Wings, Whiskers and Tails
"So we're checking into the motel, getting some rest, and tomorrow morning we go to investigate the case," Dean said, as he struggled to avoid a patch of ice on the road. The Impala swayed dangerously, but remained in its lane. "Damn these roads! Have these people never heard of salt?" he cursed.
In the passenger's seat, Sam was keeping his calm. It wasn't only the road that annoyed the oldest Winchester brother, though it was pretty bad, but also the concern that the job might get in the way for his plans for Christmas. They were already two days late. "It might not even be a case," Sam said, in an attempt to comfort Dean. False alerts happened even to the best of them, and not many people could brag about preventing the Apocalypse like they had. Going back to smaller gigs after that wasn't easy, but it definitely put less pressure on them. "With a little luck we could be on our way by lunch time."
The mention of lunch made Dean's stomach growl. The smell coming from the take-out boxes stored in the backseat was not helping. "Yeah, well, it was in our way…" he muttered. God forbid Dean left someone unsaved if he could do something about it. Besides, the case had been brought to their attention by Bobby, and no one said no to Bobby. It was the least they could do considering how many times he had helped them. "Now where is that motel?" Dean looked around, but the fallen snow made all buildings look the same.
Sam spotted a sign hanging down off a frozen roof. "Over there!"
He barely got the word out when Dean slammed his foot on the brake pedal, sending them both flying forward head straight into the windshield, only to be brutally kept in place by the seatbelts. "Are you trying to kill us both?" Sam gasped.
Dean winced and pressed a hand against his lower set of ribs. The contact with the steering-wheel had been far from gentle. "I saw something," he mumbled.
"What?"
"A cat."
Sam rubbed at the side of his neck where the seatbelt had grazed his skin. "A cat?"
"It was standing right there in the middle of the road!" Dean pointed with both hands to the snowed in poor excuse of a road in front of them.
"Did you hit it?"
"I don't know." Dean shook his head and pushed the door open to go out and check.
Sam dreaded the cold and melted snow that threatened to soak his shoes, but he followed him anyway. "Well?" He didn't need an answer. They were both staring at a small white kitten, shaking in fear underneath the headlights. "Is it hurt?"
Dean bent over and reached out with one hand. "Come here, kitty, kitty…" His voice came out soothingly, but apparently not soothingly enough.
The kitten eyed the hand warily, quivered, and hissed, showing its tiny pointed teeth. Then it turned around and ran away, passing right between Sam's legs.
"I guess it's fine," Dean deadpanned and hurried to return to the warmth inside the car.
x x x
Sam went ahead and unlocked the door, while Dean was checking one last time on the Impala to make sure it was well set for the night. In between parking the car and checking in it had gotten dark. He dumped his duffel bag on one of the two twin beds, and he unzipped his coat. The room didn't look better or worse than the hundreds of other motels they had stayed in, but unlike the last one the heat was working here.
The door opened again and Dean wiped his feet on the rug outside before stepping in. In one hand he was holding his own bag, and with the other he was hanging onto the food.
"Ah, you found it," Sam said.
"What?" Dean blinked, then he looked down startled to feel something rub against his leg. "Oh…"
The kitten walked in like it owned the place and stopped in the middle of the room where it looked at Dean expectantly as if saying What are you waiting for? Come in and shut the door.
"He found me," Dean said just to make things clear. "Or the food." He grinned seeing the kitten sniff the air in the direction of the take-outs. "Are you sure?" he said, speaking to the furball. The kitten returned his gaze steadily. "OK," Dean shrugged and closed the door, "just don't pee on the furniture."
Sam opened the fridge and saw the light was out so he reached around for the power cord to plug it in. "You're suddenly in a good mood," he noticed.
"Life's too short to be grumpy all the time," Dean replied. "We've found shelter for the night. There's food on the table, beer, and a bed for each of us. And we're heading for a place with even better food and beds." And a girl waiting for Dean, but he didn't say it out loud. Sam was smart enough to read between the lines. "Besides we've done our good deed for the day. We saved a cat." He pointed at the kitten, who was busy inspecting the place.
"Right." Sam didn't sound that convinced, but he was willing to go with it. "Beer?" he asked, and held up a can as he was preparing to load the rest into the fridge.
