The Past

Created on March 4th, 2014, 8:45PM

"Sammy, come on!" Dean's call echoed across the motel parking lot, quite a bit louder than was necessary, considering they were maybe twenty feet away at most, and shouting at three in the morning was hardly polite. Dean never seemed to care that other people were trying to sleep, though, so it wasn't really surprising. At least Danali had a bit more sense.

"Dean! Be quiet!" And sure enough, her hissed scold came a few moments later, quiet enough that it was considerate to the people trying to sleep in their newest in a long line of cheap motels, but loud enough that it carried softly past the lot full of cars.

Leaping off his shoulder in the form on a ring-tailed coati (they'd learned about them from the library at their last school, and she'd enjoyed taking the form ever since) and transforming in mid air into a barn owl, Kaime flew over to perch on top of the nearest car. "We're over here!" She called, her voice just loud enough that she knew Danali would be able to catch it, and then, just because there were hardly any time when Dean was completely outnumbered, she added mockingly, "And be quiet!"

Even from across the parking lot, Sam could hear his brother's annoyed grumbling. "I'm not that loud!" His voice rang out again in a shout only to be cut off a moment later with an angry growl from his daemon.

Laughing, Kaime swooped back over to land on his shoulder again, transforming back into a coati as she did so, but this time with bright red fur instead of the tan she'd worn before.

"Kaime," Sam whined, "You're not helping!" His knees were cold and soaked through from the dew-painted grass he was kneeling in, and his lungs kept itching with the cold he'd gotten the week before that hadn't completely dissipated yet, but he was determined that he wasn't going to go inside until he convinced the ball of fur quivering a few feet that he was friendly.

Convincing his dad to let him keep it, however, would probably be the more difficult challenge.

And he'd already been sitting there for the better part of an hour.

Kaime braced her paws against his head so she could stand on her hind legs and sniffed the air, pointing her nose in the direction of the small orange kitten they'd spotted while unloading their car. It still smelled like fear and sickness. Her sharp ears caught the sound of a quiet hiss when she dropped down onto all fours, her claws digging into Sam's coat so she wouldn't fall off, long tail waving for balance. "But it doesn't like me." She whined back, hurt that the defenseless little thing would be afraid of her.

She'd even tried turning into a cat so it wouldn't be scared, but as soon as she got closer than a few feet, the poor thing mewled in a high, panicked squeak of fear and tried to intimidate them away with a loud hiss, all of its fur fluffing up in an attempt to seem bigger than it actually was. Sam knew he could have gone over and picked it up at any time and only suffered a few minor scratches and bites to his arms, but he refused to go near the tiny thing until it knew he wasn't going to hurt it.

All he wanted to do was help, but if he grabbed the poor thing while it still though he wanted to hurt it, it would probably be even more terrified of him than it was now. He wanted to gain its trust, not force it to let him help.

But that wasn't always possible.

Biting his lip in indecision as the sound of his brother's heavy bootsteps grew closer, he knew he didn't have a lot of time to make a choice. Because once Dean knew what he was trying to do, he'd run and tell dad and then Sam would never be able to convince him to let it stay in the motel with them for the night. The best way to get John Winchester to agree to something was to spring it on him by surprise, so that he wouldn't have any time to think of reasons why he could say no.

"Kaime, go distract them!" He hissed, "I'm going to try to get closer."

Realizing what he was planning, his daemon nodded and leapt down from his shoulder to dart across the ground, heading toward one of the other ends of the parking lot, and ignoring the sharp sting of pain in her chest when she started to pull on their bond as the distance grew between the two of them.

Lowering himself into an army crawl and inching forward across the muddy ground as quickly as he could without scaring the thing into having a heart attack, Sam stopped a foot away from where the kitten huddled in the grass, and slowly, gently, reached one hand out to it.

It hissed again, weakly, and even at the age of eight years old, Sam Winchester saw the fear in its eyes, and felt his heart twist in his chest, because he was the one making it scared. It was even worse than the pain slowly growing from how far away Kaime was.

