Work Text:
A Domesticated Demon
Dagon
Dagon ran her lacquered nails through Kelly’s limp, mousy brown hair. The cow shuddered and sweat through her raggedy clothes. The snotty whimpers were worse than any torture Alastair could have cooked up. She resisted the urge to dig the long red talons into Kelly’s scalp and order her to shut the hell up before Lucifer really gave the bitch something to cry about, but the wench was proving to be more slippery than she had suspected. How difficult could it be to keep the bitch under lock and key? Then he kills the sow as he breeches her womb and enters the bedlam of Samael’s kingdom? Or so she had thought.
Kelly whined and cried into the back of her hand. Dagon finished the halfhearted drag through her unwashed hair with a stiff head pat.
“There, there, Sweet Cheeks. There, there,” she said, desultorily. Her flat voice dripped with acidic boredom. What fun is keeping a pet human if you can’t torture them? Kelly slapped the Prince of Hell’s manicured claws away from her in between sniffles and groaned. If Dagon had bothered to look at her sallow face, she would’ve been shocked to see the sniveling human roll her eyes at the demon. But instead Dagon’s eyes flared yellow and she imagined what her guts would feel like slipping down her arms as she ripped the child from her vile womb. Dagon walked away. Kelly pulled the sleeve of her ratty sweatshirt over her knuckles and wiped her nose.
The morning sickness had lasted far longer than any of the useless pregnancy books have said it might. And it wasn’t just morning sickness, it was a sick dread and the grim knowledge that she may die before seeing the “abomination” that was growing inside her. She spent most of her days weeping. Shuddering cries at her own stupidity and the cold fear of what her body might be unleashing when she finally gave birth. And the hunger. The anger. The fear of never knowing where she might be safe. And now? How to get away from Dagon.
Before being deceived by Dagon, Kelly had stolen as many library books on pregnancy and nephilim as she could get away with. Which was a difficult thing to maintain as the books tended to take up a lot of space and running from motel to motel with nothing but gas station food and books was not an easy task when you’re in your second trimester. Or something like the second trimester. One thing that worked for her was that no one marked her as a book thief with her huge belly and sweaty face. More often than not they’d help her with the door as she struggled to walk as fast as she could while concealing three or four large tomes on angelic misdeeds.
*
Kelly
So when Dagon seemingly came to her rescue she was more than willing to hand the reins over to whoever seemed to know anything about the thing in her belly. Too bad the only one that showed up was this deranged demon. Once she realized Dagon had only Lucifer’s will in mind she played the quiet lamb to get the slip on her in any way possible. Dagon was easy enough to blindside. Kelly Kline hadn’t spent the last few months of her pre-pregnancy life handling matters of national security and dodging special interest inquiries disguised as polite conversation to be kowtowed by some demon who thought she was in charge because Lucifer?
It eats you alive, doesn’t it? she thought, bitterly, as the Prince of Hell sauntered away like she wasn’t bristling all over from the human’s refusal to submit. It eats you alive that this child…this something could be your only way back into Lucifer’s good graces and you can’t stand the sight of me. Or the thought of my child, she mused, darkly. Still Kelly’s stomach lurched. She felt sick with the thought that Jeff had been just a shell the last time they made love. When she held the man she loved and jabbered on about how they might be a real couple and that whole time it was probably that despicable creature. Her fears fought with the warmth of life that she felt despite the swirl of uncertainty and Dagon’s cruelty. Carrying Lucifer’s offspring was hardly bragging rights, but she knew Dagon and how the safe delivery of the child would make up for whatever shortcomings the demon may have been guilty of. A half-human half-demon child would be more powerful than its father, but the dilution of demon-kind no doubt gnawed at Dagon. This Prince of Hell wasn’t as unpredictable as she thought she was. Kelly hadn’t figured out when Lucifer took over Jeff’s vessel, but she had an inkling now. Hindsight and all. And her shrewd political mind–despite this whole antichrist thing–read the fallen angel’s tells and found she was more terrified of his spawn than the bastard himself. The angel was a sad excuse for a celestial being, in her opinion. She remembered how Jeff had changed from being the loyal widower he was to this petulant thing that she supposed Lucifer was.