"Yes!" Dean was already unpacking the food. With his mouth full of fries, he picked up the remote and pressed the red button. Nothing happened. He tried again, shook it; he even went to the TV and pressed more buttons and tapped it on the side but the screen refused to come to life. He returned to the table disappointed that they would have to work since the TV set appeared to be broken. "So what have we got so far?"
Sam brought the laptop to the table, and they both sat down ready to eat. "Let me open this first…" He waited for the operating system to boot, and went to get a plate for his tofu sandwich. Dean rolled his eyes. His brother was so picky, he'd never eat directly from the box if there was a classier alternative. He wasn't washing the dishes either since they were, hopefully, leaving the next day.
"Okay. Four incidents were reported in the last month, about one per week, all happening in this area." Sam pointed at a location on the map. "Four different people were reported being attacked by a flock of bats. White bats…"
"White bats, huh?"
"And fluffy."
"Fluffy?" Dean made a face. "Were they sure those were bats?"
Sam shrugged. "That's what they told the reporters."
"Were they on drugs or something?"
"Dean, I don't think they were tested for drugs."
"Maybe they should have been." He dipped the chip into the ketch up and gesticulated with it. "Anything else?"
"Not much that I can see…"
"Any connection between the victims?"
"Umm…" Sam browsed through the articles. "Not really… except that it happened here, close to this institute."
Dean stretched his neck to look at the screen. "Biological and Genetic Engineering Research Institute. It figures," he muttered but was interrupted by someone pulling him by the sleeve of his shirt.
The kitten had climbed upon the armrest of the nearby armchair and it was touching his arm with its little paw, asking for his attention. Dean broke a piece of his cheeseburger and offered it to the animal. This one sniffed at it clearly interested but didn't take it.
"That's a picky little fellow," Dean commented and put the food on the floor. "Sorry, pal, that's all I've got."
The kitten immediately jumped off the armchair and without making much fuss about it started eating.
"Maybe he's just well behaved," Sam said.
"Eating from the floor, you call that manners? Give me a break!" Dean snorted. "When someone gives you food you eat it," he lectured the kitten, who rightfully ignored him. "So are we talking revenge here, intimidation, or what?" he asked for Sam's opinion.
"I don't know. The thing is no one was seriously harmed other than minor bruises and scratches, mostly gotten by falling while trying to run away so… not sure what's going on," Sam admitted.
"I've never heard of bats of any color coming out of nowhere to scare people off in isolated locations. This sounds more like a Fringe incident to me. Peter Bishop should stop banging the two Olivias and come take the case off our hands."
"Would you?"
Dean smirked. "Probably not. Lucky bastard." He bent over to look under the table. The kitten was clawing its way up his denim clad leg to get to his lap. "Maybe I shouldn't have fed him," he muttered to himself.
The kitten propped its forepaws on Dean's chest and looked him straight in the eyes.
Dean glanced at the beer in his left hand. "What? Now you want beer too?" But the kitten turned its back on him showing more interest in what lay on the table. Dean sighed. "Okay, you can have another piece." This time he placed the food on the edge of the table, and watched it while it ate. "See, these are good manners," he told Sam. He ran his hand across the white fur with just some touches of gray on the back and he felt the animal tense, but he went on petting it from head to the end of its gray tail until the kitten relaxed. It even leaned against his palm, starting to purr at some point. "How old do you think it is?" Dean wondered.
"Dunno, somewhere in between one and two months?" Sam offered. Dean nodded, agreeing. "Can we focus now?" Sam began to lose his patience.
"Sure, we focus," Dean scratched underneath the kitten's chin, which made it purr even louder, "but I got nothing and the institute is closed at this hour so I don't see how to solve the case by morning." He chewed on the last bite of cheeseburger. "How about some more beer?"
x x x
A nightmare woke up Sam in the middle of the night. Or maybe it was Dean's, he couldn't tell. They both had their share after their time spent in hell. Sam rarely remembered them, but Dean did. He rolled in bed and stared into the darkness listening to his brother's breathing, trying to figure out which one it was. Instead he heard:
"Dude, this is my bed. I'm not sleeping in the tub, so get used to it!"
