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It wasn’t a surprise when Sam learned Dean was bisexual. It was very obvious, actually.
It was even less surprising when Dean announced one afternoon that he’d slept with Cas and they were a thing now. Really, Sam saw that one coming. He’d actually been surprised that it hadn’t happened sooner, but Dean was never the type to be particularly open about his feelings. Plus, it’s Cas. Sam figured Dean might’ve been a little annoyed that of all the people he could’ve fallen for—underwear model, yoga instructor housewife—it happened to be the biggest dork on the planet.
Unfortunately for Sam, Dean loved an angel. Even more unfortunate—apparently the angel was a freak. It started subtly enough—a hickey on his neck for which Sam teased him relentlessly. Because what the hell, was he 15? Really? Next was the suspicious trip to their P.O. Box that Sam was strictly forbidden from going on. He almost started giving Dean hell about an Amazon addiction before he realized there was probably a reason Dean was being shifty and Cas was looking like a cat at a fucking sushi bar.
Once, Sam saw bruises around Dean’s wrists and he asked when the hell Dean was tied up and didn’t tell him about it (because in their line of work, it happened too frequently and if Dean was held captive San most definitely would have known about it).
Dean had grinned, rubbed at his wrists and said, “don’t worry, I was fine with it.”
While San was gagging, Cas piped in to say, “he told me I didn’t have to heal his wounds because I like seeing them the next day.” Which had Sam excusing himself and leaving his breakfast untouched.
Sam put his foot down when he heard noises in the dungeon and burst into see what was wrong—only to discover something so wrong it kept him up at night for weeks. Dean. Lingerie. Handcuffs. Castiel. Spanking paddle. Sam. Scarred for life.
After the dungeon fiasco, Sam very politely but firmly told them they had to do a better job of keeping their private activities private.
Soon, Sam was able to wash the horrifying image from his brain and he wasn’t constantly reminded of his brother’s sex-capades with his non-human boyfriend (read: a being with such stamina it made Sam dizzy, and Dean too, apparently).
Sam thought he knew his brother pretty well. There was very little between them to be surprised at—honestly, they lived in single motel rooms most of their lives. Sam knew everything about his brother and a little more.
One afternoon, though, Sam got the surprise of his life when Cas collapsed in pain on the floor of the bunker.
The two brothers rushed to his aid, adrenaline spiking while Cas held his head in his hands. “Cas! Hey, what is it?” Dean asked frantically.
“I’ll look for hex bags,” Sam said as his eyes darted around the room, looking for places one could be hidden. Everything seemed clear in the main room, so he turned the corner and looked around the halls and peered into a stockroom. Without finding anything out of place, he gave up, and headed back to check on Cas.
He was happy to see that Cas and Dean were talking quietly, and Cas, while he still looked perplexed, seemed fine.
“...disturbance in the fabric of power within our universe. They’re very powerful, so when they come into existence, angels can feel it,” Cas was explaining.
“Feel what?” Dean asked, still holding Cas like he might fall over.
“A nephilim has come into being.”
“A n-ne—” Dean tripped over his response, so Sam chimed in.
“A nephilim? You mean the child of an angel and human, right?”
Cas and Dean turned their heads toward Sam, obviously not expecting him to be there.
“Uh,” Cas looked at Dean with wide eyes. “Yes, that’s correct.”
“You think it’s Lucifer?” Sam asked, tension filling his belly. Knowing that Lucifer was out there made him anxious.
Cas again looked between Sam and his brother. “No,” he said reluctantly.
Dean jerked away from Cas. “What the fuck does that mean?”
There was an awkward silence, and Sam swore he saw Cas turn red. “It means an angel and a human created a nephilim. Recently.” He cleared his throat.
Sam couldn’t be any more confused. “So, did you guys just come from an interspecies orgy or something? Do you know who it is?” As soon as he said it, Sam got a bad feeling.
“No, we did not attend an orgy. But we did make love this morning.”
“Make—gross, guys. We talked about this. I don’t want to know anything about your—ugh.”
Dean grimaced, too. “Don’t call it that. You’re not a 50’s housewife. We fucked.”