"It's okay," He whispered, inching his hand closer, and hoping that smelling his hand would be enough to reassure the thing, like you were supposed to do with dogs, "It's okay, little kitty, I'm not going to hurt you, I'm nice, I promise." He kept on whispering to it even when he felt tears starting to burn in his from the pulling on his and Kaime's bond, and he could hear her from across the parking lot, teasing Dean and Danali to find her, and pretending that she and Sam were playing hide and seek.

His hand finally stopped a few inches away from the kitten's face, his curled fingers directly in front of its nose so that it could smell him, and, hopefully, realize he wasn't a predator.

After a few seconds where nothing happened, Sam inched his hand a bit closer, and felt it brush fur. A quiet squeak followed not even a moment later, and, peering over the edge of the grass so that he could see the kitten, he gently moved his fingers from the top of its nose to its head, being careful not to move too quickly so he wouldn't scare it.

When his fingers found the scruff at the kitten's neck and he felt the pain in his chest start to lessen as Kaime started making her way back to him, he whispered one last assurance and prayed that the thing he'd read about baby animals instinctively relaxing when they were picked up by the back of the next was true, before gripping the kitten's scruff and lifting it into the air to pull it toward him.

He got to his feet as quickly as he could, clutching the squirming—but not as badly as it could have been, so maybe the book about animals hadn't been lying after all—kitten to his chest and cradling one arm under its back feet it so it wouldn't feel like it was going to fall, he had just enough time to hide the infant cat underneath the flap of his coat before Kaime burst around the edge of a car and transformed so quickly into a cat with fur that matched the kitten's that he didn't even have a chance to see what she'd been a moment ago before she leapt onto his shoulder, rubbing her forehead into his jaw as she began to purr loudly.

Gently lowering the kitten into the pocket on the inside of his coat so that it would finally be out of the cold, he leaned his head against his daemon's, his own heart pounding in his chest at the relief of finally having her close again.

"Did you get it?" She whispered, her ears back in worry as she searched the ground for the ball of fur they'd been working so hard to rescue. Her question was answered a moment later when a soft squeak came from inside his coat. Her eyes immediately lit up again, and faster than Sam could blink, she'd transform into a small mouse and crawled inside his coat to check on the kitten, and to provide a disguise in case it made any more noise before they got inside.

"Danali was right behind me," She warned, poking her mouse head out to twitch her nose at the air, "Quick, before they find us!"

Sam nodded, and broke into as quick a job as he could without jostling the kitten and his daemon too badly. If he could get inside before Dean found him, then he could get into the bathroom before anyone had time to notice the kitten or demand to know why he and Kaime were running around outside playing hide and seek at three in the morning.

Dodging between cars and heading toward the door marked with the letters 12—the room that was kept open at almost any motel just for the use of hunters like them, free of charge as long as they asked for it with the special key words, "Got any rooms free? I just got back from California, and let me tell you, when they say 'don't feed the coyotes', they mean it!" so that the owners would know who they were—Sam was surprised when he managed to make it there without his older brother catching up.

Where is he? He wondered, wasting no time in opening the door and darting inside before Dean or his daemon had a chance to show.

His father was busy reading a newspaper in a search for a new case and didn't seem to have noticed him coming in, and Dean was still nowhere outside, so Sam quickly headed toward the bathroom, trying to move quickly so that his father wouldn't notice the mud that covered the entire front of his jeans and parts of his elbows. Beryl was perched on the side table, and she tilted her head to the side at the sight of his mud-covered clothes, then shook her head in amusement, but didn't make any comment. His father's bald eagle daemon was always more lenient with them than he was, and Sam shot her a grateful smile before ducking into the bathroom and shutting the door behind him.

Sliding the lock shut so that no one would come bursting in suddenly, Sam pressed his ear to it for a moment just to make sure, then lifted the flap of his coat to look into the pocket. Kaime leapt out and climbed up his arm, perching on his shoulder worriedly. "It's soaking wet and shivering, but I don't think it's afraid of me anymore," She said, jumping off his shoulder to land on the counter of the sink as a squirrel monkey and twisting both the knobs so that the water started to flow.

