For fecundfic: "Common as a winter cold," SPN, Dean/OFC
Title: Common as a winter cold
Author: annalazarus
Rating: R
Warnings: Pregnancy. Sex.
Disclaimer: Dean's not real, and he's not mine. Also? I have no money.
Notes: Thanks to Monkie and Susan for saying things like "Where the hell is Sam?" and "There's no apostrophe here, Miss Fancy School English Degree." Title from Neko Case's song That Teenage Feeling. Kath comes from this story. There's a silly little post-story bit here.

She was pissed. She was pissed and she was yelling, although what, Dean didn’t know. He was too busy focusing on the swinging, double-sided ax in her hands.

“Point that thing somewhere else!” he yelled. “And chill the fuck out, would you?”

“I nearly had to shoot you!” she hollered right back.

“Eh.” Dean shrugged. “That shit happens all the time.”

She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. That was a very bad sign.

Dean put his hands up, said, “Hey. Kathleen. I know this wasn’t the job you signed up for. I swear, I thought it was just one succubus, not a fucking nest.”

Kath gave him another dark look and Dean seriously wished he could remember anything that happened after they stepped into the succubus’s... well, the lair, he guessed. If you could call a suburban split-level half an hour outside of Vegas a ‘lair.’

Sammy was in the hospital with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the arm, the only thing he could think of to get himself out of the demon’s thrall. Sam told Dean the succubus was alone. She must’ve been hiding Sam from her sisters in the same way Dean used to hide Cheez-Its from Sam when they were kids.

“Anyway,” Dean continued. “They’re all dead, we’re okay, and you got yourself a spiffy new ax. Good deal, right?”

Kath cleared her throat, dropped her voice, and said, “It’ll take ten minutes, Kath. We’ll get in and out, and I’ll buy you a nice dinner.” Her hands and arms were shaking a little as she came down from the adrenaline rush. “You’re a fucking moron, you know that?”

“Yeah,” Dean said. “I do. But hey, I bet the casino buffets are still open if you’re up for that dinner.”

She laughed, rubbed a hand over her face. “Get in the car,” she said.

Dean went to reach for the driver’s side door, but Kathleen caught his arm. “The backseat,” she ordered.

He reached for her, but she grabbed his wrist, slammed it against the roof of the car, her breath coming hard. “You owe me,” she said. “Backseat. Pants down. No attempts at meaningful conversation afterward.”

Dean grinned, remembered why Kath was maybe his favorite girl ever. She was all action, no talk. Sometimes he wondered what it’d be like to drop Sammy off with Kath's brothers, throw her over his shoulder and take her on the road with him for a few weeks. Just hunting and fucking, and maybe even a few days spent in bed just rubbing her back and making her laugh.

Fond thoughts of Kath curvy and warm in his motel bed were probably as close to domestic as Dean got, and he was perfectly happy to take whatever she gave him, which at this moment was angry car sex. He could always roll with that.

Dean undid his pants, watching as she pulled off her shirt and unwound the bandage that bound her breasts with a pleased sigh. Dean was hard, had been since the succubi had put the goddamn whammy on him, but now it was finally accompanied by real, honest arousal, the want washing through him like warm water.

He looked at her scars to distract himself, thinking otherwise he’d say something stupid about her beauty, which she’d think was a line, which would really piss her off. She had far fewer marks than he did, partly because hunting was her hobby rather than her job, and partly because she hunted with two freakishly large brothers instead of just one.

He’d touched all of her scars over the years, licked the one on her neck every time he got the chance. Yet somehow he still turned into a grinning idiot whenever she took her shirt off for him.

She caught sight of his smile, sighed and shook her head, but Dean still caught the quick upward curve of her lips. She pushed him hard against the back of the seat with both hands and crawled across his lap. She was naked and Dean had only pushed his jeans and underwear down to his knees. She helped him out of his jacket and t-shirt, muttered “better,” and pressed herself to him, sighing and arching her back.

Dean ran his hands up her sides, pushed her back a little so he could get his mouth on her. He was perfectly content to nuzzle and suck at her breasts for as long as she’d let him while she petted at his hair. She smelled like roses and bread dough. He licked a stripe up her sternum, bit at the hollow of her neck.

