Work Text
It burns through them both, less like a firecracker and more like a flare, soaring into the sky and shockingly bright, red, smoking and hissing. Lasting.
Usually they build something slowly, the day passing with looks and touches that no one else notices. To them, it’s a private language, culminating with Dean pressing Sam against the door, kissing him with a low simmering heat that pools in his belly and threatens to spill.
That night, it’s different. Hungry. A hunt that started routine. Just a wraith. But the emotional side of it, of Sam almost dying, a claw scratch about a millimeter away from his carotid artery, makes them pace each other like caged animals.
Sam finds himself with his legs up, feet over the swell of Dean’s ass, Dean rocking into him, wet, rushed, deep, needy, high noises and cut-off whimpers bubbling out of Sam’s throat. He meets Dean’s fast pace, and they grab onto each other, touching everywhere, cataloging safety, leaving bruises.
Dean fucks him deep and fast and wet and loud, and Sam takes it, Sam will look back on that moment later with pink cheeks, wondering who that person was. Who moaned so loudly and begged for more.
It’s over as fast as it begun. They sleep--more like collapse--in a sweaty, dirty pile of limbs, sweat, and come, and Sam has never slept so soundly.
***
It’s a few weeks later when Sam gets dizzy making breakfast.
They’re in a motel with a little kitchenette and Sam is putting cheese and eggs on toast for him and Dean. They’re on a budget so this has been breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a few days. He looks down at his little concoction and the smell hits his nose the wrong way. It burns acrid up to his brain, making his vision swim and his head simultaneously helium light and lead heavy.
He stumbles, sick with vertigo, begging the world to stop spinning so erratically. His hands grip the edge of the sink like if he lets go even a little bit he’ll float away.
Dean comes home just as the swoop in Sam’s stomach pulls him down. He falls to his hands and knees and Dean is by his side fast enough that it’s kind of silly. Dean puts a hand low on Sam’s back, helps him get upright.
“You alright?” Dean asks, brow bushed into a caterpillar of worry.
“Fine,” Sam answers, but it’s breathless. He lets Dean lead him to the table.
They sit. Sam eats and doesn’t throw up.
The rest of the day spins with normal earthly rotation.
They crack the case.
***
They’re on the road the next morning, windows down, somewhere southwestern, when it hits Sam all at once. He scrabbles for the door handle.
“Pull over,” he says, stretched thin.
Dean looks at him. “You--?”
“Now,” Sam interjects, forcefully enough that Dean performs some evasive maneuvers to comply with Sam’s request as quickly as possible. It only makes Sam sicker, though, and he’s only halfway out the door when the puking starts.
He pukes all over the gravel. Someone on the highway honks at him. Dean kneels at his side, trying his best not to be absolutely disgusted, and Sam appreciates it, he really does.
When Sam’s only horking up spit and nothing else, Dean helps him up. Ushers him into the car. “Next gas station,” Dean promises. “We’ll get you some electrolytes.”
***
They stop somewhere for the night only a few dozen miles away from Sam’s puke mile marker. They treat it like food poisoning or the flu but Sam doesn’t feel like it’s either. He and Dean have eaten all the same things--which, hey, maybe the movie
Airplane
should apply to hunting duos, too--and he’s not feverish or feeling like he’s dying.
They’re at the pharmacy grabbing random medicine when Sam pauses further down the aisle, Dean and the cashier just before him.
The gender neutral purple pregnancy boxes catch his eye.
He grabs one before meeting Dean at the register.
***
Sam sits on the toilet staring down at the little “positive” sign with his mind absolutely blank.
He’s pregnant.
It shouldn’t be possible. They’re always careful. They always use protection. Well, except that one time, so rushed and desperate that they both forgot... Which is all it takes, apparently.
Sam expected to feel calm, slightly panicked. He expected to tell Dean to hit the emergency fund, get to the next progressive town, take a pill, and continue as normal.
But he doesn’t want that.
He’s twenty four, with Dean and nobody else, and the world perpetually gently ending in some manner, typically with him and Dean at the center.