"Dean… who are you talking to?"
"The kitten. He keeps trying to push me off the bed," Dean grumbled.
"Maybe he's cold. Try to cover him with something."
"You're kidding, right?" There was some tussle, and then Dean's sigh. "Okay, he stopped. 'Night."
x x x
Morning surrounded Dean, fuzzy and warm. He first became aware of a weight resting upon his chest. It wasn't heavy or uncomfortable, but it was unusual. He cracked one eye open. Blue-gray round cat eyes stared back at him.
"Hey." Dean ran a hand over his face to chase the sleep away. "What? You hungry again?" The kitten didn't answer, it just watched him with curiosity. "You're a quiet little fellow," Dean murmured and scratched it gently behind the ear. It instantly began to purr. Dean smiled. He kind of liked that. "That's good 'cause Mr. Grumpy over there wouldn't have liked to get out of bed at 3 AM to let you out." Dean wouldn't have even heard the kitten meow at all, and besides he liked his sleep too much.
He looked at the bed to his left and discovered it was empty. No sign of his brother in the room either. "Sam?"
"In here!" Sam's voice echoed from inside the bathroom.
"Someone's up early," Dean muttered. He glanced at the digital clock from the nightstand and groaned. It was time to wake up indeed.
That's when he became aware of another fluffy bundle of fur curled up in the crook of his left arm. The soft fur was tickling his skin where the sleeve of the t-shirt ended. Dean raised his head from the pillow and squinted at the second kitten, who also raised its head when it felt him move and watched him sleepily. It even had the audacity to yawn.
"What the…?"
"Oh, you're up." Sam walked back into the room still wearing his sleeping clothes.
"Sam, where has this come from?" Dean pointed at the extra kitten. This one outstretched a paw, trying to playfully catch his finger. Luckily, the claws were not out so it just brushed against his skin.
Sam shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, it was there when I woke up."
Pulling himself up to a sitting position, Dean picked up both kittens by the back of their necks and he held them up in the air to look at them. Apart from a small difference in the gray smudges pattern on their backs, and bluer eyes on the one in his left hand, they looked almost identical. Behavior wise they seem to be a bit different: the one on the left was twitching its tail in annoyance showing discomfort, while the one on the right continued to purr and watched him with wide open eyes full of curiosity.
"Hmm," Dean grunted and frowned, unable to find the answer to his question. Where had the second kitten come from?
"Coffee's ready," Sam announced.
"Great." Dean put both kittens down on the bed and got up. "Thanks." He took the mug Sam was holding out for him, and he let himself fall in a chair next to the table. His head was pounding. Bad night and not enough booze didn't make for a good combination. The kitten's purr seemed to be soothing him somewhat rather than bother him, which was odd. Why were there two again? He shook his head unable to think clearly before caffeine invaded his system, so he drank from the mug. Black and hot, just the way he liked it.
"I'm gonna take a shower," Sam said.
"Okay."
Dean reached for the remote, but remembered the TV was broken. They would have to rely on the written press for now, which meant they had to wait some more since it was too early for the papers and on-line journals to print anything relevant. Maybe it was time to get dressed, he told himself.
Leaving his half-empty mug on the table, Dean walked to the pile of clothes left on the armchair closest to his bed. Failing to find something suitable to wear, he had to dig into his bag for a t-shirt in search of some clean ones. After all, he still had hopes to make it home that day, and he had to make a good impression.
A few seconds later, t-shirt and reasonably clean jeans on, he went to put on his boots. A paw shot out from under the bed and trapped the lace dragging on the floor. Dean would have found it funny if he hadn't stopped to count first. No. 1 had found a plastic straw somewhere and now was loudly playing with it all over the floor, while no. 2 was grooming himself on top of the bed. He couldn't see all of its paws but he doubted they were long enough to reach below for his boots.
Frowning a little, Dean grabbed the bed cover by the corner and lifted it up to peek underneath. A pair of glowing very much cat-like eyes flashed at him as the kitten nodded its furry head and its little tushy danced on the ground as if inviting him to play with it. Dean let the cover fall back, straightened his back and scratched his head. Okay, this was weird.
