♠♠♠

"When I get out of the shower, I expect you to be on your own bed." Sam admonished as he walked into the bathroom, holding a towel. He heard Dean mockingly ask, "Is that permission to move, master?" and answered by closing the door tightly. He sighed, leaning against the door, rubbing his closed eyes with the back of his hand. When he dropped his hand, and opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was Franklin, sitting proudly on the lidded toilet. "Oh." Maybe he should've named him Houdini.

Franklin blinked slowly, unmoving, but watching Sam closely. The brunette turned his back to the cat, fingers hesitantly pulling at the hemline of his sweatshirt. Damn. He could practically feel the demon's eyes burning holes into his back. He scrunched up his brow, and looked behind his shoulder. Yep, Franklin was staring at him pretty intently. Creepy, it was… very, really creepy.

"Look, a mouse!" Sam tried, whipping around, pointing at the floor space beside the toilet. However, Franklin hadn't been born yesterday, or at least, presumably he hadn't been born yesterday. The cat didn't do as much as twitch. "Damn." Oh, tough it up, soldier! Sam had a girlfriend, and even lived with her. If he could get undressed in front of her, he could get undressed in front of a demonic animal, right? Sure, why not!

Sam pulled the sweatshirt up over his head, and heard the fervent flapping of a small set of wings. A blush crept up his neck. He twirled around, his arms still in the sweatshirt, and chuckled nervously. Oh, god. Franklin blinked one eye quicker than the other, which might've been a wink, and Sam groaned, disturbed as hell. The cat chirped lowly, perhaps encouraging Sam to continue to strip down. Bow chicka bow wow.

Oh, come on now! This was stupid, totally ridiculous. Sam agreed to that, and finished getting out of his shirt. He folded it in half and set it in the sink. Just do it quickly, a voice in Sam's head urged, which caused him to laugh. Hey, if there was anything guys were good at, it was doing things quickly. He told himself that he was just being paranoid. He tugged down his sweatpants, but as soon as they reached mid-thigh, he swore he heard Franklin growl—an aroused growl. He jumped; pulling those pants right back up.

"I give up—I'm done here." He decided, grabbing his sweatshirt off the sink. He quickly pulled it on, not caring that it was inside out. Franklin let out a disappointed meow, and Sam swung open the bathroom door, eyes wide.

"That was quick." Dean musingly commented. He was kicked back on his own bed, both arms folded behind his head. He laid in a slant, nearly diagonally on the bed. "And your hair isn't even wet. You really are a wonder, Sam."

"Bite me."

"'Nother time; looks like I have competition." Amused, Dean nodded down, but Sam hadn't needed to look down as he felt a certain cat rubbing up lovingly against his leg. "Am I invited to the wedding?" Yeah, and Dean couldn't wait to see and hear the pitter-patter of little part demon, part feline, and part Sammy feet—er, paws? Hooves?

Sam shot him a look, and decided that the shower could wait, 'cause he was freakin' hungry as can be. He walked toward the door, where a bag of food was, but the sight of an eaten through can of Spaghetti O's caught his eye. He cursed, eyes wider than before, and picked up the empty can. "I can't believe it."

Dean only managed to look half as surprised as his brother. "Guess you'll be having alphabet soup—try not to choke on the small letters." Sam grabbed a pillow off the ground, and whipped it at him.

♠♠♠

"Watch him." Sam solemnly admonished Dean, pointing down at the demon. Franklin, with flattened ears, made an offended grunting noise. Dean glanced down, and then up before shaking his head, muttering, "no." The brunette gaped down at his older brother, one hand rubbing at the back of his neck. "Dean!" He said, the, "you're supposed to watch out for me," implied by his sharp tone.

"Your demon—your problem." Ruh-roh! "Besides, I can't operate heavy machinery."

Sam made a face, mouthing the last four words of his brother's absurd statement in confusion. "What?" He asked, his voice cracking humorously on the vowel sound, but he changed his mind, shaking his head. "Never mind. Just make sure he doesn't…"

"Go all Peeping Tom on your ass?" Dean offered a little too merrily for Sam's liking, but, to his obvious dismay, Dean cleared his throat louder than necessary, continuing. "I don't know, Sammy, he doesn't look like a pervert to me." Yeah, he looked like a darling, innocent angel. The blonde compressed his lips, pushing back the, "yeah, right," that wanted to escape.

"I never called him a pervert." Not entirely true. Earlier, he had whispered in his brother's ear, "Frankie watches me while I undress. It's got perverted written all over it," and Dean had replied with a surprised, "Dude, you just called Roosevelt, Frankie." Sam scowled at his response, and purposely knocked the back of his hand into Dean's white cast, but with the painkillers still working their sweet, sweet magic, it went unnoticed. "He's just… curious."

