fic: The Amazing Adventures of Catsiel [2/2]
Title: The Amazing Adventures of Catsiel
Ratings/warnings: PG-13; none
Characters/pairings: Sam, Dean, Castiel, Catsiel; gen.
Summary: The Apocalypse is looming, the threat of death is high, and Dean has formed an unhealthy bond with a stray cat. Sam reluctantly goes along with this.
Part I
“A cat,” says Bobby flatly, staring at the bundle of fur that Dean is holding. Sam really wishes that Dean would just put Catsiel down and let him get the lay of the house, because he’s holding both of their duffel bags, and Dean apparently keeps rocks in his. “You got a cat.”
“Yeah,” says Dean, shifting from foot to foot and looking like he’s five years old and admitting that he emptied Bobby’s cookie jar. “I would’ve mentioned him to you before, but I didn’t think it was relevant.”
Bobby shakes his head and rolls his eyes, muttering something under his breath.
“What was that, Bobby?” asks Sam innocently.
He gets a glare in return, but then Bobby relents and wheels forward. His eyes stay on Catsiel, who’s stopped wriggling and is now carefully examining the man in the chair. “That thing got a name?”
“Um, yeah.” Sam glances at Dean, but he just shrugs innocently. Jerk. “Catsiel.”
“Catsiel? You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Bobby shakes his head. “The poor bastard has to be dragged around with you chuckleheads and you couldn’t even bother giving him a dignified name? Ripper, Killer, something like that?”
“You had a dog named Rumsfeld,” says Dean defensively. “And anyway, he’s not really a Ripper. Or a Killer. Though he has caught a few roaches,” he adds proudly.
Bobby snorts. “Just cause my legs ain’t working don’t mean that I let my house turn into a wreck. Not gonna be any roaches here.”
“Good.” Dean bends down and carefully places Catsiel in Bobby’s lap. The cat jumps down almost immediately, too interested in the new place to want to stay and be doted upon. “We’re only gonna stay for a few days. He won’t get in your way, will he?”
“Not unless I roll over his tail,” replies Bobby. He shakes his head. “You’re responsible for him not pissing on my carpets.”
“He’s housetrained,” Dean says. “And we’ll keep him indoors, although I think he’s smart enough to not kill himself out back.”
“If you say so. Never was a cat person, but I guess I can put up with him. If he’s good,” he adds, stressing the if.
“Relax. He’s never even scratched us. I’m gonna go look for him.” Sam finally dumps his duffel bag on the floor at that statement and begins to rub his shoulders testily. Dean ignores the hint. “There’s so many places he could hide in here. I just want to make sure he doesn’t get lost.”
Dean walks out of the room. Bobby cranes his head to watch him go. When it gets to the point where Dean is probably out of earshot, he turns back to Sam and says, “What the hell is up with your brother?”
“I do not know,” he replies, shrugging, as if to emphasize his helplessness. “We - well, Dean, really - found him in an alley a month or so ago. He wasn’t doing so hot, but Dean managed to get Cas to heal him.” He continues to relate the line of events to Bobby, ending with, “The thing is, though, he’s not a bad cat. Really. He’s mostly quiet, he loves being held, he sleeps on our beds…”
He looks at Bobby pleadingly, trying to get him to understand. “I can’t bring myself to tell Dean to get rid of him. He isn’t even that expensive to keep, and Dean’s happier than he’s been in months. Even if we had to buy him a collar made of gold, I think it’d be worth it to just see Dean be… upbeat. You know what I mean, Bobby.”
“You mean not drinking himself unconscious? Yeah, I got that part all right.” Bobby sighs and shakes his head. “I’m not gonna tell you to what to do. You’re grown men, and you can make your own screw-ups. But damn it Sam, I don’t want Dean to go all mopey on us again, and if he’s that attached to the cat then, well, he’s going to be devastated when he loses it.”
There’s no point saying if he loses it, Sam knows. In their lives, it’s more or less inevitable. “I know. I mean, I’m just hoping that it doesn’t happen, but…he’s lasted a month, you know? That means he could last another.”
“Don’t give me that,” grouses Bobby. “You’re smart enough to know better.”
Sam just shakes his head, wishing that he had a better response. As it is, though, there’s only so much he can say when he knows that Bobby is right. As fond as Dean (and, well, him too) has grown of Catsiel, he can’t last. For his sake and theirs.
That weekend passes by uneventfully, save for one moment: Sam catches Bobby sitting at his desk one evening with Catsiel curled up on his lap, fast asleep. Bobby is stroking him, and as reluctant as he looks, Sam can tell that he’s falling under the cat’s spell. “Damn good think I can’t feel my legs,” he says. “They’d probably be sleeping like dogs if I could.”
Sam nods distractedly, a plan forming in his mind. “Bobby, if you like him-”
“No.”
Sam’s shoulders slump. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“You were going to ask me to take Catsiel. And the answer is no. Just because I’m not on the road doesn’t mean that I’m safe here. And I’m useless in this damn chair. I couldn’t keep up with a cat.”
