Terms and Conditions

Chapter One

CHAPTER 1

The bathroom walls were a multitude of grey shades, rather than one. There were hardly any cracks or blemishes on them either, given the age of the place. The floor tiles were even, and the sink, toilet and shower were all mould free. The mirror practically sparkled, and Castiel could clearly see his reflection in it. Almost too clearly for his liking.

Although - to get technical- it really wasn’t his own reflection. If he was in his true form, the tiny mirror wouldn’t be able to reflect one whole finger, let alone his face and upper body. The face that stared back at him had belonged to Jimmy Novak, although he really considered it his own. Castiel seldom thought about Jimmy, but when he did he sat immersed in thought for hours.

The angel used to feel guilt when he thought about the vessel he occupied. He used to think about Jimmy’s willingness to consent to a possession, his regrets when he found out what it entailed and his family, who were long gone.

Cas kept a tab on them when he was able, but they had since moved to New Zealand to start a new life, and probably to escape encountering Castiel ever again. For this he was grateful for.

If he ever ran into the Novaks, he wouldn’t know how to explain the fact that Jimmy Novak was dead, and had been for a very long time. When he had consented to Castiel possessing him for a second time he had been close to death, but his love for his daughter caused him to beg Cas to possess him instead of her.

Cas had promised he would never die or age, and that was true in a physical sense. Very little had changed regarding his appearance. But the amount of times Castiel had been destroyed and brought back to life, by heaven, by Leviathan, by demons and by himself caused Jimmy’s soul to wilt. The breaking point was carving a banishing sigil into his own body, which blew him and his grace apart.

When he became whole again, he had realised that Jimmy was gone. All the remained was Castiel. And since Jimmy had been what angels almost affectionately called a “true vessel”, he had not decomposed or began to fall apart, like some angel vessels did. And Cas was sure as hell thankful for that, since Dean (and himself, to an extent) had become attached to this particular form.

Castiel shook his head. He was distracting himself for the actual situation at hand, which he was prone to do at time. He had felt off for some time now, felt like something was pulling at his grace from the inside. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling, just unwelcome. Plus there was the waves of nausea and the occasional vomiting to add in, which he had managed to hide so far.

He hadn’t told anyone about it; not that there were many to tell. There was Sam, who would most likely be intrigued and slightly disgusted at the same time. Gabriel, who would probably shit himself from laughing. And Dean. He didn’t quite know how Dean would react, all things considered.

It had taken Castiel some time to realize what was happening to him. And he was pretty sure he knew what outcome he was going to get. If he had to percentage it, he would estimate a clean ninety five. But he had to be absolutely sure. Which was how he justified buying the test.

Going to the drugstore and buying it hadn’t troubled him. He hadn’t seen the smirks of the cashiers as he left. It was actually doing the test that caused him the most problems. He procrastinated for as long as possible, which eventually brought him to where he was now: standing in one of the Men of Letters bunker bathrooms at three in the morning in his pyjamas, waiting for a pregnancy test to process.

Castiel sighed and ran a hand through his hair. The test- he’d bought one of the fancy ones, all electronic and timed and apparently was able to estimate how far along one was- stated that it took seven and a half minutes to come up with the best results. He swore he’d been waiting for a lot longer but the inbuilt timer hadn’t sounded off yet, so he simply stayed where he was, locked in a staring contest with his own reflection.

He wouldn’t say outright that he was used to not knowing what to think. But that exact state of mind had been a big part of his life with the Winchesters. And after everything, including his banishment from Heaven after they finally worked out they couldn’t reconfigure him to be a soldier and deemed him broken, he felt a small smidgeon of comfort that that aspect of him hadn’t changed, because that speck of free will that evolved into so much more was what brought him and Dean Winchester together.

First as uneasy allies, a few times as enemies, then as friends, and eventually as lovers; which was the tipping point that caused the higher ups in heaven to shut him out for good.

He was glad that he could question things, where many angels couldn’t. They were bound by their faith. Castiel was freed by his faith in Dean. Dean and Sam took him in right away, after he showed up on the bunker doorstep three years prior with a brand on his back that bound his wings but allowed him his grace.

Since then, he hunted with the Winchesters, grew closer to Sam and realised that some things were worth giving up if you had someone like Dean Winchester in your life.

He jumped when a shrill beep broke his train of thought. He’d drifted off again while waiting for the test. He reached for the small plastic stick, hand steady. Taking a deep breath, he rotated the test so the screen faced upwards.

P O S I T I V E- 11 WEEKS

Cas shut his eyes. He had been pretty sure that he was pregnant, but the little human test just cemented the fact that he was. He let himself slowly unfold – he hadn’t realised how tense he was- until he was sitting on the floor of the bathroom with his back resting against the side of the counter.

Pregnant. He was pregnant. It was Dean’s, no doubt in his mind about that at all. It was nice to have one solid answer in a sea of uncertainties. Speaking of that, Cas had no idea in the world how to tell Dean. He had justified his previous silence by wanting to make sure that he was expecting, but now there was little he could do.

If Heaven had frowned upon an angel loving a human, they would probably flip their shit over the same angel being pregnant with Nephilim. Castiel had previously had the same opinion on Nephilim as the rest of Heaven: abominations, and to be feared. The emotion and passion of a human and all of the power of an angel made for a dangerous combination.

The angel sighed yet again. He had killed the last Nephilim, which he deeply regretted, but still felt a familiar stab of revulsion at the thought of one, proof of Heaven’s effects on his beliefs. But this was different. This was his, and Dean’s. And he almost wanted to protect it.

But his biological desire to protect his kin hinged on how his mate (Dean didn’t like the word, but it made Castiel feel more at home so he tried to ignore it) would react.

Would Dean want children? Would he be ecstatic or disgusted? Would he want to protect it, or get rid of it? Castiel wasn’t sure. In Heaven, the announcement of a pregnancy was a joyous occasion. Maybe Dean would share that same joy?

So many unanswered questions that couldn’t be connected to answers. Castiel got to his feet and left the bathroom, which was an ensuite to his own room (which he used when he wasn’t with Dean). He let himself fall into bed, and tried to shut off his mind so he could get some sleep. One thing he had noticed after being banished: although angels didn’t need sleep, they could slip into a dreamlike state that allowed some rest, and it was one of the greatest things Cas had discovered.

After a few minutes of tossing and turning in a bid to get comfortable, he eventually just lay on his back, staring at the ceiling and waiting for sleep. He resolved to not tell Dean just yet. Sam had mentioned some attacks on livestock in Illinois that sounded like a werewolf situation, and Dean wanted to check it out before any human casualties amassed. Revealing that he was pregnant would just upset those plans, so Castiel reasoned that he would keep it to himself for now, or at least until he couldn’t hide it anymore.

The decision seemed final enough for him, and it allowed him to calm his mind enough for sleep to creep up on him, and not ten minutes later Castiel was asleep, dreaming about his uncertain future and what lay ahead for him, his friends and his mate.