He’s never been given quite such a big “out” before. And Dean mentioning the children they’d had when he’d been stuck in that “perfect world” dream with the djinn… well.
It just feels like it’s happening now, rather than later, which isn’t what Sam anticipated.
Sam comes out of the bathroom and Dean already knows. It’s the way they are. Even facial expressions aren’t necessary.
“I think we should keep it,” Sam says.
Dean’s eyebrows shoot up.
“I think we’re both tired,” Sam says carefully. He doesn’t quite know how to say it. Dean saves him. He presses up against Sam’s side.
“Yeah,” he says, “okay.”
There’s more to be said. There’s more to be argued. This is insane. Probably dangerous and ill-advised. But Sam has never felt more in control of his life than he does now.
***
They hunt for two more months, and then Sam starts to show, and Dean shuts it all down immediately with no ifs, ands, or buts.
It’s a little awkward asking Bobby for extended use of one of his cabins without explicitly explaining why, but after describing their needs in completely neutral terms, Bobby reveals an apartment a friend of his keeps empty in Milwaukee, and Sam and Dean move in a week later.
***
Sam is sitting on the couch with a hand awkwardly resting on top of his swollen tummy. He still hasn’t gotten used to it yet, to the cravings, but when he looks at himself in the mirror his heart goes into overdrive. He can’t quite process that this is real, that he’s Dean’s that they’re going to do this.
Dean comes home then, holding a huge box. Sam gets up to help him but Dean shakes his head, grunting as he shoves past Sam. “Nuh uh,” Dean says. “Pregnant people don’t help with heavy lifting.”
Sam rolls his eyes but follows Dean down the hall to the second bedroom. Dean sets the box down and it’s only then that Sam gets a clear look at the illustration of the crib on the side of it.
He bites his lip. “Can I at least help you put it together?” he asks.
Dean looks up and sees the dust speck caught in Sam’s eye. His face softens. “Yeah,” he says. He holds a hand out. “C’mere.”
Sam goes easy.
***
Sam’s laying on the bed, naked, but that’s normal. He sleeps naked now, it’s easier.
What’s not normal is Dean kissing his way down Sam’s body, from his forehead to his lips to his nipples to his tummy, where he pauses.
Sam goes red all the way to the tips of his ears. He stares at the ceiling. “You don’t, have to, uh,” he trails off, not knowing how to finish.
Dean looks up at him over the skin tone hill between them and scoffs. “I’m just admiring,” Dean says. “I hate Hallmark shit, but man, you’re freaking glowing.”
Sam blushes harder, if possible, and his stomach feels extra sensitive when Dean begins kissing all over it and whispering things to it that Sam knows aren’t for his ears.
He’s redder a few minutes later, thighs trembling as Dean eats him out until he cries.
He’s beginning to adjust to their new normal.
***
Dean is mothering him.
Sam knows the signs from illnesses and injuries from years past. There have been a lot. Dean is very particular when Sam is laid up, and right now, it’s coming out full force.
They’re having a stale mate over ginger ale in the middle of the grocery store. Dean is holding up a pregnancy book like it’s the final folklore book that gave them the answer on the hunt.
“Nothing carbonated,” Dean says, firm and bordering on grumpy. “You have to watch what you eat, Sammy.”
“I know,” Sam snaps, irrationally pissy. “I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t burn bones or perform exorcisms. The doctor says we’re healthy, Dean, I can handle a little bit of soda.”
Dean shakes his head. “The book,” he stresses.
“The book,” Sam mocks, snatching it from Dean. “Fuck your book. I’m getting ginger ale.”
Sam throws a 2 liter into the shopping cart. Dean gawps at him like Sam just killed his puppy.
A woman behind them clears her throat. She gestures to the aisle they’re blocking. They shuffle aside, tails between their legs, but Dean glares at Sam all the same.
***
Sam is getting a little sick of Dean making every meal for him, of Dean doing everything he can in preparation while Sam sits by, absolutely useless. Sam applied for a job, a very easy part time desk job at a library, just to supplement Dean’s pool hustling-based income, and Dean almost bust a gasket when he found out.
