Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Dean first investigates the hunt it seems like the most simple thing. Cold spots, flickering lights, and a blur of something out of the corner of the eye. He knows he should wait for his dad to get back, but Dean’s been hunting with him since he was sixteen, Ghosts are run of the mill.

There has to be something in the old house that’s connecting the spirit and all he has to do is find it. Dean figures it can’t hurt to take a look if it gets too dangerous he can get out and wait for his dad to come back. So while Sammy’s off at school Dean goes to check the place out.

The house is empty, abandoned and boarded up tightly, but Dean finds a basement window to squeeze in through. The place is dusty and everything creaks as he wanders from room to room. The EMF reader isn’t pinging at all though. Dean checks every inch of the place, from the dirt basement to the attic full of spiders. Nothing. Nadda. Zip.

Huffing, he dumps the reader on the kitchen counter and leans against it. Maybe it was just local talk but Dean had been certain. He himself had walked by and swore he saw something watching from boarded windows. Maybe it was just kids or some homeless guy looking for a dry place to sleep.

The eerie creak of the floorboards made Dean look up. He watched a tiny flutter of dust rain down from the ceiling and when he stayed still and waited he caught the sound of another faint creak.

Someone was upstairs.

A ghost wouldn’t be making any noise though. There would be no weight on the floorboards to make them bend.

Staring up Dean wondered for a moment if he should take off. But if he came back with his dad and all they found was evidence of some squatter Dean would die of humiliation. It probably was someone, some kid who had snuck in while Dean wasn’t paying attention.

Dean stepped away from the counter, slowly walking towards the stairs. He paused when more dust fell on his head. After a moment, he stepped again and sure enough, more dust rained down on him.

Whoever was up there was following him.

Whatever.

It’s just a kid, Dean thinks but everything in his gut is screaming the opposite. Stupid moves are what get a good hunter killed. Just one slip up.

Dean stares at the ceiling for a beat longer and then runs as hard as he can for the backdoor of the house. He has to turn sharp to get down the hallway to the door and he can hear something clattering on the stairs leading to the main floor. Adrenaline is pumping through him as he braces to slam into the door, with luck his weight will take it out. That is if whatever is chasing him is restricted to the house, if it can follow him out then Dean’s screwed either way.

He never gets the chance to find out because he doesn’t make it to the door.

His head is pounding when he comes too, consciousness trickling in slowly as he winces and rolls on his side. He can smell the mustiness of the basement and feel the dirt under him. He cracks open his eyes and sees the basement window up high, near the ceiling.

Definitely in the basement.

Dean rolls on his back and checks for his knife he had tucked in his waistband. It’s gone of course so it’s just Dean and whatever the hell is in the house.

“Hello?”

Silence answers him, but Dean knows he’s not alone. Sitting up he fights nausea and peers around. The basement is bare dirt and opened up, there are no walls or framing in place. It’s just a set of sad stairs in the corner and a few dirt-caked windows. The light is weak and the shadows are thick and dark, somewhere in one of them is a monster.

“No one ever tell you it’s rude to stare?” Dean mutters, he can feel the gaze on him. Getting up he tries to make every movement casual but inside he’s panicking. Dean is on his own with who knows what. He’s got no weapons and no backup to call on.

“I’m just going to go then?” A wiser hunter would have waited and planned maybe but that’s not how Dean works. Fast thinking is his best so he stumbles towards the stairs and is braced for when something slams into him. He eats dirt but rolls quickly and gets a look at his monster.

It's not a thing like anything Dean’s seen before.

It’s darkness moving. Like a slow vibration, its body is a swirling mass of shadows. It reminds Dean of a fucking lava lamp.

It’s upright on two legs looking at him but then it drops and steps back on all four, the shadows of its body shift and it looks more like an animal then. Once it’s near the wall it disappears into the darkness and Dean can’t see anything of it. He can hear it though, circling the room and he tries to track it on the sound alone.

“So, no go on the leaving part?”

The sound of movement is to his right and then suddenly on his direct left. Dean swallowed a curse as the echoes kept moving. At first, he thinks there was a whole horde of them but as he listened Dean realized there was only one of them. It's moving fast through, cutting across the room in seconds.

Dean won’t be able to catch it but at least he knows how to make it catch him.

Dashing for the stairs again he was ready when it jumped him, they rolled to the floor together in a heap.

Dean ends up on his back in the dirt with the monster on top of him, holding him down. He tried to fight it, kicking and throwing out a punch, but the monster is hard like stone. It hurts Dean’s knuckles to hit it and the monster is clearly not affected by the blow.

It’s made of thick black shadows Dean can’t see through and it feels cold. Its body is constantly changing shapes but it's vaguely animalistic, like a tiger or some other large predator on all fours. Its hands are paw-like but they change into a more human shape to hold Dean down.

It pins him to the dirt, his wrist held and Dean’s only hurting himself by yanking, it’s like slamming against a wall or yanking against cold handcuffs.

“Get off me!” He yells angrily, panic rising when a second pair of arms come out of the monster's sides and start pulling at Dean’s thighs. Cold fingers dig into the waist of his jeans and yank them down.

“Hell no!” Dean snarls but he can’t move, he can’t get away and there’s no one to help him. The monster strips him from the waist down and then pries his legs apart.

Dean’s hollering and cursing, trying to stay angry despite a desperate fear welling inside him. The monster remains impassive and arranges itself between his thighs, cold stone shadows on Dean’s skin.

He feels the first touch against his body, a slimy pointed tip pressing in and Dean tries to buck him off. He yanks and jerks around but all he’s doing is hurting himself. Dean bangs his head against the hard dirt and his vision swims.

Dean’s almost glad when he blacks out.

Waking up Dean realizes first thing that he’s freezing cold. Shivering he sits up in the pitch-black darkness. His eyes can make out weak slits of light and he crawls until he finds the wooden step. He half expects to be yanked back down, but he makes it upstairs. The house is dark and still in the night and Dean stumbled out the back door and rushed to get as far away as he can.

He keeps looking back for the monster, but the street is empty.

The rental there at is a piece of crap, but Dean feels a little relief when he gets there. The house is warded to high heaven so it might keep that thing out. It’s after ten, but Dean’s been out later so Sammy doesn’t even blink as Dean stumbles in the door. He manages a weak greeting before he locks himself in the bathroom. When he peels his clothing off he expects marks. He woke up dressed and nothing is hurting but Dean knows what happened. He looks for bruises and blood but there is nothing. Somehow that makes it worse. Dean twists around to check in the shitty mirror but there is nothing on him. Jumping in the shower he turns the water scalding hot but he still shivers.

Dean’s not one to doubt things.

He knows exactly what happened, marks to prove it are irrelevant. No, the real question is what he’s going to do about it. It’s happened, done and over. Dean screwed up and he paid for it when he went into a hunt without doing the research, without backup. But by chance or sheer luck, the monster didn’t kill him. He let Dean go and it would be stupid to waste that. Dean stares at himself in the mirror for a long moment.

It would be stupid to waste it.

He falls asleep that night despite thinking he wouldn’t be able to. The lights from the street shine in the cramped bedroom, but it is dark enough for shadows. Dean peers at them but nothing moves and he eventually drifts off from exhaustion.

He works at a shop when they need him and they call him in the next day. Dean’s grateful for it, to have the labour to distract him. He unloads four trucks on his own and then arranged everything and had it put away neatly at the end of the day. He picks up Chinese take-out and goes home. Sammy’s at the table doing his homework and the boy barely spares him a word. But that’s been the norm for Sammy for a year or so now, he had never been a bubbly kid but when it was just them they used to be ok. Seems like puberty was hitting the kid hard.

Dean showers and after a day's hard work he drops into his bed with relief. His shoulders are aching, but he dozes off anyway. The memory of the fight uselessly lingers but Dean won’t let it own him. It wasn’t even the first time.

The monster was looming over him on the bed, crouched low in the animal form, peering down at Dean with its blank gaze. He can feel it watching him even if he can’t see it.

Dean wakes with a jerk and swears quietly. It’s early morning so he gets up and watches old movies until it’s time to get Sammy off to school. The rest of the day he spends wandering the town, he never goes down that particular street or anywhere close to it.

Like any bad hunt, things linger, sometimes shadows make Dean jump and there is a nightmare here and there. But he makes his way through it, takes it, accepts it and then moves on when he can. He focuses on working to earn some cash and finding pretty girls to chase.

Guilt tugs in his chest, but he doesn’t say anything about the monster when his Dad comes back. It’s not like it killed anyone or anything, just a shadow in the window that people around town gossip about. They pack up and leave with Dean making a promise to himself that he’ll come back one day and kill that thing in that basement.

Dean has good days and bad ones, but he manages through either way and after a few weeks it seems distant and unimportant. He feels like he’s getting a handle on it so of course, everything goes to shit.

It starts with a stomachache when he wakes up, a strange pressure that makes eating painful. Dean barfs into the toilet as Sammy leans against the doorframe with a glass of water.

“You should stay home.”

“Nah, the guy at the shop was skeptical about hiring me. If I don’t show he’ll just fire my ass.”

“It’s just a day Dean. Besides, we’ll probably have to move in a few months' time.” There’s a bitter note in Sammy’s voice that Dean pointedly ignores. He’s too tired and sick to deal with that crap today.

“Until we move we need to eat so I’ll be off to my job for those next few months,” he snarks back and waves a hand at Sammy to soften the words. “I’m ok. I can handle this for a day.”

Dean does, but just barely. It feels like he’s recovering from a knife wound and his stomach is constantly uncomfortable and one wrong move can make it painful for hours after. Once he makes it through the shift at the mechanic shop he drives home and curls up in bed.

Without a single complaint, Sammy makes sandwiches for dinner and fills cups of water beside Dean’s bed for him. There’s a trash bin that wasn’t there that morning and Dean is grateful as he sinks into the mattress and tries to sleep off whatever flu he’s picked up.

It’s dark out when he wakes in pain, it hurts like nothing he’s felt before and Dean shoves back the covers to run his hands over his stomach. It’s flat as ever but when his fingers touch it something pushes back. From inside him.

Something is inside his body.

Dean retches into the garbage bin as he fumbles to find the knife he keeps under his pillow. The thing is moving inside him and the pain is making him buckle over. But the horror is stronger than the pain and Dean fumbles to grab the knife so he cut whatever the hell is inside him out.

He finds the knife and presses it against his stomach, his shirt yanked up as he prepares to stab himself.

Something grabs him, pins him to the bed and Dean’s in so much pain he can’t get a yell out as the monster from the basement peers down at him. It holds him with all four animal-like legs, trapping Dean on the bed. The agony in his stomach feels like a knife sawing slowly and Dean fights to stay conscious.

When his skin rips it felt almost like a relief. There’s a burst of more pain but the pressure is gone and he’s grateful for that. Dean draws in gulps of air that immediately desert him when he looks down and sees a black bloody blob sitting on his stomach. It’s the size of a fist and flopped over, almost humanoid with flailing limbs.

It came out of his stomach; I ripped its way out of his body.

The monster peers at it as well and for a second Dean would swear it was confused.

But then it’s moving in a flash and scooping the thing up and Dean’s head is swimming and suddenly it’s morning.

Dean falls out of bed, kicking and yelling as he scrambles out of the blanket to check his stomach. There’s no wound, no lumpy thing trying to get out or blood from it coming out. His skin is smooth and untouched.

“Dean?” His father’s at the bedroom door, looking alert and ready for anything. Part of Dean wants to cry, wants to tell his dad everything and let him fix it. But he’s not a little kid anymore, Dean can handle nightmares.

“Sorry, bad dream. Freaked me out,” he explains weakly and stumbles back to the bed while his dad eyes him critically.

“Sam said you were sick, just take it easy and get better,” he finally advises and Dean nods while he sinks back into the bed.

Two days later John takes Sammy somewhere, some school thing that Sammy had begged and demanded and John in a rare moment had agreed. Dean was instructed to take it easy and he followed the order without complaint. He was still a little freaked out from the nightmare and so he spent the day watching movies and munching on cereal.

When it started getting dark he flicked on all the lights.

Around ten, the main breaker went out. The bedrooms and the kitchen light were still on, but the living room and hallways were plunged into darkness and silence as the tv turned off. It was an old house, the breaker had gone before, but Dean still launched himself over the couch and ran for his father’s weapon stockpile.

Something in him lurched and Dean was tackled to the floor.

They rolled around, the shadow limbs unmovable and their grip unyielding as the monster pinned him to the floor.

“No!” Dean snarled, twisting as he was held to the floor. “No, fuck, just go away.”

The monster gives Dean no reply, it just pins him and gets his pants off. Right there in the hallway, it takes him again. Dean can feel the member sliding into him, the monster thrusting. It feels strangely cold but it doesn’t hurt.

Dean lies slack and the monster takes him with far less violence than last time. The hands pinning Dean ease their grip and eventually let go. The monster is quick, Dean feels the wet cold inside him and he shivers as the monster pulls out of him.