She was making little whimpery noises, which was weird, because if Kathleen wasn’t screaming outright, she was usually shoving Dean around and telling him what to do. Dean pulled back, asked, “You all right?”

She gave him a strange look--startled, annoyed, with something darker behind it. “Yeah,” she said. “What’d I say about conversation?”

He tried to kiss her, but she rocked forward, pressing his face to her chest again. He heard her breathe out sharply as she sank onto his dick, her thighs snug against his hips.

It was quick, nothing mind-blowing, but Dean knew Kath was just fucking him to make sure he was okay. It was all right. Having her strong body in his arms was reassuring for Dean too. He let her lead, closing his eyes and kissing at whatever bit of her skin was within reach.

Afterward, they found a 24-hour In-&-Out burger, and Kath rested her head on Dean’s shoulder while she inhaled two burgers and a milkshake. There was no meaningful conversation.


Four months later, Sam and Dean rolled into what Dean fondly thought of as Murphy Territory. Kath, Jimmy and Pat hunted most of the baddies in the Arizona/New Mexico area, which was fine by Dean since all the prefab houses and perfectly manicured lawns surrounded by desert in those states gave him the creeps. It wasn’t natural.

They were between hunts, and Dean waited for Sam to suggest that maybe the Murphys might want some company on their next one. They both knew it was code for, Hey, if we call them, maybe they’ll feed us, and Dean went along with it willingly. He liked the boys, even if they were a little too quick with the manly arm punching, and it’d been too long since he’d seen Kath.

Sam called Jimmy, who of course offered to have them over for dinner, and then promised that they could also count on a few more meals before they left town. Since the Murphys were all gainfully employed, the Winchesters had an afternoon to kill. Sam headed to the library to look for their next case, and Dean went over to Kathleen’s.

She had a little annex on her house, built by Jimmy, that served as her shop. Dean walked in and smiled at the trill of the bell above the door. It was all so normal. Girl had them all fooled.

Kath was standing behind a crabby looking old lady, fussing with the woman’s thinning white hair and discussing gardening. Kath smiled at Dean and the old lady scowled. Dean raised an eyebrow back at her and noted that Kath looked like she’d put on a little weight since he last saw her. He thought maybe he’d tell her that that’s what happened when you did too much haircutting and not enough hunting. Then maybe she’d hit him, and they’d end up having sex.

He sat in one of the comfy chairs near the door, flipped through the perfumy women’s magazines. He looked up when the old lady stood and Kath came out from behind the barber’s chair.

Dean felt his mouth drop, and then snapped it shut again at the thin-lipped scowl Kath gave him.

She was pregnant. Well, either that or she’d gone on an all carb diet. Pregnancy seemed marginally more likely. Kathleen Murphy, pregnant. Dean was trying to form an opinion on this fact, but all his brain would supply him with was, Fuckin’ weird, man.

Which was exactly what he said when Kathleen’s client finally left and she said, “Well, what do you think?”

She laughed, and Dean was glad that she seemed happy. He never would have guessed her for the mothering type, but her motto in life had always been, Sure. Why the hell not? and he figured that was as good an approach to parenting as any. Jesus. Kathleen: a mom. It was gonna take a while to get used to.

She offered to make him a sandwich. He accepted, even though he wasn’t that hungry. He figured eating would keep him occupied so that all the stupid thoughts going through his head didn’t come out of his mouth. Are you scared? Are you uncomfortable? Is there seriously a small person growing inside of you? Seriously? Who’s the dad? Have your brothers threatened to kneecap him? Do you love him? What do you look like naked now? He chewed very deliberately until he regained his equilibrium and said, “Man, Kath. I leave you alone for a couple of months, and look at how much trouble you get into.”

She half-smiled, turned to put the tea kettle on the stove and said, “Actually, eighteen weeks.”

Dean paused, mid-chew. He didn’t want to ask the question, but he wasn’t stupid. He was also quite fond of his kneecaps. “And, uh, how far along are you?”