“Sure you could,” he replies, but the words sound feeble as he says them, and he knows that he’s not going to be able to convince Bobby. Still, he adds, “It’d really be the best solution. You’d have someone around, and we could be on the road knowing that he’s safe.”
“Yeah, and I could be stuck here, unable to reach the litter box all on the floor. And unable to sort through my books when he jumps on them and knocks them all down to the floor.” Bobby snorts. “He’s a nice cat, Sam, but you know I can’t keep him. Take him to the shelter downtown. It’s a no-kill place, and I’m sure that someone will scoop him right up.”
Bobby is right, and Sam knows that it would be so easy to just scoop the cat out of his lap, hide him for the night, and then bring him down first thing in the morning, while Dean looks around for him. But he can’t do that, he knows he can’t. That would be betraying Dean’s trust, and it would deny him the chance to say goodbye to the cat that he’s grown so attached to after all of his nightmares. Dean deserves Catsiel, and he deserves Sam’s trust.
So they pack up the next morning, Catsiel still in tow. Bobby frowns at Sam and shakes his head, but Sam sticks by his gut feeling that this is the right thing to do.
*
Castiel comes in unannounced, like he always does. They don’t even get a phone call, not since Dean began texting him their location whenever they set up base at a new motel.
No, they just get a quiet thump from somewhere in the room, a noise that’s discernibly less subtle than it used to be. Dean doesn’t even bother looking up from where he’s pouring out Catsiel’s dried food, the stuff that looks like rabbit pellets and makes their room smell like meat, even though Dean swears up and down that it’s supposed to be odorless. “Hey, Cas.”
Sam, on the other hand, has more of a heart, so he actually looks up from the newspaper that he’s got splayed over the bed, his hands automatically stroking the cat that’s lying half on it. “Hi, Cas - Cas?”
The angel is standing in place, swaying slightly. There’s a cut on his chin, and his hands are all scraped up. “I believe I require healing,” Castiel announces, and Sam and Dean have just enough time to leap up and grab him as he collapses. They manhandle him to a bed where he barely manages to stay sitting up. “I would like to spend the night,” he says, looking at his hands and frowning, like he’s some stoner who’s wondering why they’re so big. “I think that sleep would be optimal for me.”
“You think?” Dean starts to ask, but before the last word is fully out of his mouth, Castiel has collapsed on the pillows. His lips part slightly as his breath evens out.
“Damn,” Dean murmurs, staring at his prone form. “He’s, uh. He’s not taking the whole falling from Heaven thing too well, is he?”
Sam just shakes his head. Castiel maintains that he’s an angel, that he’s still got some grace left in him, but sometimes Sam has his doubts. But they’ll get the full story from him when he wakes up, and things will go as they always do - Dean will ask Cas to join them; Cas will glare and insist that he still needs to search for God, will leave before Dean’s finished picking that argument apart.
Still, this is the first time he’s actually collapsed on them. Sam has seen him look tired, hungry, or like he really just needs to take a long, hot shower, but actually doing it is something new. “Should we, y’know, take off his shoes or anything?”
“I don’t think so.” Dean shakes his head and says, “His battery probably won’t take too long to recharge,” but his words sound doubtful.
“I hope not - hey! Catsiel. Leave him alone.”
Sam didn’t notice then, but the cat must have gotten up when Castiel arrived, miffed that Sam was no longer petting him. He’s definitely aware of him now, though, since he’s sitting next to Cas and gently patting his face with his dirty grey-brown paws. Sam picks him up, and he meows in protest. “I don’t think Cas would like that.”
It’s something that Catsiel did when he first arrived, a month and a half ago. He didn’t like it when they slept so, using his cat-logic, he figured that it would be a good idea to sit next to one of them and pet their faces until they woke up and gave him the attention that he was craving. Sam thought that nearly getting stabbed a few times had weaned him from the habit, but apparently not.
Catsiel meows and wriggles in his grip until he finally relents and gently puts him down on the floor. He then proceeds to jump right back up and lie next to Castiel, purring loudly. He folds his paws beneath him, becoming a housecat version of the Sphinx.
Sam glances at Dean, who shrugs. People-friendly as he seems to be - it’s not like he meets a whole lot of strangers - Catsiel doesn’t usually just jump up and appoint himself the protector of everyone that he meets. “Maybe he remembers what happened. How Cas healed him.”
“Maybe,” Sam says. It’s about as logical a theory as any. “You sure there’s nothing we should do?”
“Nope. Dude, I’ve got about as much experience with collapsing angels as you do. But he doesn’t seem too hurt, and I mean, you’ve seen what he’s been looking like these past few weeks. He probably just got overtaken by the stress and shit.” His words apparently final, Dean returns to the litter box. His shoulders are tense now, though, and Sam knows him well enough to know that he’s a lot more concerned for Cas than he’s letting on.
And of course, Dean won’t mention his concern. As usual.
