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Getting knocked out by himself wasn’t the strangest thing that has ever happened to Dean, but it was definitely up there. Waking up handcuffed across from himself is just par for the course after that, really.
Thankfully, the story about Rhonda Hurley’s panties is enough to stop Other Dean from ganking him. The rest of the conversation about how the world’s gone to shit is considerably less fun. And Dean doesn’t miss how Other Dean freezes when he mentions Sam, or how his scent sours slightly. That combined with the fact they haven’t spoken in five years makes Dean’s stomach sink. Sure they weren’t speaking now, but how could Dean have left him to die alone at the end of the world? How could he have ever decided not to look for him?
He has so many questions his brain is about to overflow, but Other Dean is clearly done with him, as he starts to stand up.
“Where are you going?” Dean asks.
“I got to run an errand.”
“Whoa. You’re just going to leave me here?”
“Yes,” Other Dean’s jacket rides up as he hooks his gun back into his belt, and that’s when Dean notices it. His hips are wider than Dean’s, noticeably so. It isn’t fat; the end of the world has made Other Dean skinnier if anything. Which means it has to be the bones, and there’s only one thing that can restructure a male omega’s pelvic floor like that. “I got a camp full of twichy trauma survivors out there with--”
“We have a kid?” Dean asks incredulously, cutting him off. He can’t imagine himself popping out a pup in the present, and he lives in a world that still has essentials like law and order and Dr. Sexy MD. Having a kid in this world? He can’t fathom any version of himself deciding that was a good idea.
Other Dean curses and pulls his jacket tight around him, but it’s too late. Dean’s seen. There’s no denying it.
“Why the hell do we have a kid?” Dean prods further.
“I don’t know if you noticed, but you can’t exactly pop to the corner store to buy condoms anymore,” Other Dean huffs. “He was an accident.”
“He?” Dean blinks. “We have a boy? Is he an omega too?”
“There is no ‘we’,” Other Dean says gruffly. “Stop asking questions.”
“Oh c’mon, tell me his name at least.”
Other Dean pauses for a long moment. “Robert.”
“Bobby?” Dean smiles. “We named our kid after Bobby?”
Other Dean ignores him, but if he thinks that’s going to discourage Dean, then he doesn’t know himself very well.
“Where is he?”
“With his father.”
“He doesn’t live with you?” Dean furrows his eyebrows. “Why not? You’re his mother.”
Other Dean opens the door. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“At least tell me who the father is!” Dean yells, but all he gets in response is the slamming of the door.
“Dick,” Dean mutters. His brain’s going a mile a minute. He’s never imagined himself having a kid. Never. He’s screwed a lot of alphas in his time, sure, but he’s always been careful. The pill plus condoms careful. There’s no place for a kid in his life. He knows that from his childhood, and he’ll be dead before he has time to settle down. It’s never been a fact he’s mourned much. He’s always figured that looking out for Sammy growing up has given him enough of the motherhood experience. Sometimes the appetizer is all you need, not the main course.
But the evidence is staring him in the face; sometime in the next five years, he’s going to get knocked up, and he’s going to keep it. Jesus Christ.
He can’t pry the nail out of the floorboards faster. Other Dean was stupid to leave only one hand cuffed; he’s out in less than a minute. Chuck Shirley of all people stops him at the door to ask about supplies, and Dean desperately wants to ask about his kid and mystery baby daddy, but he figures that would set off too many alarm bells. Chuck had already looked oddly at his hips, though his jacket hid their slenderness for the most part.
Then he barely misses a slug from an omega woman he quickly learns is named Risa, who’s jilted about Other Dean sleeping with another woman. Good to know some things don’t change. He’s always liked other omegas, but it makes sense to prefer them in this future; no chance of baby #2 there, not from his own womb at least.
After Risa stalks off angrily, Dean thinks of the one person who he could ask about his kid without raising an alarm. Plus about the end of the world, but that’s starting to feel secondary. “Hey Chuck, is Cas still here?”
