Author's Note:

:D

So please tell me how you feel about this chapter. It had to be in Jet's POV, I know that means there are two non-supernatural characters for most of the chapter but I hope that's cool with you xP

"Did you say a kid!?" Jet blurted out and hurried to Sam's side to look at the tablet, "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, see?" Sam scrolled back to a picture of the two humans involved in the experiment, Castiel was there as well as a little girl. She was unconscious in her picture, clearly lying on a table when it had been taken. Her face was splashed with freckles, dark curly hair curved around healthy cheeks, and her mouth had fallen open with no muscle control to keep it shut. To Jet she looked a lot like the little girl from the Hunger Games movie, Rue? He hadn't seen it in a while but he was pretty sure that was her name.

"They used a pretty much perfect clone of Cas to get his adaptability and some of his already enhanced features." Sam summarized as he read along, "They were working on experimental gerontology but couldn't quite mimic it. To expand the studies they tested to see how much of this clone they could de-age, since Cas was the only subject they had that took to most of their tests. It ended up working to some extent but not everything in the body would cooperate, and some of it broke down completely. They took the girl and used her to support the experiment, kinda like a vessel for the results."

"So they used this little kid's body like a petri dish of Cas and whoever she used to be?" Dean raised an eyebrow skeptically and looked at the empty cage again, eyes on the hole in the fake tree. "Wonder which one it has more of…"

"The overall experiment was a failure," Sam continued, "the body was stable but it wasn't a youth of the Cas clone, so they moved on to other animalistic experiments with it. Looks like the mixture was combined with a snow leopard, first successful cat-human hybrid."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Jet growled and pinched the bridge of his nose, "It didn't go the way they wanted so instead of, I dunno, letting this kid go they just do more experimental shit?"

"Looks that way, yeah." Sam looked up at the enclosure and glanced at the other two, "Well, who's going in there? We need to check if this one's alive."

Dean put his hands up, "I did Cas, I think I'm exempt from this one."

"I'll do it then," Sam rolled his eyes and hit the 'open door' button on the panel.

"No way," Jet protested and headed for the door before Sam could think twice about it, "I just barely managed to get you to go out with me, not letting you get yourself killed less than a day later."

"How noble," Sam laughed a little though it was pretty clear he was nervous.

Jet took a calming breath as he stepped through into the strange space; he glanced at the other two through the glass and felt like laughing when he saw the simultaneous thumbs up from the Winchester boys. If he were going to die in the next few minutes at least he'd been preapproved.

There was a rustling sound from the tree and a few pebbles of some kind fell out before he noticed the little blue glow in the dark hole. Jet swallowed nervously and took another step forward, "Hey," he spoke gently, his heart pounded and he wished he could slow it down by sheer force of will. It was stupid to be scared, whatever he was about to see was a child, a child they weren't even sure was alive.

With strength that he concluded was thanks to his mother, Jet calmed himself down and took confident strides into the depths of the enclosure. "You okay in there kiddo?" He asked as he noticed the blue light flickered with speed of someone blinking.

Before he could ask more the strange child peered out and hopped out of the hole, their back was completely covered in spotted fur and a thick snow leopard tail extended from their spine. The kid dropped to the floor with a bunch of those same pebbles and bounded across the room akin to a cub. Jet held his ground though he did take note that the kid seemed to be perfectly fine.

The kid stopped at his feet and he could get a much better view as this weird hybrid child stared up at him. He noticed immediately that they were physically female, her eyes were as piercing as Cas' and even her hair had changed from the original picture. Some of it curled near the front but as it went further back on her head it faded into the same fur that covered most of her body. She was small, he guessed smaller than what she would've been if they hadn't messed with her genes. Even her skin was different; while it used to be a beautiful, even shade of cocoa, parts of one side of her face were now splattered with white, shades like Cas' skin. Jet remembered his mother called it vitiligo; he'd gone to school with someone like that when he was little. He was 7 years old and a complete asshole to this kid that 'looked funny' to him. Jet briefly considered that he might be facing the karmic vengeance of the boy he didn't remember the name of.

