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starsficThis is my bizarre amalgamation of an amnesia!fic and "Dean and Cas have a cute baby girl for no explicable reason." Because there are some stories that everyone should write at least once, and that was the kind of day I had yesterday. (You know how toaster ovens say "If contents ignite, keep door closed and unplug oven"? Yeah, here's a hint for you. If contents ignite, keep door closed.)
This is set after the Sky trilogy, but probably all you need to know about this story is that the tall ships are in port for Memorial Day weekend and I saw this picture in the paper:
The Wayward Ones
It wasn’t like he always knew where he was when he woke up. Not right away. The feeling of disorientation was usually accompanied by, at the very least, a pounding headache. Often as not it was followed by the awareness of aching, burning, or stabbing pain elsewhere in his body.
Dean peered blearily up at the ceiling, muscles tensing in anticipation of consciousness. But consciousness was here. And despite the fact that he was lying on his back, he couldn’t actually feel anything wrong with his body. Maybe that would come with movement.
He put it off as long as possible, but motion in his peripheral vision made it necessary to turn his head. No throbbing pain accompanied the gesture. All it revealed was Sam, yanking a hoodie out of his bag and giving Dean a look that said he was a lazy slacker.
“Seriously,” Sam said, “ten o’clock? I know you like to sleep, but dude. Other people are working.”
His voice didn’t make Dean’s head ache. The light wasn’t hurting his eyes. He twitched his hands experimentally, and when nothing horrible happened, he tried to push himself up on his elbows. Not only did he not hurt, he wasn’t even stiff. He didn’t feel like he’d been asleep for hours, let alone unconscious and possibly injured.
“What’s going on?” he asked, frowning down at a shirt he didn’t remember owning. He recognized the bedspreads, at least. “We at Ellen’s?”
“Yeah, genius.” He could hear Sam rolling his eyes even as he pulled the hoodie over his head. “You’re at Ellen’s. And if you’re going to keep ‘sleeping’ here, or whatever--please don’t tell me, I don’t need the details--you could at least get another room.”
He swung his legs over the side of the bed. Definitely not injured. But if he’d brought someone back here last night, that would explain Sam’s pissiness. Maybe he really hadn’t been asleep that long. The not remembering thing, though... maybe he’d gone one for one on the water to alcohol ratio?
Yeah. He didn’t exactly have a history of that kind of responsibility.
“Dean?” It wasn’t really annoyance. He knew all of Sam’s tones. This one was more wary than irritated. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” he said. Because that was what Dean did when Sam asked: he reassured him. “Good. Fine. Ready to go kill some stuff.”
Sam snorted, but it worked because he turned away. “Don’t screw up the sentry rotation and we won’t have a problem.”
The sentry rotation. Okay. They were at Ellen’s, and there was a sentry rotation. “What’s a guy gotta do to get some breakfast around here?” Dean wanted to know.
“Go downstairs and make something, like everyone else.” Sam’s hand was on the door, but he glanced back as he added, “Or not. Like I know how that angel stuff works.”
He couldn’t help that his mind immediately flashed to Cas. He tried to be surprised he could even believe it had been Cas he’d taken to bed, but come on: “angel stuff” could only mean one person, and who else would be bringing him breakfast? He was a little annoyed that it made Cas the man in the relationship. He was way more screwed if he’d done something that crazy, avoided a smiting, and he couldn’t even remember.
“Dean?” Sam sounded impatient. “Coming?”
He was dressed. How had he not realized that? Did that cripple the drunken one-night stand theory, or had he had a moment of clarity while he was chugging water and remembered he was in the middle of a war? “Yeah,” he said, because if Sam thought he should be then that was probably the best indication he was gonna get. “Lemme--”
Sam didn’t look like he was waiting for Dean to do anything except follow him, and when Dean ran a hand over his jaw he paused. His skin was smooth. What the hell had he been doing the night before that he’d needed to shave?
Trying to impress someone? he wondered.