Maybe not as weird as when Sam came out of the bathroom dripping water all over the place. With one hand he was making sure the towel stayed wrapped around his waist, while the other was busy holding up a kitten just as drenched as he was. "You need to take better care of your protégé. I nearly stepped on it in the shower stall."
Without saying a word, Dean reached blindly under the bed, found the bundle of fur and placed it on the cover next to its sibling. No. 3 looked at the two humans towering over them and deciding neither of them was in the mood to play he jumped on no. 2 provoking it to a wrestling round for fun.
Sam's eyebrows crawled high up his forehead. "Three?"
Dean pointed at the one still chasing the straw on the floor. "Four."
"What's going on?"
"No idea, but you might want to hurry with that shower," Dean suggested in all seriousness.
Sam took his advice and placed the wet kitten on the bed like it was some kind of weird alien. No. 4 sneezed.
"Bless…" Dean murmured, glaring down at the trio like it was a big problem to solve. The kitten sneezed again and shivered. Rolling his eyes, Dean picked a flannel shirt from the pile of dirty clothes and rubbed the kitten's back with the sleeve.
Still, when Sam returned fully dressed, Dean was sitting in his chair with the riffle resting across his lap and the gun close to his hand on the table, guarding the little trouble makers. The two kittens on the bed had gathered around the third one to keep it warm.
"Still four?" Sam asked a little taken aback by Dean's serious stance. It would have been more effective if a kitten hadn't been sitting on Dean's knee, watching his brothers along with him.
Dean nodded. "For now."
Running his fingers through his still damp hair, Sam walked to the sink to get some water to drink. He couldn't find any glasses in sight and the coffee mugs were dirty so he opened the cupboard above. A head popped out to greet him. He sighed. "Five."
"What?" Dean turned his head to see what Sam was talking about. "How did it get in there?"
Sam gave him a puzzled look. The cupboard was 6 feet above the floor, with no ways to get to it for someone who didn't posses opposable thumbs, and there were no holes in the walls as far as Sam could tell. The kitten looked down a little wary estimating the height so Sam picked it up from the shelf and put it down on the floor.
"Something's going on here," Dean muttered and reached for his mug hoping there was more coffee left in it. "Oh, for God's sake!" he cursed and slammed the mug down on the table realizing he was just about to press his lips against the wet nose of yet another kitten.
The kitten climbed out of the mug and walked to the edge of the table, leaving coffee footprints on the scratched surface. From there it easily jumped turning into a white flurry. Once on the floor, it looked like a regular cat once again.
"I did not just see that!" Dean exclaimed, jumping off the chair. The kitten who had been sitting on his knee remained hanging on his jeans for a moment longer before letting himself fall down. "What the hell? Are we under attack?"
"I don't know," Sam shook his head, "I've never seen anything like that."
"But you do see them, right? All of them?" Dean wanted to make sure he wasn't hallucinating.
"Well, yeah…" Sam hesitated, surprised by such question. "Of course I see them."
Dean grabbed his gun and jacket. "Okay, then I say we get out of here while we still can, and then try to figure out what's going on."
Since Sam didn't have a different opinion, they both headed for the door. Their obvious hurry caught the kittens' attention, though, and it was enough for one of them to let out a barely audible 'meow' for all of them to leave whatever they were doing and follow them to the exit.
"Shit! Move it, Sam!" Dean pushed Sam out of the room and slammed the door closed behind them. "That was close," he said, leaning with his back against the door, and he inhaled deeply.
"Erm… Dean…" Sam was looking down at his feet.
"What?" Dean followed his eye sight and jumped in place. "Son of a bitch! When did they get out?"
Six kittens stood lined up along the wall. The cold made them shiver, especially the one that was still wet, but they showed no intention to go anywhere.
Very slowly, Sam, who stood right in front of Dean, took one step back. The kittens just looked at him. When Dean tried to do the same, though, the furry army was ready to follow him. "Give me a break!" Dean huffed. "What am I, haunted by kittens now?"
"It sure looks like it." Sam barely held back a smile.
"This isn't funny, Sam!" Dean snapped at his brother.