* * *
Cas is still here, all right. But he sure as hell isn’t his Cas.
“Excuse me, dames,” Castiel says from the middle of his… prayer group? Cult meeting? “I think I need to confer with our fearless leader for a minute. Why not get washed up for the orgy?”
The what? A week ago Dean was trying (and failing) to get this guy laid for the first time. Now he was leading orgies? The world really was ending.
The omegas and beta women leave, and Castiel stands and stretches with a grunt. His new rough beard doesn’t make him look unattractive, not at all, but Dean still finds it unnerving. His Cas is the definition of prim and proper; Dean barely sees him with a hair out of place. This Castiel looks like he struggles to get out of bed in the morning.
“What are you, a hippie?” Dean asks. That’s certainly what it seems like, with the beaded door and the smell of mary jane in the air.
“I thought you’d gotten over trying to label me,” Castiel sighs. Then he takes one look at Dean’s hips, and his eyes widen. “Whoa. You… are not you. Not now you, anyway.”
“No! Yeah. Yes, exactly,” Dean says, relieved not to go through the whole “time travel” routine again. He gives Castiel the sparknotes of the situation, and then Castiel tells him that he can’t take him back to the past. No dice. He’s stuck here until Zacariah decides to stop fucking with him.
There goes item one on the docket. Now for number two. “I don’t suppose you know who my baby daddy is, do you?”
He knows they’re probably someone he’s never heard of before, but he’s curious. Sue him. He just hopes they’re a looker, or at least good in bed. Being saddled with an apocalypse baby from a bad lay would be a tragedy.
A multitude of emotions flickers across Castiel’s face. “You should probably tell you that.”
“I’m not going to tell me anything, looks like,” Dean replies. “C’mon Cas. Other Dean said that he lives with his dad. Just point me to the cabin.”
“I can’t,” Castiel says, and Dean sees a flicker of his Cas in him, in the way he says the words like there can be no further argument. As if that’s ever worked on Dean.
“Can’t? What, are you stoned?” Dean asks. It'd check out; Castiel’s eyes are a little bloodshot, and he’s unsteady on his feet.
Castiel shrugs. “Not currently.”
“What happened to you?” Dean can perfectly understand how an apocalypse would turn himself into a dick, but he’s really struggling to understand how his Cas could ever turn into this.
“Life.”
Dean shakes his head. He wants to prod further, but he can tell that even this version of Castiel is tight-lipped when he wants to be. Screw it. He’ll just wander around camp until he catches his pup’s scent. Surely that couldn’t be too difficult, if the pup is here. Biology usually made that easy; he could catch Sam’s scent from two miles away.
Just as he pulls open the beads, he hears the pitter-patter of feet on the floor above them. What sounds like small feet. He lets the beads fall back.
“Oh shit,” Castiel curses as a pup bursts into the room.
He’s a little alpha boy with black curls and green eyes, no older than two, and Dean knows. He knows it’s his pup, that this is Bobby, that this is a part of him. He barely has to look at him, barely has to catch his scent in the air. It’s terrifying how much emotion arises within him from that alone.
“Mommy!” Bobby yells as he wraps his arms around Dean’s leg. Hearing that title be applied to him is like being dumped with ice water.
Dean picks Bobby up without thinking, and Bobby cuddles right into his arms. The pup clings to him, burying his face in Dean’s scent gland. Dean holds him close on instinct, and it feels right, even as he can feel his instincts twisting in confusion at both knowing that this pup is his and knowing that he’s never been pregnant. A real riddle for any omega.
It’s such an emotional rollercoaster that it takes Dean a long time to think about what the hell the kid’s doing in Castiel’s cabin. Other Dean had told him Bobby was with his father, after all, so why—
Holy shit.
Dean turns to stare at Castiel with wide eyes. Castiel rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. Castiel, angel of the lord, the father of his child. The world ending makes more sense. There’s no fucking way.