She grabbed onto his leg and started climbing, he made no move to stop her and waited as she clambered right up to look him in the eye. Their faces were close and he felt like maybe he should get her off before she tore into his throat or something, but she didn't move. Actually it looked like she was trying to bluff him back, scare him into running away or something. He'd held his ground and now she didn't seem to know what to do with him.

"Hey," Jet smiled.

"I don't know you," she uttered with a hint of the same raspy tone that Castiel tended to have. The fact that she could speak at all surprised Jet immensely. She frowned in slight confusion, her brow furrowed and she stared hard at him. A few seconds passed until she dropped back to the floor, more comfortable with a crouched position she slowly paced around him.

"What're you looking for?" He asked as he watched her circle him, silently relieved he won the first round of the vicious creature lottery.

She didn't answer him; instead she moved around in front of him again and stared at him from a distance. "Whatchu want?" she muttered quickly and it almost sounded like one word.

"I came to rescue you," he kept it light hearted; unnecessary complexities wouldn't make this kid any more relaxed. "If you wanted to leave, that is."

She glanced at the door then back at Jet, her expression was tense and Jet could tell she wanted believe him. He carefully lowered himself down and sat across from her on the floor, she scurried backward as soon as he'd started moving but stopped when she saw him chilling on the floor. He didn't seem so big anymore when he was close to the ground.

"You can trust me, I promise." He said seriously, keeping eye contact with her as well as an open posture; he had a hunch she'd be more in tune to reading body language.

She stayed still for a few seconds but soon started inching closer, little by little, until she was about a foot away. He kept his arms open and gentle expression as he waited for her to decide what she was going to do. Another few seconds passed before she took a little leap of faith and hopped into his lap.

"My name's Jet," he smiled and loosely put his arms around her, she crawled a little closer and hung onto him so he hugged her. "You're going to be okay."

She trembled; a shaky breath escaped her and a sharp sniffle. Jet didn't have to guess to know she was trying not to cry. He didn't move or make her do anything; just let her do what she needed to do before moving on. It was a few minutes before she loosened her grip and looked up at him, her eyes were a little puffy but she actually smiled.

"You're nice," she wiped her eyes and rubbed her nose on her forearm fur, "I'm Desirae."

"Desirae, huh?" he grinned and ruffled her hair gently, "Well c'mon shorty, you're with me now."

She grinned back at him and climbed up onto his shoulders, drooping most of her body against his head and looking around from there. "How come you're not evil? Are you a superhero?" She asked as he carefully climbed back up to his feet.

"I'm just a regular guy, I've got good parts and bad parts like anybody else. I help people when they need me and hoard all the cupcakes to myself."

"Oh," she didn't sound disappointed, "Can I have a cupcake?"

Jet's mouth pulled tight as he fought his immediate instinct to say no. "Yeah, I can find you one."

"Yay! Whatsa cupcake?"

His chest shook with a quelled laugh and he shook his head, "It's food. The best food in the world."

"Ooooooo," she perked up, "Does it taste better than kibbles?"

Jet frowned and glanced back at the hole in the tree, silently wondering why she was in a tree in the first place. "Is that what the stuff was?"

"Yeah, the bad guys gave me lots, I was saving it."

"Well I can promise it tastes a million times better than kibbles."

"Dude," Dean was astonished as Jet walked out with the girl on his head, "That was awesome, she didn't even try to kill you."

"Right? I guess Winchester luck doesn't count for boyfriends." Jet smirked and tilted his head to try and see Desirae, all he caught were the tips of her rounded ears and tufts of curly hair. "Rae, this is my best friend Dean, and this is my boyfriend Sam."

She held tightly to Jet's head, little fingernails dug into his scalp but he didn't say anything about it. "Are they nice?"

"They're more like superheroes than I am."

She took that as a good answer and let up on the unknowing pain she was causing Jet's head. "Hi," she waved, Jet felt her tail swish along his back and took a mental note of how strong it could be. "I'm Desirae, I'm with him now."