"Yeah, you're right, it isn't…" Sam looked at the kittens, the wrinkles on his forehead showing that he was trying hard to come up with an idea. He failed.
A little sneeze was heard coming from Dean's feet.
"Jeez," Dean rolled his eyes, "maybe the room was better. At least we wouldn't look like freaks and risk being committed." He opened the door again.
The kittens looked up at him and walked inside. "They understand what we're saying," Dean whispered towards Sam. "I tell you this is weird."
"Okay," Sam's voice went low, but not as low as Dean's, "we can nuke them in there."
Dean crossed the threshold and turned to glare at Sam. "What's the matter with you? You don't just blow up kittens. It's like… like… shooting babies!" he exclaimed in lack of a better comparing term. "Close the door, no. 4 is catching a cold."
Sam did as he was told, while Dean started pacing back and forward in the middle of the room, which turned out to be a difficult task since he had to be careful not to step on his fluffy stalkers.
"Maybe we should call Bobby and ask him for advice?" Sam suggested.
"Yes! You do that! Bobby must know what to do." Dean fretted, stumbled and landed on the bed. In a second, the kittens were up by his side and rubbing their faces against him. "Hurry…" His voice turned into a squeak.
Sam was already dialing the number. "Hi, Bobby… we need your help. There's a bunch of kittens who seems to have taken a liking to Dean… and we can't get rid of them. Yes, kittens. How many?" He glanced in the bed's direction. "About half a dozen."
"Seven," Dean said, after doing another head count.
"Seven," Sam repeated. "The thing is there was only one when we went to bed last night, but their number keeps increasing and we don't know where they're coming from. My guess is they either teleport or multiply."
Dean looked up. "Like Gremlins?" Sam ignored him.
"No, they're not hurting him. What do they do? Uh… They seem to really… really like him," Sam said. "Do you see our problem, Bobby? We have a job to do and we can't walk around town accompanied by a horde of kittens."
"Tell him it's cold outside," Dean said helpfully. He was holding the sick kitten in his arms pressed against his chest. One kitten had climbed upon his shoulder and was supervising everything from that elevated position, while another was trying to extract the car keys from his pocket. The rest were playing on the bed around him, stopping from time to time for a random rub against his sides. That tickled.
"And he's losing it. Too much pressure; he doesn't handle stardom well."
"I'll show you pressure," Dean grumbled. Moving from the bed was out of the question, though, and he had nothing heavy enough to throw at him so he had to settle for a dark glare.
"So what should we do?" Sam listened into the phone. "Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thanks, Bobby. We'll call you back."
"What did he say?"
"He has no idea what's going on, but he'll look into it. Until then there's one thing we can do: we need to feed them."
Dean scrunched his forehead. "Feed them?"
"So they won't get any ideas if they get hungry."
"Oh…"
"Yeah. So you sit right there while I go to the store to get some cat food."
"You're leaving me here alone?" Dean sounded almost in panic. "With them?"
"Do you have a better idea?"
"Well, no… but what am I supposed to do? I'll get bored," Dean whined. "And the TV is broken."
"Think about Liz. That should keep you entertained."
Dean grinned. "Oh, it would, but…" he made a grimace, "I can't. Not in front of an," he whispered, "underage audience."
Sam rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Just find something to keep yourself busy. Play with them." He gestured towards the kittens.
"Yeah," Dean muttered, looking at the kitten who was playfully chewing on his finger, without breaking the skin. "That's what is going to be written on my tomb stone: Death by Kitten."
Sam let him whine by himself and reached for the door.
"Wait. Here." Dean reached into his pocket and threw him the keys to the Impala. "Take the car."
The kitten who had been trying to fish them out for the past few minutes wasn't happy to see its new shiny toy taken away from it. It leaped off the bed at the same time with the keys, and a pair of fluffy white wings that had somehow appeared on its back took it straight to Sam. Unfortunately, Sam was faster and caught the keys first. The kitten hissed at him and flew back to the bed.
Dean and Sam stared, mirroring each other's startled expression. The wings were still there.
"I'll be fast," Sam promised and rushed out.
