Chapter 2.
Sam slips into the driver's seat of the impala and tries to slow his breath. His hands are shaking with the adrenaline rushing through his system as he begins to peel the layers of material away. First goes the big heavy boots, then the tangled up jeans, and then two worn socks. He pulls the t-shirt out of the plaid over shirt and out drops a very small kitten with orange and white fur.
Sam stares. For at least a minute. It's not until the kitten turns and lands his HUGE eyes on him, that he is broken from his daze. It blinks its wide, vividly GREEN almond-shaped eyes at him, and lets out a little whine from its throat. Sam can't believe this is ALL of DEAN. And it's so small, he's hoping the witch hasn't permanently hurt his brother by making him so compacted.
"Dean," he says softly, "Is that you?"
The kitten just blinks up at him, great, big green eyes falling closed and lethargically opening again, the sunlight reflecting off of them and making them sparkle.
Sam smiles.
"So," he says, "Definitely some sort of spell...its definitely you but not human you...can you understand me?" He questions.
The kitten just stares at him, paws flexing and relaxing against the plaid it's still wrapped in. It gives a pained meow as Sam shifts the bundle in his lap.
Hesitantly Sam reaches his big hand towards the tinny kitten. The kitty looks at it suspiciously for a moment and then pushes it's wet nose against Sam's middle finger, smelling him and testing how safe he is.
"Dean?" Sam asks again, and this time the sparkling emerald eyes jump up to his face, sharp with recognition. Sam sighs in relief and gently rubs the kitten down from the top of its head all the way down its small body and over its tail.
"It is you, isn't it?" He gushes in relief, and Dean purrs, vibrating his whole tiny body and pushes his head into Sam's hand for more petting.
Sam scratches Dean under his chin with one of his long fingers and Dean purrs some more, pushing towards Sam for more. Sam runs his hand down the little body again and then sighs.
"We better be getting out of here, Dean," he says. From Dean's coat pocket he retrieves the car keys and then he spreads the navy blue corduroy coat on the passenger seat and and gently lifts and places Dean in his bundle of plaid on top of it. The cat lets out a miserable mewling sound and Sam freezes, panicky with the thought he's done something to hurt his very tiny brother.
He suddenly remembers the witch cutting his brother deep, and the disgusting breaking sound. He holds his breath, praying that the wounds haven't transferred over, such a nasty break on such a small creature would be dangerous and hard to treat.
He turns his body towards Dean where he's resting in his plaid bundle and as gently as he can he peels the shirt away. The red is unmistakable on the plaid material...a lot of it. Suddenly the lethargic behavior makes more sense. Sam quickly and as deftly as he can lifts Dean into his hand and pulls his front left leg up with his other to examine the paw where the ugly wound is still seeping blood.
"No, no, no," he says desperately in the quiet car, as he can feel Dean's small body shaking in his hand, he's hoping beyond hopes the foot is not broken as it sits at a weird angle.
Dean looks up at him at his words, eyes still lazily coasting open and closed, "Meoowww," he whines. Sam smiles and laughs a little hopelessly.
"Okay," he breathes deep and exhales loudly, causing Dean's whiskers to flutter in the air. "You need a vet...like right now so...I saw one in town, across from the library..." He sets Dean back down in his plaid and corduroy nest and sits staring at him.
He realizes he's waiting for Dean to okay a trip to the "Doctor", Dean is staring at him expectantly, a little pink tongue making an appearance to swipe over his little pink nose.
"Oh right, okay, so we're going." Sam sighs and quickly cranks the impala, he pulls onto the highway knowingly breaking the speed limit. Dean seems pretty content in the car, purring a duet with Baby and keeping glassy green eyes on Sam the whole time.
Sam pulls into the vet parking lot and carefully parks the impala away from other vehicles, keeping human Dean in mind. He pulls cat Dean to him still wrapped in the plaid shirt, thinking it might help him feel more secure his first time seeing a place other than the impala and seeing people other than Sam as a cat, not to mention other animals.
Sam pulls Dean to his chest and steps out of the impala and shuts the door, locking it. The purring has stopped and Dean's eyes are alert.
"It's alright, Dean," he soothes quietly as they approach the front door, "I'm gonna be here the whole time looking out for you, okay? It's all going to be fine..."
Sam opens the door and they step inside. He immediately feels Dean tense, and then the shaking intensifies, Dean turns within his plaid bundle and burrows his head into the crook between Sam's body and arm. Sam frowns and passes a soothing thumb over the back of Dean's neck and rubs distractedly as he waits for someone to come to the glass window.
