Title: Don’t Stop Believing

Disclaimer: Not mine; don’t sue.

Summary: Sam/Dean Wincest, Mpreg. Third in the series that started with Melon Strolling and continued with Two Tendrils. Dean doesn’t want to hear what Sam might say. He can do without the hurt. So he stops listening to himself. Oneshot. Complete.

Feedback: Is love.

A/N: This instalment is for angel679 who I think has suffered enough from my writing :D. This one has angst (more than anticipated) but also some happiness sprinkled in there. Hope you like it!

Dean’s never been what you’d call... adept at listening to his body. Sure, as a hunter he has a certain fluidity (when he’s not getting whacked across the head by some really stealthy evil thing or falling on his ass) and he knows when he’s hurt. But he tends to ignore it until there’s a free moment. That’s just how he’s been raised. He’ll always give his brother stitches before he gets his own, no matter whose injury is worse. So when he starts getting tired real quick he just puts it down to being emotionally screwed up over the whole pregnancy scare thing.

The effort of not talking about it gives him headaches and he winces every time Sam brings it up, tells him not to be such a pansy freak. They don’t need to talk about that day – three weeks ago now – when they both allowed themselves to be swept along in utter insanity.

“You were right, Sammy, I’m fuckin’ delusional,” he says calmly, every time it comes up in conversation. Dean spends more time alone now. Whenever they’re in the car he stays silent when possible and when they get motel rooms he goes out and leaves Sam to research or jerk off or whatever his little brother does when he’s left all on his lonesome. Honestly, Dean doesn’t care. Today it’s drizzly out but that doesn’t prevent Dean from getting up early, leaving Sam a note. Gone out for breakfast, see you whenever. Dean. At the last moment he crosses out Dean and puts Love, Dean because he loves Sam with all his heart, he doesn’t want that to be doubted just because he’s got himself into a strange mood for no real reason.

It’s just gone eight in the morning and the streets of the latest nowhere town they’re stuck in are full of people. And children running late for school. Dean tries to keep his eyes averted. This is ridiculous. He’s an idiot. This is how he’s been ever since that goddamn stupid test, staring at other people’s kids and wanting... no, he doesn’t want to be a father. He’s not even thirty and he doesn’t have the kind of stability a child would need. But... but Dean has a lot of love to give. He can feel it burning all through him. Sometimes he thinks it overwhelms Sam, that even if he’s not saying it, ever, Dean needs him. Sam is Dean’s whole entire life, his function. He needs someone to live for because without his precious baby brother, his whole entire life doesn’t amount to much at all.

Dean ends up in a diner, preparing to drown his sorrows in food, and the greasy smell makes him want to puke. Jesus. If he was a sane human being, Dean would take himself off to the doctor. But he’s not exactly feeling sane. He wants to walk straight out the door of the stupid diner, and yet he’s gone nowhere else to go. He’s going to regret staying if he vomits everywhere. Dean hugs his arms around himself for a moment before leaving – he’s going to have to find somewhere else to waste the half a day he can safely be out without Sammy kicking his ass (or trying to) when he goes back. Sam says he’s worried, and Dean knows he’s telling the truth, but he’s still finding it hard to spend any time at all with his brother.

Why? Sam’s always been a pain in Dean’s proverbial (and literal) ass but Dean has always relished it in a sick big brother kind of way, and he’s always hated silence and loneliness. Now he only wants to be alone with his thoughts, his jarring, repetitive thoughts.

I want a family. I want my own family.

I want me and Sammy to have a family.

Then it inevitably moves onto: Stop being such a woman. You don’t want kids, you never have. You want to hunt.

You have to hunt.

Dean finds himself, after at least an hour of walking around in a daze, in a park hurling into a bush. Great, because this is exactly what he needs. It’s not as if he can hide being sick from Sam, because Sam’s got a nose like a bloodhound and he’s scary attentive about Dean’s wellbeing. Dean will go find some kind of something to make his stomach settle. Then he’ll chew gum until his breath is nice and fresh. And by noon he’ll be ready to go home, well what home is to him, he can go and smile and laugh and nod along to whatever Sammy says. He won’t even flinch when Sam kisses him today. And he definitely won’t tear up when he thinks about his mom or looks at a picture of him and Sam when they were little. That’s just pathetic.