Sam has never felt so stagnant in his life.
It comes to a head when Dean doesn’t let Sam pump the gas.
“Particulates, Sammy,” Dean says.
“So I can stand right next to the pump but I can’t touch it?” Sam asks flatly.
Dean nods, which just pisses Sam off further. “I’m just--”
“Looking after me, I know,” Sam groans. “I’m not a child, Dean. Or an invalid. I don’t need you to wipe my ass for me.”
With that, Sam storms--wobbles, more like--back to the car, getting inside and folding his arms over his round midsection, quietly fuming.
At home, the silence is broken after Dean lets Sam help put groceries away (except things over a certain weight or to be placed on a higher shelf) and cracks a ridiculous pun about asparagus. Sam is still tender, but he accepts Dean’s apology cheek kiss, and retreats to the bedroom to do his own paranoid online research. He keeps his anxieties private, knowing that Dean would only worry harder if he knew Sam was afraid of not being a good mother.
Bobby calls him about fifteen minutes later. “Dean tells me you’re goin’ stir crazy but you’re out of commission,” he starts with. “You willing to do any research for me?”
Sam thanks Dean with an especially grateful kiss, and the handjob that follows symbolizes his appreciation, too.
***
Months pass. Sam’s tummy grows. Dean’s anxiety lessens and grows in waves. They find a happy medium, Dean showing his care and concern without absolutely smothering Sam. They build an apartment of haphazard personal objects and a nursery. They go to doctor visits. Dean gets a job at a mechanic’s. Sam continues to help Bobby research.
The thing Sam is the most surprised by is how naturally it comes. Bobby has their back, even if he doesn’t know the whole truth, and so do their other friends and family. The most impossible part of it is that trouble never follows. Every precaution they took, every good luck charm and supernatural trick in the book seems to have paid off.
Sam can’t ever fully relax, though, always expecting the worst. It’s Dean who calms him down, Dean who puts a solid, calloused hand on his belly and kisses his jaw, whispers promises of the soft future they’ll share into his ear, words he’d never speak in the light of day. Well, words he never would have spoken before. With every day Dean’s inner gentleness lingers more and more, Dean’s familial soul looking at Sam and his belly and all that it carries with enough love that it makes Sam’s throat go tight.
Like now.
Sam lay on his side, one of the last comfortable positions. Only a few months left now before they welcome another person into their lives.
Dean’s spooned up behind him, massaging Sam’s belly. His hand stops when he feels a kick. He continues rubbing. “A little fighter,” he rumbles, kissing the back of Sam’s neck.
Sam closes his eyes, feeling warm all over. He leans back into Dean’s embrace. Dean hums a quiet song, nosing at Sam’s hair.
Sam’s almost asleep when Dean speaks up. “Hey, Sammy?”
“Hmm?”
“You thought about names yet?” Dean asks, a little haltingly.
Sam smiles, keeps his eyes closed. He yawns. “I was thinking Dean John Winchester Jr.”
Dean’s quiet for a beat. “I can’t tell if you’re joking.”
Sam doesn’t respond to that, and Dean goes quiet again.
“We could name her Jess,” Dean says. “Jessica Samantha Winchester.”
Sam’s smile grows wider. “I can’t tell if you’re joking, but I’d like that.”
Dean chuckles, his breath puffing out against the little hairs on Sam’s neck. “You’re gonna be so good to her,” he mumbles. “Goodnight, Sammy,” he shifts, getting comfortable, planting another kiss.
“Night, Dean,” Sam slurs, cuddling closer when Dean draws the blanket over them.
Sam sighs in contentment, drifting off to sleep. His last thoughts before he sleeps are in lazy wonderment, in awe of the security he feels, the confidence he has in them, and his love for Dean. His love for his family. Dean is going to make a wonderful father.
Sam can’t wait to see it.
He rests.
Dean stays awake just a little longer, holding Sam close, keeping his family safe.
It’s the least he can do.
The End