A heavy set older woman approaches the window and slides it open, she smiles taking in the sight before her. A giant of a man protectively cradling a tiny little kitten, wrapped in a shirt, to his chest. Sometimes people amaze her, sometimes animals bring out the best in people.
"What can I do for you, sir?" She asks, in a subdued tone, conscience of other clients with animals in the waiting area.
Sam leans forward a little and speaks as quietly as he can so as not to startle Dean who was still trembling. "Do you have an emergency service here?" He asks.
She nods and smiles kindly, "What's wrong with your pet, sir? We have to see if you qualify for our emergency services."
Sam's smile is stretched, as if he didn't know what an EMERGENCY SITUATION was!
"Deep cut on the left front paw, I think it's broken too," he says.
She gives him a kind, but appraising look, "Let me take a look?" She asks.
Sam sighs and gives her a bitch face as he gently pulls Dean from under his arm and carefully removes the material from the paw. The lady hisses as she catches sight of wound, "Oh yeah, I'd say that qualified...come on back." She motions towards the double doors.
Sam is through them and in the back in a minute, from there Dean is extracted from the plaid shirt and Sam. Dean meows loudly as he's taken away from him, and Sam hopes this isn't too traumatic for a newly transformed kitten. He watches with a tight and pinched feeling in his heart as Dean disappears behind a swinging door in the doctor's arms.
...
Sam waits for an hour, feeling silly for pacing in a vet, but seriously if they were in a hospital he'd be pacing. He had just as much chance and more of losing Dean now that he was so small and unable to protect himself. He gets a few weird looks so he sits back down in the hall on one of the hard, plastic chairs and squeezes his clasped hands between his legs.
How could have a hunt gone any more wrong?
If he had just been prepared, if he had made two or three mason jars of witch TNT instead of one like an amateur they wouldn't be here right now. Further more he should have had the presence of mind to somehow bind the bitch so she couldn't have talked, should have told Dean that's what he needed to stop, not the actual witch...just what she was chanting.
He runs stressed fingers over his face and stares with burning eyes at the floor, oh God, please let Dean be okay.
"Mr Krae?" The buxom motherly lady from before addressed him.
"Yes?" He asked hopefully, on his feet in a second.
"You can follow me," she said smiling, "You're kitten is fine. He's asleep...just general anesthesia because a few stitches had to be but in for the cut in the paw," she explains to Sam's alarmed look.
She leads him into a small room where he finds Dean lying in a small cage carpeted by a sterile, white towel.
The sight nearly makes Sam sick. He opens the cage quickly and picks up Dean's lax body into his hand and cradles him carefully against his chest. The woman gives him an odd look but closes the cage door after him with no comment.
"Thankfully the paw wasn't broken," she continued, leading him towards the desk, "Just terribly wrenched and so forth sprained...a few days to a week you won't even be able to tell about that...though it will take a little longer for the cut to heal. But if you keep that bandaged and clean he should have a uneventful recovery." She smiles brightly at him and hands the bill over.
Sam pays right out of his wallet, he never wants to come back here, somehow the sight of Dean so small and vulnerable locked up in a cage has terrified him. He knows he must get Dean to the bunker as fast as he can and fix this, because he can't take that again. That feeling of fear and despair that someone might euthanize a little kitten to rid the world of another piece of vermin, or that Dean would be caught and put in some cage to be poked and prodded at until someone decided to adopt him and take him into their home. And Sam didn't care if it would be a good home or not, he just knows it wouldn't be theirs.
As Sam waits for the woman to bring a bag of bandages and animal painkillers he wraps Dean back up in the plaid shirt, avoiding the blood-stained part. He carefully pulls the little bandaged paw out and places it on the outside of the bundle so that neither one of them would accidentally hurt it. The woman smiles at him fondly as she hands him the bag and his receipt.
Sam leaves and doesn't look back. He places Dean back on the passenger seat in the midst of the plaid shirt and the navy blue, corduroy coat, making sure he was well insulated on all sides. He sighs in relief and cranks the impala, leaving the music at a bare hum, and takes off for Lebanon, Kansas.
After being in the road a whole four hours Sam is staring to get hungry. Which brings to mind that he's going to need some stuff for Dean until he gets changed back. He looks over at the sleeping bundle...already he's attached. Obviously it was Dean, but Sam was fast becoming enthralled with the little orange and white version of his brother.
There's no way he's leaving Dean alone in the car, or anywhere for that matter. So he grabs his phone and searches for Pet Smarts in 'Near You'. (Sam always knew his knowledge of all things pets would benefit them someday.) There's one in Lebanon come to find out, and they're only an hour away...so he decides he can wait to eat until then too.