“Hey... you okay?”

Dean presses his hands against his stomach, trying to cleanse himself. He barely pays attention to the voice closing in on him. “Huh? Yeah, I’m fine... yeah.”

“You don’t look fine. Here. Have some water.”

“Can you just leave me...” Dean turns his head to look up and the drizzly grey light catches the woman standing close to him. He eats his sentence. “Alone... um, thank you. But I’m okay.” There’s still some part of Dean that can’t be an ass to a hot girl – woman, whatever – and this is one nice looking lady. She’s the sort of chick that Sam would call trashy, but Dean wouldn’t have thought twice about flirting with her a few months back. Now, things are so different. He straightens up and the world goes all sideways, but he doesn’t let that show.

“Whoa, you want to sit down,” she holds out her arms to steady him. So maybe he’s not being quite as slick as he could be. She brushes her badly bleached blonde ponytail away as the wind whips it forward, and laughs at him. “Jeez, you have a big night last night, cowboy? Come sit down. There’s a bench like, five feet away. I think you can make it that far.”
”I’m not drunk.”

“You’re hung over.”

“Not that, either,” Dean says fuzzily and plunks his weight down on the bench. He swears he hears the wood creak, he sits so hard. “Just not doing too well...thanks,” he takes the bottle of water she offers and cracks it open. The first gulp makes him choke, but he swallows more and feels better. It’s sort of cooling. “Thank you.”

“You said that already,” she sits next to him, “nice day for it. Vomiting in a kid’s park is never a good look. Not as bad as having your hand down your pants, but...”

Dean looks away from her and forces a small laugh. He feels all shaky and sick still and he wants Sam now. But he can’t bring himself to pull out his cell phone and explain that he’s wandered into some random park and he’s puked in public and yes, he’s the family disgrace if they’re judging by normal standards which Sam invariably does.

The blonde at his side lights a cigarette and offers him one. He shakes his head and goes to stand. It’s a bad move so soon after being on his knees and he instantly sits back down and puts his head in his hands.

“Tell me you’re not crying. I cannot handle another crying man today.”

“I’m not.” He knows it must sound like that, voice all muffled by his hands like it is, but he just can’t get his thoughts straight. And his back is sweating which feels really bad in the dull, damp daylight. What he wishes is that this girl wasn’t sitting next to him in her tight white jeans, legs crossed, high heel tapping against the ground. It’s drilling right into his skull and rubbing in the fact that he is without Sammy.

After a good five minutes of sitting basically alone in silence, he swallows his pride and takes out his cell phone. He presses all the right buttons to call Sam and lifts it to his ear, trying not to shiver with disbelief at himself.

Sam’s vaguely frantic voice fills his ear. “Dean? Where are you? Dude, you can’t just take off like that...”

“Well, I did. I’m in a park. You know; the one we passed just outside town? Can you come pick me up? I don’t think I can walk back.”

“... You walked all that way?”

“Didn’t know where I was goin’,” Dean mumbles shamefully, “can you just come and get me? Shit, Sam, don’t make me beg.”

Sam’s voice is all light and playful. “But I like you begging.”

“Not now, Sammy.”

“Okay, just calm down. I’ll be there quick as I can.”

It’s useful having brother with a really good memory, and Dean sighs, “Thanks,” and cuts off before Sam can ask him what the hell he’s up to. He’s up to nothing except feeling really ashamed and disliking himself.

“Sam’s your...?” the girl next to him asks.

“Um...” It’s complicated. “Brother.”

She flicks her cigarette to the ground and grinds it out with her heel. “Ah, that’s nice for you. It’s wet today.”

Thanks for stating the absolute obvious. “Pretty wet,” he agrees.

She looks at him funny. “Are you going to hurl on me?”

“No.”

“Want some more water?”

“Why the hell do you have so much water?”

“So I can force it on my kids.”

Dean feels his attention pique. “You have kids?”

“Yep, two,” she smiles widely, “they’re over there. You see, the Village of the Damned look-alikes?”