He told his brain to shut up. “Yeah,” he repeated instead. “Lead the way.”
He should probably just be happy about the lack of bitching. Sam was obviously in a mood – when wasn’t he? – but he didn’t complain that Dean hadn’t changed, hadn’t washed, had just rolled out of bed after who knows what and couldn’t remember a damn thing.
Not that he was sharing. It would come back. In the meantime, he’d just as soon avoid the mocking.
Ellen’s place was a lot more crowded than he expected. He told himself it was just his imagination that everyone was staring. When Jo came out of nowhere to shove a plate of pie and a cup of coffee into his hands he grinned at her and she rolled her eyes. So. That part was normal, at least.
What wasn’t normal at all was the little girl who tried to climb into his lap when he sat down. “Whoa,” Dean said, clinging to his fork and trying to keep her from falling with the other hand. “Where did you come from?”
“Hi Daddy,” she said, very seriously. “Can I have some pie?”
Right. This had officially gotten weird.
“Are you supposed to have pie for breakfast?” he asked.
A sideways glance at Sam told him that had been the wrong reaction. “Daddy?” Sam repeated, in a tone that suggested someone in the room was certifiable and it definitely wasn’t him.
Dean shot him his best don’t upset the kid look. “You’re just mad she likes me better.”
“You have pie,” Sam pointed out. “And also: Daddy?”
Which was when Cas appeared, looking a little the worse for wear. Dean barely noticed at first, partly because Cas always looked a little the worse for wear – his dishevelment was weirdly precise – but also because Cas had left his trench coat somewhere and he was wearing something that definitely wasn’t a suit. Dean only knew one other angel who refused to wear a suit.
Unless you counted Anna, which he didn’t.
“Dude,” he blurted out. “You cheating off Gabriel, or what?”
“She’s real,” Cas said, which didn’t make a lot of sense to Dean, but whatever. Like that was unusual. “There haven’t been any new angels in millennia, and as I seem to have been granted the power –”
“Wait,” Sam interrupted, at least two seconds too early and obviously way ahead of Dean. “You created another angel?”
“Uh,” Dean said. He was way more than two seconds too late. “She’s got wings.”
The electric things brushed cool air against his arms as she scrambled into his lap, reaching for the plate in front of him. Dean almost didn’t feel it, distracted as he was by the revelation that everyone had wings. Like, okay, sometimes he could see a light around Cas that was sort of... well, angelic. But now that light was wing-shaped – and it hovered around everyone.
Except for Sam. And Jo, who had come back from wherever she’d been going when the kid showed up. “You made a baby angel?” Jo asked incredulously.
A baby angel that called him “Daddy,” Dean thought, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew better than to call attention to that again. He tried to keep her from taking his fork instead, but it was a mostly wasted effort. It didn’t even keep him from hearing Cas say, “Three.”
“Three?” Sam repeated.
“Jophiel has repeatedly expressed a desire to see our ranks grow,” Castiel said, like there was some kind of obvious connection between wanting more soldiers and being given a baby. “I simply –”
“No coffee,” Dean said, pushing the kid’s hand away.
“But I’m thirsty.” She said it like it was the most logical thing in the world, and when she squirmed around to pout at him his mouth went dry. She had Cas’ eyes.
“I thought perhaps there was some benefit to the human influence,” Castiel said. “It seems clear that the inheritance of angels is not sufficient to keep creation in balance. So I –”
He was still talking, but the kid in Dean’s lap wasn’t interested. “Daddy,” she insisted. “When you’re thirsty you’re supposed to drink something. I’m thirsty.”
“Juice,” he told her. “Kids drink juice. Not coffee.”
“You don’t have any juice,” she pointed out.
Faced with logic that would be unsettling if it wasn’t so familiar, he looked around for Jo. “Hey, get us some juice, would you?”
Apparently having a lap full of wings was enough to get him a free pass. “Yeah,” she said, eyes flicking from him to Cas and back again. “Sure.”