She’d barely finished saying, “Four and a half months,” before he heard himself say, “Kathleen!” sounding much harsher to his ears than he intended. He wished he’d just kept eating the damn sandwich and hadn’t asked.

She wrapped her arms around herself, said defensively, “It’s not. You don’t. I just.” She put her hands to her face, “Shit. I really should have prepared a speech or something.”

Dean waited. Kath peeked out from between her fingers, said, “I kept having nightmares of telling you over the phone, and you driving off the road, or jumping in the car and driving way too fast to get here. Or,” she took a shaky breath, “driving way too fast to get away from me. Anyway. All the scenarios I could think of where I told you over the phone ended with you in a hideous, flaming car accident, so, sorry, but I just had to wait for you.” Her voice was strained, and Dean wondered if she was expecting him to yell at her.

He stared, wished he could think of something to say to get that tone out of her voice, get that miserable look off her face. He wanted to rewind to the part where she was laughing at him. “I’m not mad,” he finally said, unable to come up with anything else. “You seem, I mean, you seem okay, so I just. I’m happy for you,” he finished lamely.

She sighed, a little bit of the tension leaving her shoulders, though she still looked worried. The kettle whistled and she turned to take it off of the heat, resting her free hand on her belly.

She was wearing a flowy, flowered top and threadbare jeans. Her hair was loose and tucked behind her ears.

Dean had the sudden and overwhelming urge to tell her that everything was going to be all right, that he’d stay and get a job as a mechanic, or work for Jimmy. That he’d take care of her forever and never let anything bad happen to her.

He shook his head, dizzy, said, “Kathleen, you know I’ll do whatever you want me to do, right?”

She smiled. “I know. And I wish I had any fucking clue what I want you to do.”

“We’ll call it a standing offer, then.”

She grinned, big and wide, then put a hand to her face, said, “Shit. I’m getting teary. I get teary all the fucking time now. It’s so stupid.”

Dean stood, walked over and put his arms around her. She nuzzled into his neck and Dean decided that this was not the time for him to freak out. Right now, Kath needed him, and he knew what to do about that.

“Hey, Kath, hey.” He took her face in her hands, did his best to look utterly sincere. “Sweetheart. I want to see you naked.”

She laughed so hard she got spit on his face, but it was all right, because she grabbed his arms and dragged him right to the bedroom.

“If you laugh at my underwear? I’ll kill you,” she said pulling her shirt over her head.

Dean was too mesmerized by Kath’s magically inflated breasts to say anything, which was probably a good thing, since it looked like he could probably build an industrial strength slingshot with her panties.

He stripped to his boxers, took Kath’s hand, and said, “Lay on your back, okay?”

“I feel a little fat, you know?” she laughed as she rested herself on the pillows.

Dean leaned forward and kissed her. “You’re gorgeous.”

He ran his hands down her arms, touched the skin of her hips, then began tracing the curve of her belly, surprised that though she looked so soft, she still felt strong, solid. He palmed her breasts, smiled at her hum of pleasure.

She opened her eyes as he was stroking the soft skin just above her collar bones. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said, sounding surprised at herself.

Dean looked away, embarrassed. He leaned over to replace his fingers with his mouth, kissing all over her chest. She sighed, threaded her fingers into his hair.

Dean reached down, slid his hand between her legs. He found her slick and soft and pressed two fingers into her, easy as breathing. She moaned and arched, and after just a few strokes, she shuddered and came, flooding his hand with warm wetness.

Dean looked up at Kath, who was trying to catch her breath. “Well,” she said. “I think that’s probably nature’s way of making up for the morning sickness.” She caught his face in her hands, giggled as she kissed him. “Come on,” she said, hitching up her legs. “You obviously don’t have to bother looking for a condom.”

He fucked her with his eyes open, memorizing the sweet curve of her lips, the way she pushed her shoulders down so she could rock against him. Her hands fluttered at his sides, finally coming to rest on his hips, her thumbs stroking the muscle there.

They hadn’t had sex in this bed since the first night he met her, nearly a decade ago, while Sammy was still at school. The next morning, she’d made him breakfast, programmed her number into his phone, and told him she didn’t expect him to call.