Sam reached into the pocket and pulled the kitten out as gently as he could, trying to be careful with the front leg he's seen it limping on earlier. It gave a tiny mewl of protest, and closed its eyes when he lifted it by its scruff, but didn't make any attempt to get free, or attack him, for that matter. Getting to his feet again, he moved over to the sink, where Kaime had filled the bottom of it with an inch or so of warm water.

His daemon was already in it, again in the form of a cat, but this time as a calico, and as small as she could manage without changing shape entirely. Lifting the kitten away from his chest with both hands cradled around its tiny body, he gently lowered it feet first into the water, surprised when it didn't do anything more than squirm a bit.

Letting go once it was standing on all fours, he squatted down so that his eyes were level with the edge of the sink, and smiled at the tiny kitten as it stared around in total confusion, its startlingly green eyes wide as Kaime started purring loudly to reassure it that it was safe.

Them, suddenly, the door of the motel opened with a loud click, and Sam quickly darted to attention, his eyes wide.

"Crap!" Wasting no more time, Sam whipped around toward the shower and quickly turned it on to full blast, not wanting his brother to be suspicious about why he was in the bathroom if he wasn't in the shower. Sam always got to shower first, since he was the youngest, so Dean wouldn't argue about his current occupation of the bathroom, but if he took too long, Dean would start to get impatient, and the last thing Sam needed was him beating on the door and scaring the poor kitten to death with the noise.

Stripping clothes and tossing them into the shower so he could get the mud out—they usually washed at least some of their clothes in the shower, since it helped save time and money they would waste by going to a laundromat to get it done—Sam jumped underneath the spray, goosebumps swarming across his skin when he realized he'd turned the knob for cold instead of warm. Quickly adjusting it so that he wouldn't freeze to death, Sam only pulled the curtain shut far enough that water wouldn't get out and soak the floor so that he would still be able to see Kaime and the kitten, and started rubbing at his knees where the mud had soaked clean through his pants and onto his skin.

The kitten still seemed skittish, but at least it wasn't freaking out and hissing at them anymore. It was even letting Kaime run her tongue over its fur in a bath.

A few minutes passed in silence as they both waited for Dean to start yelling at them for running around outside like idiots and then going back inside before he could even find them. When nothing happened, Sam smiled in relief, and grabbed the bottle of shampoo his dad had already put in there for him. Scrubbing at his mud-caked hair with it, he poked his head around the edge of the curtain to peek at his daemon and the kitten, "Do you think the water is helping?"

The kitten certainly looked better. Before, it's fur had been so covered in mud that he'd thought it was orange. Now, though, it was more like a pale cream, with lighter spots that were almost white forming stripes that looked like a tabby's.

Kaime—now in the form of a squirrel monkey again as she cupped her hands to gently pour water down its back to get rid of the last of the mud—nodded, and sent him a monkey's smile.

Ducking back under the water to rinse his hair out, Sam started running over all the arguments he could possibly think of that would convince his dad to let them keep it.

Maybe he could say it was important for him to learn responsibility, and taking care of the kitten was the perfect way to do so?

"What should we call her?" Kaime asked when he reemerged from underneath the water. Another good question.

"Her?" He realized suddenly that he hadn't even bothered to check if it was a boy or a girl earlier. He poked his head around the curtain again. "It's a girl?"

He didn't know why, but he was surprised.

And just a bit disappointed. He had a whole list of guy names that he liked—because as soon as he realized that most kids had three names, instead of just two, he and Kaime had spent hours trying to come up with the perfect middle name for him—but he had no clue what sort of girl names there were, except for the ones that belonged to girls he'd met before. And he definitely didn't want the kitten to have the same name as someone he'd met. It would be weird, like, almost it would stealing it from them.