Sam turns back and smooths down the newspaper that Catsiel was lying on, staunchly refusing to give in to his own concern for Cas. He probably will wake up soon. After all, he was talking, knew what was going on when he first came in. That’s a good sign, right?
Two hours pass before he stirs. Neither Sam nor Dean make any motion of going to bed, even though it’s past midnight by the time he wakes up. Cas is in Dean’s bed anyway, and they’re not just going to kick him off so that Dean can get his beauty sleep.
Castiel comes around fairly quickly, once his hands twitch for the first time. He sits up only a few seconds after that, frowning down at his hands just like he did when he first dropped in. This time, though, the scraped-raw skin actually heals itself, knitting together until it’s like new. The cut on his cheek also fades, not even leaving a scar behind.
Apparently ignoring Sam and Dean, he looks down warily at Catsiel, who’s purring as he butts his head into the trench coat. Cas hesitantly lifts a hand to stroke him, keeping his touch feather light. Catsiel meows and pushes up, clearly not caring that he’s dealing with a warrior of God who could (theoretically) crush him with a glance. Finally, he acknowledges that no, he’s not the only one in the room. “He can tell that I’m not human. I expect that he likes my grace.”
“Does he know that you’re the one who healed you?” Sam asks curiously. It doesn’t really mean anything, and it’s actually way more important that they find out why the hell Castiel collapsed in the middle of their motel room. But he wants to know, and he figures that Cas won’t mind him asking.
“It’s possible that he does. Admittedly, I’m not too familiar with the psychology of cats.” Catsiel climbs into his lap, and Cas frowns down at him, like he can’t understand why the cat would do that. But he doesn’t force him off, and as wont as Sam is to admit this, it’s, well, kind of adorable. He’s barely able to hide a smile as he watches the angel stroke the purring white cat.
“So, do we get an explanation for this?” Dean asks. He sounds pissed, sarcastic, and annoyed, his usual mix when covering up how concerned he is. “You know, the whole falling-asleep thing? Which you’ve never done before?”
“Yes. Well.” Cas looks down at Catsiel, clearly avoiding meeting Dean’s accusing glare. “There was a battle, and I was forced to exert an unhealthy amount of energy in order to dispel my attackers. I hadn’t expected it to take such a toll on me.”
“Are you still an angel?” Dean asks bluntly, and Sam cringes at Castiel’s responding glare, even if it isn’t directed at him.
“Yes,” he replies stiffly. “One moment of weakness doesn’t mean that I’ve lost all of my grace, Dean.”
“That wasn’t a ‘moment of weakness,’ Cas,” Dean snaps, and Sam watches as all of his concern gets ground up into fury. “Moments of weakness are having a dizzy spell after you’ve banged your head, or feeling like dying after you’ve puked. That was you coming in and collapsing. In our life, that’s grounds for a trip to the hospital. And you know that we don’t make those lightly.”
“Nevertheless, you didn’t take me, because you knew that I’m not one of you.” Catsiel meows from Cas’ lap, like he can sense his distress. Cas frowns, but he continues to pet him, scratching under his chin and making him purr with a noise that rivals the Impala’s engine. “Don’t demean me. I’m still far more powerful than you or any other human being.”
“Don’t turn this into some pissing contest,” Dean snaps. He probably would have continued, too, if not for the way that Catsiel suddenly ducks away from Cas’ touch, arches his back, and growls. Sam never thought that cats could do that, always thought that cats snarled, but that’s really the only way to describe it.
They all freeze, staring at the cat in Castiel’s lap. It stays in that position for a moment longer, tense as an arrow in a bow, daring any of them to speak again with fighting words. When none of them do, it gradually relaxes. A moment later, Catsiel is nuzzling Castiel, demanding that the petting be resumed.
Dean glances at Sam, Sam glances back, and Castiel gives in to the cat’s wishes and starts scratching his eats again. Apparently, Sam thinks, Catsiel isn’t very fond of fighting.
“…look, Cas,” Dean says, his voice softer now. “Just. Don’t push yourself beyond what you can take, okay? We can’t afford to have you not at your best.”
“I understand, Dean,” he replies, his voice lower than it usually is. He picks up Catsiel and sets him on the bed besides him. The cat meows, apparently dejected by the loss of petting. Standing up he says, “I should move on.”
“What? No way. You can’t just leave after that,” Dean says. “Spend the night getting some rest. Sam’ll give up his bed for you.”
Sam rolls his eyes, but he still says, “Cas, you really should. You might be able to leave, but that doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea.”
“I have a lead that I need to follow up upon,” Castiel insists. “A miracle that occurred in the southern regions of Italy. I think that this could be a very important clue.”
“You’re like a frigging bloodhound,” Dean mutters, running a hand through his hair. “Look, God can wait for you. The miracle isn’t going to just walk up and leave.”
“Actually, the miracle is the revival of a woman who has been in a coma for the past thirteen years. She awoke on Christmas day. It’s entirely possible that she might walk away.”
“You’re missing the point, Cas,” Dean says, but Castiel ignores that.