"Sam, get some milk, too! Cats like milk!" Dean yelled after him.
x x x
Sam would have been much faster if he had actually known where to find a pet store, but since he didn't he cruised the neighborhood in search of one, getting further and further away from the motel. While he waited in the intersection for the light to change, his cell phone beeped. It was a text message from Dean and it only consisted in one number: '8'.
Grimacing, he put the phone down. Dean had been right, this wasn't funny. How many more kittens could appear? he wondered. At least they were cats and not dogs. Dean would have really freaked out after his painful and deadly experience with the hellhounds. Sam couldn't say he didn't understand. They had been both there and they wore their scars with pride, and also a bit of shame. Sam hadn't been able to save Dean from going to Hell when his brother had sold his soul to bring Sam back, but he was determined to save him from what Dean had poetically called death by kittens.
Besides, Dean wasn't the only one looking forward to spending Christmas together as a family, in a house that could pass for a home, with home made food and a real tree, for the first time in years. No way he was letting a bunch of furry creatures ruin that for them. They had been through too much, and they deserved this.
He didn't find the store he needed, instead he saw a sign for an animal shelter. That might be useful, Sam thought so he took a turn to the right as the sign said. Two more turns that got him somewhere almost outside of town, and he finally saw the shelter. A girl walked out of the building just as he was parking the Impala across the street.
"Excuse me!" Sam called out and hurried to get out of the car.
The girl stopped on the sidewalk, gave him a long look and probably deciding he wasn't a mass murderer, she waited for him to get to her, while she busied herself with her gloves. They were bright red, just like her lipstick. Her coat matched the color of her chocolate dark hair, and with her fair complexion her big round eyes seemed even darker.
"Hi," Sam said, "sorry to bother you… I was wondering if you knew where I could buy some cat food around here." He'd figured out that she either worked there or she was a client so chances were she might be able to help him with that useful piece of information.
"Umm," she looked on both ends of the street, "there's no store in the area. There's one on 44th Street, but that's a bit far from here…"
"Well, I'm with the car," Sam nodded back towards the Impala, "so if you could tell me how to get there I'd really appreciate it."
"You're not from around here, are you?" The girl smiled.
"No, I'm just passing through," he said and saw the girl's smile disappear. "Actually… maybe you could help me." That seemed to peak the girl's interest. "Do you work here?"
She nodded and stomped her feet on the frozen ground. "Yes, I do."
"Great." Sam brought both of his hands together. "My brother and I found a bunch of kittens when we checked into the motel last night. We can't take them with us and we really don't know what to do with them." His phone beeped, and mumbling "Sorry," Sam checked the message. '10' Shit! "Do you know if there's room for them in the shelter? Maybe we can bring them here?" he asked, although he had no idea how he would manage to do that.
"Yes, I think we can take them in. People tend to adopt more around holidays and with Christmas so close we have a few openings. How many and how old are they?"
"Uh, I've never had a cat so I'm not sure… they're this big." Sam pulled his hands about twenty centimeters apart, avoiding her first question.
"Hmm, that looks like 4 to 6 weeks. It means they can feed by themselves, that's good."
"Oh, they can. They surely liked cheeseburgers last night."
The girl's eyes opened wider. "You fed them cheeseburgers? You're not supposed to give junk food to cats, it's bad for them. Hey, that's even bad for you!"
"Yeah, tell that to Dean," Sam muttered. "They wouldn't eat my tofu, and that's all we had," he explained to get back into her good graces.
"Ah, I see… you're forgiven then," she joked.
"So if we come back in let's say an hour or so… will you be here?"
"Yes, I'm just going out to pick some supplies. I'll be back by then; ask for Sara at the front desk and they'll call me." She instructed him. "How many kittens? I'll have a suitable pen ready for them."
"Err, you see, the thing is I'm not exactly sure." Sam shifted his weight and made an embarrassed face. "More keep showing up…"
The girl took one step back. "Oh… this is just a wild guess, but wouldn't they be a bunch of white kittens with a bit of gray on the back… and about a dozen of them?"
"How did you know that?"
"Yeah, it's them." She sighed. "They belong to the BGER Institute, but they don't seem to like it there much so they escape whenever they can. Don't ask me how they do that 'cause I have no idea!" She laughed, shaking her head. "They get brought over at least once a week by families living in the area. I think they're looking for a home, but no people in their right mind would keep them all so they get brought here and we ship them over to the institute. It's really sad."