Okay, honestly, Dean found this situation a little humorous. "Sammy-curious? You bet." He laughed when Sam scoffed out his name. "What? Maybe he wants to know how many licks and nibbles it takes to get to the center of your tootsie pop." After a few seconds of silence, both brothers grimaced, turning their head in the opposite direction. "Um, you go do your thing in the shower, or whatever, and I'll continue to sit here, pretending I'm in Bizarro world."

"… And watch him, right?"

"Why yes, Sam, I'll watch him, and if he plays his cards right, I might even dance with him." It was painstakingly obvious how quickly Dean's patience, which wasn't too thick in the first place, was wearing thin, thus Sam practically skipped merrily into the bathroom without so much as glancing back. "And I thought you were a big ol' fruitcake." Dean commented dryly, exchanging a look with Franklin. "Which you still are, don't get me wrong, man." Nutty as a fruitcake, eh? And yet, who was talking to the demon?

In a matter of no time, the sound of blasting water penetrated the silent air. The cat's eats twitched, as did his tail, and he gazed longingly at the bathroom door. He then looked back at Dean, who sternly shook his head, and then decidedly went back to staring at the door. "Mrrow. 'Rrrow! 'Rrr, 'rr, 'ow! Mmmmmrrr. Mrrrmmmm, 'mmm."

Despite himself, Dean's face had broken out into a wide grin. "Go over and scratch the door!" He ordered with a snicker, wanting to make Sam extra paranoid, and to possibly piss him off. Franklin cheerfully scampered forward, pouncing at the door with his sharp claws out. It wasn't long before a groan of "Dean!" was heard (and too bad it wasn't a happy, low moan), which was followed by a childish slur of, "make it stop!"

You know what the best part of all was? It had finally stopped snowing outside.

♠♠♠

A while later, Dean sat at the edge of his bed, a clean shirt folded over his knee. He scrunched his lips in thought, briefly wondering what the hell was taking Sam so long, but decided the younger male was probably taking his sweet time shaving… his legs, that is. Oh, yeah, that was a good one, wasn't it? Dean mentally gave himself a high-five in the victory of that awesome burn.

After a deep sigh, the blonde pulled off his shirt, lazily throwing it onto Sam's bed. He closed his eyes as he yawned, stretching his arms out over his head. He arched his back into it cracked, and then rotated his shoulders until they popped. He smacked his lips together tiredly, rubbing the tip of an index finger into his ear with his head tilted to the side. Dean then dropped both hands to his lap, rubbing his index finger and thumb together.

Suddenly, the bathroom door swung open. An extra clean Sam walked out of the bathroom, a damp towel thrown over his right shoulder. "I tied the shower curtain to the side so you can finally…" He paused, breath caught in throat, eyebrows raised to his hairline. He seemed at a loss for words, and his mouth kept twitching, getting wider and wider. "Oh, Dean." He sighed lightly, almost in a sing-along voice, lifting an arm to point behind Dean's freckled shoulder. "You have an admirer."

Indeed he did. Dean whipped his head around; only to find Franklin—freakin' Franklin—perched up on the chair behind his bed, staring at him with wide, wide eyes that glowed ever so brightly. His jaw was slack, and he looked as if he just found a new religion—the Holy Church of Dean, 'cause holy shit, did the man ever have such a nice back, and arms, and, hot damn people, those shoulders, and, oh my, Franklin bit back a moan, while Dean let out a disgusted groan and covered his chest with the clean shirt.

"Sam, make him go away." The older brother cleared his throat. "Please."

"I don't know Dean, I think he's curious about your tootsie pop."

"I swear to God, Sam, I will—quit laughing! Stop it, Sammy! I have a gun!" Dean reached under the covers and pulled out a loaded pistol to show that he did, indeed, have a gun, and the man knew how to use it, oh yeah he did, but Sam wasn't an idiot.

"You won't shoot me."

"Got me. But the demon, Sam, the cat?" As if anything Dean could do would threaten him, Franklin leaped onto Dean's bed, already purring. "Hell no! Get away from me!" Dean Winchester was not afraid of demons, or cats, but a Sam!guy turned Dean!guy demonic cat? Maybe, just maybe that was another story. He stood up, and Sam came up to him, grabbing his elbow. "Damn, I knew being this good looking would come back to bite me in the ass."

"Better watch it, he looks like he wants a piece of your ass."