“See to it that you take care of Catsiel,” he says instead, leaning over and petting the cat’s ears. “I find his presence to be not unpleasant.”
With that, he flutters off - to Italy, Sam assumes, to meet with the miracle woman. Catsiel meows, apparently missing the angel that healed him.
“Well,” Dean says, picking up the crying cat and rubbing his thumb under his chin until he quiets down, “Turns out that Castiel is a cat person. Who’d have guessed?”
*
They’ve had Catsiel for almost exactly two months when the thing they were trying so hard not to think about happens: they bring work home with them.
It starts as a routine hunt - it always does. They’re ridding a town of a minor scourge of vampires, just a leader and his mate. They think, since that’s all that’s in the nest when they burst in on a bright, sunny day and get down to some beheading. The vampires fight, of course, and by the time that they’re in pieces Sam is fairly certain that his back is a giant bruise. That, and his shoulder was very nearly dislocated.
Dean is no worse-off than he is, which doesn’t, of course, mean that Dean is fine. He’s rubbing his thigh as they walk to the Impala, sticky machetes in hand. “Goddamn, that hurts like a mother. How come you can get shot and not feel anything for an hour, but as soon as some asshole throws you into a bedpost it makes you want to cut off your leg?”
“God hates humanity,” Sam replies. The jokes falls flat, and they drive to the motel in silence.
Dean takes the first shower while Sam lounges on his bed, trying to catch a minute or two of rest. Catsiel pats his arm until he pays attention to him, though, so he ends up just sitting there in bloodied clothes (which Catsiel doesn’t seem to care about) scratching the cat’s ears until he’s purring like the Impala’s engine.
It’s just as Dean is walking out of the bathroom that everything goes wrong. He opens the door and steps out, saying, “All yours, Sammy-” and then someone dressed entirely in black, a ski-mask pulled over their head, kicks down the door to their room.
Dean snarls, “Fuck!” and Sam jumps off the bed, automatically grabbing the gun. He shoots it in the leg - not a kill shot, but it should be disabling.
Except, it isn’t. Whoever it is snarls, stumbling slightly, but staying on its feet. “Think that’ll do anything? Sure as hell didn’t work on my kin, you fucking pieces of human shit.”
Vampire, Sam realizes. The pair that they took out apparently had a friend or son or something, and said friend or son had come to avenge their deaths. And their machetes are currently in the Impala, along with the vial of dead man’s blood that he and Dean brought along. The motel room doesn’t have too many sharp edges, and no, this isn’t good. Not at all.
Catsiel is crouching on the bed that Sam abandoned moments ago. His ears are pressed flat to his head, and all of his fur is standing up, all spiky and bristled. He hisses at the vamp, showing off his sharp cat teeth.
The vampire turns to look at him, and Sam thinks that under the ski mask, he’s taken on an amused expression. “A cat?” he says. “Really? You two are the famous Winchester boys, eliminators of all things bad, releasers of all things hellish, and you’re travelling around with a little puss?”
He steps forward, and Dean snarls, “Don’t you fucking touch him!”
“Oh, my.” The vamp looks amused. It reaches out and pokes Catsiel, who draws back and jumps off the bed, still growling. Sam bends down and scoops him up, holding the cat tight to his chest. Cas, he thinks, Sorry to bother you, but we need help. Please. He thinks that Dean is praying too; his lips are actually moving ever so slightly as he circles the vampire.
“This really doesn’t fit your image,” drawls the creature. “It seems like killing you right now would be less fun than actually going out and spreading the word that the big, bad Winchesters have taken on a little kitty.”
Dean yanks his gun out and shoots him in the head. He reels back - headshots aren’t easy for anyone to recover from - but it isn’t fatal.
“Enough foreplay.” It stocks forward and slams a fist into Dean’s diaphragm. He chokes, gasping for breath. Sam moves to his side, holding a meowing Catsiel in one arm and a gun in his free hand. “Those two you killed today? The girl was my sister. The boy turned her. We were going to find others, make others, and now I’m all that’s left.”
He turns to Sam. From behind the black ski mask, his two blue eyes are murderous. “I’m going to make you pay. But first, I’m going to kill your fuckin’ cat.”
“I beg to differ,” says a cool voice. The vampire turns around, and has only a moment to process the stranger’s arrival, before he finds his life being extinguished by a man in a trench coat. His black-clad body slumps to the floor, and Sam breathes a sigh of relief. He puts down a struggling Catsiel, who instantly starts to twine around Cas’ legs.
“Thanks, Cas,” Sam says sincerely, still processing the implications of what just happened, of what the vampire threatened to do, and how it was exactly what they were working to not have happen. Next to him, Dean’s wheezing is just starting to quiet down.
Cas nods coolly, his version of, “You’re welcome.” Then, as Dean straightens up, he scoops down and picks up Catsiel, who meows his pleasure at the action. Frowning, he says, “You almost got your cat killed today.”
Dean looks at him, a sort of pain in his green eyes that has nothing to do with having just been punched in the diaphragm by a creature of supernatural strength. Sam knows that he’s reaching the same conclusions as him. “I know.”