It also made sense.
"So it's okay if we bring them or should we take them directly to the institute instead?"
"We prefer to have them brought here so we can check them and make sure they're fine. Only God knows what they're doing to them at the institute."
Sam was beginning to have his own suspicions too. "You're aware they can fly, right?" he said on a joking tone just in case she didn't know.
"Nothing could surprise me at this point," she confessed with a small chuckle.
"But they're not dangerous." Sam wanted to make sure.
"Oh, no, they're perfectly harmless," the girl assured him.
"Good," Sam let out a relieved sigh, "'cause my brother is freaking out." He pulled out his cell phone to check the newest arrived message. "There are twelve now," he informed her.
"How's your brother doing in the patience department?"
"Not good." That was an understatement.
She smirked. "Then you'd better hurry."
Sam glanced back at the Impala. "The problem is my brother really loves that car. There's no way he'll let a dozen of kittens go bounce happy on those seats."
"Well, I could send one of our vans but they're all on the field at the moment so you'd have to wait."
"That's not gonna work."
"I do have the next best thing." She grinned mysteriously and nodded towards the entrance of the building. "Come with me."
Sam's cell phone stared to ring furiously when its owner was just heading back to the car.
"It bit my ear!" Dean complained really loud. "Sam, where the hell are you? I'm suffocating here, there's too much fur."
"Hold on, I'm coming."
He still had to stop by the grocery store first.
x x x
It was an eerie sight. Dean sat on the bed with half of the kittens crawling all over him while the other half were flying happily around him like bees around honey. Sam stared from the doorway, holding the grocery bag in his arms and finding himself at a loss for words. Lucky for him, Dean had a lot to say.
"Finally!" this one snapped. "What did you do? Went to slaughter a cow?" he scolded Sam. "And shut the door, the little one's been sneezing its nose off the past half an hour." Dean pointed at the kitten wrapped up in one of Sam's checkered shirts so only its face was visible.
"How's the ear?" Sam asked, stepping carefully into the room. Someone had to take a picture of this. Liz would be on the floor laughing if she saw it. He was very tempted, too, but he kept himself in check before Dean exploded. He walked to the table and started unloading the bag: several cans of Friskies and two cartoons of milk.
"Fine," Dean grunted, distractedly caressing the back of the kitten sitting in his lap. "Can you hurry? We still have a job to do."
Sam took out his knife and used it to open the cans. Alerted by the smell, the kittens watched him intently. "There is no job, Dean. I spoke to this girl, Sara, from the animal shelter and she said…" He went on telling Dean all they had talked about.
Taking advantage of the kittens' distraction, Dean left the bed and went to get some plates and bowls from the cupboard. "Are you sure?" he wondered, when Sam appeared to be done.
"It makes sense and Sara sounded like she knew what she was talking about." Sam opened another can. "How many?"
"Fifteen last time I've counted them." Dean looked back but didn't bother to count them again, he just laid the plates on the floor.
One of the braver, less patient kittens came flying around Sam to inspect what he was doing up close.
Sam opened the last can.
By then most of the kittens were on the floor, flapping their wings around the plates.
"They don't look like bats," Dean commented. He picked up one of the cans and unloaded its content on the plate splitting it in equal parts.
Sam was doing the same thing. "If people don't know about their existence and get attacked, fear could make them think they're some kind of flying rats," he said.
Two of the kittens frowned at him.
"Oy, don't insult them. They're very sensitive," Dean warned. He patted a few heads and took a step back to admire his work.
"How do you know that?"
"This," Dean pointed at the red mark on his ear, "happened when I accidentally rested my elbow on one of their tails. They're very protective of each other. I hate to think what they did to those poor people." Still, the way he said it didn't sound like he really believed.
"But that's the thing, Dean, they never harmed anyone. From what Sara told me, I understood it was more of a defensive act rather than an aggressive one. They were trying to scare the people off, but only to be able to run away," Sam explained. "And it's confirmed by what we read in the papers. They're no threat."