The Lightbringer reminded her of a horribly spoiled mama’s boy who spent his life tortured by losing Daddy’s favor. Might work in the more frustrated and disenfranchised demos, but a hard sell for the blue edges of the US gerrymander map and certainly not a profile that would be successful without a lot of PR finesse.
Kelly Kline’s head weaved and bobbed below the nauseating fear of her own child, but she felt pretty sure about her read on Lucifer. She swallowed the bile that clung to the back of her throat more days than not and squeezed her eyes tightly shut to right her senses. Dagon basically kept her captive and after burning what little trust the demon had in her, Kelly had found herself under house arrest. Dagon spent the days pacing the small slum of a house they squatted in and threw prenatal vitamins at her with half-empty bottles of water. Kelly was unimpressed with Lucifer’s staffing standards. She shifted on the filthy, broken couch to adjust her aching back and the tingling of numbness that had begun in her legs. She needed to move. Whether Dagon liked it or not. Her legs had already atrophied and malnutrition was an experience she had never thought she’d have–and while pregnant it was even more devastating.
“I need to move,” she whispered, hoarsely. Dagon scowled over her shoulder.
“Then move,” the demon shoved the detritus of Kelly’s meager meals around on the chipped melamine kitchenette. The demon was drinking cheap booze. Cheap because it burned not because she‘d actually paid for it. Dagon found a rancid, plastic rum bottle and chuckled at the stupid human marketing: “Rock, Paper, Rum.” She unscrewed the top and drank the dregs of whatever might be considered alcohol just to feel the burn down her throat.
“God, parenting sucks,” Dagon groaned. Kelly vaguely shook her head at the insufferably self-centered demon’s malaise. Kelly swallowed and steadied her hand as she tried to stand up. “No wonder Lucifer dumped the brat on you,” Dagon indirectly addressed the mother. Kelly closed her eyes as the room wobbled from her nausea, hunger, stress and overall miserableness. She took a few steps towards the grimy window. Dagon kept one light on: a bare bulb in a tarnished brass lampstand closest to the fuzzy cable television. The TV was always on, but without the volume. The lamp was nearest to the television because that would make it furthest from the windows. In a moment of practicality, Kelly wondered what would happen if whoever was being billed the electricity got a clue or the utility company just shut it off as an aberration of use. She hobbled another step to the window, which faced the backyard. This backyard was sadder than the house. It was fenced off and toothless as far as an actual deterrent, but peeking over the mottled dog ears were the naked branches of a patch of woods in late winter. The scarcity of leaves, greens and new growth gave Kelly a whisper of hope. Although, she couldn’t define why the slumbering trees gave her a sliver of comfort. Dagon rattled the drops in the plastic rum bottle as Kelly inched towards the window, hoping Dagon would be too morose to object.
“NO!” the demon shouted, “Back away.” Kelly stopped and hung her head. Beaten…almost.
“I need a little bit of vitamin D,” she attempted. Dagon scowled and threw more garbage around the kitchenette. She found what she was looking for and Kelly meekly dodged the bottle of prenatal vitamins that landed at her feet.
“I still need food…and natural sunshine is better–” she said. An unsteady wager against an annoyed demon. An unholy growl shimmied the ramshackle house. Dagon wasn’t gonna have it. Kelly looked up at the window—So near, yet so far away—and surrendered…this time. Before turning away, she hid her pause as she noticed a flurry of tamped earth at the edge of the broken fence. Her heart leapt to her throat and she swallowed. She nearly swooned at the prospect of someone lingering at the borders of the sad house, preparing to stage a rescue. She knew enough about nephilim to know that there was absolutely no way the entire celestial contingent didn’t know she was expecting. She felt that little glimmer of hope she had ached for from the naked trees.