It looks down at Dean, curious and almost surprised again. It’s like the thing is just realizing what it’s done. With a weird care, it fetches Dean’s pants and slides his legs back in. Once Dean sits up, it steps away and disappears into the shadows.

The next day he sees a tiny shadow watching him. It’s under the couch and when Dean looks at it the thing disappears into the darker shadows. Without a word, Dean leaves the living room and doesn’t go back.

They move again and he helps ward the new place, making sure every security measure they have is in place. But the little shadow shows up in the kitchen, the window is small and the light bulb is burnt out so the shadows are strong. It watches Dean with a naïve curiosity and he wants nothing more than to catch it and wring its neck.

He knows what it is. He knows it’s the damn thing that came out of him.

What was probably in him again.

Dean feels detached from himself as he stands in the bedroom with his hunting knife. A single cut across his abdomen, pull it out and then stab it. Get the other one in the house and stab it too. He looks at the knife in his hand, it's shaking and Dean realizes it because his own hand is trembling so badly. Dropping the knife he sits on the edge of the bed hard.

The tiny shadow is watching, head tilted to the side. It looks like an oversized hamster, a black little blob with tiny feet and hands.

Dean stares at it, sitting there on the bed he just watches it as the sun sinks and darkness falls. The monster shows up, circling Dean with inquisitiveness, as if waiting for him to do something.

“Is this it then? You’re gonna just keep coming back and doing this, will that- will it happen again?” Dean swallowed nervously, he couldn’t even say it.

A soft sound answered, the little shadow shifting to peer up at him. It’s climbed up on the bed and Dean felt revulsion course through him as he flinched away from the thing. It flinched in return and rushed to tuck itself under the larger monster.

Trembling, Dean hid his face in his hands. When he looked up again they were gone.

This time around Dean struggled more, he knew it was inside him.

He poured over hunting books looking for any mention. Tried to track down sources. He drank silver shards and drew banishing sigils on his stomach. Part of him knew it was for nothing, that if he did get rid of it the monster would just do it again.

A sense of hopelessness consumed him and Dean ended up in the shower curled up, staring off at nothing. Something under the sink caught his eye and he watched as the tiny shadow moved and then wiggle. It became a shape, vaguely animal again but mostly human-like. Dean watched it pace nervously before edging to where the shadows ended.

After a moment is leaped across and landed in the shadows under the toilet. From there is curved around the toilet and then as close to Dean as it could be and remain in shadows. It just peered at him curiously.

Watching it fumble around made Dean think of it as young, a baby even. Part of him just wanted to reach out and grab it. To drag it into the light to see if it would die. He just stared at it.

“Well you’ll be getting a sibling soon,” he finally mumbled and the thing wiggled, it reminded Dean of an overeager puppy. It wiggled and paced as Dean got out of the shower and dried off. He dropped onto his bed and after a short while, a soft sound made him peer over the edge of the bed.

The little shadow was trying to get on the bed. The streetlight was on it though and there were no shadows as Dean laid flat. He looked down at it for a moment and then flicked on his lamp, sending it scurrying away.

He slept like that.

The thing was determined though and Dean constantly saw it when he was alone, a little flicker trying to chase him. It never touched him but always followed. He thought maybe it was assigned to stalk him but then he dismissed it, the thing was too clumsy and useless to serve as a spy.

Dean dangled a string and watched it try to yank it, scurrying in the shadows on the floor.

He slapped dinner together and as they ate the sun faded. Dean was acutely aware of it as his father talked about a hunt and Sammy just ignored them both.

He went to bed and when he sat on the old mattress the shadow blob slinked up beside him. Dean startled, flinched, and lifted an arm to backhand it. The thing was gone in a second, scuttling like a bumbling animal. Dean’s heart pounded as he turned on the light and went to bed.

He didn’t see the thing again.

He kept track of the days and on the twenty-ninth, he woke with the pain. Staring at the knife on the kitchen counter he considered how he would cut it out again, where it would be. But he didn’t know, he had no clue so with a sigh he spent the day waiting. Come nightfall the pain was the same. The pressure built up and when the skin tore Dean watched with a horrified fascination. The little thing wiggled out of his abdomen, just below his belly button. The blob from before was there along with the main monster. It paced the bed excitedly but never touched Dean. Never got too close as its sibling made its way out of Dean’s God-damned body.

He didn’t see any of them for six nights. But then his father left for a hunt and when Dean went to bed he was expecting the monster to slink from the darkness. It didn’t disappoint and they peered at one another, Dean staring into shadows but feeling a gaze looking back. With a frown, he flopped on his back and kicked off his boxers.

“How long are you gonna do this? A year, ten, until I’m dead?”

He got no reply but the monster was careful this time, gentle in a way it hadn’t been before. It rocked gently and a hand tried to touch Dean. He jerked from the feeling and shook his head.

“Don’t,” it felt like a plea but the monster didn’t try to touch him again.

When they went to Bobby’s house a week later Dean spent all his time researching.

“There’s a truck out there that needs a new alternator, been meaning to put it in myself,” Bobby told him gruffly, frowning at Dean as he hunched over a dusty book.

“I’m good, later maybe.”

“Boy, you’ve never picked a book over a truck. What’s going on?” It was a growl, but Dean could hear the concern in it. He considered brushing it off, but he’d spent days looking and found absolutely nothing.

“I… I did something dumb,” he finally admitted and even just saying it was hard, he felt like he could tremble apart at any second. The words didn’t want to come, but he forced them.

“I thought I found a ghost a few towns back but when I got there it wasn’t a ghost.”

“God damn’it Dean,” Bobby swore some more and Dean watched him visibly collect himself. 

“Are you ok?”

No.

“I’m… just jumpy since. It messed me up. I was lucky to get away from it. So I just wanna figure out what the hell it was and be ready in the future.”

Bobby stared at him long and hard before giving him a gruff nod. He crossed the room and pulled a few books. “Dean, you describe this monster and Sammy you might as well help rather than just standing there.”

Dean whirled his head and watched as Sammy slinked from around the corner, embarrassed to have been caught. He peered at Dean with a look that wasn’t kind but then it wasn’t necessarily mean either. “You should have told me, I would have helped,” he grumbled and Dean just gave him a jerky nod.

“I take it John has no idea?”

Dean shook his head and glanced wearily at the front door. His dad was off on a dangerous hunt. He’d left them with Bobby for safety and security, if something came for them Bobby would protect them and if John was gone a few months they’d be fed and looked after.

“I wanted to prove I could.”

“Idiot boy, you don’t got anything to prove. You lived this long right? Anyone with half a brain in his head can see you're doing just fine,” Bobby grumbled and dropped a stack of books in front of Dean. “Now describe it.”

“It’s basically a shadow, moving and not… solid? Looks human one second and then like an animal in the next. Cold and fast. Real fast. Strong. Silver and the typical stuff don’t seem to faze it.”

“If it’s not solid and a shadow how can it be strong? Incorporeal beings can’t touch without solidifying to some degree,” Sammy frowned and Dean shrugged.

“Well it did, it pinned me like I was nothing, just watched me struggle.”

Bobby was watching him now, eyes sharp.

“How did you get away?”

Usually, it was hard to lie to him but Dean was ready with an answer.

“It was an old house, when we were fighting a board over a window came loose, the sunlight made it run and I got out of there.”

Bobby stared him down a moment longer before nodding his head.

“So we know it had a weakness, light, we need to find monsters that sunlight will effect.”

Dean was curled up reading a lore book the next time the monster came. The stomach pains had started and the truth had been on the tip of his tongue all day.

Maybe Bobby could cut it out, they could dissect it and figure out what it was. They could use that to kill the main one. It was smart, it was the best chance they had but the words never left Dean’s mouth.

Whenever he thought of cutting one of them up he always flashed back to the first one. The way it flinched when Dean had almost hit it. For reasons he didn’t want to look at, the thought disturbed him almost as much as the entire scenario.

So come nightfall he went to bed and as the pain increased the shadows against the wall shifted.

It was powerful, Dean thought through the hurt. To be in Bobby’s home when it was warded so thoroughly against any and all monsters. It had to be powerful.

Two little ones sat on the floor watching him. The first one was bigger, almost twice the size of its sibling. It had never seemed bigger to Dean before, but it was obvious now. The smaller one was jumpy, pacing and poking things. It knocked over a stack of books and rushed to hide behind its older sibling. It made something in Dean shiver watching them.

They reminded him too much of him and Sammy he figured.

The pain started to crest and the pressure built so Dean rolled on his back and tried to breathe through it.

Once it was done a third shadow child sat on his stomach. After they had pushed their way out the pain seemed to numb immediately and he was grateful for that.

Dean lay there and stared down at it and for the first time he reached out. The main monster across the room shifted but stayed where it was, watching. Since Dean had rolled on his back and just went through it the monster had just observed this time rather than pinning him down. The other two were at the foot of the bed watching just as avidly.

Dean’s fingers trembled as he touched the newborn. It was trembling and wet, slick with his blood. But when his fingers touched it pushed back with a little nuzzle. The smaller one at the foot of the bed jumped forward, suddenly on Dean’s stomach too as it nuzzled under his hand. Dean froze up and the entire room felt unnaturally still. There was no expression in the shadow’s faces, but the third one, the firstborn at the foot of the bed seemed so tense as if it was waiting for Dean to hurt them.

Dean hated that.

He hated that his monster offspring, that the things forced on him were afraid of him. Tears blurred, but he opened his other hand that lay at his side. Petting the two on his stomach he beckoned the third closer. He didn’t even know if they could understand, what their intelligence was. But it moved, hesitantly it slinked closer, just out of reach and after a moment it touched his fingertips briefly.

Then it dashed back into the darkness of the room. The other two sat on his stomach calm and content as exhaustion overtook Dean. He tried to stay awake but the process left him drained and he felt his eyelids growing heavy.

It felt dream-like so Dean didn’t know if it was real or not but the monster crept from the wall and loomed over him. It nosed the newborn and then licked Dean.

Shadows parted and a startlingly pink mouth with white pointed teeth appeared. A long slithering tongue lapped at his stomach and as it licked at the blood, the torn skin wiped away as well. When it was done there was nothing but pink unblemished skin. Long claw-like hands reached out and with gentleness Dean hadn’t seen before, they picked up the little ones. Curling them close to its chest it looked human now as it cradled its children.

“It was a Daeva,” Sam announced the next morning and Dean blinked up at him over cereal.

“It’s a shadow demon, they can be animalistic and are living shadows with superhuman strength.”

Sam dropped a book down and Dean looked at the information. It lined up with his story and with what he knew but somehow it just didn’t fit.

“What would stop a demon?”

“There are wards and spells. Hex bags, salt along a doorstop will stop it from entering, iron weapons hurt them,” Bobby replied.

“You have that stuff right?”

Bobby frowned at him and then just nodded his head, dropping a hand to squeeze Dean’s shoulder. “Yeah boy, no demon is getting in here.”

Not a demon then.

Dean worked on a truck for the day to try and soothe Bobby and Sammy’s worries. It was in the garage and Dean looked up when a pile of tools clanged over. The largest of the three little ones was there. It paced nervously but crept closer. Dean watched it for a moment before he turned back to what he was doing on the truck. The radio was playing and Dean could see the cord jerking on the floor. The radio slowly slid into the shadows and Dean could see the little thing poking it, head twisted curiously.

“It’s a radio,” Dean said without thinking. It blinked up at Dean, head twisted as it could understand. “It’s playing music.”

They looked at one another, Dean staring at a mass of shadows before he turned back to the truck. “Where are the others?”

The little one sat still and then looked towards the open door. Dean blinked and looked out at the auto yard, but he didn’t see anything. The shadow thing moved and edged closer to the light on the floor before backing away skittering to the darkest shadow in the garage.

Dean watched it repeat the motions twice more before it dawned on him.

“The light?”

It jumped up and down excitedly.

“The sunlight is too bright…” Dean paused and considered that he’d only met the little ones a few days after and always at night. “For the new one, the sun is too strong so he needs to stay somewhere dark?”

Dean watched the little thing skitter happily and his almost-smile faded when he realized they had just communicated. The shadow, the little thing that had come from him, was an intelligent life.

“Hey, listen,” Dean walked alongside the truck so he was cast in shadows and the little one followed, hesitantly it came closer to him. Like the large one, it would shift about, going from a human shape to an animal sort, like a large cat now that it was bigger. Right now, it looked humanoid, settling on its back legs to peer at him with its blank face.

“I’m sorry for scaring you that day. I think about it and it bugs me. So I wanted you to know that I was sorry,” he explained quietly, feeling sort of silly but at the same time feeling compelled to say it. The little one just stared back and then crept closer, like a feral animal it tentatively touched its head to Dean’s fingers. Despite the shadows of it, Dean thought he felt warm. The main monster had always felt cold to the touch, but this little one felt warm.

“Listen, can you just- can you be more human?” It felt bizarre to say it, but Dean sat there on the bed, watching the monster watch him. “As fun as nonconsensual sex is, I’d rather…Fuck. I don’t know. Never mind.”