Dean had been staring down the end of Pat Murphy’s gun the next time he saw her. She’d laughed as Dean tried to convince Pat he wasn’t a werewolf. She’d refused to bail him out just because he couldn’t remember her name.

Now she was lying next to him, her head on her chest, her stomach pressing against his side.

“Can you feel it kick?” he asked.

“Not really, not yet,” she replied. “I get, like, flutters. It’s kind of neat, actually.”

They lay in silence for a bit. “Will you call me when it starts kicking?” he asked softly, feeling sleep tugging at him.

“Yeah,” she said, "Yeah, I will."

Kathleen woke him up an hour later, told him to go find Sam and meet her at Jimmy's house.

"And don't act like an idiot," she said. "I haven't told them and they haven't asked, so let's try not to make a scene, okay?"

"Spoken like a true Catholic girl," Dean muttered.

"I'm going to ignore that comment because my doctor tells me it wouldn't be a good idea for me to kick the shit out of anyone while in my delicate condition. Tell Sam I say hi."

Dean was fine until he pulled out of Kathleen's driveway. Then it hit him hard. He got short of breath and had to pull over and rest his head against the steering wheel. This was not going to work. Parenthood was, like, forever. Forever was not Dean's strong suit. He couldn't do this. But he couldn't not do it either. Kath'd kill him. He'd kill himself. Fucking rock and a hard place.

He realized he had to pull himself together before he picked up Sam, because, Jesus, he did not want to discuss this with Sam right now.

Sam swung into the Impala, buckled up, and said, "So, did she tell you?"

"Tell me what?" Dean said before his brain kicked in. "Ah, fuck! She told you? Jesus, Sam." He didn't even know what to say. "Jesus."

"Hey, so I get to be an uncle!" Sam said happily.

Dean dropped his head to the steering wheel again. "You think I should marry her?" he said.

"Do you want to?" Dean thought maybe he should be insulted at how shocked Sam sounded.

Dean shrugged. "It wouldn't have occurred to me if she wasn't pregnant, so I guess not, but I feel like I should do something, you know?"

"Well," Sam said slowly. "We don't have to travel every week of the year. If you wanted to make Arizona our home base, you could still hunt and see Kath and the baby whenever."

"Yeah," Dean said, sort of glad he had Sam there to think for him. He felt all sorts of exhausted all of a sudden. "But, man, think about our work. What if I get killed?"

Sam was silent for a bit, then said, "What if we'd grown up to be firefighters? Would you be asking me the same question right now?"

"You and your stupid hypothetical questions," Dean muttered and found that was all he wanted to say on the subject. "I don't know. Let's just try to get through dinner without Jimmy or Pat pulling a gun on me, okay?"

Dinner was fine, and Jimmy and Pat didn't even blink when Dean said he was getting over the flu to explain his lack of appetite. In fact, Pat said, "S'okay. Kath'll eat whatever you don't," leading her to throw a roll at him, him to throw it back, and that was the end of that conversation.

Dean left Sam at Jimmy's house and went home with Kathleen. They didn't talk in the car, and when they got to the house, all Kath said was, "Hey, bring your guns in," before heading for the front door.

When Dean came in with a duffle full of assorted rifles and pistols, Kath had gotten out the rags and oil and was carefully cleaning her own guns. He sat down next to her and started doing the same.

By the time Kath kissed him on the cheek and said, "I'm going to take a shower and go to bed. Meet me there," Dean knew things were going to be all right. Weird and probably fucked up by anyone else's standards, but all right.


A month and a half later, Dean left Sam with Jo and Ellen and drove out to see Kath. On the way there he tried to figure out how to tell her that sometimes he daydreamed about holding a baby girl in the frilliest little pink dress in the world and accepting compliments on her cuteness by saying, “She gets it from her mom.” Or that he’d already started threatening to murder Sam if Uncle Sammy ever told the kid even one-quarter of the shit Dean got up to as a teenager. Or that if she didn’t have a rocking chair, she should get one, because he was probably going to want to sit in it and sing to the baby. Though he figured he’d have to get that last one across in hand gestures, because he sure as hell was never saying it out loud.