Dean sighed. What a burden it was to be him. "Who doesn't, Sam, who doesn't?"

There was the sound of wings flapping enthusiastically. "Mrrrrow!"

♠♠♠

Amazingly, not long after the blizzard stopped, the temperate shot up, and the sun came out to play. Roads were plowed and salted, parking lots and sidewalks were hastily shoveled, and it was just about time for the Winchester duo (trio, if you want to include the Impala, which you should, and which Dean made Sam dig out), to leave their motel and move on to where the road would take them next.

"You're never going in the sewer again." Dean stated as he watched Sam pack up their belongings. The brunette agreed, and his badly tamed coif nodded eagerly. He looked down at his legs, rubbing the pad of his thumb along his cast, while wearing a frown. "I think there are fang indentions in my cast."

Sam smiled weakly. "Don't look at me."

"Oh, but I am."

Luckily, Franklin was nowhere in sight. In a few short hours, his wings had grown bigger, as had his body, and after Dean fought him off with a crutch, he soon disappeared, possibly with a broken heart. Dean held no regrets, 'cause that thing was effin' creepy to the max, yo. Sam wondered why it left so abruptly, but could only fanwank that it must've realized it was out of place; that it didn't belong there.

"I can do without ever experiencing that again. I swear, Sam, if you ever bring home a demon ever again…"

"I didn't bring him home, he followed me—us."

"Oh? And what's going to next, a humane vampire? Jesus, Sam. What did you do to attract it in the first place, feed it? Lift up your skirt a little?"

"Excuse me? What did you do to attract it?"

"Hey, I was an innocent bystander—sitter?" Whatever. "Until it molested me." Dean sniffled pitifully, feebly adding, "I was violated." It hadn't been a pretty sight—well, okay, maybe a hilarious one if you were Sam—when Franklin had somehow gotten into the bathroom and tried to jump into the bathtub with Dean. Guess demon cats weren't afraid of water, or hollering twenty-seven year old men. "Never again, I'm telling you, never again."

"Never again." Sam promised, but with his fingers crossed, because the new whole demonic animal perspective was kind of intriguing. "But you would've done it, too. Supernatural doesn't always equal evil."

"Dude, you sure as hell weren't preaching that bullshit when you were eight seconds away from filing a restraining order after you caught him getting excited watching you undress." Sam, as he shoved a handful of socks into his duffel bag, glanced behind his shoulder, as if he had heard purring. Simultaneously, Dean looked behind his shoulder, swearing he had heard that familiar sound of feathers fluttering. Silence lingered in the stale air. Dean threaded a hand through his short hair. "Sweet Jesus, we need to get out of here. It's more maddening than—"

Finished packing at a few record, Sam swung his bag behind his shoulder. "Actually, Dean, I don't need a metaphor for any convincing."

"It was a good one."

"I'll take your word for it." With most of their stuff waiting for them in the Impala, Sam opened the door, allowing that horrid sunlight to fill the dimly lit room. He kept one hand griped around the doorknob, and shifted weight from one leg to the other, patiently waiting for his hobbling brother.

Dean frowned up at him as he pushed himself off his bed, already using his crutches without being reminded. "No one likes a smartass, Sam… but a hot, single stud on ageless cool crutches? Woo."

"Yeah, yeah." The brunette patted his shoulder as he moved past him. "We've already learned that you attract more than Homo sapiens." Sorry, he couldn't resist! And neither could Dean.

"Yeah, and we also learned that all it takes is a shirtless me to, uh, convert your, eh, admirers." He added, after a possible flashback of Franklin running head first into a wall, in a grumble, "fuckin' crazy admirers." Two short steps out the door, he smirked, squinting up at the bright sky. "But they sure ain't stupid."

Sam locked the motel door and turned around, hands up. "All right, Dean, you win; demons love you the most… when you're half-naked."

"I don't blame 'em—and he didn't even see my best half."

"When he comes back, I doubt you'll be this cocky." An image of Dean standing on a motel bed, a loaded pistol in one hand, and a broom in the other, made him chuckle. He brought the back of his hand up to his lips, stifling the laughter when Dean shot him a humorously dark glance, sternly echoing, "when?" He nodded. "Well… he's still out there—"

"And I wonder whose fault that is!"

"I wasn't going to shoot him."

"Dude, you let him freakin' board with us."

"And I wasn't about to strand him out in the freezing cold."

"You cooked him soup."

"I'm not arguing with you over this. It's over." Sam tossed their gear into the trunk, and then slammed down the lid. He spun around, enunciating, "it's over," again before Dean could open his mouth. "Right?"