Sam covered his mouth as he cracked a smile, "She's so cute,"

"Yep, and apparently she had a lot of food." Jet looked back at the tree again, "They gave her plenty for some reason."

"I read a little more," Sam tapped the tablet again, "Seems they mostly gave up on the experiment, forgot to feed her a few times and so they just dumped a bunch in there. They were planning to test her against Cas, never got around to it."

Jet sighed, "Well I'm relieved she didn't have to do any fighting, means she won't flip out like he does."

"Yeah," Dean sounded a bit distant, Jet was sure it because of Cas.

"You'll see him later today, man, chill out." He gave his buddy a light punch to the shoulder as he started walking, "Come on, we got some more shit to check out."

"Don't you want to take her upstairs?" Sam questioned in a way that sounded more like insistence.

"Not unless Dean's gonna be there to reign Cas in."

"Good point."

Dean laughed, "She doesn't look like Cas, I think it'd be fine."

"Who's Cas?" Desirae tugged at Jet's hair to get his attention, he wasn't a big fan of the reoccurrence of pain but it wasn't so bad if it was from her. "I heard people talk 'bout him a lot."

"He's like you, he got captured and put in a cage for a long time." Sam told her in a sweet tone, Jet was pretty sure Sam was more anxious than ecstatic there was a kid in their midst. But he was handling it pretty well so Jet kept that thought to himself.

"Oh," she let herself dangly mostly on the back of Jet's head and was quiet for a little bit until she perked up again, "Does he have ears like me? Or a tail? Or fur?"

"He's got wings," Dean added with a grin, "Great white wings, he can fly with them."

"He's a chicken?"

"Chickens don't fly." Dean deflated pretty quick and Jet couldn't stop himself from laughing. "He's more like an angel."

Desirae snorted and drooped again, "That's stupid, angels aren't real."

"No, maybe not," Jet reached up and took her little hand in his, "I used to say the same thing, but my mom told me that even if they aren't real some people still need to believe in them."

She held onto his hand but harrumphed anyway. "Fine."

"He just looks like an angel," Dean added, "so we still don't have any real proof that they exist anyway."

She stared at Dean for a bit then nodded, "Okay. Is he nice?"

"He's…" Dean had think about it. Jet knew that the people Cas liked he was nice to, but it wasn't necessarily going to be the case when he met Desirae. "He's been hurt," Dean finally said with an edge to his voice that made Jet's chest ache. "So he's scared, sometimes he might seem mean but it's just because he doesn't know what to do."

Desirae nodded and put her chin down on Jet's head, "Me too."

Dean smiled and reached over to ruffle her hair, "When he warms up to you I'm sure he'll love you."

"Charlie texted me," Sam piped in, "Turns out Bobby's friend is here and isn't a huge fan of Cas. I think we should get up there."

Dean was way ahead of him and running down the walkway, "I'll see you guys up there!" He yelled over his shoulder and disappeared into the darker areas.

Jet shook his head and started following, "We're never gonna get this thing explored."

"I'm not sure I really want to," Sam stepped closer to him and walked by his side, Jet used his free hand to take Sam's and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "It's just hard to see this many bodies, you know?"

"We're tough people but we shouldn't have to do this. I think leaving it to someone else might be okay."

Sam smiled and leaned over to kiss his cheek, "Thanks for understanding."

Jet tilted his head a little to return the gesture without knocking Desirae off, "You're welcome, now let's hurry up or we'll miss all the fun. I betcha five bucks I know who Bobby's pal is."

"It's Rufus, guaranteed."

"Ruin all my fun," Jet snickered.

Sam looked up at their newest friend, "Desirae it might be best if you just hang onto Jet for a while, okay?"

"Yeah, okay."

Jet liked how quick she was to trust him, kids were easier to win over but he wasn't sure what to expect with someone who'd been a science doll for a year or two. Regardless they hurried after Dean, he was much faster so they knew they wouldn't catch up but being close behind him wasn't a bad idea.