"I don't know," He said, frowning as he pushed his hair out of his face before shutting off the water. Pushing the curtain all the way open so that he wouldn't trip over it when he got out, he used his hands to brush the water off his shoulders and arms, and kicked one leg at a time to send droplets flying. Only when he'd pushed as much water off his skin as he could did he reach for the orange towel hanging from the wall.

Usually, they didn't have enough money to spend on a dryer, so he only used his towel when he knew it wouldn't get soaking wet. Otherwise, he'd be stuck with a damp towel for the rest of the week, month, or however long it was before his dad got paid again.

Which...didn't happen all that much, unfortunately. Most people his dad helped were grateful, and they gave him food and money in return for saving their lives—especially when he brought Sam along for the final farewell—but it was hard times even for people who weren't hunters, and they couldn't always spare the money.

Racking his brain for all the girl names he could think of as he dried his hair off with the towel, Sam turned his attention to the books he loved to read whenever their new school had a library, and almost immediately, a name popped into his head. "What about Aravis?" He asked excitedly, abandoning drying his hair in favor of draping the towel over his shoulders to fend off the cold of the room as he moved back over to the sink, where the kitten was now leaning down to look at water, repeatedly pressing her nose into it like she was trying to drink only to jerk back again with a sneeze.

Kaime was perched at the edge of the water, still in her monkey form, one hand to her chin in thought. "Aravis..." She whispered pensively, tilting her head to the side.

Noticing that most of the dirt and mud had settled in the bottom of the water near the drain, Sam wrapped the towel around his waste, then reached one hand toward the kitten, going slow in case it was still jumpy. It stepped back a little, then reached its nose out to sniff his fingers. After a moment, it pressed its forehead into his hand, purring audibly.

Breaking into a smile, he rubbed his hand against its head and behind its ears, then gently picked it up around its belly so that he could dry it off before it got cold again. Grabbing the brown washcloth that was hanging on the wall where his towel had been he leaned the kitten against his chest and started rubbing it gently through her fur, noticing for the first time that it was longer than he'd first thought. Her tail, especially, was long and fluffy. I wonder what breed she is, he thought to himself.

Not long after he started drying her off, did the kitten started purring again, louder this time, and she even nuzzled her face against his skin. Fighting to keep a grin off his face, he firmly reminded himself that they didn't know yet if they'd be able to keep her not. He still had to convince his dad and Beryl.

Kaime lifted the drain out of the sink so that the water would empty, then used her hands to push the extra dirt away. Once that was done, she transformed into a house sparrow and flitted over to land on his shoulder, fluffing up her feathers against the cold and leaning against his neck. "I think Aravis is a perfect name for her." She said, smiling a bird's smile up at him.

The kitten's name decided, and her fur dried as much as he could get it with his small washcloth so that she looked perfectly presentable, all that was left to do before he had to ask his father to let him keep her was to get dressed and go back out into the main room of the motel.

Sensing his thoughts, Kaime glided down to the floor, shifted into a fly, and crawled under the crack of the door to figure out where everyone else was, before flying back inside and turning into a tabby cat again to perch on the edge of the sink. "Beryl and dad are still reading newspapers," She said, "And I think Dean and Danali just left to go get food. This is the perfect time! Hurry up and get dressed!"

Glancing toward the door once in nervousness, Kaime transformed herself into a human girl, and held her hands out for Aravis. Sam handed the kitten over, along with the wash cloth, then dropped the towel from his waist and grabbed his pajamas from the duffel bag hanging from a hook on the wall. He always made sure that his things were ready in the bathroom when they unloaded the car, so that no time would be wasted tearing around the room looking for towels or clothes.

Pulling on his pajamas—sweatpants and one of Dean's old shirts that was too small for him now, but still way too big on Sam—as quickly as he could, Sam grabbed his socks from the floor where he'd left them by the door, and pushed them into his shoes so he wouldn't lose them, hung the towel back up on the wall to dry, then held his freed hands back out toward Kaime.