"You kiddin'? I have enough one-liners to—" There was some rustling not far behind them, and Dean glanced awkwardly behind his shoulder, his grip tightening on the hand rests of either crutch. He shifted back toward his brother, mumbling something about not packing. "Okay, we can go." He hopped on over to the passenger side of the lovely black '67 Impala, and waited impatiently, supporting his uninjured side on the crutch. "I said we could go."

"What? You want me to open your door, princess?" Sam dared to ask, starting to feel like the older brother who gave the younger one a hard time.

"No, I want you to unlock the door so I can get in, smartass."

Sam patted the outside of his pockets to feel for the keys as he walked around to the driver's side. Ah, the driver's seat… it was starting to feel like home to him. He totally ruined Dean's ass imprint with his own. "I will, I will… just don't trip over on your way in." By now, he had a hand shoved into a pocket, tightlipped as he searched for the damned keys.

"Lookin' for something, Sammy?" Dean asked cheekily, one arm braced against the car, supporting him. He held up the keys in his other hand, dangling them tauntingly. Sam's expression perfectly read, "you bitch. You sneaky bitch." He cleared his throat, explaining, "Frankie actually gave me them, dropped them by my feet not long after you shaved your legs in the bathroom."

"Funny. Cute little bugger, wasn't he?" Of course, by, "little," he meant, "monstrously huge." Suddenly, Sam's eyes widened, and he gaped. "Holy shit." He declared in a hiss, his eyes locked on something behind Dean's shoulder. "He's… flying! Behind you, Dean, behind you."

Apparently, "gullibility," was a side effect of pain medication, because Dean whipped around, nearly falling over. The keys slipped out of his grasp when his hand went down to the foam-covered hand rest of his metal crutch. There was nothing behind him, so he looked down, and again, there was nothing behind him. "Sam!" He miserably snapped after hearing Sam's cackling. The taller man jogged over, swooping down to pick up the keys. "That was a low blow—Bush league." Sam laughed again, turning his shoulders to leave, but that hadn't stopped Dean from whacking him in the calf with a crutch. At least that stopped the annoying laughter.

A few minutes later, while still exchanging pleasantries, both brothers were situated comfortably in the car. "Wave goodbye." Sam said, nodding out the window as he turned over the engine. The Impala started with a purr so sweet.

"Yeah, 'cause if there's anything we do, it's wave at the crummy motels we were trapped in for the stupid weekend. This ain't Pokémon."

"You watch Pokémon?"

"Oh, shut up and drive."

"No, really. Maybe we're trapped in an alternate universe crossover, and the demon was actually Franklinmon." That wouldn't be the strangest thing that has ever happened to them. Okay, maybe it would, maybe. The world may never know.

Dean looked thoughtful for a minute, but then rolled his eyes, resting against the door, arms loosely crossed over his chest. "Freak."

"Fine. Next time, you check out the sewer."

"So you can sit in the car and bitch? Yeah, great role reversals there." The sarcasm was thick, but the mere banter was just that. There wasn't any truth in Sam's words; he'd rather not send Dean down there alone, and vice-versa, especially after the whole shape-shifter incident. Dean's words were backed by a recent dose of medication.

The radio turned on when the car started, but was turned down at a low volume. Despite the volume, Dean heard every word, and relaxed, sinking back into his seat, practically nodding off already. "You think we'll ever see anything like that again?"

"I think we'll see anything and everything…"

"But the kitchen sink." Dean finished with him, their voices overlapping. He tilted his head back, eyes fluttering closed. In several minutes, Sam noticed his brother's humming was in tune with what he could barely hear coming from the radio. He smiled warmly, glancing sideways at his only brother, his family. It was a touching moment, really.

After a turn out of the small town, the road stretched out farther than eye can see. There was a forest of bare trees covering the ground on either side of the road, all ice and snow coated. The ground was covered with a thick, pure white sheet of snow, undisturbed of dirt, mud or footprints, and looked rather peaceful and calming.

It was uncertain where they were going, but Sam knew they'd run into something. Or something would run into them—again. Hopefully the next job would be easy, maybe a salt and burn, or an exorcism. Sam wanted something that would keep Dean in the game without costing him another limb.

Honestly now! Who doesn't notice a black dog sprawled out on the ground as they're running down a hill in daylight? Well, okay, it wasn't completely daylight, but the sun had yet to set. "Idiot." The brunette said under his breath with a goofy grin. He jumped slightly when Dean suddenly stubbornly stated, "I was pushed."

Yeah, whatever.

Dean turned up the music, and away they went.