The monster watched him for a moment and then its form shifted. It looked like a human man, its skin was still black and swirling, its eyes empty and dark but it was human-shaped now. More than Dean had ever seen it look before. 

Dean laid back on the bed and let him crawl over him. Its hands were cold to the touch but they were careful as they pulled his boxers off.

Spreading his thighs Dean lets him in, let him push up close. The first penetration burned but the pain faded, too quick to not be the monster’s work. It rocked its hips into him and Dean closed his eyes. Chewing his lip he reached down and took hold of himself. He was half-hard and a few strokes got him all the way there. For the first time, he got off as the monster took him. The feeling of the friction inside him was still weird to feel but there was defiantly a good aspect to it.

Dean tried not to think about it as he came just before the monster did.

The messed-up part was that he was getting used to it.

Giving birth or whatever that was hurt like a fucker but this part. This part didn’t hurt when he didn’t fight it. Which was fucked up on so many levels. Lying down and taking it was never the right thing to do, someone desperately trying to cope thought like that, unhealthy thinking Sammy would say. But Dean didn’t have a choice, not really. He was still figuring out how to hurt the monster, how to trap him or something but so far nothing had come up. Dean had drawn a devil’s trap on the floor last week and he felt like the monster made a point to cross right through it.

They were on their eighth round now. Dean had seven little things running underfoot when he was alone and anywhere mildly shady. They tumbled and ran about like hyper puppies and Dean hoped they ran the monster ragged, that he was dying for some shut-eye or something. They had no fear of him or their monster father. When he slinked in for the next birth they would climb on him and when scared they always turned tail and ran to him just as often as they did Dean.

But regardless of them, the monster was there for sex again and Dean was trying to make the best of his situation. Having him human-shaped was better than an animal, it felt less freaky. Since Dean had asked he always took a human shape for sex.

Its skin was all still black as ever, the hair and mouth, eyes; everything was the same pitch black. But there was some definition to the form, more each time he took it. It was like the monster was building itself a human shape.

When it showed up Dean frowned at it and then turned over, baring his back to the thing.

He felt the light touch of its hand on his back and then the bed shifted as he knelt behind him.

Dean clutched at the bedding as they fucked. The monster was always critical during sex, watching Dean so damn sharply. It knew what he liked, knew what Dean would react to.

Turned out Dean liked a hard fucking. He wanted to feel wiped out after like he’d run a marathon and the monster delivered. The cold long fingers curled around Dean’s cock and he swore. Part of him wanted to push the hand away but the monster was slamming into him and the friction on his dick as well was too much. Dean shuddered as he came.

To say it got easier was a lie. Dean had read about Stockholm syndrome and all that. He didn’t think it applied to him. If he could get rid of the monster he would in a heartbeat. The little ones were different though. Dean couldn’t say for sure what would happen to them but he knew it wouldn’t be a process of lining them up and killing them. He watched them play around and knock shit over most of the day.

They were just little idiots at this point and while Dean had never seen Sammy’s complaints about hunting ‘harmless’ monsters he did get this. They didn’t deserve to die. They were in a weird way his children. His freaky shadow monster children.

Dean was kinda fond of the little buggers, they had great entertainment value and with them around he never felt lonely. Even when Sammy was off playing normal and their dad was off the grid on a hunt, Dean never felt the need to go find a girl to flirt with or drink himself stupid at the nearest bar.

Sure they couldn’t talk to him but Dean talked to them all the time. It was silly, but it gave him a sense of cathartic to talk about everything that he couldn’t with anyone else. But for the most part, he talked about old westerns and rock music. If they took nothing else away from him, he was going to teach them the basics.

Dean would dim the lights so the shadows were strong for the younger ones and they’d all hang out, Dean yapping on about stupid things while they all seemed to listen raptly.

“I get that college is a huge thing for him, a light at the end of the tunnel but -“ Dean cut off mid-rant when the shadows moved on the wall. The little ones were always down in the corners near the floor, the older ones were figuring out climbing but usually just fell on shit. There was only one that could make the shadows on the wall move like that. Dean frowned before sitting up and rising from the couch.

He flipped the radio on, the bright light of the TV seemed to hurt the little ones to watch, and then slinked into the bedroom with the main monster following. The little ones stayed behind. A young one from just a few days ago tried to follow, but an older one corralled him back in.

“This is getting so weird, like after school special, the dangers of shadow monsters who only want you for your body,” Dean muttered, more to himself than the thing behind him. He closed the door even though he knew they could travel through shadows, but he wanted some illusion of privacy. It felt way too creepy to have the little ones watching this.

Dean flopped belly down on the bed and after a moment wiggled his jeans down. Hiding his face in his arms he waited.

The shadow monster would have none of it though. He got Dean on his back and a wet cold mouth liked at his neck while he fucked into Dean. The bed frame banged and Dean’s legs were wrapped around its waist.

It was so fucked up of him but the monster knew how to fuck him good.

“Harder,” Dean hissed and instantaneously he was getting it a fraction rougher, hands digging and the thrust slamming more. Dean didn’t even think about it when a hand wrapped around his cock. He shoved into the cold palm and came with a low groan. The monster rocked a few more thrusts and Dean felt the cold spill inside him.

Afterward, he walked back to the living room and Sammy was back, the lights were on and the shadows were still. The little ones off where ever they went too.

“Where’s the girl?”

Dean raised a brow and Sammy frowned at him.

“Whoever was in there with you,” he added and Dean just gave a shrug and a wink. Sammy looked annoyed and turned back to his book with a scowl. Dean was just glad he didn’t press as he went to the kitchen to hide how red his face was.

Dean was ignoring Sammy when it happened. The kid was hollering up at him from downstairs. He and their dad were fighting, loud and angry about moving so soon.

Sammy wanted him to come downstairs and join the fight, to stand awkwardly in the middle and feel like shit by the end of it. So Dean lay on the bed and ignored the yelling.

“Dean!” Sharp and impatient, angry and not caring who got the brunt of it.

“Dean, damn’it!” Mad for being ignored, wanting attention and appalled Dean wasn’t giving it.

“Dean!” Insistent with a tiny touch of pleading that had Dean wanting to crumble like a rotting wall, chipping and flaking parts of himself little by little.

“D-Deeeen?” A tiny, creepy voice asked and Dean blinked. Twisting himself he looked under the bed and the eldest of the shadow things was there.

“Did you just?”

“Deeeeeeen,” it offered with a pleased tone.

“No way,” there was a strange thrill coursing through Dean and he felt a grin break out. “No, way!” As soon as it saw that Dean was pleased the little bugger hopped around under the bed excitedly. “Deeeeen!”

“Way to go little buddy,” Dean laughed out and when he reached the little guy rushed over and curled under his fingers eagerly. “Deeeeen”

It felt like wonder, Dean thought as he pets the little guy. It was learning to talk, and if it learned to talk they could have conversations. If the monster ever tried to teach them terrible things Dean could tell them not to, he could explain why it was wrong.

They didn’t have to be monsters.

Sammy burst in and Dean fell to the floor with a thump, the little shadow rushing to the darkest spot under the bed to hide in an instant. Dean was almost proud of how quickly he moved.

“What are you doing?” Sammy scoffed.

“Deeeeeeeen,”

“Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen.”

“Deeeeeen?”

Dean buried his head under the pillow and took back every complimentary thing he had thought. The whispers kept up throughout the night but come sunrise it got quiet and Dean finally got some sleep, eternally grateful that he didn’t have work that day.

“Dean.”

“Dean, tacos, Dean.”

“Yeah. Yeah you little bugger, I got tacos.” Dean dropped the bag on the kitchen table and peered under it to see the little guy under the table.

“Maybe I should call you Taco?” He mused and the little shadow just scurried up the table.

There were ten of them, they came and left in rowdy groups and the eldest were usually following Dean around mimicking sounds. So he had picked up a baby book and read the thing in one go before throwing it out. The last thing he needed was for Sammy or his Dad finding it. Dean had felt like he was buying cocaine when he went to the bookshop and looked through the baby books. A perky young attendant had bounced up and asked him about his baby's age, gender, name and million other things. So Dean had grabbed the goods and ran but after the fact, the name thing had lingered. The main monster deserved to be named a monster but the little ones…Dean figured proper names couldn’t hurt. It would help him with the ones that were close in size, they were all a little different but Dean mostly went by the size to figure out who was who.

“Dean.”

“Yeah, yeah, so maybe not Taco,” it felt weird to try and think of names. This wasn’t like naming a dog or something, names would matter to them one day.

“Dean, tacos.”

“Bag,” Dean replied, shaking the empty bag and watching the shadow sniff and stick his head in. “Bag,” he repeated and after a few sputtered attempts the word joined ‘taco’ and ‘Dean’. So far, his name had been the only thing really retained but hopefully, they were storing it away somewhere, building a vocabulary of music lyrics and random objects.

“They have names,” a low, grave, voice told Dean when he walked into his dark bedroom and he felt his heart skip a painful beat. The knife was under the bed and his Dad’s weapon bag was in his room. Dean tried to think of the best one to go for, but the shadows moved and Dean realized what monster it was.

“You can talk now?”

“I have always possessed the ability for speech,” it replied and Dean was struck with a deep-seated terror of the damn thing and a mild curiosity of why it sounded so formal. The tone was flat and lacked any sort of emotion and that was disturbing as hell.

“Great. Why wait to talk until now?”

“It did not seem necessary for communication.”

“No need to chat with your victim, are we raping tonight or tomorrow, by the way?” Dean felt a sense of power in the ability to communicate but more than that he felt disgusted. This wasn’t some animal, it was an intelligent monster that was raping and breeding him.

The shadows remained silent and Dean wondered idly if he could actually knife the monster when it spoke again.

“Sabrathan. His name is Sabrathan, the firstborn.”

Dean badly wanted to swear, there were a million questions and angry words in his chest but with a sigh, he felt himself deflate. “The others?”

“Anpiel, Briathos, Diniel, Halaliel, Nasargiel, Ophiel, Raguel, Ramiel, Zazriel”

Dean paused and tried to make sense of it. “What?”

The monster repeated the names again and Dean was still balking.

“You gave them the worst names possible. Taco would have been better.”

He got silence back, but Dean felt like it was a glaring sullen silence.

“What are these names from?”

“Me. They are mine to give to them.”

“They’re your names? As in people have called you them?”

“My name is Castiel. These names were given to me to keep by my fallen kin. They are mine to give as I please.”

The information became keener to Dean and he wondered how to keep the monster talking. How to get him to tell Dean enough so he could kill him. But the eldest of the group came scampering in with the bag dragged behind him. Two siblings with him now.

“Bag.”

“It is indeed a bag,” the monster replied in his solemn voice and Dean snorted a laugh at the sheer absurdity.

“So Sabbath?” Dean questioned as he sat on the bed. He leaned over and opened a hand to which all three of the little ones rushed over, sniffing and butting his fingers lightly, the bag forgotten. Touch always made them ecstatic.

“Sabrathan,” the monster replied and the little one turned to him at the name.

“Sabrathan,” Dean repeated and the small shadow looked back at him, it seemed to hum with energy suddenly, leaning closer to Dean and practically begging. “That’s you right? Sabrathan.”

He jumped on the spot and Dean grinned.

“Hello, buddy.”

The other two started pacing and poking so Dean turned his attention to them. He ran his hand down each of their backs like he would pet a dog and then pushed back happily. “These two?”

“Ophiel and Diniel,” the monster answered and Dean repeated the names, the three little shadows were soon dancing in delight. Sabrathan rushed off into the darkness and returned from a shadow under the bed with the entire group. Dean learned every name carefully, knowing he would never remember them all correctly. They looked too alike one another for him to tell a difference. It was their little quirks that gave them away, slight differences in how they acted that let him know who was who. But they were so damn excited that he was saying their names so Dean sat there and learned each one, genuinely trying to memorize each one.

Dean got the stomach pains a few days later and spent the day trying to downplay the pain. Sammy watched him though, watched him like a nosy but well-meaning hawk.

“Almost every new moon you get sick Dean,” he frowned and Dean shrugged. He had noticed the new moon thing awhile back and now that he knew the monster could talk maybe he should ask him about it. His research hadn’t brought much up but then looking for new moon monster birth was never an easy topic to find.

“Maybe it’s the lunar sickness,” Dean shot back lightly, trying to ignore the ache in his middle.

“That’s just a myth,” Sammy replied with an eye roll and Dean shook his head.

“Nothing is just a myth in our line of work, Sammy boy.”

“Whatever Dean, I just think it’s weird. For our line of work,” pretending to consider it Dean cocked his head and then gave another shrug going for casually interested.

“Maybe, do some research then, a new moon sickness, things that make Dean kinda wanna puke all over Sammy’s homework, the usual.”

“Jerk.”

The little one was born with the same splitting pain and an eager group around Dean. The older ones seemed less gleeful though; they were starting to comprehend better and Sabra-whatever looked downright worried.

