Author's note: Thanks so much to Larkafree, Maknatuna, Maddy Love Castiel, kb18142, CherylB1964, Keefer and XxZessxX for last chapter's reviews!

11

Gabriel woke up early the next morning. The sun couldn't have been up for long and Sam was still sleeping peacefully, breathing steadily and generally looking adorable. The call of nature that had woken the golden bird up demanded to be answered, however.

The pigeon carefully extracted himself from the loose grip the cat had had on him during the night, trying not to wake his companion up just yet. He knew that cats needed a lot of sleep and he didn't want Sam to be grumpy again. He preferred the long-haired cat when he was happier and more open, after all.

Hopping out of the plastic play-house Gabriel took a look at his surroundings. Their destination was just across the street which meant that they were in an awesomely good position to accomplish their mission without losing much more time. Speaking of not losing more time, he really needed to find a good place to follow nature's call quickly, too.

"Eureka!" the golden bird chirped happily when his eyes fell on the car in the driveway of the house they had spent the night at. It wasn't particularly dirty, but it would have to do.

It was only a minute later that Sam was woken up abruptly, as well.

"Kitty!" a very young voice, belonging to a little blonde girl, yelled.

The brown cat jumped to his feet immediately, trying to assess the situation. Gabriel was nowhere in sight, instead a young human with crazy eyes, if you asked Sam anyway, was there. The long-haired cat barely got enough time to check the play-house they had slept in over for any signs of his pigeon friend once more before he had to find a way to get away from the grabbing hands of the girl.

Sam wasn't the kind of cat who liked to scratch or bite all that much, he hardly ever hissed to begin with, but in this case he had to give the kid a fair warning to stay away from him. Usually, he would have given her a chance to show him that she was friendly first, but something about her just screamed bad news, so he went for the hissing immediately.

Unfortunately, the brat was completely unimpressed and only redoubled her efforts to get her hands on him, however.

"Hey! That hurts, you brat!" Sam all but screamed when his efforts to run around her to get out of the house only gave her the chance to grab his tail and try to hold him back. The brown cat threw another hissy fit, but ignored the pain and finally yanked himself free, escaping outside.

"Lilith, darling, don't bother the cats again!" a female adult's voice could be heard from the family's home, making Sam hope that the kid would listen to her mother and stop chasing after him. He shouldn't be that lucky, however.

"I'm just playing!" Lilith yelled back, running after the long-haired cat as fast as she could.

"Okay," the adult answered and that was the last she had to say to the topic.

The brown cat wouldn't pretend that he knew a lot about the raising of human children, but he was pretty sure that the woman was doing something wrong. Hell, Castiel's nephew Alfie was much better behaved around animals and would never call this playing! Of course, Rachel was a very strict woman who disapproved of all the things Castiel allowed his cats to do, so that might explain that.

"Gabriel!" Sam called urgently, hoping that the pigeon was somewhere nearby and could give him a sign. As soon as he had picked up his winged companion he would be able to find a strategy to really flee from this place. As things were he could only run in circles, trying to spot his friend.

"Down here, Sam!" Gabriel replied. He hadn't noticed that his feline companion was in trouble immediately, but now that he saw what was going on, he really wanted to help him out, too.

It might work in their favor that he had been in a hurry earlier and had never made it on top of the car, but had chosen to stay underneath it instead. The kid might be small, but she wasn't that small!

The long-haired cat immediately ran into the direction of the car and dove under it which got him away from Lilith for the moment at least.

"What are you doing here?" Sam huffed, looking at the golden bird with narrowed eyes, "I was worried when you were just gone!"

The pigeon looked a little too pleased because of the cat's statement, moving closer to his friend to rub his head against the cat's cheek affectionately. They had gone from Sam allowing Gabriel to ride on his back out of some sense of guilt to the cat honestly caring for him in a day and that clearly was a good sign.

"I might have accidentally conditioned myself to only be able to go in the presence of a car," the golden bird admitted a little meekly, "And I really didn't want to wake you up for that. You looked like a peaceful, gigantic, furry baby in your sleep."