"Hmm, that's good, cause I would hate it if we had to blow them up. What's that?" Dean asked, seeing Sam pour something from a small bottle into the milk cartoons.
"Sara gave it to me. It's supposed to make them sleepy so we can transport them easier, without them disappearing on us." Sam agitated the cartoons to mix the liquids well and filled the bowls.
Dean watched, him standing with his hands propped on his hips. "Now what?"
Sam pulled a chair. "We wait."
They did, until Dean grumbled quietly to himself, "Okay, now I feel like Edgar. I keep expecting that mouse to show up rolling a giant biscuit. I hate rats, and all of their cousins."
But they didn't have to wait for long. Soon after they started drinking the milk, one after another the kittens began to yawn.
"There it goes," Dean murmured.
Barely keeping its eyes open, a kitten stumbled his way and rested its head on Dean's bare foot before falling asleep. He'd never gotten a chance to put on his shoes.
"OK, get the duffel bag," Dean instructed Sam. "We'll carry them in it."
Walking between kitten bodies splayed on the carpet, Sam went to get Dean's bag.
"Why mine?"
"Because it smells like you, and they like you."
Dean rolled his eyes and muttered something far from nice under his breath, but his protests were less than heartfelt. He shoved the clothes out of the bag, tossing them on the bed to make room for the kittens and they placed them inside with infinite care. The last one was the one curled around Dean's foot.
"Off we go."
x x x
Sam dumped his bag into the trunk next to Dean's. It was heavy, because it also contained Dean's clothes. He had refused to use his after it had been inhabited, even if briefly, by an entire population of kittens. There was no time to wash it. They were ready to leave. Dean was already starting for the front of the car to get into the driver's seat. The trunk being closed echoed like a gunshot in the empty parking lot.
"Meow."
"Dean, why is your jacket meowing?"
Dean turned around slowly and ran a hand on the back of his head. "Errr…"
"You kept one?" Sam narrowed his eyes at his brother.
"Uhh…" An embarrassed smile twisted Dean's features. Busted.
"Why?"
"Well…" Dean slipped his hand into his jacket and pulled out a white furball from the inside pocket. The kitten fit perfectly in his large palm. "You heard what life they livel they're not happy, trying to escape all the time. I felt sorry for the little fellow…" He tilted his head to look at it and shrugged. "And I didn't have a Christmas present for Liz."
Sam was about to start one of his rants, and a well deserved one, but he saw Dean's smile when this one mentioned Liz's name so he changed his mind. "Do you think it's wise?"
"You said they never harmed anyone. It's just a kitten… with wings."
"How are you going to explain those?" The wings weren't visible at the moment, having disappeared during the trip to the shelter, but Sam didn't doubt they were bound to come out again sooner or later.
"Sam, I explained the frigging Apocalypse to her. I can explain a pair of wings on the back of a kitten."
"Hmm. Okay." Sam couldn't find anything more to say. "Good luck with that." They walked around the car and opened their respective doors. "Hey, how did you decide which one to pick?" Sam asked from above the top of the Impala.
Dean put on a lopsided grin. "It was the only one who started purring whenever I touched it." He shrugged and winked. "At least he likes me."
x x x
The lights from the oncoming cars passed over them periodically lighting up their features. The traffic was becoming heavier as they approached the city. It was late into the night, but they were getting closer to their destination. In his excitement, Dean had forgotten to change the tape so at the moment they were driving in silence.
"Dean?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you remember Mrs. Huffington, who used to babysit us when we were in Albertville?"
Dean nodded. "The lady with the twenty years old cat, yeah."
"She used to tell us this story about her cat, who even if she was old, deaf, and half blind, each time around Christmas used to steal ornaments from the tree and play with them to the point that when it was time to take down the tree there were no ornaments left in the bottom half of it."
"I remember. So what's your point?"
"What do you suppose would happen with a tree and a flying kitten?"
Dean frowned at the road ahead. He hadn't thought about that, but Sammy had a point. Then he glanced at the kitten curled up in Sam's lap and a smile twisted his lips. If Liz had taken him in after his return from Hell and losing Sam, and she hadn't thrown him out and loved him still after all that crap, then Liz could put up with anything… even flying kittens.
The End
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