He sees two very blonde kids – a boy and a girl – fighting by a swing set. “Oh.” He feels his guts twist and knot up all over again. It’s not fair. The look of pride and distant annoyance on the woman’s face is killing him.

“Oh for god’s sake...” she claps her hands and hollers, “Josie, stop pulling your brother’s hair. Now! Don’t think I won’t tell your father.” She lights another cigarette and groans. “If I find another clump of blonde hair in her pocket I’m going to strangle that child.”

Dean laughs. “Wait ‘til they start the prank wars. Then you’ll have your hands full.”

She pulls a face. “Why, when’s that start?”

“How old are they?”

“Five and seven.”

“You have a good six months, if you’re lucky.”

“Oh, joy.”

“They look like good kids,” Dean comments, and then wonders why he’s said it. It makes him sound like a creep.

She doesn’t look creeped out by it, though. “Ah, thanks. I guess they’re okay. When they’re not trying to kill each other.” There’s lightness to her voice which tells Dean she’s pretty pleased with having two kids and someone complimenting them. He hopes for Sam to get here soon because actually talking to someone is a lot lonelier than sitting by yourself sometimes.

“Dean,” Sam feels nothing but relief when he sees his big brother sitting there. Then he gets a lightning bolt of jealousy when he sees that Dean is talking animatedly with an incredibly trashy looking blonde woman. “Dean,” he says again, very firm and come with me now voiced.

Dean looks up this time, fleeting annoyance running over his features at the interruption. He doesn’t look well, but he hasn’t been looking well for a while now and Sam’s been sort of ignoring it, hoping it’ll go away, that Dean will be fighting fit again soon. “Hi, Sammy, this is Lola.”

“Lola,” he tries not to let disgust trickle into his voice, “hi.”

“Hey,” she waves her fingers, “you must be the brother.”

“I must be.”

“Sorry to call you,” Dean says after a moment, “I don’t feel like walking all the way back to the motel.”

“I was up anyway.”

“Cool. Hey, Sammy, Lola was just telling me about the schools round here. She’s been trying to get Josie and Jett in for about two months. That’s bad, right?”

Sam blinks at him, wondering what the hell is going through his brother’s head. Why does he care about some woman they’ve never met and the school district? This is so beyond unstable. He knows that Dean’s been depressed about the whole thing that happened but they have to forget it, move on. Sam’s battled back any feelings of sadness and replaced them with relief. “Who?”

Dean gives him a look and says, “Her kids,” as if that much should be obvious to someone as brainy as Sam.

“You want to sit down?” Lola scoots over, much closer to Dean, and laughs flirtatiously. It’s such a surprise that Dean has managed to pick up some skanky chick with kids, there’s a ready made family right there...

Stop that. Dean’s yours. Sam can feel the note that Dean left him burning brightly in his pocket where he put it, the words warming and torching him. Love, Dean. He wouldn’t put love if he didn’t want them to work it out, work past the cloud of disappointment and disillusion that has become a normal everyday part of their relationship.

Now Sam can understand why couples split after a big fall like this. Sometimes being in the same room with Dean is unbearable and he know that Dean feels the same way, that’s the only explanation for why he keeps running out on him, saying he needs time alone. Dean has never needed time alone, he’s not exactly the deep thinking kind of person Sam is.

At least, Sam’s always thought that. Now he’s beginning to consider what a screwed up view of his brother that is. Dean is clearly destroyed, whether he wants to admit it or not.

“We should be going,” Sam says at last, “come on, Dean.”

Dean sighs like a little kid being ordered about by his daddy. “I guess you’re right,” he holds out his hand to the woman, “nice to meet you.”

Lola smiles back and shakes it. “Yeah, you too, feel better soon.” Her attention is instantly on staring straight ahead and Sam begins to feel guilty. Maybe he’s made the wrong sort of assumption here. He sees a flashy but cheap looking wedding ring on her finger and then looks back to Dean’s pale, stubbly face. There’s no way that Dean has been playing around or even trying to. He looks rough, much worse than he has in a while, and Sam wishes he’d made more of an effort to get here quickly.

He loops his arm around Dean without considering how it could look. “Hey, let’s take you back to bed.”