“Dean,” he whined and Dean tried to offer him a reassuring smile but the pain was coming in sharp waves now. “Dean, Dean, Dean,” Sabrathan chanted as it paced increasingly more upset by the second. It knew something was wrong with him. Dean doubted the little guy got what was wrong but nonetheless it knew something bad was happening. Ever the leader of his sibling pack, what he did was echoed and so the whole lot of them were getting anxious.

The larger monster’s arrival seemed to calm them down but Sabrathan remained uneasy.

Tell him, Dean wanted to growl at the monster, tell him what you did to me.

The newborn came with a tear along Dean’s body and Sabrathan curled up at Dean’s neck, trembling. Tired and sore Dean just pat the guy once and turned his face into the pillow. He welcomed the oblivion of unconsciousness.

When they were back at Bobby’s place again Dean remembered the fallen kin the monster mentioned and so he started researching. He also kept an eye out for any of the weird names that had been assigned to the little ones.

Sammy was the one to state the obvious.

“What’s with the angel names?”

“What?” Dean looked up from a lore book at Sammy who was paused by the desk and looking down at Dean’s list. The names of his monster babies.

“Angel names,” Sammy repeated as if Dean was slow, holding up the list.

“Angel? Are you sure?”

Sammy rolled his eyes at the doubt and went to the bookshelf of Bobby’s library to pull an old dusty tome. Dropping it on the desk he flipped through a few pages.

“And so Diniel, protector of innocence and Raguel, defender of kin, both held off the demon’s attacks, sacrificing themselves so that their brothers might escape the smiting.”

Dean leaned forward and tried to read upside down as Sam spoke.

“No way,” he breathed, staring at the names while his brain tried to figure out what the hell was happening. Breeding shadow monster equals angel how?

“Dean,” Sammy frowned at him with one of his too smart for his own good looks. “Is this about the demon?”

“What?” Glancing up at Sammy, Dean suddenly recalled that the shadow was supposed to be a demon.

“Maybe?”

“And the stomach aches?”

“That’s not related,” Dean replied hastily, waving his hand as he turned the book around to face him. “But this, this is something else. Angels aren’t real but anyone could have seen this book right? Bible and all that.”

Sammy frowned at him again, a long judging look that Dean ignored utterly. With a huffy sigh, Sam leaned against the table and let it go for now. “Not really, those scripts never made it into the bible. It’s about the fall of the host, how all the angels of earth perished.”

“Who, what?”

“Angels of earth Dean, there were hosts, groups of angels. One group in heaven, one on Earth and one in Hell.”

“There are angels in hell?”

“It’s where demons come from, angels tortured by Lucifer until they turned into demons. I always wondered if angels were real since demons are,” Sammy added and Dean gave a shrug, flipping the book back to the beginning. Dean read the whole damn book, which didn’t escape Sammy’s notice, and then he went out to work on a truck and let things sink in. It was passed dinner when Bobby called him in, no longer accepting ‘in a minute’.

“Truck that beat up will need more than a night to fix,” he grumbled and sat Dean down to cold leftovers. Dean felt something on his foot and up his leg under the table but tried to play it calm. There was only one thing it could really be.

Sure enough once Bobby was out of the room a little mouth popped up over the table in the space between Dean and the table edge. They’d really taken to stepping all over him.

“Ko’rn?”

Dean hushed it, glancing to the adjacent living room where Bobby and Sammy were watching TV. With the best air of nonchalance, he could manage Dean dropped some corn on his lap and nearly got bitten for his kindness.

His knee-jerked and banged the table, prompting Sammy to turn and give him a look, Dean trying to act completely natural as he sipped a beer and felt something scurrying on his lap to eat the bit of corn. Of course, Dean felt a second bugger on his lap the second Sammy looked away. A third following closely after.

“Get lost,” Dean hissed under his breath as he poked at thieving faces.

“What are you doing?” Sammy leaned against the door and Dean froze, he hadn’t even heard the boy get up and come over. The shadows gathered on his lap froze in place and Dean swallowed a curse when Sammy flicked on the main kitchen light.

“Do you mind? It’s kinda bright?” That got him an incredulous look but Sammy obediently turned the light off and the shadows on the floor can back. When Sammy turned his back to open the fridge Dean ushered the shadows away. A cheeky one managed a mouthful of food before taking off. He slipped on his run and knocked a broom over before the shadows swallowed him. Sammy frowned at the broom across the room and then at Dean who shrugged and focused on his food.

Sabrathan surprised Dean by staying where he was, digging to tuck himself under Dean’s shirt. He could feel the cool sensation of the shadow creature against his belly as the little one hid. They seemed to flip, sometimes they felt warm and other times cold.

“Did you learn anything from that book?” Sammy asked and Dean shrugged.

“That list of names was all angels, were they all in it?” He tried again and Dean was tempted to brush him off but Sammy in a good sharing mood was rare, more so about something related to hunting.

“Most of them, some vague mention but there was one name, Castiel, couldn’t find anything mentioning him.”

“Castiel, it sounds a little familiar, but I can’t think of where I saw it.,” Sammy mused, sitting at the table and clearly trying to recall the name. But half the damn names ended with ‘el’ so it wasn’t like it was a unique name among the angels.

“Why the hell are you two sitting in the dark?” Bobby grunted, flicking the light as he walked in. Sammy raised a brow at Dean who focused on his plate. He always had a sixth sense of when they were up to something. Dean had been slipping the radar but with Sammy locked on no way was Bobby not going to pick up on it.

“Do you remember the name Castiel anywhere, an angel maybe?” Sammy piped up and Bobby turned to level them both with a long look.

“Why you two reading up on angels?” Bobby frowned, his tone suggesting it was a waste of time. Some monsters checked out and were real but a lot of them were just wild stories, more so most of the positive ones.

Sammy shrugged easily, “I was curious, they show up in the lore but I don’t think we’ve ever met something that wasn’t evil before.”

“Angels weren’t no pretty faces with halos, by the books they were stone-cold warriors, more likely to smite ya than bless,” Bobby leaned against the counter once he had gotten a beer out of the fridge. “There’s tons on them but not much confirmed, not anything. I’ve never heard of them being seen before by anyone at any point. At least sightings that weren’t complete bullshit.”

“But it would be white light right, gospel music, and harps?” Dean asked without thinking, he tried to hide in his food immediately to escape the laser focus Sammy turned on him.

“I doubt it, the descriptions on them vary but most of them sound pretty terrible. Lightening and sand, ash and stone, ect. They were supposedly combinations of natural elements formed into humanoid shapes. Some books say they looked human others say they looked like nothing they had seen before.”

Dean doubted he could have kept the look off his face if he tried. Shadow and stone, an every moving form made of shadows but with the cold unyielding feel of stone.

Sammy who had been watching Dean the whole time took one look at his face and figured it out. Dean was just grateful he waited until Bobby left to say anything.

“You don’t think it was a demon, you think that thing in the basement was an angel,” Sammy didn’t ask so much as tell and Dean had never been good at lying to him once Sammy was onto something so he just gave a weary nod.

“Maybe, I don’t know. Maybe it was a Daeva, I just think it might have been something else…” Dean hesitated, he needed a reason why or Sammy would never stop pestering him about it. “The thing is, I didn’t so much get away as much as it let me go. Why would a demon just let me go?”

“So you think it might have been something more good than bad, an actual angel,” for once Sammy actually looked a little excited and Dean felt bad because there was no way in hell he’s let the monster near his baby brother.

“Should we tell dad?” Sammy asked, voice hesitant as he looked at Dean, looking to him for a decision. The idea of hiding something clearly pleased Sammy and if Dean asked him to he would, they would hide it from their father. Every instinct in Dean wanted to tell their dad, he parted his lips to agree automatically but the word got stuck in his chest. Dean knew his father would deal with this, that if anyone could it would be John Winchester who figured out if it Castiel was an angel and then how to kill him.

But what then of the little ones?

Dean had watched Castiel teaching them how to move, he’d seen the monster show the little ones how to be unseen, how to protect themselves. Without him, they would be lost and Dean wouldn’t have any idea how to help them. He really knew so little about them when it came down to it.

John Winchester, the hunter that he was, would have only one option.

Dean could feel Sabrathan against him, tucked in snuggly and likely napping as he hid under Dean’s shirt.

He was just a baby.

Dean frowned down into his half-eaten plate and refused to back away from the thoughts that whispered. He wasn’t just a baby, he was Dean’s baby. They were Dean’s kids on some messed up level and no matter how they happened they couldn’t be blamed for it.

Dean couldn’t let them die any more than he could defy his father outright. It didn’t leave him with many options.

“No, let’s leave dad out of this for now. If it was an angel it’s long gone by now and even then we don’t know. Maybe I just don’t want to admit I got beat up by a ghost or something,” Dean gave Sammy a weak grin and turned his focus on the food.

“Is there any beer left?”

“You’re lucky you're cute,” Dean grumbled into the bedding that night, feeling the little monsters curl up with him. Sabrathan snuggled right under Dean’s chin tight with a sigh.

“M’not gonna let them hurt you,” he assured quietly, speaking to himself more than the shadow children.

Chapter Text

Sabrathan was clingy.

In a very literal sense that he was constantly holding onto Dean, curled around his neck when they were alone or coiling against his ankle. Dean made note because Sabrathan was always consistent in that he made skin contact. He was usually warm now, almost every time they touched he was warm like a human and Dean figured that should have tipped him off.

Castiel would come by sometimes when Dean was already knocked up and not due. The little shadows pretty much set up base camp with Dean at night and the bigger monster would appear and seem to check in on them. They’d scamper over and climb all over him, it was actually hilarious to see them nipping at his legs and pawing at his face. Hard to be afraid of something so exasperated and yet endlessly patient.

Dean hadn’t brought up the angel theory yet as he was still digging information up. Instead, he lifted a leg up, Sabrathan clinging tightly to him and waved it at the monster sitting across the room.

“Wanna explain what this is about?”

The shadows rippled and as he stepped closer Castiel became more human-shaped. He peered at Sabrathan from a few angles and then stood back.

“What are you doing?” He questioned the shadow and Dean rolled his eyes because who would have thought to ask. Sabrathan gave a low pleased sound but made to verbal reply, just as he had with Dean.

“About a week now, he’s been all about skin contact,” Dean added after a beat and the shadow man tilted his head.

“…I do not know,” he sounded a little baffled not to know and Dean got his own deep-seated pleasure from the monster unsure. It was enough to let it go for now but by the end of the week, he had his answer anyway.

Sabrathan watched Dean get up the next morning, most of the shadows were gone with the sun rising, but the eldest remained behind. Since Dean was up half the night he usually slept in late so the sun was getting strong.

Their dad was due to pick them up tonight so Dean wanted to get a little more research in before Bobby’s books were gone so his mind was focused on that more than the lingering shadow.

Until the shadow turned into a toddler.

Dean caught it from the corner of his eye and he dropped his t-shirt and just stared outright. Sabrathan sat on the edge of the bed and now looked like a little boy. He had dark black hair, smooth pink skin with freckles and wide green eyes. Dean gawked at him and Sabrathan blinked back before wiggling. He slipped from his perch and Dean was diving for him as the kid fell off the side of the bed.

He was warm and soft, he felt human and Dean’s heart was in his throat.

“De’n,” Sabrathan cooed, leaning against him with shaky legs. He worked his mouth a few times, getting used to it and then he gave a delighted “Dean!”

While the boy smiled brightly the room went dark. The window curtains closed of their own ovation and the bedroom door snapped shut. It was still light enough to see but dark enough that the little ones poured from their shadows. More importantly so did the main monster.

Castiel loomed over them and Dean felt himself hold the boy in his arms a little tighter. The siblings all peered and poked at their brother, seeming in awe of him.

“How did you do that?”

Dean wasn’t sure who he was asking but he gave a bewildered shrug anyway.

“He was normal one second and then suddenly, he was this,” he fumbled to explain as Castiel circled them. The large monster was jumpy and moving around quickly, the shadows of him swirling in a way that screamed agitation.

“Did you know he could do this?” Dean asked and Castiel’s vaguely human face twisted with frustration.

“No. He should not be able to, He is too young for such a detailed form and to hold it so solidly,” he trailed off as he crept in close and extended a hand out to Sabrathan, the boy accepted it happily, his chubby hand holding the larger, clawed hand of his monster father.

“This is impossible,”

“Dean, you up yet boy?” Bobby called, the stairs creaking as he started up them to kick Dean out of bed no doubt. He’d let Dean slip in but not passed noon which was Dean’s new wake time when he could.

“Take him,” he hissed, offering out the little naked boy. Castiel’s shadows enveloped the boy but he paused.

“He can’t shift,” Castiel abruptly announced and Dean blinked at him. “He can’t shift through shadows, I can’t move him from this room.”

“You can’t be serious,” Dean groaned and jumped up when Bobby banged open the door. “I’m up, I’m awake, can’t a guy get a little privacy?” He grumbled, trying not to look anywhere near the closet.

