sam teased. “Wait for it.”
They sat listening for a moment, hearing some more banging around inside the house. Finally Bobby shouted back at them, “Tell the princess Tollhouse will be on in ten minutes.”
“From scratch?” Dean asked in disbelief.
“Slice and bake or nothin’.”
They exploded into laughter. “Man,” Dean said appreciatively, “you’re awesome.”
Sam leaned back onto his elbows, angling his head up to the sky. “About time you realized it.”
Dean spared a glance over his shoulder toward the house. “I’ve always known,” he said quietly.
“Dean…”
“I just meant you’re not so bad,” he said lightly, trying to shrug it off. He hadn’t meant anything by saying it. Sam was awesome, and most of the time it was awesome being his brother. That was all.
The search for a suitable host body was in day five when Sam looked up from his newspaper with a light in his eyes.
“You found something.”
Sam slid the paper across the table and pointed to a smudged column with a headline reading “Family Spends Easter With Comatose Son.” Dean skimmed over the words, catching only a bit here or there about hospital, coma, thirty-seven year old patient, but his eyes fell on the picture of a gray-haired couple standing on either side of a hospital bed. The fat coma dude was wearing bunny ears.
“Him?”
“Yeah,” Sam said with a nervous smile. “It says he’s been in a coma for over a year, and he’s on life support, and there’s been talk of pulling him off, but his parents aren’t sure, so they just keep praying - and…” His voice trailed off as he caught Dean’s look. “What?”
Dean didn’t want to be a total dick or anything, but it was a fat dude with bunny ears. “What do we even know about this guy, Sam?” he said instead. Opting for proceed with caution was better than letting Sam know what he was really thinking sometimes.
“It says in the article that Christmas was his favorite holiday.”
“Him and half the world,” Dean pointed out.
“He knew how to play the piano.”
“Like the other half. What’d he do for a living? I’m not going to let our soul go into some corporate dick who’s just going to use it to screw people over for money or something.” Not that it really looked that way, what with the picture of Ma and Pa in their matching sweaters standing sentinel.
“Don’t laugh,” Sam said. “Or judge.”
“I won’t,” Dean swore, but they both knew that anything requiring that promise upfront was probably going to warrant a lot of judging. It was sort of like the don’t be mad precaution.
“He worked at a comic book store.”
“Seriously, Sam?”
“It doesn’t mean he’s not a good person, Dean.”
He flicked the paper away. No way was his baby soul going to rot in the obese corpse of a sweaty anti-socialite. No wonder the guy was taking pictures with his parents. He probably didn’t have any friends. “Sam, come on.”
“What? Tell me specifically what your problem is.”
“We don’t - he’s not -” Dean frowned. “He probably plays Dungeons and Dragons.”
“Pretty sure most of them moved to World of Warcraft.”
As if that was any better. “Seriously, google it, see if he has a ranking somewhere. Five bucks says he does.”
“You’re being an asshole.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not being selective enough. We have plenty of time to find someone else. You want to put this soul into just anybody? Google it, come on.”
Sam sighed but pulled his laptop closer. His fingers danced around the keyboard for a minute, and then he frowned. “Oh.”
“What? Let me see.”
“No.” Sam grabbed the computer and held it against his chest.
“Let me see.”
“It’s nothing.”
“If it’s nothing,” Dean said, reaching for it, “then let me see.”
Sam scooted his chair away from the table, still holding the computer tightly, and Dean leaned over the tabletop to grab it, and before he knew what had happened, he was sprawled on top of Sam - and the computer - on an overturned chair.
“Ow,” Sam griped, shoving at him.
Dean held his position, just hovering above his brother for a moment, savoring the slightly dazed look in Sam’s eyes. He licked his lips without meaning to. Then he realized how awkward the moment was and how trapped Sam must have felt and muttered an apology while scrambling up.
“Boys!” Bobby called, carrying a sack of food past them. “Grub.”
“Just in time,” Dean declared, wiping his hands and the moment off on his jeans. “Sammy thinks he found our host.”
“So soon?” Bobby set the bag on the kitchen table and began unpacking its contents. A half sandwich and soup for him and Sam, and a cheeseburger for Dean.
“No onion rings?”
“Eat a carrot.”
Sam opened the computer, which had thankfully survived the tumble to the floor, and turned it around so they could see.
“No,” Dean said emphatically. “No, no, a hundred times, no.”
“Dean -”
On screen was a picture of fat D&D coma dude. In a Batman costume. Made of Spandex.