“Perhaps,” says Castiel, as the cat butts his head up under his chin, “You should think about finding him somewhere safe to stay.”
Dean sighs, and Sam can see whatever joy Catsiel’s presence brought him, whatever he got out of having that cat lying with him during the worst of his nightmares, exiting his body. “Yeah,” he says, his voice heavy. “Maybe we should.”
*
Catsiel seems to sense the change in the environment. He curls up with them a lot more, Sam notices, like he wants to keep them near while there’s still time.
They hop from town to town after the disastrous encounter with the vampire, passing plenty of shelters. But Dean never stops at any of them; if anything, he’ll press down on the gas and leave the ASPCAs and all the other places dedicated to helping animals behind in the dust.
Sam brings it up one time as Dean speeds up to make a light, just so they won’t be waiting outside of one. “Dean, the ASPCA is a really good organization. I’m sure that Catsiel would be adopted quickly-”
“No,” snaps Dean. He reaches over and scratches the cat’s ears. He’s lying in his usual place in Sam’s lap, eyes half-closed, occasionally letting out a contented purr. “I’m not just abandoning him, okay? We’ll find somewhere for him with someone good. And that’s it, Sam.”
Sam sighs and doesn’t broach the subject again.
*
Ms. Dora Rossi is, to Sam’s best guess, in the latter half of her sixties. She is, she tells them, a piano teacher who retired only last spring, when her arthritis finally got the best of him. Her relationship with Tommy Blaire, the eighteen-year-old who was found dead in his bed from causes that the newspaper won’t report (but which Sam and Dean both know are classic signs of a succubus) is that she taught him from the time he was five years old and got her grand piano all sticky with his grubby little fingers.
“He was a good boy,” she says, dropping her voice low as if there’s someone else around who might hear her confide this, “but between you and me, he was a bit of a lady’s man. He’d always have some blonde or another come in hanging off of his arm, and he would play to impress them. They were very nice young women, though all of them. Except for that most recent one.” She leans forward and describes the girl that they’re already suspecting to be a sex-obsessed demon.
At one point she offers them tea. They both refuse out of habit, but she still takes a cup for herself and sips at it while she gossips. She’s remarkably comfortable talking with a pair of federal agents.
Eventually, the conversation pauses as she takes a particularly long sip of her drink. Sam takes the opportunity to really observe his surroundings. What he sees surprises him, but in all the right ways.
“You must be a big cat person,” he notes, looking around the den that they’re in. The shelves are covered with little ceramic figurines of cats playing with balls of yarn, crouching and ready to spring at mice, or just lying in tight, round balls of fur. A picture on the coffee table shows a handsome golden-brown cat sunning himself in what Sam recognizes to be the kitchen.
Ms. Rossi follows his gaze to the picture. Her face lights up as she reaches over and picks it up, holding it in a hand that trembles with frailness. “Oh, yes. This is Bruin, my old cat.”
“You don’t have him anymore?” he asks politely.
She shakes her head, looking sad. “No. He passed on last month.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Sam says. In the back of his mind, an idea that’s probably crazy, and definitely unrealistic, is starting to form. “I know that it must be hard, having a pet pass on like that.” Actually, he doesn’t, because John never let them own pets as kids. Still, he knows it’s what he’s supposed to say, regardless of the look that Dean is giving him when Ms. Rossi bends down to drink her tea.
“Oh, it is. I’ve owned cats ever since I was a child, you know. They always ran around our house, catching mice and chasing my marbles. It just doesn’t feel right not having one around anymore, but…” she trails off, sighing.
“But what?” Sam prompts
“Well, the shelters around here don’t like letting old women like me take home their cats, as crowded as those poor places are. And pet stores are so expensive, and I don’t like to think that they’re just going to use my money to breed more kittens under horrible conditions.” She sighs. “I do miss it, though.”
“I can imagine. Do you think, though, that you would ever be interested in having another one? If you could find someone to give one to you?”
“Oh, yes,” she says immediately. “I’d love to have another one. And I could still take care of it, too. I might be an old lady, but I’m not dead yet.”
Sam thinks he kind of likes her.
*
The drive back to the motel is tense, because they’re both thinking the same thing, but neither of them wants to say it - Dean, because he doesn’t want to admit it, and Sam because he doesn’t want to upset Dean. Really, he doesn’t; he’s sympathetic to the position that he’s in, much as Dean probably thinks otherwise. He knows how hard it is for his brother to give things up, and he also knows that he really does care for the cat (not that Dean of the abundance of testosterone would ever bring himself to admit that). After all, Sam saw for himself how Catsiel stayed with him through the nightmares; how Dean, when he first picked him up in that alley, drew a comparison between himself and the cat.
But he also knows that Dean is smart enough to recognize that if they want Catsiel to be safe, they need to leave him with someone who isn’t on a first-name basis with half the monsters in the world. And an old woman who’s lonely and missing her pet -they’re not likely to come across a better candidate for taking in Catsiel.