“I think I’m sick.”

“I think that’s a fair assumption. What did you eat yesterday?”

Dean goes quiet and then murmurs, “Not a lot.”

“Did you drink anything?”

“You know I didn’t. Haven’t touched anything for like...” He fades out and shuts up, and Sam knows what he’s going to say. For like, three weeks.

Give me a break, Sam wants to reply, but he doesn’t. He just quietly lets himself fear for his brother’s sanity. Just for a change.

“I think you might be suffering from pseudocyesis,” Sam declares that evening. Dean is curled up in bed, trying not to kill his little brother for being so smug and healthy and calm, tapping away at his laptop, looking at porn, no doubt.

“I’m suffering from a pain in my ass. Wait, that’s you.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Real quick comeback, Dean...”

“What’s this... pseudo bullshit?”

“Hysterical pregnancy.”

“Do I look hysterical to you?” Dean glares at Sam sitting perfectly comfortably at the small table over the other side of the room. “I’m rational. I’m not pregnant. I’m just sick.”

“Uh huh,” Sam does that really annoying I know you better than you know yourself genius boy noise and falls silent. After a while he says, “You’ve been depressed ever since...”

“Let’s not talk about it,” he pushes off the blankets and gets out of bed. Another not very smart idea from the brain of Dean Winchester and yet he stays standing because he wants to show Sam that he’s fine and not insane, even if it does mean he feels like he’s going to puke again. It’s his own fault for not eating, but every time he thinks food he thinks vomit and Dean is becoming a tiny bit scared of throwing up, mostly because it’s starting to hurt his throat. And if he damages his throat badly he can’t yell at Sam for being a smug bastard anymore.

“Dean, we have to talk about it.”

“We don’t. You were right, Sammy, I’m fuckin’ delusional,” he says again. He’s said this so many times, word for word, over the past few weeks that he thinks it might just be his new mantra.

“If something’s hurting you, we have to talk it out,” Sam stands up and comes over to him, “please?”

“No,” Dean pushes him away, “I don’t want to. It’s stupid. We don’t need to.”

“Dean...”

“I’m going out.”

Sam replies forcefully, “No, you’re not. If anyone’s got to leave the room this time, it’s gonna be me. I don’t want you walking around out there. It’s raining.”

“Rain never killed anyone. Look, I feel better now,” he straightens up even though it hurts a little and all he wants is to lie down and sleep undisturbed, “it’s just somethin’ I ate. I had a hamburger yesterday. It tasted a little funky.” He’s lying and he half expects Sam to call him on it.

But Sam hesitates and Dean can read the fear in his eyes. “Don’t go out,” he says in a subdued voice.

“Then don’t talk to me about stupid shit I’ve done,” Dean retorts and heads for the bathroom. He needs to take a shower. Anything to clear his thoughts and stop himself smelling of smoke and vomit.

“It’s not stupid,” Sam calls after him, but he says it so quietly that Dean fakes like he hasn’t heard.

It’s easier like that.

Dean becomes even more talented at ignoring whatever it is that his body is doing, he incorporates puking into his routine, incorporates avoiding conversations with Sam, to the point where he believes that all is forgotten and forgiven. Everything is normal again, whatever normal is for them. He sleeps more than is probably healthy, partly because he’s tired but mostly because it’s an easy way to avoid his little brother. Dean doesn’t want to hear what Sam might say. He can do without the hurt. So he stops listening to himself.

Until the day that Sam presents him with another pregnancy test.

Dean is lying on the bed, pretending to read his dad’s journal and trying to piece together a new hunt, when Sam walks in and hurls a bag at him. It has all the same items as the last one, a magazine, some chocolate, a pregnancy test, plus a cheap sparkly pink comb.

“Is this to make me feel like a princess?” Dean asks sardonically.

“There’s something wrong with you,” Sam says calmly, although the fact that his fingernails are chewed right down makes Dean think he’s more than a little agitated by this, “I want to know that this isn’t it.”

“We already know.”

“These things aren’t infallible. It might’ve been wrong.”

“But it wasn’t.”