“When did this happen?” Dean asks.
“Bobby?”
“Us,” Dean clarifies. “If there is an us?” Bobby could’ve been result of a one-time thing. There were plenty of opportunities to be caught up in a heat or rut in the apocalypse, Dean could imagine.
“Started about four years ago,” Castiel replies. “After Detroit. Bobby was two years later.”
“So we’re…?”
“No,” Castiel replies. “Not really. Just for your heats, nowadays.”
“But we were?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve always been such a descriptive speaker, Cas,” Dean laughs on instinct, but he still feels more shock than anything else.
“One of the things you love me for.”
It’s absurd. It’s completely absurd, but Dean can see how it happened. He’s always thought Castiel was attractive, ever since he’d walked into that barn. And maybe, maybe he’d spent a large part of his last heat thinking of blue eyes and large hands to match the imprint on his shoulder. Add in a Cas that’s lost his angel-attitude towards sex in a world with limited contraceptives? It doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots.
“So angels can get humans pregnant, huh?” Dean asks. He’s always assumed they couldn’t.
“It’s complicated. But I couldn’t. Until I could,” Castiel sighs. “I’m more human than angel these days.”
“You’re not an angel anymore?” Dean’s eyes widen.
“All the angels left, and they left me behind. My grace went with them,” Castiel’s scent sours. “Left me all-mortal and all too capable of fathering children.”
Well, that explains how Bobby happened. Other Dean probably figured that being an angel was enough of a contraceptive. Made Castiel the perfect apocalypse heat partner, until he wasn’t.
Bobby’s stayed silent, but he’s still clinging to Dean like he’s at risk of blowing away. “He really loves me, huh?”
“He’s not used to seeing you.”
Dean freezes. “I’m a deadbeat mom?”
“I wouldn’t phrase it that way,” Castiel sighs. “More like you have a complicated relationship with motherhood. One that prevents you from being as present as you could be.”
“That’s just a longer way of saying deadbeat,” Dean shakes his head. He can’t imagine it. He knows exactly how hard it is growing up without a mom. How could any version of himself do that to his own kid?
“You got unlucky,” Castiel says. “Very unlucky. It’d be easier, I think, if he wasn’t an alpha boy.”
Hmm. Dean buries his head in Bobby’s hair and gets a good whiff of his scent, and that’s when it clicks.
Bobby doesn’t have his own scent yet. He won’t for years. But pups are born with their familial scents, an evolutionary quirk to make sure relatives care for them. Bobby smells a lot like Castiel, all cherry blossoms and sparks, but the scent of Winchester oil and smoke dominates it. And that part of his scent, Winchester and alpha and male? It makes him smell just like Sammy did when he was Bobby’s age. So much so that when Dean closes his eyes, he feels like he’s six years old again, trying to rock him to sleep.
Something has to have happened in Detroit. There has to be something Dean doesn’t know. Guilt couldn’t be enough for him to leave the entire task of raising his son to a drug addict.
“What, did I just pass him to you right after birth and fuck off?” Dean asks.
“No. You waited until you were done breastfeeding. I’ve barely slept since,” Castiel laughs humourlessly. “You pop in about once a week.”
“That’s it?”
“You try,” Castiel says. “It’s fine. Bobby’s good for me. He keeps me sober."
"He does?" Dean quirks an eyebrow.
Castiel shrugs. "For the most part.”
Dean snorts. “Oh, this is so screwed up.”
“Can’t argue with you there,” Castiel steps forward and takes Bobby out of Dean’s arms. Dean’s almost reluctant to let him go. “Now, somebody should be taking a nap.”
“But Mommy’s here!” Bobby protests, squirming to still try and reach at Dean.
“He’ll be back,” Castiel kisses the top of Bobby’s head, and Dean would be lying to himself if he said the sight of Castiel acting all paternal with their pup didn’t do something to him. “Let’s go.”