She handed Aravis over with a smile, then twisted around to look at her face in the mirror above the sink with interest, tilting her head to the side as she did so. For some reason Sam didn't understand, people's daemons weren't supposed to turn into humans, because it was 'bad'. Kaime had first done it when they were five, because they'd gotten Halloween costumes that year, and they wanted to see if the Batman outfit would really let you fly. Dean had gotten a Superman costume, and he and Danali—in the form of a small bald eagle in imitation of Beryl—had jumped off a shed they'd found behind the motel they were living in at the time, and for a moment of wonder, Sam could have sworn he saw his brother fall slower than usual.

He landed on all fours when he hit the ground, but started laughing in exhilaration before Sam could even start to worry. Danali had done swoops and spirals in the air, and, eager to join their brother and his daemon in their celebration over almost flying, Kaime had transformed herself into a human, and they held hands as they jumped forward and into the air.

For a few seconds that seemed to last an eternity, they were flying through the air, flying up, and forward, and in Sam's entire life since then, he had never felt so alive.

But then they started to fall, and the ground came rushing up to meet them, and Sam tried to land the way Dean had, but he couldn't move fast enough, and both he and Kaime raised their voices in a terrified scream right before they hit the unrelenting earth.

Sam broke his first bone that day. His arm. Kaime got a concussion. And once they were both back from the hospital and his arm was in a heavy neon green cast, they both got a very stern talking to about jumping off of things, and how the characters they saw on TV weren't real, and neither were their powers. Wearing their costumes didn't mean you could fly, and his father was very disappointed in them.

Even before then, they'd both been in tears. But then his father's voice grew sharper, and he told them that Kaime was never to turn into a human again, because daemons weren't meant to be humans, and they would get into a lot of trouble if they did it again.

Both of them thoroughly ashamed of what they'd done, it had taken them years before Kaime ever turned into a human again, because they'd talked and thought about it forever but they couldn't figure out why it wasn't allowed.

Whenever she took human shape, Kaime always made it so that she had his hair, only a bit longer so that it reached her shoulders. Her facial structure was almost the same as his as well, with only a few minor differences here and there, since she was a girl.

As she tilted her head one last time at the mirror to see herself from a different angle before turning into a coati again, Sam realized that he still didn't know why daemons weren't supposed to become human. Was it because they didn't have clothes? But daemons never had clothes. Why would it make a difference if they were a naked cat or a human? They were still a person's soul, no matter what shape they took, and they both agreed that it was completely unfair for daemons to not be allowed to be the same species as their person.

Kaime leapt onto his shoulder, and pressed the flat of her long nose into his neck in affection. He smiled back at her, and pressed his forehead into hers. Aravis mewled squirmed slightly in his hands, her tiny claws digging into his shirt as she attempted to climb her way to his shoulder.

Laughing quietly, he shifted her so that he could hold her cupped against his shoulder with one hand like he'd seen mothers do with their children, and gently pressed his forehead into hers too, like he did with Kaime, eliciting a quiet purr from her, before, with one last drawn in breath for courage, he opened the bathroom door, and stepped out into the motel room.

His bare feet sinking into the thick carpet, he stood there for a moment, frozen, waiting with both dread and anticipation for his father or his daemon to notice him.

A few moments passed, and nothing happened.

Mustering up his courage again, Sam padded his way across the carpet to his father's bedside, where he was reclining against the headboard, circling paragraphs in the newspaper he held with a red marker, Beryl perched on the nightstand and inspecting a newspaper of his own.

Pausing just a foot away from the bed, Sam waited for either of them to look up. When they didn't, he swallowed nervously, and cleared his throat, both hands cradling Aravis protectively, before he spoke. "Hey, um, Dad?"

Without looking up, "Yeah, Sammy?"

Kaime shifted her weight from foot to foot, and shared a look with him. His father was in one of those moods again. The way he sometimes got when it was only a few months away from November. The kind of mood that had him and Beryl almost ignoring everything else but hunting entirely.