He’d been calling Kathleen pretty much every night, suggesting names.

“Snake.”
“No.”
“Conan.”
“No!”
“Rambo.”
“Okay, first of all, Rambo was his last name, and secondly NO. Try girls.”
“Gertrude.”
“Dean? Have you recently hit your head?”
“No. I figure if we give her a really lame name, guys won’t ever hit on her. What do you think?”
“I think I’m hanging up now.”

She met him at the door looking like she’d been sucking on a lemon. “You look like Sam,” he said before he could catch himself.

“Your child spent all of last night kicking the hell out of me.”

Dean grinned. “Awesome! We’ve created a kickboxing champion.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? I was a good fetus! This is all the fault of your damn overactive genes.”

He wrapped his arms around her and said, “It’s good to see you too.”

She hugged him back and said, “My hormones have turned me into a crazy person. And! I’m too fat to get into the bathtub by myself. It’s awful.”

Dean offered to help her with the second problem. Her belly was still improbably high. It looked uncomfortable. Dean bent over and announced to her bellybutton, “Be nice to your mother!”

She laughed and said, “The little monkey’s kicking again, if you want to feel it.” Before Dean could answer, she’d taken his hand and put it on her stomach. And there it was: a distinct thump from inside of her.

“Holy shit!” he said.

“No kidding,” she replied. “It still freaks me out every time.”

He helped her sit in the tub and turned on the water.

“Thought of anymore names?” she asked as she tried to settle herself comfortably.

“Aurora. Belle. Jasmine,” he said.

She sighed. “Do you have any real suggestions?”

“I trust you to pick something good,” he said softly.

She took his hand, kissed it. “You're gonna be the sappiest daddy ever,” she laughed.

“I promise if it’s a girl I won’t buy her a pony,” Dean said.

“Yeah? Do you promise not to buy a boy a BB gun?”

“No comment.”

He sat on the floor by the tub, washed her back for her, groped her a little until she smacked him. When he helped her out of the tub, she said, “Hey, lean against the wall.”

“Kath,” he said, weirdly embarrassed that her words were getting him hard.

She smiled as she undid his pants. “You can make it up to me afterward, okay? I think my days of blowing guys in bathrooms are coming to an end soon, so indulge me.”

She took hold of him, licked around the head of his dick while looking him in the eye, and Dean tried to deal with the cognitive dissonance of getting a porn-worthy blow job from a heavily pregnant woman. He shut his eyes when she sucked him down, put a hand on her head and tried not to thrust. God, he loved her.

She rose up onto her knees, cupped her breasts and rubbed them against Dean’s dick. He gasped her name, tried to hold back. She just took him in hand, jacked him hard, made him come all over her chest.

He flat-out whimpered. He wasn’t even going to try to deny it. He helped her up, cleaned her up, clung to her. Then he took her to bed and they spent some time arranging her comfortably on a nest of pillows. Then he went down on her for a long time, touching her delicately with tongue and lips, winding her up, making her come, and not giving her time to come down before starting again.

She finally hit him on the head to make him stop. He crawled up to lie beside her, displacing a few pillows along the way. He licked the sweat off of her neck, and she sighed happily.

“Jimmy made me a crib,” she said, apropos of nothing.

“I know,” Dean replied. “He told me he doesn’t like the paint you picked for the baby’s room.”

“Whatever. He’s an idiot.” They lay in silence for a few minutes before Kath said, “You asked him for a job.”

“Yeah,” Dean said. This was thin ice. If he said the wrong thing, Kath might tell him she didn’t need his help, his pity. She’d said it a few times over the phone. He didn’t believe her. He’d said I’ll be fine enough times to hear when it really meant Just pretend you’re not helping, okay? from someone else. “I figured you’d probably want me out of the house during the day.”

“How long are you planning on staying?” her voice was neutral.

“Until you come after with me with a kitchen knife, probably.”

She hit him, and he grinned at the ceiling, knowing that was the best possible answer he could’ve gotten. He felt himself drifting toward sleep. “Hey, Kath?” he murmured.

“Yeah?”

"How's Jimmy at rocking chairs?"