It was then that the first few pebbles were being thrown into their general direction. Lilith apparently was very unsatisfied with the cat being out of her reach and was trying to find ways of getting him to come out again.

"That kid has issues," Gabriel commented in a nearly amused tone that immediately changed to outrage when one of the pebbles hit him in the side though, "Someone could lose an eye like this, you punk!"

Sam doubted that Lilith would have been impressed by that, even if she could have understood what the pigeon had just yelled at her. As uncomfortable as being bombarded with pebbles was, the long-haired cat tried to ignore it in favor of coming up with an escape plan. For once coincidence seemed to be on their side, however.

"Hey, is that the woman the message is for?" he asked, looking toward the door of the pink house that had only just been opened to reveal a woman in a bathrobe and with rollers in her hair, apparently about to get her mail inside.

Gabriel hardly had enough time to confirm that she was indeed the recipient of the message he was carrying before Sam had already grabbed him with his teeth once more and was racing across the street toward what he hoped would be their safe haven.

There was some screaming, first from the little girl, then from the woman and more hurried footsteps, but the long-haired cat didn't pay any attention to that and simply passed the adult right by, entering through the still open door and hiding behind the couch in the living room with Gabriel until they could be sure that Lilith wasn't following them anymore.

"Good thinking, Samsquatch," the pigeon complimented his feline friend, sitting between the cat's front paws while they were hoping and waiting, "But I really prefer riding on your back, you know?"

The bird had to give the cat credit for grabbing him as gently as he had, however. In fact, the last two times he had been carried around between Sam's jaws hadn't hurt in the least and the feline had assumed that he was dead the first time, so he had an excuse for being a little rough with him then.

Sam couldn't help snorting at that, "Know what, Gabe? Next time we're hunted by a crazy kid from hell, you'll carry my ass to safety!"

Dean had gotten up in the middle of the night to once more meet Benny at the attic. The blonde cat had of course expected no less of his friend, but Benny had returned quickly and had been successful in his mission. Even though he wouldn't have admitted it, hearing that Sam was well on his way and expected to be back within the day made Dean feel a lot better, as well. The only problem was that it looked like his younger brother might come back too late. Castiel had started to look for the younger cat right after he had woken up that morning, after all.

The blonde cat had managed to distract him for a while by demanding breakfast and then pretending that the usual cat-food breakfast didn't do that day. He had gotten the human to go and cut up some ham and bacon for him instead which had taken up another few minutes. Of course, Dean had then taken one more for the team and was now eating the new breakfast. Castiel might have gotten worried that he was sick if he hadn't, after all.

Oh the things he was willing to do only to make sure that his little brother didn't get in trouble and that their human was staying content and unworried!

"Aren't you missing your brother?" the blue-eyed human asked with a slight frown. His two cats usually were more or less inseparable. At least, they were spending most of their time being in the same room, even if they were doing different things. For all he knew Sam had been missing all night and Dean didn't seem to mind in the least, however. Something about that really rubbed him in the wrong way, but like many other things about his two feline companions this was likely to stay a mystery to him.

"Yeah, not really," the blonde cat replied, knowing full well that the human didn't understand him, but some sort of reply had been expected from him he was sure, "I know where the long-haired pussy went. Too bad I can't tell you, Cas."

The human cocked his head, uselessly trying to figure out what exactly Dean had just tried to tell him, but there simply was no way he could be sure that any interpretation he could come up with would be even close to the truth. No matter what Balthazar – and Rachel for that matter – thought, he wasn't crazy enough to think that he really could speak to his cats. If anything he was good at reading the signs they were giving him, usually.

"I suggest we go out and look for him after breakfast," Castiel said out loud, blinking in confusion when the blonde cat nearly immediately started to eat more slowly. Of course, that could only be a figment of his imagination. It had to be a figment of his imagination! Maybe he was spending too much time alone with his cats, after all.

So, Dean finally got to make a real sacrifice for his brother. Having to eat ham and bacon slowly wasn't exactly his style, after all. Sam better kiss his feet for this once he returned!