“I did intend to tell you,” Castiel was saying. “But I wasn’t sure it would work, and you seemed to be asleep, and I’m afraid Jophiel had some things to say that were... not very complimentary.”
It took Dean a second to get that this was directed at him. He wondered if Cas was babbling at first, and then if he was babbling at Dean, which, seriously, what the hell was he supposed to do with that? Then he wondered if the fact that no one else was asking any questions meant he was supposed to.
“You drop a kid in her lap too?” Dean asked, because why was this his responsibility?
“Yes,” Castiel said. Like he was waiting.
Dean glanced around while his armful of pint-sized angel carefully separated the fruit filling from the rest of the pie. Everyone else seemed to be waiting too. Even the people he didn’t know were staring at him – really staring this time, like, openly – waiting to see what he would do.
“Is this our kid?” he blurted out. Because he had no idea what was going on, but he could read a room like nobody’s business. Right now this room was expecting him to knock Cas through the nearest wall.
“Yes,” Castiel repeated. His expression was stoic, but his wings shifted enough to draw the eye.
“Huh,” Dean said, watching them flutter under his stare. Was Cas flinching?
“Castiel says you’ll be a good parent,” the little girl told him. She sucked a blueberry into her mouth and licked the sauce off her fingers before adding, “He says you raised Sam very well.”
“Oh yeah?” Dean couldn’t help glancing at Sam, who was starting to look at least as amused as he was incredulous. Not as amused as he should look, though. Dean narrowed his eyes, because Sam should really be singing “sittin’ in a tree” by now, and he wasn’t.
Sam was startled by the kid, but not by the kid belonging to Dean and Cas.
Had he taken Cas to bed last night?
Catching Cas’ eye again, he couldn’t find any indication one way or the other. But he wouldn’t, right? Castiel had always been inscrutable – and he had known Dean was sleeping in. Not that anyone couldn’t have guessed that, but really. They were at Ellen’s. Who else would Dean have invited up?
Hell, maybe angel sex came with a side of amnesia. That would just figure.
“Dean,” Castiel said. “I presented this... badly. I apologize. Maribel was not supposed to wander off, and I did mean to consult with you, but I’m afraid when the opportunity presented itself I – it just –”
Dean raised his eyebrows. When was the last time he’d seen Cas so uncertain he couldn’t talk? “It just what?”
“It felt like the right thing to do.” Those blue eyes settled on the kid in Dean’s lap again, watching her scoop up another blueberry with her fingers. Then they lifted to Dean’s face, and geez, why did he even know what color Cas’ eyes were? How did he recognize them in a little wisp of a girl?
Because you spend that much time staring at them, some traitorous part of his mind whispered.
Shut up, he told himself.
But in the moment when he was distracted he heard his own voice say, “Whatever. Saves one of us the trouble of getting knocked up, anyway.”
And Cas was staring at him. Sam was staring at him. The whole entire room was staring at him, except Jo, who’d just come back with a glass of milk and a stack of napkins. “Hey,” she said, depositing them on the counter next to his left hand. “What’d I miss?”
If Gabriel hadn’t picked that exact second to show up, Dean might have reacted better. If Gabriel hadn’t popped into existence so close to Cas, Dean definitely would have reacted better. And if his first words had been anything other than, “So, about Michael –”
As it was, Dean knocked Gabriel through the nearest wall. Literally.
He might have growled, “Get the fuck away from him,” and if he happened to have his arm around the kid when he did it, well. She’d have fallen off his lap when he stood anyway.
Gabriel was back before Dean had processed the smashed up wall. “Chill, bro,” he said. And with the snap of his fingers, Dean remembered: Anna, Samael – Gabriel – Jophiel, Sach... Raphael and Zachariah. Who was currently a bunny rabbit, unless his memories were more messed up than he knew. Or someone had dared to turn him back.
Michael.
He was Michael.
And he had a nephilim daughter.
He considered throwing Gabriel through the wall again just on principle.