“Fuck no, Sam. Really? Batman? Of all the superheroes?”
It didn’t escape his notice that Bobby and Sam shared a glance of amusement at his expense. “At least you have similar interests,” Sam suggested.
“Thirty-seven?” Bobby read. “Not a bad age.”
“For a brand new soul? What if he wakes up and starts acting like a kid?” Dean asked.
Sam shrugged. “His family’ll probably write it off as amnesia or something. Besides, I don’t think it works that way.”
“What if it changes his conscience? I mean, we all know how you acted when you didn’t have a soul,” Dean said, and then immediately he was chanting, Pretend I didn’t say that, pretend I didn’t say that.
“He was in a coma, Dean,” Bobby reasoned. “He wakes up at all, they’re gonna be so grateful, it won’t matter if he’s a different person.”
“So you’re okay with this?” Dean asked Bobby.
Bobby made a face like Dean was crazy. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”
Dean looked back and forth between him and Sam, feeling outnumbered and not liking it one bit. The two of them always ganged up on him. Come to think of it, Cas and Sam ganged up on him a lot, too. “Why am I always the outsider?”
“Aw,” Sam gushed. “He’s jealous, Bobby.”
“It’s okay,” Bobby cooed. “We love you, even if you’re not the sharpest tack in the box.”
“I hate you both.” Dean took his cheeseburger and went into the other room. He needed time alone to think. He needed to figure out how he felt about the soul going into a fat Batman wannabe. He was pretty sure he didn’t like it. For the record, Dean was not a racist. Or a bigot, or whatever the term is when you don’t like people who aren’t normal-sized. He didn’t have any problem with giants - he lived with one, after all - and he joked about midgets a lot, and, okay, maybe once he’d pummeled one and gotten arrested, but he really didn’t have any problem with them either. Except in Midgets and Mayhem 4, when that one little woman did that thing with the hamster, because that was just wrong.
The point was, their soul was special, and it couldn’t just go into anyone. Especially not someone who wouldn’t appreciate it.
And that soul had good sex karma, being the product of not one but two Winchesters. Coma dude was probably going to waste it giving himself carpal tunnel. And who knew if he was even a good guy? Just because he wore bunny ears didn’t mean he was a good person. What if he threw rocks at birds and then took them home to drown in his kitchen sink? What if he pushed old ladies down on the sidewalk and cheated on his income taxes?
No, the soul couldn’t go into him. It couldn’t go into anyone until they’d been thoroughly checked out. And even then, there were no guarantees that someone who seemed perfectly ordinary didn’t have a pile of corpses buried underneath the basement floor.
The soul was better off inside Sam, where Dean could make sure it was safe and getting the right moral guidance. It wasn’t like they didn’t have more time. They had two months to go.
He brooded for some time, letting the effects of red meat smothered with cheddar and ketchup soothe his inner turmoil. He was aware of some chatter between Sam and Bobby in the background, but nothing they said really registered until Sam called his name.
He looked up from his crinkled cheeseburger wrapper. “Hmm?”
“We’re running out of time. He’s a good candidate.”
“Running out of time? What are you talking about, Sam? We have two whole months.”
Sam and Bobby exchanged worried looks, and Dean didn’t appreciate all the nonverbal going on behind his back. “If the angels and demons are waiting for this thing to come out in July, don’t you think we’d better get a jump on them?” Bobby said.
Chapter fourteen of the duck book said a baby born at twenty-four weeks had a fifty percent chance of surviving, but twenty-nine weeks meant ninety. Going off the soul equals fetus analogy, Sam was already right at twenty-nine weeks. But Dean was pretty sure nobody else had done all the math.
“It’s not ready yet. Remember what that demon said?”
“What’d the demon say?” Bobby asked Sam.
“He called it ‘tartare.’” Sam turned to Dean. “I’m not saying it comes out tomorrow. I’m saying let’s investigate this guy and start figuring out how we’re going to get it into him in the first place, because that’s a more productive use of our time than skimming newspapers for other coma patients.”
Dean wasn’t sure he’d be as rational as Sam if their positions were reversed. Hell, as it was, he was only the soul’s semen donor, and he was freaking out about sending it off into the world. No wonder Dad didn’t want Sam to go to Stanford. Jesus, it was hard to let go.
“Where does he live?” Dean relented. He felt a painful gas bubble well up inside and couldn’t stop it from coming out as a noisy fart.
Sam scrunched up his face in disgust. “Florida. Near Pensacola.”
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