Someone had found her. Castiel? Dean? Sam? The witch? The one called Crowley? she shuddered at the weirdness of…it all. She felt like she was adjusting, but the strange tableau of her possible rescuers reminded her how undeniably weird the world actually was. Someone who wouldn’t be afraid of the Prince…or at least they’d be stupid enough to take the demon on. Kelly shuffled around and back to the couch, but didn’t sit down. Probably Castiel, she thought with mixed feelings. He seemed like a gentle soul, but he had been convinced that an abortion was the only answer. She knew she couldn’t do that now, but Castiel didn’t seem like the type to be easily swayed. She let that problem simmer. Her heart pitter-pattered against her weakened frame as she moved around to allow her blood to circulate, but also to release some agitation. She hoped her captor wouldn’t notice the microshift in her attitude. Kelly felt compelled to say something. If her rescuer was nearby, they might need a distraction to launch the fool’s errand. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
Her thoughts were foggy and clouded over by fear and hunger, but she really did want to know more about the Princes of Hell and what that was all about. She stopped and caught the demon’s attention. Dagon narrowed her eyes at the human doing anything else besides cowering or crying. Kelly backpedaled her dull attempt. She shook her head and whimpered as a cover. Dagon groaned. Exasperated. Kelly leaned into it and started her cyclical misery, but shuffled around the house instead of sitting down. The ground felt watery under her slippered feet. Dagon stomped across the room and glowered at the woman. Kelly hid her face and her dry tears behind her sleeve and braced for Dagon to drag her downstairs to the basement like she had been threatening to do. The demon gripped Kelly’s frail arm and heaved her towards the basement door. Kelly made a little effort to protest, but mainly tried to keep from stumbling.
The demon pulled her down the stairs and huffed with each stomp down the exposed wooden steps. Kelly stifled a shrill laugh at Dagon’s bluster and hair trigger temper, but the uneven stairs got the best of her and the moment of hysterical giddiness vanished as her feet tripped over each other. Dagon growled and held the falling woman with her very strong arms and braced them both with her chest. Kelly winced and sniffled. Uncertain emotions on what her hairbrained plan had even been to begin with fizzled in the chilling yellow glow of Dagon’s eyes. Kelly gulped and felt like she should apologize, but stopped herself. That felt overplayed. Dagon’s glowing eyes faded and Kelly untangled her feet on the dangerous steps. Dagon held her tightly across the back now with her other arm bracing them both along the rail. Kelly could hear the demon mutter whatever obscenities demons had—which she did not care to find out—when they both heard a clatter up the stairs near the back entry. Dagon grabbed Kelly harshly and yanked her the rest of the way down. Kelly nearly stumbled to her knees from the force. Dagon glared at her.
“You bitch. What did you do?” she stomped up the stairs and slammed the door shut.
Kelly heard the deadbolt click shut and the Prince of Hell went silent in her pursuit. The silence was malignant and Kelly allowed her spinning head to finally, softly descend to the dirty basement floor. “Someone knows I’m here,” she whispered to herself just to hear it said out loud. She cupped her hands under her chin like a child laying down to bed and curled her aching feet nearer to her swollen core. She had no idea who her champion might be or if the intruder even was her champion. Even in her weariness she knew she could be trading one captor for something even crueler. Strangely, she was less afraid of Lucifer finding her and more afraid of not only what was inside her, but also the twisted loyalties of Lucifer’s “allies.” Jefferson Rooney–the real Jeff–knew he was playing a bit to some degree to win votes, but he earnestly believed that he was going to make a difference with whatever power he curated. Dagon’s thirst for power felt familiar in the hot pot of Washington DC and the human monsters that prowled the venerable halls were a problem she knew how to solve. But she also knew their tenacity and that political aides might be able to teach these demons a thing or two.
She wouldn’t be surprised if Castiel had tracked her down. Dagon might be a Prince of Hell, but she didn’t strike Kelly as particularly smart besides a crass wiliness. The cold floor felt like a breath of fresh air after too long in a hot, dirty room. It wasn’t much relief, but she’d take it. Knowing now that someone had arrived and something was bound to change.
*
Castiel
The demon wasn’t as sly as she thought she was. Kelly Kline’s tracks weren’t as difficult to find as Castiel had led the Winchester brothers to believe. Despite their good intentions, Dean and Sam had no idea what a nephilim was capable of. And Lucifer’s child at that. He didn’t take many pains to hide his tracks. Stealth had never been his strong suit and he would rather face a fight headlong versus sneaking around the perimeter trying to trick a Prince of Hell.
He didn’t give himself much of a chance against the demon and not because he doubted his capabilities. He just knew what a Prince of Hell would do when faced with a sad excuse for an angel like Castiel. Abaddon had been a curious case of a Prince of Hell with ambition. Her ambition had been the challenge for The Winchesters–and her demise. Dagon? Dagon was a vicious dog with the tunnel vision of winning Lucifer’s favor. She always had been. The other knights capitulated once Cain laid down his blade, but Dagon wouldn’t be dissuaded. Only after a concentrated smack down by hell’s own, did she turn tail and bide her time for another attempt with someone who had more gumption. He wasn’t particularly scared of her intellect, but he was wary of her viciousness. He had no real plan with how to handle Dagon, but he knew Sam and Dean would only complicate the situation with their eager humanness towards salvation. Cas didn’t entertain such notions.