“Okay, look,” Gabriel said. “The whole forgetting thing, I thought it was funny, right? How was I supposed to know Mr. Incredible here would pick today, of all days, to throw the Old Word out the window! I wasn’t! So there you go. Memories back, call it a draw, you’re welcome.”
“You stay away from them,” Dean told him. “All of them. Leave the kids alone, Gabriel.”
Gabriel just shrugged. “Whatever you say, boss.”
He disappeared before Dean could prove how serious he was. Cas was giving him an adoring look that was almost insulting in its surprise – had he seriously expected less? But it was Sam who was gonna be the real problem.
His brother was watching him with what could only be described as suspicion. “Explain ‘the whole forgetting thing,’ Dean.”
Great. This should go well.
“Sam,” he began, in a way that was not at all similar to whining. “It’s an angel prank war. These things happen.”
“You had amnesia?” Sam demanded. “Since when?”
“Since I woke up,” Dean said. “It’s fine, it’s all back. I’m good.”
“If an angel takes away your memories,” the little girl mused, “is that functional amnesia, or organic?” She was standing on the bottom rung of his chair, cleaning off his pie plate with her finger. She stuck the finger in her mouth as soon as she finished talking.
They both stared at her for a long moment. It got Sam off his case, but clearly there were bigger issues.
“Dude,” Dean said, looking up at Cas, who’d suddenly gotten a whole lot closer. “How human?”
“Compared to angels?” Castiel said. “Very.”
“Compared to humans,” Dean said.
Cas hesitated. “Compared to humans,” he said at last, “not so much.”
Yeah. That’s what Dean was afraid of.
“Why aren’t you answering my question?” the girl on his lap wanted to know. “Didn’t I ask loud enough?”
“Yeah, kiddo,” Dean said, patting her shoulder without thinking. A little wing wisped against his elbow. “You did. We’re just kind of confused right now.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s organic,” Sam remarked. “I mean, when Gabriel does it, he probably alters your basic brain patterns. Chemistry and stuff.”
“Okay, so.” It was Cas he was looking at when Dean jerked a thumb at Sam. “This part’s gonna work out,” he said. “But next time, at least tell me you’re pregnant in time for me to drive you to the hospital.”
This is set after the Sky trilogy, but probably all you need to know about this story is that the tall ships are in port for Memorial Day weekend and I saw this picture in the paper:
It wasn’t like he always knew where he was when he woke up. Not right away. The feeling of disorientation was usually accompanied by, at the very least, a pounding headache. Often as not it was followed by the awareness of aching, burning, or stabbing pain elsewhere in his body.
Dean peered blearily up at the ceiling, muscles tensing in anticipation of consciousness. But consciousness was here. And despite the fact that he was lying on his back, he couldn’t actually feel anything wrong with his body. Maybe that would come with movement.
He put it off as long as possible, but motion in his peripheral vision made it necessary to turn his head. No throbbing pain accompanied the gesture. All it revealed was Sam, yanking a hoodie out of his bag and giving Dean a look that said he was a lazy slacker.
“Seriously,” Sam said, “ten o’clock? I know you like to sleep, but dude. Other people are working.”
His voice didn’t make Dean’s head ache. The light wasn’t hurting his eyes. He twitched his hands experimentally, and when nothing horrible happened, he tried to push himself up on his elbows. Not only did he not hurt, he wasn’t even stiff. He didn’t feel like he’d been asleep for hours, let alone unconscious and possibly injured.
“What’s going on?” he asked, frowning down at a shirt he didn’t remember owning. He recognized the bedspreads, at least. “We at Ellen’s?”
“Yeah, genius.” He could hear Sam rolling his eyes even as he pulled the hoodie over his head. “You’re at Ellen’s. And if you’re going to keep ‘sleeping’ here, or whatever--please don’t tell me, I don’t need the details--you could at least get another room.”
He swung his legs over the side of the bed. Definitely not injured. But if he’d brought someone back here last night, that would explain Sam’s pissiness. Maybe he really hadn’t been asleep that long. The not remembering thing, though... maybe he’d gone one for one on the water to alcohol ratio?