Castiel carries Bobby back up the stairs, rebutting all of the pup’s protests with every step. Dean slips out of the beaded door before his instincts compel him to follow.
He’s too late to stop Other Dean from killing his own man in cold blood, but Other Dean does let him sit in on the mission plan to kill the Devil. Well, it’s less of a mission plan and more of a suicide pact, but it’s clear that whatever Other Dean says goes. And Dean’s along for the ride, even when Other Dean explains that the Devil is inside Sam, and that they’re not going to save him. They’re going to kill him. It explains a lot, but Dean doesn’t believe him. He can’t believe him, not until he sees it with his own eyes.
They’re all loaded up when Castiel returns from his cabin, smelling of Bobby.
“Let’s go,” Other Dean instructs.
Dean gives him a hard look. “You’re going on a suicide mission and you’re not going to say goodbye to your own kid?”
“The best thing I can do for Bobby is kill the devil,” Other Dean says curtly, his scent guarded. “And that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Seriously?” Dean shakes his head. Bobby may not be his kid, not really, but he’s not letting him go without saying goodbye. “Screw that.”
He makes his way into Castiel’s cabin, ignoring Other Dean’s protests. Bobby is sitting with Chuck, playing some kind of clapping game. He runs at Dean immediately.
Dean gives him a big hug. “I’m going away for a little bit, okay?”
Bobby nods. “Daddy told me.”
“Yeah?” Dean smiles. “I love you, okay? I love you so much. I want you to know that.”
“Okay,” Bobby nods. He’s only two years old; he probably won’t even remember this. But it’s better than nothing. It’s better than what Dean got.
Dean kisses him on the forehead, and then he returns to the trucks.
It’s a shitshow. Other Dean knocks him out again, all because he didn’t want to throw his own people to the dogs, and when he awakens he rushes into the garden just in time to see himself die. Murdered by Lucifer, using Sammy as a meat puppet.
Seeing Sammy like that is, possibly, the worst thing Dean’s ever seen. It tugs at the same part of him that was shaken by Bobby’s scent. Seeing something with Sammy’s face, his scent, his body, all so familiar and yet utterly foreign, is worse than anything Alaistair did to him in Hell. Nothing should be allowed to use his packmate like that, his brother. When he promises to kill Lucifer, his voice shakes with a rage that feels instinctual and primal. He’s still shaking when Zachariah brings him back to the hotel room in sweet, sweet 2009.
Zachariah smiles at him, clearly convinced that his little weekend getaway was enough to change Dean’s mind. The look on his face when Dean still says ‘Nah’ to being used like a muppet by some angel bastard is worth a hundred bucks. “‘Nah’? You’re telling me you still haven’t learned your lesson?”
“Oh, I’ve learned a lesson, all right. Just not the one you wanted to teach.”
Zacariah almost turns red with rage. “Well, I’ll just have to teach it again! Because I got you now, boy, and I’m never letting you--”
Dean blinks, and he’s standing at the edge of a road. Cas is waiting for him. Beautiful, beautiful Cas, looking perfect and put-together in his trench coat. He looks like he’s never heard of marijuana or methamphetamines in his life. Dean could kiss him.
Maybe he could. He’d never had a chance to ask Apocalypse Castiel when he’d started wanting Dean. The missed opportunity of the ages.
“That’s pretty nice timing, Cas.”
“We had an appointment.”
Dean stares at him. Cas. His friend. His future baby daddy. What a life.
He puts a hand on Cas’ shoulder. “Don’t ever change.”
Cas looks at him confusedly, and Dean catches him up to speed (sans baby) before pulling out his phone. He’s learned his lesson, all right. There’s no way he’s letting a future come to pass where he can barely look at his own damn kid because he reminds him of his brother. Where he’s so jaded he’s willing to sacrifice the father of his child in a botched attempt of a coherent plan. Where he acts just like his dad.
He calls Sam.