He stood on the edge of the scraggly hedge and when a shadow moved to the other side of the murky window, he took a chance and blinked into what he hoped was the back entry room of the flophouse.
Dagon
Dagon slammed the door after the wench and held her hand against the door with a tickle of paranoia for what the bitch might do or who she may have called to her. Dagon didn’t know much about humans, but she had seen enough in her millennia to know they were a tenacious lot and they routinely blundered into ways to frustrate celestial plans. God wasn’t the only one with a tiresome tolerance for these apes.
She waited in front of the door until it seemed quiet below and then focused on whatever may have intruded. She walked silently towards the back of the dilapidated house. That was the direction the wench had looked. Despite her stubbornness, the bitch wasn’t as subtle as she’d like to think she was. The Prince expected an angel or one of those pesky Winchester brothers, but she wasn’t going to rule out other more challenging prey having sniffed out the Anti-Christ’s presence. There were more than monkey-brained humans or petulant angels with Daddy Issues to be wary of. More than demons and Knights of Hell vacated the doomed lands with Lucifer’s imprisonment. And the angels had always been shitty guards anyway. God really had a case of the fuckits when he put one of his pets in charge of the Garden. Gadreel was hardly an exception.
Dagon stood outside the door jamb and listened. She heard the sow’s heavy breathing and pitiful sobs downstairs, but she couldn’t sense anything else human in the house.
An angel, she thought, bitterly. “Castiel,” she said, flatly.
“Dagon,” a voice returned. Dagon stepped into full view of the back room and crossed her arms. She was unimpressed with Castiel’s audacity.
“You’ve always had a high opinion of yourself, Castiel,” she sneered, “No wonder Uriel gave you that suicide mission.” She shook her head. Cas blanched. Dagon denigrating Dean Winchester’s rescue from hell threw the angel for a loop. He stood uneasily in the shambling mud room.
“That child should not live,” Castiel insisted, trying to regain his mission. Dagon smirked, “And what? What are you gonna do about it, Little Angel?” Castiel slid his angel blade out of his sleeve. He pressed his lips together and lunged at Dagon, blade out. Dagon shielded herself easily and threw Castiel against the wall. Dust settled as the house shivered from the impact.
“Don’t waste my time, Angel,” Dagon drawled. Castiel spat blood and stood up. Dirt and debris fell from his shoulders. Dagon’s eyes went wide and her head snapped towards the basement door. Castiel froze and watched the basement door swing lazily open. The old wood creaked on its hinges and bumped into the door stop anticlimactically. The stairs creaked with shifting weight. Dagon’s face went slack with unspoken horror towards the door.
A shimmering yellow light seeped from the darkened stairwell. Kelly Kline walked stonily forward. Her eyes glowed yellow and her veins glowed an eerie neon blue and purple under her pale skin. She walked forward with an unfathomable look on her face.
“No,” Dagon breathed. A brilliant white light blinded the Prince of Hell and she felt the wall thud against her back. Then silence.
*
Castiel
Castiel watched the door swing slowly open and a bright light flood the dismal house. He shielded his eyes and heard a body (he assumed it was Dagon) smack against the wall followed by the dry, ashy splinter of the tired boards crashing to the ground. When he looked back, Kelly Kline stood stoically in front of the heap that was Dagon. Cas blinked and drew the blade warily across his body. Kelly stood stockstill and…glowed with an eerie yellow aura. The veins across her pale neck and jaw glowed blue and purple. The beat of her heart was visible with the ebb and flow of light emanating from her body. Cas clutched his blade, but knew it would be a useless fight. Kelly looked up and then turned her head towards Castiel like a doll.
“Castiel,” she said in a voice not quite her own. She looked at him with glowing yellow eyes. “Be not afraid,” the voice said.
“That’s a tired line,” Castiel retorted. Not-Kelly tilted her head slightly to the left.