Yeah. He didn’t exactly have a history of that kind of responsibility.
“Dean?” It wasn’t really annoyance. He knew all of Sam’s tones. This one was more wary than irritated. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” he said. Because that was what Dean did when Sam asked: he reassured him. “Good. Fine. Ready to go kill some stuff.”
Sam snorted, but it worked because he turned away. “Don’t screw up the sentry rotation and we won’t have a problem.”
The sentry rotation. Okay. They were at Ellen’s, and there was a sentry rotation. “What’s a guy gotta do to get some breakfast around here?” Dean wanted to know.
“Go downstairs and make something, like everyone else.” Sam’s hand was on the door, but he glanced back as he added, “Or not. Like I know how that angel stuff works.”
He couldn’t help that his mind immediately flashed to Cas. He tried to be surprised he could even believe it had been Cas he’d taken to bed, but come on: “angel stuff” could only mean one person, and who else would be bringing him breakfast? He was a little annoyed that it made Cas the man in the relationship. He was way more screwed if he’d done something that crazy, avoided a smiting, and he couldn’t even remember.
“Dean?” Sam sounded impatient. “Coming?”
He was dressed. How had he not realized that? Did that cripple the drunken one-night stand theory, or had he had a moment of clarity while he was chugging water and remembered he was in the middle of a war? “Yeah,” he said, because if Sam thought he should be then that was probably the best indication he was gonna get. “Lemme--”
Sam didn’t look like he was waiting for Dean to do anything except follow him, and when Dean ran a hand over his jaw he paused. His skin was smooth. What the hell had he been doing the night before that he’d needed to shave?
Trying to impress someone? he wondered.
He told his brain to shut up. “Yeah,” he repeated instead. “Lead the way.”
He should probably just be happy about the lack of bitching. Sam was obviously in a mood – when wasn’t he? – but he didn’t complain that Dean hadn’t changed, hadn’t washed, had just rolled out of bed after who knows what and couldn’t remember a damn thing.
Not that he was sharing. It would come back. In the meantime, he’d just as soon avoid the mocking.
Ellen’s place was a lot more crowded than he expected. He told himself it was just his imagination that everyone was staring. When Jo came out of nowhere to shove a plate of pie and a cup of coffee into his hands he grinned at her and she rolled her eyes. So. That part was normal, at least.
What wasn’t normal at all was the little girl who tried to climb into his lap when he sat down. “Whoa,” Dean said, clinging to his fork and trying to keep her from falling with the other hand. “Where did you come from?”
“Hi Daddy,” she said, very seriously. “Can I have some pie?”
Right. This had officially gotten weird.
“Are you supposed to have pie for breakfast?” he asked.
A sideways glance at Sam told him that had been the wrong reaction. “Daddy?” Sam repeated, in a tone that suggested someone in the room was certifiable and it definitely wasn’t him.
Dean shot him his best don’t upset the kid look. “You’re just mad she likes me better.”
“You have pie,” Sam pointed out. “And also: Daddy?”
Which was when Cas appeared, looking a little the worse for wear. Dean barely noticed at first, partly because Cas always looked a little the worse for wear – his dishevelment was weirdly precise – but also because Cas had left his trench coat somewhere and he was wearing something that definitely wasn’t a suit. Dean only knew one other angel who refused to wear a suit.
Unless you counted Anna, which he didn’t.
“Dude,” he blurted out. “You cheating off Gabriel, or what?”
“She’s real,” Cas said, which didn’t make a lot of sense to Dean, but whatever. Like that was unusual. “There haven’t been any new angels in millennia, and as I seem to have been granted the power –”
“Wait,” Sam interrupted, at least two seconds too early and obviously way ahead of Dean. “You created another angel?”
“Uh,” Dean said. He was way more than two seconds too late. “She’s got wings.”