Sam pulls at his own hair briefly like he’s keeping his temper just barely and asks sharply, “How do you know that? Dean, we have to know for sure. I’d take you to a doctor but really, I don’t think we need that kind of attention.”

“I don’t need any kind of attention,” Dean replies, hearing the unmasked bitchiness in his own voice. Yeah, so maybe he’s not himself. But he needs an extra layer of defensiveness now. He feels the need for it. “If you could just leave me alone, that’d be great.”

“You’re acting like a teenage fucking girl,” Sam snaps, glowering down at him, “I’m trying to help you. If you’d just shut up and do what I ask for five minutes I can do that.”

“Do what? Tell me I’m such a slut I could have slept with anyone and gotten myself all...” Dean shakes his head. “This is stupid. It’s rhetorical.”

“You mean hypothetical.”
”That, too.” He hates it when Sam corrects him.

“And it might not be,” Sam sits down next to him, “I’m sorry I said that. I didn’t mean it. I really didn’t. I was scared. And, so sue me, I get jealous It’s not my fault that you’re so hot everyone wants a piece of you, is it?”

Nice one, Sammy, stroke my ego. “It’s not my fault either. And you know I’m not just giving it away. I’m with you.”

“I know. Just do this one thing. Then we can figure out where to go from here. Is that okay? Dean? Can you do that for me?”

Dean lets out a long sigh. He knows that Sam’s right, but once again he’s not really sure he wants to get accused of being an easy lunatic at a later date. But looking into those puppy dog eyes he finds it hard to tell his brother to go screw himself. Hell, it’s the most action Sam will have gotten for a month and Dean feels quite guilty about that, especially since Sam’s used to having what Dean refers to as sex on tap. It’s just been difficult. Everything has been. Mostly because he feels he owes Sam some debt of something, Dean nods slowly and says, “Only if you stop talkin’ to me like I’ve lost half my brain.”

If Sam reads one more magazine article entitled something as uncreative as How to Tell If He’s Into You his eyes might burst. But it’s all he can do to take his mind off the fact that Dean has been in the bathroom for fifteen minutes now. Sam knows perfectly well that once again he’s buying into his brother’s insanity, but he can’t help himself. They certainly can’t go on the way things are now. Sam’s never thought that their relationship is bullet proof, but at the same time he can’t bear the thought of being without Dean or, worse, having to live day in day out pretending that there’s nothing between them, playing it like the awkwardness doesn’t exist. For someone who was so immersed in normality less than a year ago, Sam’s throwing himself into this role with reckless abandon. And why shouldn’t he? He loves his brother, he’s learning to love their life on the road, and he would adore it if it was possible for them to... Oh, conceive? Yes, that’s the word.

He hopes that Dean’s not just losing his mind. And he tries to make himself hope in equal measure that Dean is just losing his mind.

This is such a twisted situation. Dean should be out at some bar picking up chicks, he should be at Stanford with Jessica... But they’re not. They’re here. And Sam wants to yearn for things to be different and yet he just can’t.

Dean calls through the door, “Sammy...” From the sound of his voice, strangled and soaked, Sam gets the bad kind of shiver.

“Do you want me to come in?”

“No. Just... just don’t yell.” Dean sounds ludicrously young and afraid and when he comes out of the bathroom he smiles faintly. “What do you want to hear?”

Sam swallows. “What do you mean?” He has to be careful here. Dean is looking all kinds of fragile and Sam doesn’t want to break him.

“What would make you happy?”

“This isn’t about me.”

“It’s all about you, Sammy,” he scratches his neck, “always has been.”

“Oh...” Sam doesn’t argue. “I’ll tell you what I want to hear, what would make me happy. For you to smile at me and tell me that you’re having my baby. Or that you’re not and you’re pleased with that, that we can go everywhere together. Just tell me we can get through this... whatever it is.”

“Yes.”

“What?”

Dean smiles properly. “To the first thing you want. Yes.”

And Sam doesn’t mean for this to happen, but his face drops before he asks, “How is that possible?”

“It’s not,” Dean shrugs dismissively, as if this isn’t important, as if he hasn’t just said something world moving, completely against nature and society and all the rules that are in Sam’s head.

“Then...”

“Sammy. Since when has impossible ever stopped us?”

End