Cas rolled his eyes. “As much as I love arguing semantics with you, now is not the time.”
“You’re not supposed to be saying anything in front of me!” Sam interjected. “Shut up! Both of you! We need to talk about this nephilim. Is it dangerous? How do we find the mother?”
“Sam—” Cas started. He looked over at Dean, who was covering his face with his hands and groaning. “There isn’t a mother.”
Sam was starting to get pissed. “Cas, please stop dancing around whatever it is you need to say and just say it, please.”
“The—”
“Unless your answer involves anything about fucking my brother.”
Cas threw his hands up. “I’m trying to tell you!”
“So tell me!”
“It’s me!” Dean exclaimed before Cas could answer. “It’s me. I’m the—me and Cas are the angel and human, and the nephilim is ours.”
Sam dropped his head. “God, Dean,” he sighed. “One time, just once, can we have a serious conversation without you being you? This is serious, so just stop!”
“No, Sam, I’m telling you—”
“Sam, I wouldn’t lie to you,” Cas interrupts. “Your brother is pregnant. He carries the nephilim.”
Sam closed his eyes and exhaled, long and slow. “Okay, Cas.” With that, he turned around and walked out of the room. He cannot be around those two anymore.
Things were awkward in the following weeks, so much so that Sam decided to take a trip to stay with Jody and the girls for a little while; help them on a hunt or two.
(Unsurprisingly, they did not need Sam’s help. He probably even slowed them down).
Then he took a drive to Missouri, to clean up a small haunting outside St Louis.
When he arrived back at the bunker, he almost wished he’d stayed away longer. Cas and Dean must have gotten used to being alone for a few weeks, because they’re practiced sewn together now. Even worse, they’re both pissy for some reason. At Sam, at each other—Cas constantly looks disapprovingly at Dean and Dean looks angry at Cas, and they both look at Sam like he’s a thorn in their side.
Things come to a head when Dean is cooking dinner, and Sam wanders into the kitchen.
“Dean, don’t use your fingers to check the meat, use a spatula.”
“Hey, are you the cook here? No, last I checked you couldn’t even open a can of beans. Shut up.”
Sam sighs, knowing that he’s in for a full evening of their bickering. “Hey, guys,” he says.
Cas and Dean glance over. Sam lifts his laptop as if he’s trying to justify his presence. “Thought I’d share some stuff I found about Nephilims?” he says, unsure.
Cas and Dean share a look between themselves, and Dean turns off the stove. “Sure,” he says, suspiciously cool. “Wanna eat?”
Sam nods. “Smells good. Thanks for cooking.”
They post up at the small kitchen table and Dean stacks about 6 toppings on his beef patties.
Sam gives him a sideways glance and grimaces, but clears his throat while putting a slice of tomato and some spinach on his burger. “From what I can tell, childbirth is usually dangerous for the mother—”
“That’s not true,” Cas interrupts. “If done with an angel present, it’s actually quite easy.” He turns to Dean and smiles. “It’s been many centuries, but I’ve seen this before. Angels who were present during their child’s birth made the process quick and rather painless.”
“Oh, rather painless?” Dean sneers.
“Well it is childbirth, Dean. It won’t be completely painless.”
“Guys,” Sam interjects. “Getting a little off-topic here.” Cas and Dean tensely turn back to Sam. “So, I’ve also read that it typically bonds with the mother early on in the pregnancy. Like, it can communicate with her and sometimes even advises her how to keep herself safe. Because, historically speaking, it’s dangerous to carry one. Angels and demons alike are usually a threat.”
Cas nods solemnly. “That’s true. Sam, can you—would you mind to use more inclusive language? Referring to the birthing parent as the mother can be of—“
“Oh for fucks sake,” Dean rolls his eyes. “I don’t care. Man, woman, alien, whatever. Did you learn anything useful?”
Sam frowns. “Yes, I did, actually. I think if Cas can send out a kind of message to the other angels—”
“That’s…not a good idea,” Cas says.