Sam is well and truly in love as he keeps an eye on the little creature on the seat beside him. In his sleep Dean's breath will speed up, his little chest heaving, and then slow, his paw will come up to swipe over his face and get caught his whiskers. In the late afternoon sunlight the orange fur is aglow and the white is sparkling like snow. Sam takes the first opportunity he's had to appreciate how beautiful Dean is as a cat.
The orange is a rich but bright hue, the white is selective, it gives him snowy mittens and a vest, his tail looks as though the end was dipped in a can of white paint. His face also bears some white stripes and his whiskers are pure white too. The inside of his ears are a tender pink, and so is the sensitive tissue around his eyes.
Sam lets his hand ghost down and coast over his tiny little head. His whole palm could have covered two of the little cat heads. Dean's paw was the size of the pad of Sam's pinkie finger. Sam smiles as Dean's back legs lifts the scratch behind his ear in his sleep, disturbing the warm cocoon and letting in some cold air.
Sam keeps an eye on the road, but he's watching as Dean awakes for any sign of pain or tell of a more intensive injury. The kitten's eyes blink lazily awake and Dean hides his face in the flannel from the sun. Sam rubs his thumb over the little head.
"Hey Dean," he says softly. And Dean's big green eyes shoot to his face and Sam smiles.
Dean blinks at him, and the little pink tongue shoots out and licks his nose and lips. He yawns still looking at Sam. Then he gathers himself and stands in the soft material, slightly unstable and definitely favoring his front left leg, but still putting weight on it, so Sam thinks maybe it's not as bad as he feared.
He watches as Dean clumsily fights his way out of the plaid nest and tumbles into the navy blue corduroy one. He falls onto his stomach and from there rolls to his side where he gives himself a long lick from his shoulder down to his bandaged paw. Sam watches as he licks over it and then starts to bite at it.
"Dean," he says, a hand coming to rub over Dean's head and distract him from the white bandage, "Don't do that, it's there to help you."
Dean immediately becomes intent on pushing his head into Sam's hand for more petting and when Sam has to give more of his attention to driving as they coast into busy Lebanon Dean rights himself and limps in chase of Sam's hand. Sam looks down to find Dean with his front paws propped up on his thigh staring at him adoringly with big, shiny green eyes.
Sam smiles and gives Dean what he wants, a rub that starts on his head and goes all the way down his body. Dean purrs and arches his back into Sam's hand. Sam laughs as Dean licks his thumb urging him to pet him some more. He pets Dean all the way through town with long even strokes, by the time they pull up in front of Pet Smart Dean is purring so much his entire little body is vibrating and Sam can hear it over the music and the impala's roar.
"Okay Dean," Sam breathes, "We gotta pick up some stuff, so you be good for me okay?" He picks the small kitten up cupped in his hands and looks him the eye. Dean blinks his bright emeralds at him, and looks as though he could NEVER do anything wrong. He gives Sam's hand a lick with his prickly tongue.
"I'll take that as a yes," Sam says and opens the door and climbs out. He cups Dean in one hand, holding him against his chest so he's other hand is free. He locks the doors and then walks into the Pet Smart. As he walks through the doors he feels Dean tense and looks around to find two other consumers holding dogs on leashes.
Sam likes dogs. But at the moment he eyes them as his worst enemy. Thankfully they seem to be keeping strictly to the dog segment of the store. Sam slips by them, rubbing Dean reassuringly, and grabs them a shopping cart and slips into the cat section. Sam's knowledge on cats is more limited than with dogs, but he's going to safely guess he needs a litter box, and kitty litter, dry and canned food, and if kitty Dean is anything like human Dean...toys. God forbid Dean ever get bored.
He throws the most expensive dry food into the cart, wanting to make sure and take good care of his brother while Dean was unable too, well he was always unable to. He decides Dean would probably like chicken better then fish and gets five cans.
"Do we have milk at home?" He wonders out loud, and watches Dean's ears perk up at his voice and he turns his head to gaze at Sam. Sam sighs, "You'd be the one to know, too." Dean was their housekeeper. Things kind of just appeared and when they used it up it would kind of be magically restocked...Dean would never admit it, but he was SO domestic.
Sam pushed the cart one handed down the aisles holding Dean close to him, and stopped once they got to the cat toys. Sam thought animal toys were creepy. They had big beady eyes, and had bright colors, and some of them were loud...and believe Sam if there was ANY possible way for Dean to be loud he was going to be LOUD.