When they pull into the parking space, Dean just sits there for a moment, staring out into space. Sam waits patiently beside him, although he’s not entirely sure what he’s waiting for.
Finally, Dean shakes his head and calls, “Cas? If you can spare a moment we’ve got something--”
There’s a whoosh of air, and Castiel is sitting in the backseat of the Impala. “-for you to check out,” Dean finishes. “Slow day?”
“I suppose,” Castiel replies. “What is it that you need?”
“There’s a woman who lives nearby. Dora Rossi is her name. Kind of an old lady? Anyway…” Dean pauses before he says, sounding unhappy, “we think that maybe she’d like to take in Catsiel. But we want to make sure that she’s not, like, a monster that eats cats first, you know? So, would you be able to check her out?”
Castiel nods. “Yes. I’ll have that done for you soon.”
With that, he disappears. Sam turns to Dean. “I think you’re making the right-”
“Don’t,” Dean interrupts. “Spare me that share and care bullshit, okay? I’m doing what I have to and that’s that.”
Sam nods, and tries to keep the sympathy from being too blatant in his eyes.
*
They gank the succubus that night, using a complicated spell that sends her back to the pit of Hell. She goes screaming curses at them, involving what there genitals will and will not be able to do the next time they try to have sex. Sam’s pretty sure that they won’t actually be effective, but he’s really not in any hurry to find out.
“She was hot,” Dean says on the ride back. “I mean, if I ignore the whole ‘bitch from Hell’ part? I would’ve done her.”
His words are casual and, well, perfectly fitting to Dean. But his fingers are tapping out some eclectic pattern on the steering wheel (actually, Sam thinks that it might be Moby Dick, in which case he is actually very impressed with his brother for knowing the whole damn solo, much as it doesn’t surprise him) and that betrays his nerves. Sam doesn’t bring it up, though.
Castiel is waiting for them in the motel room, looking mildly impatient as he perches on the edge of a bed as they step through the door. Catsiel, on the other hand, is crouched in his lap, perfectly happy with the attention that he’s receiving.
Cas glances up at them. Without preamble he says, “Dora Rossi is, for all intents and purposes, a good woman. She prays to God daily and genuinely believes in Him. She has no children and was married only once, to a man that was killed in a car crash three years after their wedding. The longest period that she went without having a cat was six months. She has no criminal record, but she regularly volunteered with the animal shelter when she was young. She enjoys playing the piano, although her arthritis prevents her from doing so properly. Her arthritis aside, she is a very healthy woman, and will probably live upwards of ten years more, providing that the apocalypse isn’t brought about before then. She is also very much a fan of Broadway musicals.”
“Damn,” says Dean, raising an eyebrow. “You do one hell of a background check, Cas.”
Castiel stands up, scooping Catsiel in her arms as he does. The cat purrs loudly, nuzzling Cas’ chest. With a great sort of solemnest he places Catsiel in Dean’s arms. “He is a good creature, and I expect that the woman you asked me to look at will provide him with a good home.”
It’s as close to reassurance as Sam has ever seen him give. With a little more practice, he thinks, maybe Cas could actually get good at that.
“Yeah. I guess anything’s better than us.” Dean bends his head so that his forehead is practically touching the still-purring Catsiel. “Thanks, Cas.”
Cas nods. He pauses, like there’s more that he wants to say, and then he just shakes his head and disappears. It’s a start at least, and it’s not like sympathy usually comes quickly, anyway.
“Tomorrow morning,” Dean says after a pause. He adjusts his hold on Catsiel. “We’ll stop by before we cut town.”
Sam nods, and wishes that he had something to say.
Catsiel sleeps on Dean’s bed that night. Sam isn’t insulted in the least.
Ratings/warnings: PG-13; none
Characters/pairings: Sam, Dean, Castiel, Catsiel; gen.
Summary: The Apocalypse is looming, the threat of death is high, and Dean has formed an unhealthy bond with a stray cat. Sam reluctantly goes along with this.
Part I
“A cat,” says Bobby flatly, staring at the bundle of fur that Dean is holding. Sam really wishes that Dean would just put Catsiel down and let him get the lay of the house, because he’s holding both of their duffel bags, and Dean apparently keeps rocks in his. “You got a cat.”
“Yeah,” says Dean, shifting from foot to foot and looking like he’s five years old and admitting that he emptied Bobby’s cookie jar. “I would’ve mentioned him to you before, but I didn’t think it was relevant.”
Bobby shakes his head and rolls his eyes, muttering something under his breath.
“What was that, Bobby?” asks Sam innocently.
He gets a glare in return, but then Bobby relents and wheels forward. His eyes stay on Catsiel, who’s stopped wriggling and is now carefully examining the man in the chair. “That thing got a name?”
“Um, yeah.” Sam glances at Dean, but he just shrugs innocently. Jerk. “Catsiel.”
“Catsiel? You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Bobby shakes his head. “The poor bastard has to be dragged around with you chuckleheads and you couldn’t even bother giving him a dignified name? Ripper, Killer, something like that?”