“The light under the door was strange,” Bobby frowned and Dean just stared at him, going for his best incredulous look.

“Been drinking?” He finally asked and grinned in the face of the nasty look he got.

“Get up, go do something,” Bobby finally grumped and walked away.

“He needs clothing, how long will he be like this?” hiding in the garage of the auto yard Dean held Sabrathan in his arms, the boy wiggling and seeming to get a lot out of being impossible to hold. They’d snuck out of the house together with Bobby and Sammy distracted over a book. Dean had nearly had a heart attack creeping past them with a naked human-looking monster child on his lap. Thank God Sabrathan had stayed absolutely quiet, used to hiding himself.

He was constantly giggling now though, a sound the shadows had never made before. The rest of the little ones were all watching rapturously and Dean eyed them wearily.

“Are they all going to turn into human kids?”

“I do not know,” there was some bite in the tone, Castiel peering over their eldest with a fierce frown. “He should not be able to, he should not be able to maintain such a thing for this long.”

“Do you think the touching had something to do with it? How he was touching me all week?”

“It is possible, I must go ask another, they might know.”

“Wait, you can’t leave me with him!”

Castiel paused, head tilted to the side. “I often leave them with you Dean, why would this be different?”

He was gone before Dean could come up with a reply.

“We need clothing,” Dean muttered, running a hand through his hair. Sabrathan was in one of his shirts but it was oversized ridiculously. “Where the hell am I going to get clothing for you?”

He couldn’t just wander into a thrift shop with a naked kid, that would go over great.

Raguel, one of the eldest of the other shadows touched Dean’s knee with a paw-like hand. “Clothing?”

“Yep. Clothing, kids clothing for your big bro here,” Dean explains distractedly, trying to stay calm and figure out where he could stash a kid until its monster father got back.

“Clothing!” Ophiel explained and Dean blinked in shock when he pulled a small shirt from under a toolbox.

“Where did you get…?” Dean got on the floor and peered under the box, there was a line of dark shadow and nothing else. Raguel returned and Dean hadn’t even noticed him going. He was dragging a grocery bag of clothing.

Halaliel brought a pink dress and all of the older shadows disappeared and dragged a piece of clothing from the shadows.

“Where are you getting this stuff?” Dean looked through everything until he found a shirt and pants that would fit close enough. He tried not to think too much about the sheer prospect of this development. Castiel had said he couldn’t move Sabrathan, a living being, but it was clear they could move objects. Dean wondered how far they could move things, if it was from down the street or across the world.

Halaliel offered the dress again and Dean frowned. First thing was first though, to instill some morals. “Alright you little klepto’s, stop stealing stuff. Can you put it back?” He got a sea of blank, confused faces and Dean sighed.

“I figured. But, good job, you guys have some neat tricks up your sleeves.” The praise made them all happy enough but Sabrathan whined and reached out for Dean. Awkwardly Dean picked him up, the shadows had no real weight to them but as a child Sabrathan felt solid in Dean’s arms. It seemed stupid but suddenly the idea that this was his kid felt more real. Shadows that jumped around were one thing but a little human boy in his arms was something else entirely. But it wasn’t. Not really when he thought about it. Sabrathan was no more valid than any of his siblings. They were all unique lives and they were all his kids.

“So we just hide here for a while.”

“Dean,” Sammy’s voice called far off but not too far off.

“Or we get the hell out of dodge, come’on,” Dean hustled them, the shadows disappearing as Dean and Sabrathan circled around the garage to avoid Sammy. The gates were close by but the sun was higher now and there was no way to avoid it.

“Let me see,” Dean coaxed the shadow child to give him his hand and they gently let the sunlight touch just the tips of his fingers. Sabrathan seemed entranced and wiggled his fingers. When he didn’t burst into flames or show any pain Dean tossed his coat over him just to be safe and they beat a hasty escape.

Thankfully it was somewhat of a cloudy day so they managed to avoid direct sunlight.

Dean had to have looked insane with the way he was walking, making circles around seemingly nothing or just suddenly turning around when he saw sunlight up ahead with no way to avoid it, but Sabrathan seemed to think it all so fun so Dean just went with it.

“So we hide in plain sight I guess,” Dean cheered at him, glancing at every shadow they passed for any sight of Castiel.

“Gave me a heart attack this morning, but this isn’t so bad right?” Dean bounced him and the boy gave a delighted shriek. Half an hour in though Sabrathan was anxious and a wiggly mess, Dean thanked his lucky stars when he saw a park with a little playground. They had been saviours with Sammy as well.

Despite being a little unsteady on his feet, Sabrathan was immediately taken with the structure and Dean walked him through it, playing with the boy.

The little shadow posing as a little boy was enchanted with the playground. They walked through each of the objects twice before Sabrathan decided he liked sliding best. When Dean tried to move from his side to meet him at the bottom the boy whimpered hands reaching out for Dean instantly.

“Hey, I’m not going anywhere, I was just going to meet you over at the end,” he soothed, rubbing the kids back until Sabrathan calmed down. After that, the slide became an enemy and the boy insisted on sitting in the sand and making lumps with Dean helping.

“You should have seen him, never met a kid so taken with digging holes,” Dean chuckled the night. Sabrathan, still human, was curled up on the bed sleeping.

Castiel was still marvelling that the sunlight had not hurt the shadow child and but he spared little worry to the sleep. “They sleep during the day often, sporadic naps, they also sleep with you in the night on occasion, they are too young yet to not need it,” he explained easily. “Tell me more about the sunlight.”

“It wasn’t super bright out, cloudy, and he had long sleeves but for the most part, he didn’t seem to notice. I checked every half-hour but there were no burn marks or anything,” Dean offered, sitting on the floor with an arm on the bed watching Sabrathan fondly. The rest of the group was curled up with him, some awake and watching but most of them sleeping.

Dean reached out and gave the closest one a fond pat on the side. It was Orphiel and he gave a happy sound for the attention. Getting up he checked the empty hall before making his way to the bathroom. Bobby was researching and Sammy was doing homework, Dean could hear them both downstairs.

He’d snuck Sabrathan in earlier and the boy had slumped over asleep pretty soon after. Dean imagined being human was tiring to a little shadow used to sleeping all day.

Dean was washing his hands, he still had dirt under his nails from playing, when he noticed the light flicker low. Castiel’s shadow loomed behind him and solidified into its man shape. Dean wasn’t surprised; there had been a new one four days ago, twelve of them in all now. Samuel and Karael were the newer ones, still just tiny lumps figuring out how to walk. Dean had been trying to make some sort of sling he could carry them in that wouldn’t be glaringly obvious to anyone. So far no luck on that.

“He tried a hotdog today, didn’t seem to like it,” Dean mused, thinking about the firstborn while Castiel bent him over the sink. The unmovable and cool hands slipped to undo his jeans.

“We don’t need to eat,” Castiel replied easily as if this was a normal conversation and he wasn’t pushing Dean’s jeans and underwear down. “Shadows simply are. Eating is not a necessity.”

He leaned over Dean’s back, cold shadows pressing close as fingers worked him open. Dean gripped the sink and felt his face heat up as his cock filled.

Castiel slid up into him and Dean chewed his lip, pressing back into the feeling. It had been a good day, exciting and thrilling, and Dean didn’t want to think about the complicated mess between them as he rocked into Castiel’s thrusts. More willing than he had ever been before.

“Come’on,” he coaxed and Castiel replied with a few sharp shoves that pushed Dean into the sink. “Come’on, fuck me,” Dean hissed and the monster taking him obeyed.

Dean focused on the friction inside himself as he jerked off. He pushed into his own hand and then shoved back onto Castiel’s cock. It felt good, a content feeling as Dean struggled to keep quiet.

The thought that Castiel was about to impregnate him came unexpectedly. Dean thought of the next child, of the life about to be created inside him and with a muffled sound he came.

Panting a little he looked at himself in the mirror as Castiel rode him. Dean had just gotten off to the thought of getting knocked up.

The monster behind him came with one last thrust and Dean felt the cold in his body.

You’re going to kill him, when you figure out how, you’re going to kill him.

“It might be you who gave him this ability,” Castiel grumbled when they got back into the bedroom. The monster was still staying closer than usual and Dean tried not to tense up every time they brushed. Castiel had never harmed him and in all honesty, Dean was starting to doubt he would. The shadow kids would never forgive him for it for one thing. Sabrathan still got a little crazy when a new one was born. He would pace and try to comfort Dean, try to soothe him. He’d also call to Castiel as if the monster should be able to fix it. The little shadow was getting increasingly agitated when Castiel did nothing but watched. Dean figured he was getting closer to figuring it out, to realizing what was happening.

Either way though, Dean had spent the day chasing a wide-eyed kid so he slumped into the bed, used to sharing with Sammy as a kid so they curled up around Sabrathan.

“Wake me if someone is coming up,” Dean instructed Castiel who raised a brow at being told what to do but nodded his head.

Come morning Sabrathan was a shadow again and Dean had kid's clothing in his bed, which was all kinds of creepy. The smart thing to do would be to throw them out but Dean kinda wanted them in case Sabrathan turned into a kid again. Still, carrying kid's clothing in his bag was just asking for trouble. Dean figured they’d make do if the situation arose and so he went to trash the clothing only to have Sabrathan trying to stop him.

“Dean!”

“Dude, we don’t need them,”

“Clothing, mine Dean, mine,” The shadow frantically explained and Dean sighed, looking down at the panicking shadow. It reminded Dean so much of his little brother that he felt his chest tighten. Sammy had always been one to claim objects, to declare his clothing his, his favourite cup, his spot in the car. None of the shadows had ever before made claim to anything, they were happy to beg for food or whine for things they wanted but they had never demanded. On one hand, letting them get possessive could be bad given that they could seemingly steal anything they wanted but on the other hand the idea of not owning anything, of not having a single to call your own bothered Dean. They were his kids damn it, monster father be damned.

“Alright, we’ll stash them, no throwing out,” he soothed, making a show of folding the clothing and packing it in his duffel. “See, we’ll put them in here with mine so we don’t forget.”

Sabrathan watched worriedly and for days afterward, Dean would catch him checking, making sure that the clothing was still there.

Dean wasn’t sure what to think about it at first but what the eldest sibling does the rest will eventually follow. Crap started turning up left and right, items of clothing were popular, but Dean was certain he saw an empty tomato can rolling around. None of the shadows started declaring as boldly as Sabrathan, but they all carried something around. Even the youngest ones were taking to it.

“I cannot decide if it is a good or bad thing,” Castiel commented one night. He was curled up in the corner where the shadows were the darkest and Dean was laid out on the bed, watching the shadow kids run around the floor. For all their clumsiness and the things they were toting around not a single one was being nosy. It was a strange juxtaposition to see them running around like frantic puppies but not hear a peep out of any of them.

“They’re learning responsibility,” Dean offered, rolling a tennis ball back when Halaliel lost his grip on it.

Footsteps outside the flimsy motel door made him pause, but they walked past the door so he relaxed. Sammy was out at the library studying and dad was out on a hunt. It was happening increasingly, Sammy wanted to be left alone and Dad was gone, Dean wondered sometimes how alone he would feel if he didn’t have tiny little shadows following him every waking second and likely watching him while he slept as well.

“My kind did not show individuality. It was once a hive mind of shared information,” the comment was off-hand and Castiel was more focused on the little ones but Dean felt something in him go still. He very carefully remained relaxed and casual.

“So you all share a mental link or something?”

“I can call them, they can call me but the link is not like before, not as strong as with my brothers.”

“They might get stronger as they grow up, Sabrathan is managing full sentences,” Dean pointed out as he tucked away the new information. He hadn’t dared to write anything down, but Dean had a list of everything he knew. Sabrathan’s jaunt as a human boy had provided him with a great deal that Dean was still sorting through. He’d read everything he could on angels, but reliable lore was rare. Nothing in any book or search had ever turned up the name Castiel.

“They just have to learn with time, as puny humans do,” he added lightly, trying not to watch Castiel for a reaction. But the monster was blank, turning his head to Dean as if to acknowledge he knew exactly what Dean was trying to do.

“They carry my brother's names but they are not them,” he simply replied and Dean sighed and just watched the shadows play on the floor.

“Why me?”

Dean glanced up at the monster, half expecting him to ignore the question. Whenever Dean asked or demanded something Castiel didn’t feel like giving the bastard usually just pretended it never happened.

So it caught Dean off guard when he actually answered.

“Your bloodline.”

Dean blinked and sat up from the bed, frowning at Castiel. “ My bloodline?”

“It is very old and very rare, you come from the original bloodline. No other could have created them,” he gestured to the shadows and Dean felt like the rug had been yanked from under him.

“Bloodline? What original bloodline? Like family? So why not my dad?” Because he’d have stabbed Castiel dead or died trying, Dean didn’t even want to think of Sammy, the monster had never shown any inclination. But if there was a chance, Dean would kill Castiel right then and there.