“Castiel,” the voice said and Kelly turned to take a tentative step towards the angel. Cas readied his blade. Not-Kelly looked down at the blade without surprise.
“I am not who you think I am,” the voice insisted, “I need you.” In between Kelly’s glowing eyes her forehead creased in a row of tiny frowns. “My mother…needs you,” the voice continued. Then Not-Kelly looked slowly over to the crumpled body of the Prince.
“Dagon–” the voice said and paused, “She doesn’t understand me, either.” The voice paused poignantly. “No one does…or will,” it continued. Kelly’s glowing eyes looked back at Castiel, pleading now. “That’s why we need you,” the voice insisted. The yellow eyes shot guiltily over to Dagon. “She’s not dead, you know,” pause, “I didn’t kill her…I could. But I didn’t.” Castiel’s face blanched a second time and he wasn’t any less convinced the nephilim should survive.
“Please, Castiel,” the voice insisted. “I didn’t want to take over my mother’s body, but…I…I was scared. I guess. I didn’t know what else to do. I hoped you…This world is–” and Not-Kelly looked around like the ramshackle house and the grim world beyond its dingy windows as if she had never seen it before and her eyes welled with tears. Glowing tears and fear. Genuine fear. “This world is–”
“Strange,” Castiel finished the thought. Castiel relaxed his stance a hair. “What are you?” he demanded. Not-Kelly blinked and looked down as if the question was something vastly important and worthy of deep contemplation. A hand fluttered to Kelly’s heart and up her shoulder. Then both hands glided around the mother’s swollen belly, but dared not to touch it. “I am….me,” the voice cracked and looked back up at Castiel. “Please. Help me. Us,” Not-Kelly corrected, “I am not Lucifer.” Castiel’s nostrils flared, but his heart wrenched for the two beings in front of him in their unholy alliance. An unfair dependency between Kelly and the world. One of creation, destruction and the loss of innocents along the way, but he sensed the being’s fear nonetheless. The yellow aura faded from Kelly and her body went limp. She began to fall. Castiel rushed forward to catch the pregnant mother before she hit the ground.
“Kelly?” Castiel asked as he cradled the mother in his arms. Kelly’s eyes had fallen closed and she looked to be asleep. Tired, but not distressed. Castiel cupped the woman’s head in his broad palm, her limp brown hair tangled around his thick fingers, and he grit his teeth. His heart beckoned him. His loyalty wavered. He knew this thought. He knew this feeling.
Mercy.
*
Kelly
Jack had spoken through her. He had controlled her. She knew it. She felt it. He was so powerful. He was like nothing else this universe had ever seen. He had spoken to Castiel. He had controlled her body and had channeled a fraction of his power through her to lift Dagon off the ground and into the wall like a broken doll. She had felt his strength. His personality. His hope. His hope in Castiel specifically. And Jack’s fear. The fear of who he was because of who his father was. She felt his desire to help. To be something he was meant to be. And not something based on who his father thought he was. Or who Dagon and other Princes of Hell thought he was. Or even the angels. She understood him now, more than ever. She knew he was someone who could change the universe. But more importantly…she knew he was good.
*
Dagon
So she was stuck with the angel. The idiot angel who had spent the last human decade fucking up cosmic affairs because of his own deluded self-importance. She couldn’t beat the brat in the sow’s belly. And the brat wanted the idiot angel. So there you have it.
The first thing they did was move camp to another squatters paradise because the whole celestial light and boom of walls in a supposedly vacant house would get the fuzz involved soon enough. Dagon wasn’t inclined to being a homemaker, but she knew that human police were better not involved with an antichrist in the making. Moving camp wasn’t much of a compromise. The cable was shitty and probably any place else smelled better, but Dagon was bothered with a capital B by the brat wanting Castiel to tag along.
But why? she asked herself the moment The Sow had informed her that Castiel was going to be their chaperone and “You can take it or leave” the bitch had the utter gall to say. And with her perky little smile, too. They weren’t gonna fight her. At least her pride had that caveat, but if Lucifer’s brat wanted the idiot angel…why? So Dagon painted on her prettiest fake smile–the kind where those who know what’s good for them know that there are fangs with venom under the red curve of her lips–and played house with The Sow, The Brat and The Idiot Angel. It wasn’t the acquisition of the angel that pissed Dagon off the most, it was the way the angel velcroed himself to Kelly’s side. Like a, like a doting father. The Angel still looked warily at her round belly, but he waited on the bitch hand and foot. And repugnantly, the bitch seemed to like it. Cas made sure the woman had food. There was a lot of pizza. The deliveries made Dagon jumpy. It was a defense detail every time someone skirted the front of the house. The insistence on food also kept them moving more frequently. Dagon felt like a soldier in a battalion of three–well, two. Kelly was pretty much useless, but after The Brat’s appearance, Dagon didn’t have any rank to pull. Except…there was only one other person that could right this ship.
