Sam finds a dollar store, and a small food-and-such store, both luckily still open in this small of a town, and buys two small food bowls, name-brand kitten chow, a shallow plastic tub to use as a litter box, the smallest bag of litter he could find, and flea treatment. He lingers in the pet section, before the many coloured collars, but decides against getting one. Dean's intentions probably aren't pointing towards keeping her for that long, just until they find a way to be able to transport her safely in the Impala into a larger town with an animal shelter. He would have gotten the cat carrier Dean had suggested if only the store sold them.
Maybe Dean'll get over it, Sam could just hold her and drape a towel over his legs just in case she went, or keep her in that box she came in. She'd probably sleep the whole way, anyway, so they really have nothing to worry about.
He unlocks the door to their room and steps inside, holding the plastic tub, filled with all of the other items he purchased, and a bag of fast food to make up for the dinner they were too distracted to go out and get earlier. Backing into the door to close it, Sam surveys the small, dark space, searching for the lightswitch with his shoulderblade. The guns, as far as he can tell in this darkness, are clean and laying on the end of his own bed. His eyes follow through to rest upon the dark lump on Dean's bed, oddly shaped, with a small bump protruding where his brother's chest should stop. Sam smiles awkwardly to himself after finally shoving the lightswitch upwards. Dean is sprawled atop the blanket, breathing steadily, and apparently asleep. The kitten is purring loudly, as Sam can now hear, setting the plastic tub down upon the table.
He wanders about the room, setting up the litter box and food and water bowls in a secluded corner, where he's sure Dean won't accidentally kick them on his way to the bathroom at night. He hopes the kitten was with it's mother long enough to know how to use a litter box, which is honestly something he hadn't thought of until now.
Guess they'll find out soon enough.
Through all of the noise of setting up, Sam sees that Dean and the kitten aren't going to budge. He flicks off the lights and flops down onto his own bed, pulling the sheets up and over him, flipping around and onto his stomach. He tucks his arms under the pillow beneath his head, and sleep slowly takes the third member of the family.
In the morning, Sam wakes up seemingly alone. The bathroom door is shut, and soon after he hears the faint sound of rushing water through the pipes in the wall. He sits up, flinching slightly when he sees the small grey-striped mass at the end of Dean's bed, looking straight at him. She continues to stare, motionless, and so Sam decides to get up and get some new clothes, seeing as he didn't change yesterday. As he pulls a shirt from his duffel, Dean steps out of the bathroom.
"Mornin', Sammy." He slurs, still half asleep, as per usual in the mornings when they've got no jobs to work. Sam walks back to his bed and sits.
"Hey. How'd you two sleep?" He asks, watching Dean's hand glide over the small, purring mass, seeing the smile that sticks for only a moment before he meets Sam's eyes, and, with a shrug and a grunt, plops down onto the bed.
Two days go by where neither of them really feels the need to leave for any extensive amount of time. Sam continues along with his whatever-it-is he's got going on on the web, and Dean looks through John's journal a few times, cleans some more guns, re-makes some Holy Water after remembering the spell, and, mainly, plays around with the kitten. She isn't ignoring Sam, though. She'll wander over and rub up against his leg hanging off the side of the bed, or climb up his pants to get onto the bed, with a little help from Sam's hand. Sam snorts out a laugh once, when she walks up and flat-out sits on his keyboard in the middle of his typing, and looks up into his eyes, waiting to be given attention. He scartches behind one of her oversized ears, causing her to burst into loud purrs. She then decides to settle down along the inside of his thigh, watching the letters magically appear on the screen as Sam types.
Once, when Sam looks over to his brother on the floor, wiping down the barrel of a shotgun, he sees Dean's mouth turn up on the side facing him when the kitten flops down on the floor beside him.
When Sam asks about breakfast on the third morning, Dean looks to the kitten first. After a moment of thought, he plucks the keys from Sam's hand and walks to the door.
"I'mma see if there are any bigger stores around, maybe one'll have a cat-carrier."
Sam nods. Okay, maybe he's still trying to get rid of her.
"Bagels?" Dean asks, jingling the keys to retain Sam's attention, thinking of the House Of Bagels they saw when they drove in. Sam nods again in agreement.
"Bagels."
"I hope they've got those ones with the jalapenos and cheese on 'em." Dean thinks out loud as he's shutting the door. Sam smiles faintly, and plucks the kitten from her place at his feet.
Sam never thought he'd be more grateful that a cat was smart enough to use a litter box.
Turns out that she does know how to take care of her business, so there's that. Still isn't pleasant cleaning the thing out, though.
On the fifth day, Dean wakes up early to pack their things. It's nearly Nine O'clock by the time Sam gets up, and he feels his stomach drop, but he knows this is best. He couldn't have honestly imagined they could keep a cat with them through all of the things they do, all the places they go.
Dean looks like he hasn't a care in the world, or at least none more than he usually does, and he smiles, and pats the kitten's head, humming along to the endless stream of Metallica in his head. He's cleaned the litter box out, something Sam had never conceived he'd ever do, and packed up the bowls, food, and unused litter in the Impala's trunk, tucked into their own little corner on the fold up which conceals the boy's arsonal. He hands Sam the plastic tub, now lined with one of the pillowcases from the motel, and, kitten in hand, plunks down the stairs into the parking lot.
Sam slides into the passenger seat as Dean turns his key, and the kitten stretches up from her place on Dean's lap to look out of his window. She stays alert on the passing cars for about a mile, but soon curls back up on Dean's lap.
Sam tosses the tub on the backseat a few minutes later, realizing she probably won't bet moving soon.
An hour down the highway, Sam has to ask.
"So, what's the nearest town with an animal shelter?"
"What?" Dean looks honestly confused. He raises a brow at his brother.
"Y'know, so we can drop her off?"
Dean laughs once, still eyeing Sam like he's crazy. "Sammy, she's great. We're keeping her."
"It's just that... we can't really have a cat, Man." Sam, of course, wants to keep her, with the way Dean has been acting with her around, but he knows that this new logic of his really is the right thing to say. "Plus, you're all OCD about keeping the car clean. She'd scratch the seats or something." There, now he'll agree and they can go on their not-so-merry way without her.
"S'what the cat-carrier's gonna be for." Sam blinks and stares out the front window.
"So, she's staying." Sam wants to clarify, to make sure he really isn't just crazy.
Sam expected some kind of snarky tone, but all he got was a very calm, very final "Yes.", followed by a smile that burned through him with such a strange amount of happiness that he had to smile, though much weaker, straight back, and, turning his head back to rest in on the window pane, let the smile stay as he shut his eyes to wait out the miles rolling by.