Kaime broke the silence, blurting out suddenly, too afraid to keep quiet anymore, "Can we keep it?"

That got his dad's attention, and Beryl's. Both man and eagle turned to look at them in confusion, and at almost the same time, both eyes widened at the sight of the kitten that they'd assumed out of the corner of their eye was Kaime clutched in Sam's arms.

"What?" For once, it was Beryl who spoke first, her voice high and uncharacteristically loud. Sam almost jumped. His father's daemon never raised her voice.

John seemed lost for words, his mouth half open like he wanted to speak. "I—what?" He echoed his daemon when he finally found his tongue.

"Can we keep her?" Sam repeated, widening his eyes in his best begging face, "Please, dad? Please? We'll take care of her, I promise! We'll get money for her food, like you taught us, and we'll make sure she doesn't scratch the furniture, and we'll train her to go outside, and to walk on a leash, and it's really important for a kid my age to learn responsibility, and my teacher at our last school said that pets are a really good way to learn responsibility, and I promise we'll clean anything you ask us to, and we won't complain about anything ever, ever again and, and please?" He sucked in a huge lungful of air to replace the one he'd taken before speaking.

Beryl stared at them.

His father slowly blinked.

"A cat?" There was disbelief in his voice.

Sam pressed Aravis closer to his chest defensively, and Kaime shifted into a tabby, just to prove their point.

Beryl finally spoke up again, her voice calm and serene like it normally was. "You'll take full responsibility for it?" She tilted her beak to the side to fix them with a single, steely pale eye, and ruffled her wings as she hopped up onto the headboard of the bed and slowly moved closer, never taking her gaze away from them.

Sam's heart thundered in his chest. Was that a maybe? Was that a maybe?

"Yes!" he blurted, then cleared his throat, and said clearly, with as much dignity as he could muster, "I—uh—I mean, yes, sir."

John remained silent, his brow furrowed in through, allowing his daemon to speak. Beryl stopped a foot away, and tilted her head to the side as she examined the small kitten now attempting to burrow itself into Sam's shirt in an effort to get away from the suddenly looming eagle.

Hiding her tail behind his back so that Beryl wouldn't notice how the hairs were standing on end, Kaime curved herself around his shoulders so that she was crouched above Aravis, her claws out and visibly gripping his shirt. Sam instinctively lowered his chin so that it rested on top of Aravis', tilting his body away from Beryl before he even knew what he'd done.

Then the realization that he had just shielded the kitten from Beryl struck him like a fist in the gut, and his eyes widened in alarm. Oh, crap, crap, crap, now Beryl was going to be mad because they'd thought she was going to attack Aravis and she was going to be so insulted and oh crap, no, no, they weren't going to be allowed to keep and and why, why, why did he have to be such an idiot?

Kaime crouched lower, her eyes wide, "Please?" She begged, "Please, we promise we'll take care of her and, and if she does anything bad, we'll fix it, we'll get money to pay for it, please, just can we keep her? Please? We'll never ask for anything ever, ever, ever again!"

Both daemon and man remained silent for a moment.

Then his father sighed, and wiped one hand down his face. "If that cat does anything to my car..." He trailed off meaningfully as he locked gazes with his son. Sam didn't have to ask to know what would happen if Aravis messed up the Impala.

She'd be dumped on the side of the road and left behind.

Tears stinging in the backs of his eyes at just the thought of it, he nodded mutely, and Kaime was quick to mimic him.

His father sighed again, wearily, and shook his head. "Yes, yes, Sam, you can keep the cat."

Air rushed into his lungs in a gasp of shock and joy, and Kaime leapt backward off his shoulder to transform in mid air into a raven and did a quick, glee-filled swoop around him before returning to his shoulder as a cat again. "Yes, yes, yes!" She cried.

"Oh my gosh, dad, thank you so much!" Sam was trying hard not to jump over and hug his father, trying hard not to fall out of the almost military stance he held himself in. "I promise you won't regret it!" He was practically vibrating with excitement.