“You had a dog named Rumsfeld,” says Dean defensively. “And anyway, he’s not really a Ripper. Or a Killer. Though he has caught a few roaches,” he adds proudly.
Bobby snorts. “Just cause my legs ain’t working don’t mean that I let my house turn into a wreck. Not gonna be any roaches here.”
“Good.” Dean bends down and carefully places Catsiel in Bobby’s lap. The cat jumps down almost immediately, too interested in the new place to want to stay and be doted upon. “We’re only gonna stay for a few days. He won’t get in your way, will he?”
“Not unless I roll over his tail,” replies Bobby. He shakes his head. “You’re responsible for him not pissing on my carpets.”
“He’s housetrained,” Dean says. “And we’ll keep him indoors, although I think he’s smart enough to not kill himself out back.”
“If you say so. Never was a cat person, but I guess I can put up with him. If he’s good,” he adds, stressing the if.
“Relax. He’s never even scratched us. I’m gonna go look for him.” Sam finally dumps his duffel bag on the floor at that statement and begins to rub his shoulders testily. Dean ignores the hint. “There’s so many places he could hide in here. I just want to make sure he doesn’t get lost.”
Dean walks out of the room. Bobby cranes his head to watch him go. When it gets to the point where Dean is probably out of earshot, he turns back to Sam and says, “What the hell is up with your brother?”
“I do not know,” he replies, shrugging, as if to emphasize his helplessness. “We - well, Dean, really - found him in an alley a month or so ago. He wasn’t doing so hot, but Dean managed to get Cas to heal him.” He continues to relate the line of events to Bobby, ending with, “The thing is, though, he’s not a bad cat. Really. He’s mostly quiet, he loves being held, he sleeps on our beds…”
He looks at Bobby pleadingly, trying to get him to understand. “I can’t bring myself to tell Dean to get rid of him. He isn’t even that expensive to keep, and Dean’s happier than he’s been in months. Even if we had to buy him a collar made of gold, I think it’d be worth it to just see Dean be… upbeat. You know what I mean, Bobby.”
“You mean not drinking himself unconscious? Yeah, I got that part all right.” Bobby sighs and shakes his head. “I’m not gonna tell you to what to do. You’re grown men, and you can make your own screw-ups. But damn it Sam, I don’t want Dean to go all mopey on us again, and if he’s that attached to the cat then, well, he’s going to be devastated when he loses it.”
There’s no point saying if he loses it, Sam knows. In their lives, it’s more or less inevitable. “I know. I mean, I’m just hoping that it doesn’t happen, but…he’s lasted a month, you know? That means he could last another.”
“Don’t give me that,” grouses Bobby. “You’re smart enough to know better.”
Sam just shakes his head, wishing that he had a better response. As it is, though, there’s only so much he can say when he knows that Bobby is right. As fond as Dean (and, well, him too) has grown of Catsiel, he can’t last. For his sake and theirs.
That weekend passes by uneventfully, save for one moment: Sam catches Bobby sitting at his desk one evening with Catsiel curled up on his lap, fast asleep. Bobby is stroking him, and as reluctant as he looks, Sam can tell that he’s falling under the cat’s spell. “Damn good think I can’t feel my legs,” he says. “They’d probably be sleeping like dogs if I could.”
Sam nods distractedly, a plan forming in his mind. “Bobby, if you like him-”
“No.”
Sam’s shoulders slump. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“You were going to ask me to take Catsiel. And the answer is no. Just because I’m not on the road doesn’t mean that I’m safe here. And I’m useless in this damn chair. I couldn’t keep up with a cat.”
“Sure you could,” he replies, but the words sound feeble as he says them, and he knows that he’s not going to be able to convince Bobby. Still, he adds, “It’d really be the best solution. You’d have someone around, and we could be on the road knowing that he’s safe.”
“Yeah, and I could be stuck here, unable to reach the litter box all on the floor. And unable to sort through my books when he jumps on them and knocks them all down to the floor.” Bobby snorts. “He’s a nice cat, Sam, but you know I can’t keep him. Take him to the shelter downtown. It’s a no-kill place, and I’m sure that someone will scoop him right up.”
Bobby is right, and Sam knows that it would be so easy to just scoop the cat out of his lap, hide him for the night, and then bring him down first thing in the morning, while Dean looks around for him. But he can’t do that, he knows he can’t. That would be betraying Dean’s trust, and it would deny him the chance to say goodbye to the cat that he’s grown so attached to after all of his nightmares. Dean deserves Catsiel, and he deserves Sam’s trust.
So they pack up the next morning, Catsiel still in tow. Bobby frowns at Sam and shakes his head, but Sam sticks by his gut feeling that this is the right thing to do.
*
Castiel comes in unannounced, like he always does. They don’t even get a phone call, not since Dean began texting him their location whenever they set up base at a new motel.