“Your father would not show mercy to them, he would not see them as anything but creatures to be destroyed,” Castiel offered and Dean couldn’t argue that.

“Sammy?” He pressed reluctantly when the monster didn’t explain.

“Your younger sibling is touched by something dark, its evil drives out the ability for procreation without impurity.”

Dean just stared at him for a moment, trying to process. “What? That makes no sense. Nothing dark touched Sammy and even then you are literal darkness. You were all worried about the sunlight. Why would that matter?”

Ophiel and Ramiel chased each other around the carpet and Dean wondered if this would be the frustrating point where Castiel took off.

“I am shadow. Shadow is darkness in the most literal sense but it is not in nature evil. The absence of light does not automatically proclaim darkness in the sense of evil. There is a stigma that shadows must be evil but do you see that within them?”

Castiel nodded towards the shadow children playing and Dean frowned.

“They’re just babies, they don’t even know what evil is at this point.”

“Exactly. They are pure. Born that way through you and only you. There is a touch of something evil within your sibling’s blood and that would taint the purity. His children would be born more violent. These children are very much a reflection of your soul Dean.”

It was hard to have a comeback for something like that. The little shadows rolled around happily, carefree and childlike. Silly and bright, Dean wasn't so sure that was his soul but he didn't want to argue that point just then.

He didn't know how.

“Sammy’s not evil or whatever, and besides that, what about you? They might be pure, but you aren’t so isn’t that already tainting them or whatever?”

“All I grant them is my body, a touch of what made me in order to create them. But in the beginning, I was pure as well. All of my kin were and many remained that way until the end. But I was a warrior, I chose to embrace violence and all that would come with it.”

“So in the end, the choice is theirs?”

“It is.”

Dean sat in silence for a moment, trying to process everything he had just learned. After months of questions with no answers, it felt overwhelming.

“…What do you think makes Sammy evil? Anything he’s faced I have to.”

“There is a demon mark on him, it is old and has been there likely most of his life. I would imagine since the night of the fire. The demon Azazel likely.”

“How do you know about that.” Dean didn't jump to accusations this time, but he was ready to if the monster didn't have a good enough excuse.

“Your father obsessively researches it. I assure you that I have only known you and your family since we first met.”

Dean sat back on the bed and just gave the monster across the room a weary look. He wanted to ask more since Castiel was in a chatty mood, but Sammy’s footsteps sent everyone running.

Dean mulled over the new info for a few days. He picked up researching demons and what they could do, if there was some weird mark they could put on people. He also started looking for a demon called Azazel.

He would never be sure if was chance or because he had started looking around for books on demons, but either way, the next hunt included one. A demon was driving buses off a steep cliff that led into a fast river. Dean took the opportunity to ask his dad about demons and see if he could glean anything. He was tempted to ask Castiel about the one they were after but he didn't know if he could trust the monster's information just yet.

After a week of research and tracking down the damn thing, they had a trap set up finally. Bobby and Pastor Jim showed up too. Dean’s dad didn't like teaming up but even he understood that sometimes you needed more than your kids watching your back. For Dean it only outlined how tough this hunt would be, demons always were.

Personally, he thought he did a great job on his part. Not to mention that he had also had given birth to a new kid amidst the whole thing. Sammy watched him the whole day, he did every moon phase thing, but Dean barely winced through the stomach pains that day.

Of course, even with all the research and back up everything still went to hell.

Turned out to be two demons. 

Dean, who was looking for it, noticed that they never went after Sammy. He was locked in a cabin safe and Dean was at the door, his dad, Bobby and Pastor Jim were all outside trying to bring the demons down. They were in the middle of a forest with no one around to get hurt besides themselves. Dean is on the porch with a gun, watching the fight happening before him. 

The demons themselves were more interested in creating chaos than anything so maybe they didn't even care that Sammy was there. Dean watched the fight with mounting fear, wanting to be in there helping but at the same time unwilling to abandon the door. It was the only way in and Dean had been told to guard it and his brother so he would damn well die doing just that.

“You reek of angel,” a voice hissed in his ear. Dean couldn't even turn before a third demon slammed him into the door. “I thought they were all dead,” it mused as it curled its hands around Dean’s neck.

“Not supposed to kill ya, but what's a little strangulation?” It crooned gleefully and bat-shit crazy. Its body jerked when Bobby shot it in the back, but it kept choking Dean.

Sabrathan was the largest of the shadow kids, his size fluctuated between a large dog or small bear. But right then though he could have put a linebacker to shame. He looked like Castiel almost but even in a glance, Dean knew the difference.

With an ear-splitting howl, Sabrathan yanked the demon off of Dean and tossed him clear off the cabin porch.

Dean got to breathe again, but the other two demons went totally crazy. They launched themselves at Sabrathan with mindless fury and Dean struggled to get himself back together to help his kid but his lungs were on fire. Sammy had the door yanked open, Pastor Jim was trying to get a clean shot, and both Bobby and dad were running for the demons, trying to get to them before they reached Dean and Sammy.

“Help him,” Dean tried to say, his voice a rasp as he watched two demons tackle Sabrathan. “Help him.”

That was his kid.

Castiel arrived with his agile speed and when Dean saw the shadows move he felt an undeniable wave of relief.

Castiel plucked the demons from their son and tossed them over to the third one. Shadows raced to them faster than the wind and pinned all three like it was nothing. Castiel's low and gravely voice chanted a language Dean had never heard before with speed and efficiency as the demons screamed in reaction.

Sammy arrived at Dean’s side, curling an arm around him as Sabrathan came closer, clearly torn between fretting over Dean and trying to help Castiel.

He didn't need help though; circling the demons Castiel watched them closely as a white light poured from them. Not black smoke but a white bright light that was doing more than chasing the demons out.

They tried to flee the bodies, but the shadows poured around them, trapping them as they writhed on the ground. As quickly as it started it ended, the demons and the people they had possessed all dead. The dark smoke dissipated in a way Dean had never seen, something more final. 

Sabrathan started over towards Dean and Sammy so, of course, their dad shot at him. Dean tensed and tried to jerk forward to help the shadow, but Sammy's grip kept him in place.

Castiel’s speed was amazing and he was between them before the gun even went off. In a poised smooth motion, he gathered Sabrathan up and the two took off, vanishing from sight in seconds.

“Moving, swirling shadows, just like the monster you saw,” Sammy whispered Dean's original description from his first meeting with Castiel and Dean winced because his dad was right there, looking at them.

“I don't know!”

“Dean,” his dad growled, but Dean kept his head down and mouth shut. They were back at Bobby's now with Pastor Jim along for the ride. His knowledge of demons was extensive but turned out he'd done a lot of research on angels too. The three men stood facing Dean who was seated at the kitchen table while Sammy had been sent straight upstairs.

“This might not be a bad thing, an angel would help rather than harm,” Jim pointed out and both John and Bobby shot the other man such dark glares that he stepped back and put his hands up. “Just a thought.”

“Dean,” his dad started again with a tone that was brimming with a warning. “You saw this thing in a basement over a year ago. You told Bobby you got away but the truth is that it let you go. Are we missing anything?”

Dean was cornered and he knew it. His dad was not going to let this go and Dean could see the shadows moving, the little ones were frantic to see him. Dean himself badly wanted to make sure nothing had happened to Sabrathan. He needed to get them to back off, he needed to just have a minute.

Dean needed to give them something that wasn't going to endanger the shadow children but rather important enough to call his dad's attention away from them.

“That shadow thing said that a demon called Azazel was the one who killed mom and he also marked Sammy, put some sort of claim in his blood. I didn’t say anything because I didn't know if he was lying.”

The entire room fell utterly silent.

“I don't know if it's true or not, I have no idea what happened today but I think the big one was the one I met? The little one is his kid? Or brother? Angels were all brothers?” Dean looked to pastor Jim who nodded his head.

For a moment the three older men just traded looks, silently communicating something Dean couldn’t see.

“Go lay down, get some rest.” Bobby decreed after a long moment and he met John’s look full on.

“Let him rest, let his damn throat heal some. He’s shaking like crazy too. Dean's not going anywhere anytime soon.”

It was only after Bobby had said it that Dean realized he was trembling all over. His dad seemed to only just comprehend it then as well. He stepped back and then forward again to help Dean stand up. He put a hand on Dean's shoulder he squeezed comfortingly.

“Alright, get some rest,” he commanded and Dean nodded his head.

“I'm more worried about Sammy than anything else, what if was telling the truth,” Dean asked, his voice shaky as he finally voiced the thought that had been plaguing him since Castiel told him.

“We'll figure it out,” his dad assured him and gave Dean a rough hug before instructing him to bed again.

Sammy was waiting on his bed and Dean groaned as he crawled into bed.

“Tomorrow Sammy. Please, just wait until tomorrow.”

Sam frowned but nodded his head, giving Dean a one-armed hug before going to listen in on the hunters downstairs no doubt. The bedroom door wasn't closed all the way, but the shadows still rippled and Sabrathan slid into the bed to curl into Dean's waiting arms. He was small again Dean curled himself around him as he pats him down, looking for any injuries and relieved to find nothing.

“You ok?” He whispered worriedly, wanting to be utterly sure the little guy was alright.

“I'm ok,” the shadow squeezed back, shivering and snuggling close to Dean. The others were all curling up too, pressing close and making the softest of worrying sounds.

Castiel loomed over them all, a frown directed at Dean's neck.

“Thanks,” was all Dean offered to him and the shadow nodded in reply.

“Sleep,” Castiel directed, his tone reminding Dean ironically of his own dad. Dean was exhausted though and so he pillowed his head on Sabrathan and immediately dozed off.

The next few days were filled with half-truths and evasion. Dean had never been one to lie to his father but now he was doing it full force. Anything about the shadows he denied or lied about, trying to keep the focus on the demon. The worse part was his dad knew exactly what he was doing. He didn't call Dean on it but would get this pinched look about his face.

Bobby had been focused on updating his security, slapping every demon and angel ward he could find up. So far, none of them had affected the shadow children or Castiel.

Sammy was just outright pissed. He also knew Dean wasn't saying everything he knew, but he was having none of that. He constantly called Dean out on it.

“Are you… Did they threaten you or something?”

“It's not like that,” Dean sighed, wanting to be left to work in a car in the garage in peace. Of course he was in full view of the house and his dad and Bobby both kept popping by but, at least, he wasn't being pumped for information.

“You’re hesitating, you never hesitate unless something is wrong,” Sammy grumped at him. “That's why everyone is worried, they know you're hiding something.”

Sammy frowned at him accusingly, but Dean kept his focus on the engine and eventually Sammy sighed and stomped off. He paused at the door to throw one last thing at Dean.

“If they didn't threaten you, then… I think you’re protecting them.”

“You gotta keep them away,” Dean announced that night when the shadows all showed up. They had been keeping scarce lately, but it wouldn't be enough. “For like a month, you need to take them on vacation or something because between my dad, Sammy, and Bobby disaster is just waiting at this point.”

“…They need to be near you, the young ones more so. We do not need to eat, not in any human sense, but we need our kin close by. We need family to live, it's our form of sustenance.”

Dean blinked at him and then the shadows on his bed, all tucked in close. Ophiel and Samuel both delighted with Dean petting them.

“How literal are we talking here?”

“It is physically and emotionally painful to be away from either of us for long periods, more than a day. In time, they will balance each other out but they are too young now.”

“You said you couldn’t move Sabrathan when he turned human, could you move me? Somewhere safe for a visit every day?”

“Moving through shadow would leave you dazed but, more importantly, cold. To a very dangerous degree. Sabrathan’s human body would not have survived. In a dire moment, I can move you but doing it often would certainly kill you.”

“Awesome. Also no baby-making. Sammy knows way too much about it already, he knows it’s the new moon and if tells my dad or Bobby…”

Castiel was stubbornly silent and Dean groaned. They had eighteen little ones now and Dean didn't want any future one endangered because his brother or dad thought they were helping him or something.

“A month missed won't be a huge deal,” he added and Castiel shifted.

“I was the last for a very long time, alone without kin,” Castiel admitted with obvious reluctance.  Dean turned his head to look at him, watching the large shadow monster shift uncomfortably. “The Nephilim are filling a great gap within me, a balm to something torn and exposed. I hesitate to give up any single one.”

Sabrathan cocked his head and peered at his father, pressing his face into Castiel's palm when the monster reached out.

“You're not giving anyone up, just waiting until it's safe.”

Castiel frowned some more, but he eventually nodded in agreement.

“I…” Castiel trailed off and Dean blinked up at the monster looming with uncertainty coming off of him, it was actually sort of endearing to see Castiel less than his usual stoic self.

“I am sorry for not asking for consent, when I realized what you could grant me I was half-mad with it. Being alone for centuries…I could not bear it a second longer. It is not a thing to simply be forgiven, but I feel it important that you know I regret my haste. I am sorry to have ever hurt you.”

Dean couldn't manage a reply beyond a sharp nod.