The electric things brushed cool air against his arms as she scrambled into his lap, reaching for the plate in front of him. Dean almost didn’t feel it, distracted as he was by the revelation that everyone had wings. Like, okay, sometimes he could see a light around Cas that was sort of... well, angelic. But now that light was wing-shaped – and it hovered around everyone.
Except for Sam. And Jo, who had come back from wherever she’d been going when the kid showed up. “You made a baby angel?” Jo asked incredulously.
A baby angel that called him “Daddy,” Dean thought, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew better than to call attention to that again. He tried to keep her from taking his fork instead, but it was a mostly wasted effort. It didn’t even keep him from hearing Cas say, “Three.”
“Three?” Sam repeated.
“Jophiel has repeatedly expressed a desire to see our ranks grow,” Castiel said, like there was some kind of obvious connection between wanting more soldiers and being given a baby. “I simply –”
“No coffee,” Dean said, pushing the kid’s hand away.
“But I’m thirsty.” She said it like it was the most logical thing in the world, and when she squirmed around to pout at him his mouth went dry. She had Cas’ eyes.
“I thought perhaps there was some benefit to the human influence,” Castiel said. “It seems clear that the inheritance of angels is not sufficient to keep creation in balance. So I –”
He was still talking, but the kid in Dean’s lap wasn’t interested. “Daddy,” she insisted. “When you’re thirsty you’re supposed to drink something. I’m thirsty.”
“Juice,” he told her. “Kids drink juice. Not coffee.”
“You don’t have any juice,” she pointed out.
Faced with logic that would be unsettling if it wasn’t so familiar, he looked around for Jo. “Hey, get us some juice, would you?”
Apparently having a lap full of wings was enough to get him a free pass. “Yeah,” she said, eyes flicking from him to Cas and back again. “Sure.”
“I did intend to tell you,” Castiel was saying. “But I wasn’t sure it would work, and you seemed to be asleep, and I’m afraid Jophiel had some things to say that were... not very complimentary.”
It took Dean a second to get that this was directed at him. He wondered if Cas was babbling at first, and then if he was babbling at Dean, which, seriously, what the hell was he supposed to do with that? Then he wondered if the fact that no one else was asking any questions meant he was supposed to.
“You drop a kid in her lap too?” Dean asked, because why was this his responsibility?
“Yes,” Castiel said. Like he was waiting.
Dean glanced around while his armful of pint-sized angel carefully separated the fruit filling from the rest of the pie. Everyone else seemed to be waiting too. Even the people he didn’t know were staring at him – really staring this time, like, openly – waiting to see what he would do.
“Is this our kid?” he blurted out. Because he had no idea what was going on, but he could read a room like nobody’s business. Right now this room was expecting him to knock Cas through the nearest wall.
“Yes,” Castiel repeated. His expression was stoic, but his wings shifted enough to draw the eye.
“Huh,” Dean said, watching them flutter under his stare. Was Cas flinching?
“Castiel says you’ll be a good parent,” the little girl told him. She sucked a blueberry into her mouth and licked the sauce off her fingers before adding, “He says you raised Sam very well.”
“Oh yeah?” Dean couldn’t help glancing at Sam, who was starting to look at least as amused as he was incredulous. Not as amused as he should look, though. Dean narrowed his eyes, because Sam should really be singing “sittin’ in a tree” by now, and he wasn’t.
Sam was startled by the kid, but not by the kid belonging to Dean and Cas.
Had he taken Cas to bed last night?
Catching Cas’ eye again, he couldn’t find any indication one way or the other. But he wouldn’t, right? Castiel had always been inscrutable – and he had known Dean was sleeping in. Not that anyone couldn’t have guessed that, but really. They were at Ellen’s. Who else would Dean have invited up?
Hell, maybe angel sex came with a side of amnesia. That would just figure.
“Dean,” Castiel said. “I presented this... badly. I apologize. Maribel was not supposed to wander off, and I did mean to consult with you, but I’m afraid when the opportunity presented itself I – it just –”
Dean raised his eyebrows. When was the last time he’d seen Cas so uncertain he couldn’t talk? “It just what?”