“Well, we need the Grace of the angel that fathered it to—”
Sam can’t finish his sentence, because Dean has suddenly jumped up from his seat and propelled himself across the room. Bent over the sink, he vomits.
Sam pushes his plate away while Cas gets up to bring a napkin to his partner. Dean’s still dry heaving and gagging, and Sam’s completely done with his untouched food.
Cas puts a hand on Dean’s back and rubs it gently, and Sam decides to excuse himself. “Maybe we can talk later,” he says as he ducks out of the kitchen.
About thirty minutes later, Sam’s walking out of his room to make himself a peanut butter and jelly when he sees Cas quietly leaving his and Dean’s room, closing the door softly. He sees Sam and smiles thinly.
“He okay?” Sam asks.
Cas nods. “Fine. Just resting. He’s been very tired lately.”
Sam nods. “Yeah, I noticed he took a nap the other day. What’s with that? Is he really sick?”
Cas does that Cas thing where he tilts his head and looks at Sam like he has three heads. “Yes?” he says, as if he was asking. “He’s drained, but he’s doing pretty well, all things considered.”
Sam nods as if he knows what “all things considered” means. “Right, because he’s…”
“Has morning sickness,” Cas finishes his sentence for him.
“Morning si—Cas, would you both quit that?” Sam says angrily. “What’s actually wrong with Dean? And don’t say he’s pregnant because that joke is getting really old.”
Cas narrows his eyes and suddenly looks genuinely pissed off. “Fine. I won’t. Dean’s just sick. He’ll be fine, don’t worry about it.”
Sam resists the urge to grab Castiel by the shoulders and roll his eyes six times and flip him off. “Fine. Have a good night.”
Cas walks off looking miffed and Sam wonders why Cas can’t just heal Dean from a stomach bug.
Sam gets two hours of peace before Dean comes barging into his bedroom.
“Dean!” Sam sits up—so glad he hadn’t started doing what he was planning on doing tonight. He was, however, the tiniest bit aroused because he was thinking about doing that thing and he was getting some ideas. He drops his hands to his lap to cover his barely-there erection.
Dean definitely picks up on Sam’s caught-in-the-cookie-jar reaction and he grins devilishly. “Ew, were you jerking off?”
“No,” Sam says, a little too defensively.
“Yes you were,” Dean laughs. If he could, Sam would hold up his hands to show Dean he’s not doing that—but he can’t. “Anyway, I’ll let you get back to it in a second. I need to talk to you.”
Sam glares at him but doesn’t kick him out.
“Listen, so—” Dean stops to take a short, uneven breath. “Damn, I didn’t think I’d ever have to do this,” he laughs. “You obviously don’t remember why, but do you remember when we stayed at Bobby’s for a long time when you were about…six years old?”
Sam looks up as he tries to recall. Their dad dumped them at Bobby’s house a lot when he was a little, but there was one time that maybe seemed different. “I think so. Dad and Bobby had some kind of fight, right? Bobby chased Dad off his property with a shotgun.”
“Yes, so our childhood was a bit fucked up. Bobby did do that, but for good reason.”
Sam didn’t say that he never questioned whether Dad deserved it.
“Dad and Bobby were fighting about me. About what to do with me. Because I was—different.”
Sam knows that Dean held onto something from childhood—something he never spoke about, that Sam wasn’t privy to because he was too young to understand what was happening. There was some friction between Dean and Dad that didn’t exist for Sam, and it was something that Dean kept so close that Sam didn’t even know the full extent.
“Because that was around the time I told Dad that I wasn’t a girl.”
Sam frowns at the statement, only because it doesn’t make any sense. Did Dad used to treat Dean differently? “You mean—you wanted to go on hunts and he wouldn’t let you?”
“What—no, Sam, he killed a shifter in front of me when I was six. He would’ve made me a hunter no matter what. But when I was ten I told him I didn’t want him to call me Deanna anymore. I wanted to be Dean.”
Sam blinks. “He called you Deanna? Why?” Was this their dad’s way of calling Dean a sissy?
“Because he and Mom named me Deanna.”
Sam doesn’t know what to say to that. He knows that Mom named Dean after her mother, Deanna, but it doesn’t really make sense.