Lucifer
Dagon slinked towards the measly kitchen where the sow was picking at a pitiful meal. Castiel would be there–as he always was, but she couldn’t change that right now. Not with the brat on alert. She leaned against the chipped doorframe and pinched her face into a tight smile. It hurt her cheeks.
“Kel,” she tried speaking in a soothing tone, but Castiel’s glare told her she wasn’t as velvet as she had hoped. “You need to rest, too,” she paused, “Sweetie.” Fuck it, she thought. Kelly raised her eyebrows. Her face was still pale and sweaty. Humans. Still, she looked microscopically better than before the spawn’s little temper tantrum. Kelly looked back at Castiel’s sour face. Dagon ignored the shade and held a gallant hand out to Kelly. Kelly looked between the two fairly odd-parents and took Dagon’s hand, unsure of what else she could do in this situation. Castiel stood up before Dagon pulled the woman to her feet. Gently even. Dagon held her hand out for the mother’s other hand. Kelly’s eyes bulged at the weird gentleness. Dagon held her hands like they were delicate porcelain and then squeezed with what was supposed to be encouragement. Kelly winced.
“We will get through this,” Dagon said with a painful cheeriness. Kelly searched the Prince’s eyes for any trace of sarcasm or cruelty only to look at their entwined hands with confusion. Castiel stood next to the woman, protectively. Dagon glided to Kelly’s other side.
“Now now, Angel,” Dagon purred and held the small of Kelly’s aching back with one hand. The other she laid across Kelly’s swollen belly. Castiel sneered and mirrored her. Angrily. Protectively, as ever. Dagon smiled brilliantly.
“Together…we may just raise a domesticated demon,” she chirped and peered up at Castiel with a small smile. Castiel seethed. She had meant it as a light-hearted joke. The joke was obviously lost on the angel. Tight ass as ever. But Kelly beamed, wearily, and tucked her thin hands under the great bulge.
The bitch really thinks it's gonna be different this time, Dagon thought. Castiel sneered and guided the mother towards the dirty bedroom with one hand on her back.
Dagon smirked and snorted through her nose, arms crossed as she watched them leave. Castiel thinks he’s helping, Dagon thought, smugly, But now she’s just more docile. And that makes things ten times easier–for me.
Castiel
In the bedroom, Castiel helped Kelly lie down on her side. He arranged the paltry blankets around her chilled legs and goosepimpled arms. Kelly’s eyes fluttered closed almost immediately. Child bearing is exhausting. Castiel knew this just from observing the human experience. The growth of a nephilim must be so much more difficult to bear. The mother was either too hot or too cold. Too hungry or not hungry at all, but he noticed a weak happiness in her smile now when she picked at her meal and Cas scowled with loving disapproval. He worried about her. Jack was unavoidable, but a variable they still didn’t quite understand. If they ever could. But Kelly looked drained and he knew a nephilim birth…well, the lore tells that it never ended well for the mother. An unavoidable death for her bothered him and felt terribly unjust. He grisled on the hard truth, but set it aside. Another day, he consoled himself.
“The demon doesn’t want me here,” Castiel’s gravelly voice stirred Kelly from her light slumber. She turned to face him. Stiffly. He sat in the dusty chair that inhabited the corner of their most recent slum and what was Kelly’s room for now. She dozed during the gray days and she slept most of her time now. Fitfully some nights, but her gloom had noticeably lifted a bit with Jack’s prenatal appearance. Castiel hoped she felt protected under his watch. Even briefly. They had witnessed just a fraction of her son’s power and neither of them feared Dagon any more, but they knew Kelly was still vulnerable. Weak. Burdened. But the burden didn’t seem to weigh as heavily on her anymore. She knew Castiel was still wary, but he couldn’t deny Jack’s goodness. The–boy–had said as much, too. No matter how slim the proof of that goodness may be…for now. He had spared Dagon. He had spared Kelly so far. Protected her. He had asked Castiel for help. A powerful being that could slam a Prince of Hell against the wall like a broken doll. Lucifer’s son. The boy had expressed fear, but not of his father. A fear of being lost. A fear of–the world. And for an angel that had rebelled against Heaven and his own brethren, Castiel understood that fear. The paralyzing fear of isolation. Not physical isolation per se, but the isolation that comes from being the only one of your kind. The isolation of being alone in a sea of humanity and wielding enough power to destroy them all–but not wanting to.