“It felt like the right thing to do.” Those blue eyes settled on the kid in Dean’s lap again, watching her scoop up another blueberry with her fingers. Then they lifted to Dean’s face, and geez, why did he even know what color Cas’ eyes were? How did he recognize them in a little wisp of a girl?
Because you spend that much time staring at them, some traitorous part of his mind whispered.
Shut up, he told himself.
But in the moment when he was distracted he heard his own voice say, “Whatever. Saves one of us the trouble of getting knocked up, anyway.”
And Cas was staring at him. Sam was staring at him. The whole entire room was staring at him, except Jo, who’d just come back with a glass of milk and a stack of napkins. “Hey,” she said, depositing them on the counter next to his left hand. “What’d I miss?”
If Gabriel hadn’t picked that exact second to show up, Dean might have reacted better. If Gabriel hadn’t popped into existence so close to Cas, Dean definitely would have reacted better. And if his first words had been anything other than, “So, about Michael –”
As it was, Dean knocked Gabriel through the nearest wall. Literally.
He might have growled, “Get the fuck away from him,” and if he happened to have his arm around the kid when he did it, well. She’d have fallen off his lap when he stood anyway.
Gabriel was back before Dean had processed the smashed up wall. “Chill, bro,” he said. And with the snap of his fingers, Dean remembered: Anna, Samael – Gabriel – Jophiel, Sach... Raphael and Zachariah. Who was currently a bunny rabbit, unless his memories were more messed up than he knew. Or someone had dared to turn him back.
Michael.
He was Michael.
And he had a nephilim daughter.
He considered throwing Gabriel through the wall again just on principle.
“Okay, look,” Gabriel said. “The whole forgetting thing, I thought it was funny, right? How was I supposed to know Mr. Incredible here would pick today, of all days, to throw the Old Word out the window! I wasn’t! So there you go. Memories back, call it a draw, you’re welcome.”
“You stay away from them,” Dean told him. “All of them. Leave the kids alone, Gabriel.”
Gabriel just shrugged. “Whatever you say, boss.”
He disappeared before Dean could prove how serious he was. Cas was giving him an adoring look that was almost insulting in its surprise – had he seriously expected less? But it was Sam who was gonna be the real problem.
His brother was watching him with what could only be described as suspicion. “Explain ‘the whole forgetting thing,’ Dean.”
Great. This should go well.
“Sam,” he began, in a way that was not at all similar to whining. “It’s an angel prank war. These things happen.”
“You had amnesia?” Sam demanded. “Since when?”
“Since I woke up,” Dean said. “It’s fine, it’s all back. I’m good.”
“If an angel takes away your memories,” the little girl mused, “is that functional amnesia, or organic?” She was standing on the bottom rung of his chair, cleaning off his pie plate with her finger. She stuck the finger in her mouth as soon as she finished talking.
They both stared at her for a long moment. It got Sam off his case, but clearly there were bigger issues.
“Dude,” Dean said, looking up at Cas, who’d suddenly gotten a whole lot closer. “How human?”
“Compared to angels?” Castiel said. “Very.”
“Compared to humans,” Dean said.
Cas hesitated. “Compared to humans,” he said at last, “not so much.”
Yeah. That’s what Dean was afraid of.
“Why aren’t you answering my question?” the girl on his lap wanted to know. “Didn’t I ask loud enough?”
“Yeah, kiddo,” Dean said, patting her shoulder without thinking. A little wing wisped against his elbow. “You did. We’re just kind of confused right now.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s organic,” Sam remarked. “I mean, when Gabriel does it, he probably alters your basic brain patterns. Chemistry and stuff.”
“Okay, so.” It was Cas he was looking at when Dean jerked a thumb at Sam. “This part’s gonna work out,” he said. “But next time, at least tell me you’re pregnant in time for me to drive you to the hospital.”