“He and Mom named me Deanna, because they thought they were naming their daughter.”
Sam searches Dean’s face for a clue. Because what Dean was saying—
“Dean and Bobby got into a fight because Dad didn’t think I could just up and change like that. He took off for a little bit, but he came back eventually and Bobby made him promise to let me be myself. And since then, this is who I am.” Dean stretched out his arms. “I’m Dean. I’m a dude. I just have some not-dude parts in some places that apparently still work so I got pregnant.”
“You…” Sam isn’t able to form words.
“Have a vagina, yes. And a working uterus, one that’s got a nephilim brewing.”
“I—Oh my god, Dean. I—you never told me? I had no—what the hell, man? No, what the hell. You’re a—okay, you’re a man, I see that, but you’re—oh, my god.” He stands up and starts pacing. “You never told me!” He points at his brother. “And you—Dean, I’ve seen you pee standing up. How does that work?” Sam says this like a gotcha.
“Do you actually want me to answer that?”
“Yes! No! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Honestly?” Dean asks. “I thought you knew.”
Sam keeps pacing, and throw his hands in the air for good measure. “How, Dean? How would I know? We just called you Dee when I was little, and for as long as I can remember, you’ve been a boy. Nobody has ever thought or said differently. You also pee standing up on the side of the road, so forgive me for assuming you have the stand-to-pee parts.”
“Well, we’ve lived the majority of our lives in our car and had to do our business on the side of the road a lot. They make these little—they’re like funnels, and you hold it between—”
“Nope,” Sam stops him. “Don’t need that.” He slows his frantic walking and faces Dean. “So you’re pregnant?”
Dean smiles.
“With a nephilim?”
Dean smiles wider. “If you disapprove of my baby daddy, you’ll have to keep that to yourself.”
Sam chuckles. “He loves you,” he blurts.
Dean nods. “I know.”
Sam takes a small step forward. “I love you, you know that, right?”
“Unfortunetely.”
“Shut up,” Sam says as he goes in for a hug. He hugs his big brother, who’s always taken care of him and looked out for him and who he loves more than anyone on Earth. “Holy shit,” he breathes. “We’re having a baby! A nephilim baby! We need more lore.” Sam ends their hug abruptly to run out of the room and into the library. Dean follows.
Armed with every angel-related book the bunker has, Sam makes piles of books according to how helpful they might be, and how easily that can be read or translated to modern English. Cas will have to read the one in Enochian.
“Sam, Dean,” Cas says as he enters the library from the opposite direction. He frowns at Dean. “You should be resting.”
Sam rolls his eyes. “He’s pregnant, not dying. He can do a little reading.” He continues to sort books until he finds one for Dean to look through. “Start with the section on conflicts,” he tells him. “You,” he gestures to Cas. “Get over here and start reading. This is mostly your fault.”
Cas walks to the table and immediately grabs a book in a language Sam’s pretty sure is dead. “Of course. So I take it you’ve stopped ignoring us and have accepted reality.”
“Yeah, I get it now. Thanks for checking.”
“Good. Because I was doing some research—” Cas pauses, and Sam’s interest is certainly piqued. “It seems that it’s not possible in this universe, but there is another universe where it’s possible for people who are born biologically male to get pregnant.”
Sam gently sets down the book he was holding while Dean jerks forward in his chair. “Cas, so help me, if you start explaining the omegaverse to my brother—”
“So you’ve heard of it!” Cas exclaims. “Sam, there’s an alternate universe I’d never heard of—”
“Cas!” Dean snaps. “No!”
Sam looks at his brother. “I don’t wanna know, do I?”
Dean shakes his head. “Don’t Google it, either.”
Sam looks back at Cas. “I think I’ve learned enough for tonight, man.” He grabs two books and shoves them under his arm. “No sex on the table,” he says as he leaves the library.
As he’s entering the long hallway to his bedroom, he hears Dean trying to shush Cas to no avail, because Cas calls after him. “Do you expect your pregnant brother to lie on the floor?”
Sam pretends he doesn’t hear him.