His father quickly held up one finger, "Ah, ah, ah, not so fast." He said, "There are going to be some rules you have to follow. Any of them get broken, and we're leaving that thing behind, no buts, no arguing, no begging me to change my mind, understand?"

Sam nodded, unable to think of anything to say.

His father held up one fist, and counted off each finger. "Rule one. You teach that thing to go outside. If it craps on any of my stuff, it's gone, got that? Rule two. That thing even puts a single claw into my seats, and I'll throw it out the window myself." Sam's heart sank, but he knew he shouldn't have expected any less. His father continued. "Rule number three. You clean up anything it sheds, and I don't care where it is. The car, a motel, clothes, you are cleaning it, no exceptions. Rule number four. You get it food, and you get it water. It's your cat, and you're going to have to find money for it, because I am not going to, do you got that?" Sam nodded again, biting his lip.

He and Kaime knew how to get money. They knew how to steal, and they knew how to beg. Even if they didn't manage to get enough to buy cat food, he could sneak her bits of his own. He would look up what cats could and couldn't eat the next time he managed to find a library.

"And rule number five..." John help up one hand, with all fingers spread, and paused. Sam tensed, waiting, sure that this one would be the worst rule of them all. The one he wouldn't be able to keep, and then Aravis would be gone forever and it would all be his fault. Kaime shivered and pressed herself against his neck.

He didn't know what to expect, but he wasn't expecting the next things out of his father's mouth.

"What's its name?"

For a moment, Sam just blinked in confusion. It was Kaime who recovered first, sitting up straighter on his shoulders and saying proudly, "Aravis."

Beryl tilted her head to the side, and his father raised one eyebrow. "Aravis?" He asked, "Interesting name."

"It's from a book we read," Kaime quickly explained, practically jumping up and down in her excitement, "She's a queen from The Chronicles of Narnia."

Beryl snorted in her version of a laugh. "Oh, so she's royalty now?" she asked, hopping back over to perch on his father's shoulder. Sam just nodded again, not sure he'd be able to find his voice.

He pressed his cheek against Aravis' forehead, and listened to the rumbling purr that she replied in, a huge smile growing on his face. They were getting to keep her!

John shook his head again, and waved one hand to dismiss them. "Alright, alright," he said, "Settle down. I know we've all got jet lag, but it's almost four in the morning, and as soon as your brother gets back with food, I want everyone in bed. Now, I'm very busy, so why don't you go take the little princess and get ready for bed?" It was as clear a dismissal as any he was likely to give, and Sam nodded once more, his entire face split into a smile that he couldn't stop.

"Thank you!" He said, one last time, just to make sure his dad knew how grateful he was, before he scurried back toward his and Dean's side of the room.

Aravis was practically asleep against his shoulder, so Kaime leapt down onto the bed and turned into a chimpanzee to grab one of the pillows before jumping onto the floor and heading over toward the wall at the side of the room farthest from the door. It was Dean's turn to sleep on the bed this time, and with a carpet as good as the one in this room, and his very own first ever pet to take care of and adore, Sam didn't even care in the slightest.

He set Aravis down on the pillow Kaime had gotten for her, and his daemon curled up next to her in the form of a cat again, both of them wanting the kitten to know that they were going to be her new family, and went about the process of making his bed. With all the excitement of the day—fighting a witch who telephoned them halfway across the country with all their stuff, finding and getting to keep a lot kitten—he was suddenly and blissfully exhausted.

When Dean returned ten minutes later with a bag of Taco Bell under one arm, and a bottle of soda in the other, Sam was already fast asleep on the next of pillows, blankets, and clothes he'd made, with Aravis and Kaime curled by his head.

Dean did a double take upon glancing over, and stared.

He turned back to face his father, his jaw dropped open in shock. "Is that a cat?!" His voice was louder than was appropriate at four in the morning, and three simultaneous voices shushed him, as Sam and Kaime and the newest member of their family slept on.

Finished at 2:36AM

Why am I still awake?!