He picked up one stuffed mouse with blue and red stripes and looked at it. The eyes were buttons...so not creepy and the colors weren't awfully bright, he showed it to Dean, waving it in front of him.
"You like this one Dean?" He asked, Dean swatted at it lazily with his good paw, and blinked up as to say that it was a boring toy.
Sam sighs and puts it back, "They're all creepy," he holds up a really spooky looking octopus with huge glossy plastic eyes in disgust. Dean meows deep in his throat and pushes himself closer to Sam AWAY from the toy.
"Yeah see," Sam laughs. "Here, what about this one?" He picks up another toy, it has three cloth balls attached to each other and the colors red, blue, and green. On the end hangs a tassel of matching colors and, to Sam's dismay, a singly silver bell.
Dean immediately reaches out with his good paw and swipes at the string holding the bell. It dings clearly, and Dean does it again, he even wriggles a little against Sam's chest to get closer to it.
"Okay, you like this one," Sam laughs, and throws it into the shopping cart.
They walked down the aisle some more until Sam sees some powdered milk and a special bottle just for cats. He looks at Dean with an appraising eye.
"How old are you?" He wonders, "Do you still need milkies?" He asks snorting a laugh, knowing Dean would be so pissed if he understood him right now. However the kitty blinks up at him seriously and swats at his chin with the non bandaged paw, eyes sparkling in the over head fluorescent lights.
"Well," he decides, "I'm not bottle feeding my big brother anything, so I'll get you milk Dean, but no bottle." Dean seems to be in agreement as he purrs against Sam's fingers which are holding him safely to his chest. He puts a box of the powdered milk into the cart and the makes his way towards the check out area.
He stops when he sees the collar counter and the machine that makes the plates with owner identification. He is sick with the thought of putting a collar on Dean, but he's even more afraid of losing his brother in his vulnerable state.
"Dean I swear, I'll only put it on you if we have to go out, okay?" Sam feels better when Dean purrs back to him understandingly. He gets the tags made out for "Dean" with the owner name of "Sam Winchester" and his cell number. There is no way he'd put a fake ID on Dean, he needed to be sure they would work.
He picks out the smallest collar they have, which is still almost too big on Dean. He goes to the counter where the tag and the collar is attached. Then he takes all their items to the cash register. The cashier helps him since it seems Dean is as hesitant as Sam to part with his brother, no matter what size or form.
He pays and thanks the cashier and take their bags in one hand and hurries out into the parking lot. It's getting dark, and he'd rather not be out at night with a minuscule kitten. He nearly drops Dean while opening the door, and Dean meows painfully latching his one good paw's claws into Sam's shirt.
Sam immediately drops the bags and cups both hands securely around the little kitten, pressing him safely against his chest.
"Sorry Dean," he soothes, rubbing his thumb under Dean's chin, "I gotcha."
He unlocks the passenger door and throws in their bags. Then he goes around and climbs into the driver's seat. He gives Dean a few more reassuring rubs and then sets him down in the familiar depths of his plaid shirt. Dean whines a meow at being set aside and being away from Sam's familiarity and warmth so Sam pulls the plaid bundle up against the side of his leg. Dean presses the entire left side of his body against Sam's thigh, and Sam can feel him vibrating with a contented purr as he cranks the impala.
Satisfied that he has everything he's going to need for the foreseeable future with kitten Dean, Sam turns his mind towards himself and the rumbling in his own stomach. He stops by a diner he and Dean visit regularly while at the bunker and gets himself a grilled chicken sandwich and salad. He places the paper bag of food on the other side of Dean, those big green eyes watching him all the time.
He points the impala towards home. He's so ready to be safe in the bunker's confines. To have Dean locked away with him, to get Dean comfortable and SAFE...he cannot believe how stressful and frightening it is to be responsible for someone who can't take care of themselves. He's loving Dean's kitty cuteness but his brother deserves to be human, to be the strong man he knows how to be so insecurely perfect.
Dean is now rubbing the side of his face into Sam's thigh, so Sam's drops his hand down and rubs gently behind his ears and under his chin.
"Let's get you home Dean," he says gently, and Dean pushes his head into Sam's hand and licks it, purring like a motor boat.
tbc...
PLEASE REVIEW! ;)
thank you
Could you imagine being in Pet Smart and rounding the corner and just seeing Sam Winchester standing there with a kitten holding up toys for it too choose? Pretty sure I would die, right there, from the cuteness.
(I wasn't at all expressing an opinion in favor of euthanizing animals, just that it is something that is done.)