Castiel was at least right on the easily forgiven aspect. The violation still left Dean nauseous, the fact that for his regret Castiel made no mention of stopping was another thing. How can you mean an apology while still doing it?

But the lone aspect of it, being alone for entire centuries… Dean always felt antsy after an afternoon on his own. And he didn't feel physical pain being away from his dad and brother. Not like what Castiel has described. He had lived in pain for all that time and then Dean walked in, a giant beacon that promised relief.

It was a mess, Dean knew what he should feel, disgust and anger, and there was what he did feel, a measure of understanding and pity. He was still pissed, that had never gone away, but he was also aware that when Dean had asked Castiel to stop he had done so, even if only to protect their kids.

The kids were a whole other thing as well. They were Dean’s kids, he had nothing in him trying to deny or downplay that anymore. The sight of Sabrathan fighting that demon and then his own dad near shooting him had felt like a sharp hard stab to Dean’s chest. That was his kid, they were all his children and Dean desperately wanted to protect them.

Even if it meant lying to his own dad, to Sammy and Bobby too. Dean had to protect them, had to try and keep everyone safe.

So of course he couldn't. Not when it was the ones he loved trying to hurt each other.

Castiel had never mentioned John shooting at Sabrathan so they never talked about it. Dean never brought it up with his dad or Sammy either.

He should have.

For a short time, everyone seemed to focus on the demon named Azazel. Sammy was determined to figure out the blood thing and Dean tried to help him research it.

They hadn't talked about it yet since Sammy was pissed at Dean still, but they would eventually.

Or they would have.

Instead, Dean woke one night a few weeks after the storm had calmed. His insides ached in the weirdest way, a pulling sensation and the occasional sharp jab. Not like the baby-making thing but something else, something more painful. Sitting up Dean rubbed his chest where it ached and frowned when none of the Nephilim kids were on the bed. They usually slept in a pile on top of Dean.

The door creaked and Sammy stepped in, looking pale and nervous.

“What's up?” Dean asked, shifting over and patting the bed to invite Sammy over, but the boy stayed by the door.

“Do you think I'm a monster?” Sammy questioned bluntly looking at the far wall rather than Dean.

“What? Of course not. This is the demon blood thing, right?”

Sammy gave a nod and Dean patted the bed again, pointedly waiting until his little brother sat beside him.

“Look, you've had it your whole life, right? Well, I've known you your whole life and I can promise you, you’re not some monster,” Dean nudged his brother’s shoulder with his own and smirked when Sammy finally looked at him. “Even if for some crazy reason you do sprout demon horns and a forked tail I'll still be there with you.”

That got a little snort and Dean grinned, glad to have assured him. A sharp pain in his chest made him wince, but he ignored it.

“Dean, I know not every monster is truly evil…” Sammy trailed off and then finally turned to face Dean properly. “But what about those shadows? I've seen them before, little guys around the house from time to time; I never thought they were real until the demon fight. But… You wouldn't be trying to protect them if they weren't some kind of good?”

Dean eyed the floor and gave a shrug, frowning as the whole mess whirled around his head. Sammy was a stubborn little thing and he never give it up; he was like their dad in that sense.

“Nah Sammy, there not evil, not even bad really. They're basically just children, little kids,” Dean explained, but Sammy didn't look relieved, he looked wrecked.

“I told dad,” he choked out, pale with guilt all over his face. “I told dad about them, they set a trap.”

Dean felt like he couldn't exhale, his chest abruptly constricted tightly. The pains since he woke up jarred him into motion. Castiel had said there was a connection, that being kin linked them all. Did that mean Dean as well?

Sammy called his name as Dean took the stairs two at a time. The house was quiet and empty, but Dean knew where immediately. He launched down the stairs to the basement and doubled over the last few steps as a sharp pain slammed into him.

His dad and Bobby both turned to look at him and between the two Dean could see a little shadow trapped on the table. It was shivering and desperately trying to jerk out of the circle they had him in, runes Dean didn't know creating a cage. There were knives on the table, instruments with jagged edges and objects meant to hurt, the little shadow, Ophiel, was oozing tar-like blood from punctures.

It was horrifying.

It was absolutely horrifying.

Sammy was behind him, trying to help Dean stand while their dad and Bobby exchanged looks.

“Dean, go upstairs,” John finally commanded and Dean dove forward between them instead, one arm sweeping through the circle of runes to break the circle.

Ophiel let out a tiny frantic sound and rushed right at Dean as John tried to yank his son away. Ophiel hit his chest and Dean wrapped his arms around him, twisting his body away from his father and trying to get away. They ended up with John and Bobby between Dean and the stairs. Sammy stood at the bottom looking utterly horrified.

“Dean, calm down,” Bobby started but Dean ignored him, there was an all-consuming fear in his chest, not his own he would realize later on, but all he knew was that they would hurt him, they would hurt Ophiel.

“You're torturing him,” Dean cried at them, backing up until his back hit the wall.

“Dean you don't know what that is.”

“It's my kid!”

They all looked shocked at that, staring at Dean like he had lost his mind.

“He’s a baby, he's just a baby, and you're torturing him! He didn't do anything,” he rambled, petting Ophiel’s shaking body and feeling the black cold blood on his hands.

“Do you even care?” Dean choked, looking at his father. John looked frantic but not remorseful, he was focused on Dean but nothing in him looked remotely apologetic about Ophiel.

“Dean, listen to me,” he spoke, a calm rumble that used to chase Dean's nightmares away. His dad was supposed to be the good guy, he'd always been the good guy.

But at that moment he wasn't.

“That's why you're sick every new moon, why your stomach hurts,” Sammy suddenly said, looking at Dean with such shocking dread.

Dean shifted to hide Ophiel from such an expression and his foot hit the runes on the floor. Dean looked down at them, the same kind that kept Ophiel on the table. They had to be keeping the others out, Castiel, out.

“Don’t,” Bobby cautioned when Dean’s barefoot moved a rune and Dean knew his suspicion was right. But if Castiel came and took Ophiel they would need to come back, they needed Dean to live.

Dean looked at Bobby and then to his father and then finally Sammy.

Sammy looked back with huge scared eyes.

But Ophiel's panic and pain were still in Dean, twisting and burning.

He kicked the circle open and leaned back into them when the shadows swallowed him.

Castiel wound himself and shadows all around them, huge and terrible in his anger, while Sabrathan, Diniel, Raguel, Ramiel, and Halaliel, all formed a guard in front of them. They looked massive and menacing, but Dean could feel their fear.

Their anger. 

“Don’t!” He shouted when Ramiel would have attacked his father and Bobby. The Nephilim immediately backed down, confused, but they deferred to Dean. The way his father looked when the shadow monsters obeyed him felt devastating to Dean. Almost as if he was a monster himself in his dad's eyes.

“You can't ask such a thing of me,” Castiel snarled, not the least calmed and Dean looked up at him.

“Let's just go,” Dean requested, his voice packed with everything that would mean. Leaving wouldn’t be temporary.

“Dean!” Sammy shouted, but Castiel heard the unspoken words as well and chose immediately. Darkness wrapped around Dean, followed by a freezing cold, and then unconsciousness.

When Dean woke he was immediately assaulted by an agonizing cold. His body shivered hard and his teeth chattered. There were heaps of blankets piled onto him, enough to make their weight uncomfortable, but he still felt the cold seeping into his bones. Even the warmth of the air wasn’t touching the cold settled into his body. 

"If you are conscious you must get up," Castiel's low tone called to him and Dean shook his head in negative. He just wanted to curl up into a ball until he could feel like anything but ice. "Dean, you must get up, you must move your body to warm it."

High little whines accompanied the proclamation and Dean felt warm little wiggling bodies under the blankets with him. One of them slithered over him and Dean felt the Nephilim expand his body, lifting the blankets and letting the air in. It was so cold it felt like it was burning. It made no sense, but Dean's skin felt like it was scorching from the cold. 

"Please," Sabrathan's low anxious voice asked as something nudged Dean's chin gently. Forcing himself to open his eyes he saw his eldest standing over him, looking down with wide pleading eyes. Before Dean could work up the nerve to try to move, firm but careful hands enclosed his shoulders and dragged him from the blankets, setting him upright and holding him when his legs wouldn't support him.

"You must walk," Castiel said, his body forming behind Dean as he held him up like a rag doll. The Nephilim were all clustered close, watching fretfully. They were in a dark room with the sun setting through windows without glass. The wood floor was half rotten as well, an abandoned house. Dean's mind slowly took the information in and he started waking up from his dazed state. Looking around the room more he saw a blanket wrapped around something small, bundled like an infant with black inky stains seeping through the fabric.

Dean stumbled and nearly fell on his face trying to rush over to him. Castiel helped him get up and over to their son. Ophiel was wrapped up and Dean's hands hovered over him uncertainly. He wanted to touch him, but he didn't want to hurt the Nephilim.

"Your touch will help," Castiel coaxed and Dean gently picked him up, the little one wiggled from the blanket he was in and was wobbly scrambling under Dean's shirt. He was trembling and oozing dark blood, but Dean cradled him anyway. Ophiel was pressed against his abdomen, almost a strange recollection of where he came from Dean's body originally. His knees felt too weak and Dean sank to the floor, careful not to jar Ophiel.

"Hey, it's alright. It's ok now. Nothing will hurt you now, your safe," Dean soothed, speaking reassurances he didn't feel.

He couldn't go back.

Not after this.

Not after what his dad and Bobby had done to Ophiel. Dean watched his t-shirt slowly darken with blood and he knew with a heart-wrenching certainty that he couldn't go back.

"Will the bleeding stop?" Dean asked Castiel, looking up at the shadow monster who blinked down at him.

"I do not know. My kind did not bleed."

Dean looked down at the black blood on the discarded blanket and swore weakly.

"So it's the human part of him. I need things. Medical things. Clean towels, sterile needles, a thread that’s strong, a good light source," Dean curled his hands under Ophiel and gently lowered them to the floor.

"We need to stop the bleeding and stitch him up where we can. If human medicine will affect him then we a strong pain killer."

Dean turned to look at Castiel and tried not to startle when he found a pile of everything he named waiting. Castiel stood behind him, but his gaze was distant for a moment. A plastic container full of Codeine lifted from the shadows of the floor.

"Your body is still very weak," Castiel tried to caution when Dean stood and nearly fell over. "This might not be wise to do in your state."

"Waiting won't help him," Dean replied, carefully lifting his shirt and coaxing Ophiel away from him. He cradled him right away to calm the Nephilim, letting him clutch as Dean tried to take in his injuries.

"A hand mirror?"

Sabrathan stumbled into the shadows and then reappeared with two.

Using the mirror, Dean assessed the injuries and turned Ophiel over carefully in his arms to inspect every inch of him. Flashlights and a lantern lit the room up, but it wasn’t overly bright. Dean knew a strong light would only hurt Ophiel.

"Everything is shallow. That's good, only a few will need stitching."

Dean let Ophiel cling to his chest as he got the Codeine then hesitated.

"This stuff can be dangerous, I don't know the dosage to give him."

Castiel frowned down at the pills and Diniel came forward and stuck his head in the bottle. Before they could react he crushed a mouthful with his teeth and swallowed the whole thing. Dean stared at him with horror.

"He does it often, to see what things do," Halaliel offered helpfully and Dean turned his stare to him and then up to Castiel.

"Do you not watch them at all?" He accused and got a dark look back.

"Of course, but the older ones seemed to be capable of self-care. Maybe not." He added with a long look at the elder Nephilim, who all ducked nervous under his gaze. Who knew what they got up to.

"It's strong but not strong enough," Diniel offered, coming closer to Dean. "It would take many bottles to poison Ophiel." Dean glanced up at Castiel who frowned some more and then nodded reluctantly.

"Diniel is very knowledgeable about these things. I was not aware of his experimentation methods, however." The little Nephilim was now retching, forcing the pills back up and Dean knew they were going to have a talk about this apparent poison tasting habit.

Dean set it aside for a later issue and checked Ophiel over again. Some of the lightest scratches were gone, others fading but two deeper gouges remained and were still bleeding.

"I need you to eat a few of these," Dean explained and Ophiel whined and shook his head, clinging tighter to Dean at the sight of the pills. "Shhh, listen baby. It'll feel weird at first, but then it'll numb everything so I can stitch you up. I promise I'm only trying to help you. Castiel will hold you while I do it, tell me if you need me to stop alright?"

Ophiel just trembled and Dean felt his heartbreaking as Castiel stepped forward and solemnly took Ophiel in his arms. Kneeling on the floor he held their son as Dean gently coaxed him to swallow three pills. Ramiel and Raguel both rushed to get bottles of water when Dean asked, they had eight bottles delivered before Dean could tell them it was enough. The whole pack of Nephilim were all watching anxious and scared. Dean could feel the fear flickering in him, somehow he knew it was theirs and not his own.

“It’s going to be alright,” Dean told them. “I’m going to fix him up and in time he will heal up. Ophiel will be ok.”