Castiel understood this and he ached for the unborn child’s devastation. How Jack will be thrust into the role of his father’s lackey. His father’s soldier. An annihilator. Castiel understood the grave matters Jack would be facing. And still there was so much more he didn’t. He felt woefully inadequate with his new charge, but his trust for anyone, even the Winchesters, had evaporated. Humans don’t react well to fear.
Maybe Dean… his thoughts trailed off and he was struck with an inane guilt to be thinking about Dean’s reception of the boy in Kelly’s presence. She didn’t trust the Winchesters either. She understood immediately that her son wouldn’t be well understood and by the monster hunters the least. Cas knew they were working on plan C, D and E. All the way through Z. Each plan gradually becoming more desperate and far-fetched than the previous one.
“They can’t be trusted,” he said aloud. Kelly squinted sleepily at him from her sodden bed. A broken mattress on an even more broken bedframe. He felt a flash of anger. She shouldn’t be here. Like this. He squinted menacingly at the mother. Kelly cocked her head slightly, not understanding his statement or the dark flash across his face. Castiel looked back at the door. His face changed again to a stony resolution and Kelly let her breath out. She had been holding it unsure of where her guardian’s thoughts were traveling. Castiel met her eyes and reached a hand towards her sallow arm.
A blinding white light filled the dismal room and shot through the boarded up windows like a nuclear explosion.
Dagon screamed. Angry. Vengeful.
Kelly
Castiel would be his father, Kelly knew. When Jack took control of her body she had felt a flood of warmth like the warmest of bubble baths and the serenity of uninterrupted rest after a long work week. She knew he was good. She knew he would protect her. She just doubted her own physical integrity. She wasn’t sure how he would protect her from his own birth, but she wanted to believe it. Castiel was hesitant, but she didn’t doubt his dedication to protecting Jack. She felt a tiny prickle of worry when she considered what Jack’s life will be like…without her. She knew Cas would go back to the Winchesters. To Dean. And she didn’t blame him. Parenting alone under any circumstances feels overwhelming. Devastating. He’d seek the support he’s always known. But she hoped, no, prayed that Jack would be accepted and loved. She didn’t want Castiel to make any promises he couldn’t keep and she knew better than to underestimate her son’s strength. Or the wiles of her son’s enemies. She sighed.
“Or people who think they know him,” she said aloud. Castiel looked over at her with a furrow in his lined forehead. She smiled ruefully. He was an angel. He had found a worthy vessel. And yet, he didn’t banish the little signs of age and wear. He could. It was within his power. She smiled again. That little detail made her trust him more. Jack was already so much like him. Even if Castiel didn’t trust himself quite yet. Castiel waited patiently behind the steering wheel for an explanation as they rolled down the road in his old truck. Dagon wouldn’t be tricked for long. Lucifer would be furious. She looked out the window and rolled the glass down enough to wash her face in the slipstream of Castiel’s old truck. Jack had facilitated his own escape. Castiel was indeed a worthy guardian. His angelic being tucked within this care worn vessel was a perfect complement to Jack’s newborn cosmic energy.
She felt good. She felt safe. Even the imminent pursuit by Dagon seemed miniscule compared to a clean cabin by a lake. Castiel and Jack had teleported them safely away in less than a blink of an eye. Cas then found a neat cabin for rent and used a credit card to book it for the next three months.
He wasn’t hiding. Not really. And his boldness made her feel a well of gratitude. She might even be able to eat. Jack couldn’t cure all her gestational ailments. She reached across the boxy cabin and squeezed Castiel’s stalwart forearm. Then patted it like an appreciative partner.
She didn’t know what was going to happen next, but she knew they were in the best place they could be. Together.