Once Ophiel assured him he couldn't feel it, he quickly stitched the cut close, worried the pills would wear off too soon. His hands were shaky, but Dean had been doing this since he was eight. With focus, he cleaned and stitched the second cut and then pressed the medical pad to anything still bleeding before wrapping gauze to hold everything in place.

Ophiel looked like a mess by the end of it, but the Codeine had him calm so Dean gave him another pill before climbing into the pile of blankets with him cradled to his chest. The rest of the Nephilim followed and Dean blinked up at Castiel watching them all. He looked up at the monster angel and before Dean could think of anything to say he was pulled unconscious again.

He woke sometime later, he checked and then changed the bandages on Ophiel, ate the sandwiches the Nephilim brought him, drank some water and curled back asleep without ever really waking up.

The third time he gained consciousness he felt a full-body ache, every muscle he had was on fire and he winced.

"Is it normal to hurt this much?" He grumbled at the shadow monster seated across from him. The windows were all boarded up now but down in the other far room Dean could see a hint of sunlight.

"Warm-blooded creatures cannot be exposed to the cold of shadow travel. Even a few moments can kill. You were not touched for more than a second and this is the effect. You will be sore, but you will heal. Nothing should linger beyond a week."

"And him?" Dean asked, looking to Ophiel who was still curled up under his shirt.

"The cuts are healing. Faster than humans but slower than some supernatural beings. He is tired from the blood loss and emotional trauma but being held by either of us will help restore his physical strength and soothe his fears."

Dean slid a hand under his shirt and carefully pet Ophiel.

"Ok?" Halaliel asked, his head resting on Dean's thigh. The lot of them were curled up in the blanket nest with him still. Anpiel and Briathos were two that didn’t seek much physical contact with Dean but right then they were snug with their brothers. An entire lot of his children were there.

 "Nope. But we'll get there," he replied and offered a quick pat of reassurance when Halaliel just looked confused.

 Dean dropped his head back and stared at the decrepit ceiling.

 "Where are we?"

 "Arizona, I had only a moment to decide and I knew you'd need warmth."

"Explains why I'm a puddle of sweat," Dean mused. Thoughts of his Dad worrying and Sammy's wide eyes were firmly pushed away as Dean tried to focus on the here and now.

 "We need a place to stay. If it's going to be this shack you need to make sure the floor won't cave in on us."

 "The house is structurally sound."

"…You seem weirdly sure."

 "He checks now. Because Diniel fell through three floors once," Sabrathan offered and Dean blinked. Diniel was a quiet little guy, he'd never shown any daredevil streak that Dean had noticed. Apparently, he needed to pay more attention to what his kids got up to.

"Ok. So the house won't fall on us. Windows? Heating? Plumbing? All of these things need to be checked."

"There is a 'for sale' sign on the lawn. That is usually an indicator of human habitability."

"...Someone go try the sinks and toilets," Dean instructed and the majority of the Nephilim took off, they made no noise as they moved so it was comical when running water suddenly started and the toilets began flushing.

"The windows of the front room and rear door are damaged. The rest of the house will suit. It is old and worn, but it will suffice. This area has little in the ways of the supernatural and it is a secure place to stay in for now." Castiel surmised and Dean didn't argue, he trusted Castiel to keep the Nephilim safe.

“It can be made to remain on a longer basis or we can eventually move on once you and Ophiel have recovered.”

Dean shrugged and flopped on the makeshift bed.

He had left for good, he couldn’t go back to his father. The Nephilim needed him and the second his dad figured that out everything would go to hell. John Winchester couldn’t find out. Dean rubbed his face and saw the image of Ophiel trapped on the table, dark blood on his dad and Bobby’s hands.

No, Dean had to stay.

A rundown house was better than something new and fancy he decided. It was worn, but it was also familiar to Dean from the old rentals and motels he’d grown up in.

Once he had the strength, he walked around with the Nephilim all trailing after him, curious as they all peered into the rooms. Ophiel was tucked in Dean’s arms but was awake and watching as well.

The house was empty; there was no furniture at all save for cabinets and shelves built into a few rooms. But Dean had dealt with worse. He made a list of what they would need, trying to focus on that rather than his ever-present worry for his dad and Sammy. More so Sammy, who would be confused and hurt by Dean leaving like he had.

The first thing they did was clean the rooms out. A thick layer of dust needed to be wiped down on every surface. Massive spider webs and dust bunnies needed to be vanquished. Castiel brought the supplies as requested, washcloths, towels, and cleaning products. Dean knew he could probably get some furniture too, but he still had no real idea where the stuff was coming from. Maybe some mobster murderer or a millionaire asshole with fifty rooms in his house, either way, Dean didn’t want their bed.

So he took down the ‘for sale’ sign and got Castiel to take him into town in the dead of night. Dean was happy to see the records and deeds of the land were on paper rather than digital. Bless little sleepy towns. He altered the paperwork and put the house in his name, Dean Smith, grandson of the late Samuel Campbell who had died ten years ago and the house remained empty since.

They got a disposable cell phone and the next day Dean called asking about his inheritance of some old house. The woman was baffled, but she didn’t argue the paperwork, citing it as a mistake of some sort that he hadn’t been called sooner.

Dean got Castiel to get some cash, four thousand, and he bought himself a beater truck that looked rough but ran well for two thousand. The rest of it, he used to buy a mix-match of furniture at second-hand stores and garage sales. He lucked out at an acreage auction, a couple retiring into the city and wanting to take little with them supplied Dean was pretty much an entire house set up for only five hundred. Dean took only what he figured they would need. He had grown up watching his father steal but with the mantra take only what you need. So he refused to let Castiel bring him more cash than the four.

During the day, he worked alone, dragging things from the truck into the house. Once out of the sunlight the Nephilim moved it into whatever room it needed to go. Dean let them pick on occasion, but that ended with a bed in the kitchen so he mostly directed them. They were excited about everything, the idea of filling the house with things that would be theirs seemed thrilling. Most of them became possessive over various objects, a certain table or a little stool. They didn’t refuse anyone the right to use anything but rather simply claimed it was theirs with great pride. Dean could feel it in his chest, another thing he wasn't ready to deal with. But their pride wasn't a selfish thing but rather a little awe that something could be theirs, that they would take care of it and watch over it.

Dean figured they would go wild over plants and he could imagine little styrofoam cups with all the Nephilim’s names on them sitting on a window sill.

The thought inspired Dean to buy a few boxes of toddler toys for three bucks at a garage sale and he spent the evening watching the Nephilim have raptures over them. Everything was spilled out and carefully considered once Dean explained to them that the toys were for them and them alone. He had meant for them to share but instead, they put everything out and picked favourites, even the elder Nephilim. When something was coveted and argued over it was the older one who won. Dean noticed that the elder Nephilim got to be bossy but, in turn, they also seemed to be constant babysitters to the younger ones.

“It is the way of my kind, the older must watch the young and the young must respect their elders,” Castiel explained and Dean figured it was sound enough. The elder Nephilim would be better to make choices than the youngest ones who were still figuring out walking and talking.

It was the individual thing showing up again and Dean didn’t mind it. He wanted them to be free thinkers, open to new ideas. It would make instilling morals in them easier. 

Dean settled at the kitchen table with mix match chairs to write a letter to Sammy a few weeks after they arrived. He planned on something short and to the point, but he ended up coming clean. Dean was careful; he rewrote it a few times and reread everything to make sure that nothing dangerous was revealed. He didn’t want Sammy on some wild chase after him nor did he want his dad finding the letter and knowing how to hurt the Nephilim by chance.

So Dean cautiously wrote that Castiel followed him after their first meeting. He explained that Castiel was an angel. 

“The last of the earth garrison,” Castiel said over Dean’s shoulder and he stopped writing to blink up at him.

“What?”

“I am the last angel of the earth garrison, there are no other angels on the earth. Only in heaven and hell do they remain.”

Dean frowned at the shadow monster and felt something akin to pity for him. He gave a weak nod and added the title in the letter.

Because of their bloodline, Castiel needed Dean in order to create the Nephilim who help keep him balanced. Angels needed kin to be healthy and sane so Dean was helping him out. Dean knew Castiel was still reading over his shoulder and he didn’t correct or comment on the information. 

Dean made no mention of how the Nephilim were created or born.

He explained that they were just kids, they aged and learned faster than humans but the eldest, Sabrathan, was on par with only a ten-year-old. He comprehended well, could read decently, and he reasoned as well. But he was still only a child. Dean stressed that the Nephilim weren't evil or bad. That they hadn’t hurt anyone.

Dean paused to look at Castiel for confirmation and the shadow hesitated. It made Dean’s stomach drop for a second.

“Does sibling assault count?” Castiel finally asked and they both turned to watch Halaliel examine a tennis ball, look at his sibling’s turned back and then toss the thing at Diniel’s head. Diniel chased him around the room, the two roughhousing without any real heat behind it.

So they haven’t hurt anyone and Dean doubts they could. They could look big and scary, change their shapes, but they were really just fluffy shadow pillows. Dean had to look out for them so he had to stay away and keep them safe.

He didn’t explain why, but he stressed that he had to stay with them. That he wanted to. He wasn’t being held against his will or anything like that. He promised that once everything had calmed down he’d find a way to meet up with Sammy. That he'll figure out a way to be there for him if Sammy ever needed him. After some consideration, Dean wrote the cell phone number down.

He hesitated to be mushy but eventually wrote that he loved his brother and would see him again 

"How will you get it to him?" Dean asked once he was done and had it folded and tucked into an envelope.

"His school locker seems like the most direct way."

"What if they leave town?" Dean questioned, not fretting at all.

"I will take it to the next school." Castiel regarded Dean for a moment before adding, "I will see it delivered to him."

"Alright."

Dean handed over the envelope and watched the shadows of Castiel’s hand take it. There was no real reason to put faith in the idea that Castiel would do as he said, but Dean believed him.

Trusted him to some extent.

Dean didn't want to sit waiting once Castiel left so he decided to paint one of the rooms. Halaliel had found a bright jewel-tone purple that the Nephilim seemed delighted over.

They helped Dean for the five seconds it took them to make a mess and almost spill a can of paint. After that, they were commanded to observe while Dean painted the walls. Ophiel sat among them, his siblings were careful and considerate to their still-healing brother.

He scraped and patched the walls a few days ago so now he cut in the edges of the walls and rolled the paint on. Dean had worked a few odd jobs painting so he had an idea of what he was doing. He explained it to his avid Nephilim audience.

Despite sitting quietly, for the most part, half of them still got paint on themselves. Streaks of a deep purple flashing in their shadows now. They seemed to like it, which didn’t bode well.

Dean made sandwiches for dinner and was almost done eating when Castiel returned, hours later.

Dean tried not to jump him the second he appeared, but he needed to know already. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized how imperative it was for him to know what Sammy thought about everything.

"So?"

Castiel presented him with the envelope torn open and Dean felt his chest twist painfully.

"Did he even read it?"

"He did. He insisted he returns it so he would not have to worry about hiding it. He memorized the number." Castiel explained and Dean felt relief course through him.

“You spoke with him? 

“I did not reveal myself but he spoke in faith that I was there. 

“Sammy's a smart one,” Dean agreed with a grin.

"He also replied on the back."

Dean blinked at Castiel and then tore the letter open to reading it.

"Dean?" Castiel asked after Dean took in the short message and just stared at it.

"He says he's going to college. When I'm ready I have to come visit him and he wants to meet the Nephilim. He doesn't understand, but he trusts me. Whatever that demon did to him he's going to undo. He's staying with Bobby to research it."

Dean didn't really comprehend how much it affected him until his hands refused to stop shaking. He blinked tears away as he let go of irrational fears that Sammy would hate him. Sagging as the tension drained from him, he leaned against Castiel and the shadows immediately shifted to hold him up. Dean faced Castiel and stepped in to embrace him. The angel always wore a human form around Dean since they had arrived at the new house.

"Dean?"

"Shut up," Dean replied but rested his face on Castiel's shoulder, clinging to the angel. Uncertain hands came up to touch his back and shoulder. Carefully Castiel held him.

It was their first embrace. The first time they had touched beyond necessity or sex. This was the first time Dean had ever reached out for Castiel first. It was new, but it already felt good to Dean, comforting and safe.

Thinking of Sammy off chasing his dreams of being normal and going to school, knowing they would meet again soon enough, let Dean finally let the strain in him since the night he left go.

It was going to be an uphill battle with his dad and likely Bobby as well. But he would make them see, show them that the Nephilim and Castiel weren't just monsters to be hunted and killed. Together they would all find a way to help Sammy and get whatever demon blood was in him gone. They would get him everything he hoped for. Dean was certain they would somehow.

Embracing this new family didn't mean he would have to lose his old one. Sammy's letter proved that to him.

 "Dean?" Castiel’s voice was low and hesitant, but it carried a question.

 "Yeah?"

 "Why is the ceiling dripping purple liquid? Is that the paint Halaliel picked?”

 Ah. Dean had thought it was too quiet for a house full of Nephilim children.