No, they just get a quiet thump from somewhere in the room, a noise that’s discernibly less subtle than it used to be. Dean doesn’t even bother looking up from where he’s pouring out Catsiel’s dried food, the stuff that looks like rabbit pellets and makes their room smell like meat, even though Dean swears up and down that it’s supposed to be odorless. “Hey, Cas.”
Sam, on the other hand, has more of a heart, so he actually looks up from the newspaper that he’s got splayed over the bed, his hands automatically stroking the cat that’s lying half on it. “Hi, Cas - Cas?”
The angel is standing in place, swaying slightly. There’s a cut on his chin, and his hands are all scraped up. “I believe I require healing,” Castiel announces, and Sam and Dean have just enough time to leap up and grab him as he collapses. They manhandle him to a bed where he barely manages to stay sitting up. “I would like to spend the night,” he says, looking at his hands and frowning, like he’s some stoner who’s wondering why they’re so big. “I think that sleep would be optimal for me.”
“You think?” Dean starts to ask, but before the last word is fully out of his mouth, Castiel has collapsed on the pillows. His lips part slightly as his breath evens out.
“Damn,” Dean murmurs, staring at his prone form. “He’s, uh. He’s not taking the whole falling from Heaven thing too well, is he?”
Sam just shakes his head. Castiel maintains that he’s an angel, that he’s still got some grace left in him, but sometimes Sam has his doubts. But they’ll get the full story from him when he wakes up, and things will go as they always do - Dean will ask Cas to join them; Cas will glare and insist that he still needs to search for God, will leave before Dean’s finished picking that argument apart.
Still, this is the first time he’s actually collapsed on them. Sam has seen him look tired, hungry, or like he really just needs to take a long, hot shower, but actually doing it is something new. “Should we, y’know, take off his shoes or anything?”
“I don’t think so.” Dean shakes his head and says, “His battery probably won’t take too long to recharge,” but his words sound doubtful.
“I hope not - hey! Catsiel. Leave him alone.”
Sam didn’t notice then, but the cat must have gotten up when Castiel arrived, miffed that Sam was no longer petting him. He’s definitely aware of him now, though, since he’s sitting next to Cas and gently patting his face with his dirty grey-brown paws. Sam picks him up, and he meows in protest. “I don’t think Cas would like that.”
It’s something that Catsiel did when he first arrived, a month and a half ago. He didn’t like it when they slept so, using his cat-logic, he figured that it would be a good idea to sit next to one of them and pet their faces until they woke up and gave him the attention that he was craving. Sam thought that nearly getting stabbed a few times had weaned him from the habit, but apparently not.
Catsiel meows and wriggles in his grip until he finally relents and gently puts him down on the floor. He then proceeds to jump right back up and lie next to Castiel, purring loudly. He folds his paws beneath him, becoming a housecat version of the Sphinx.
Sam glances at Dean, who shrugs. People-friendly as he seems to be - it’s not like he meets a whole lot of strangers - Catsiel doesn’t usually just jump up and appoint himself the protector of everyone that he meets. “Maybe he remembers what happened. How Cas healed him.”
“Maybe,” Sam says. It’s about as logical a theory as any. “You sure there’s nothing we should do?”
“Nope. Dude, I’ve got about as much experience with collapsing angels as you do. But he doesn’t seem too hurt, and I mean, you’ve seen what he’s been looking like these past few weeks. He probably just got overtaken by the stress and shit.” His words apparently final, Dean returns to the litter box. His shoulders are tense now, though, and Sam knows him well enough to know that he’s a lot more concerned for Cas than he’s letting on.
And of course, Dean won’t mention his concern. As usual.
Sam turns back and smooths down the newspaper that Catsiel was lying on, staunchly refusing to give in to his own concern for Cas. He probably will wake up soon. After all, he was talking, knew what was going on when he first came in. That’s a good sign, right?
Two hours pass before he stirs. Neither Sam nor Dean make any motion of going to bed, even though it’s past midnight by the time he wakes up. Cas is in Dean’s bed anyway, and they’re not just going to kick him off so that Dean can get his beauty sleep.
Castiel comes around fairly quickly, once his hands twitch for the first time. He sits up only a few seconds after that, frowning down at his hands just like he did when he first dropped in. This time, though, the scraped-raw skin actually heals itself, knitting together until it’s like new. The cut on his cheek also fades, not even leaving a scar behind.
Apparently ignoring Sam and Dean, he looks down warily at Catsiel, who’s purring as he butts his head into the trench coat. Cas hesitantly lifts a hand to stroke him, keeping his touch feather light. Catsiel meows and pushes up, clearly not caring that he’s dealing with a warrior of God who could (theoretically) crush him with a glance. Finally, he acknowledges that no, he’s not the only one in the room. “He can tell that I’m not human. I expect that he likes my grace.”
“Does he know that you’re the one who healed you?” Sam asks curiously. It doesn’t really mean anything, and it’s actually way more important that they find out why the hell Castiel collapsed in the middle of their motel room. But he wants to know, and he figures that Cas won’t mind him asking.
“It’s possible that he does. Admittedly, I’m not too familiar with the psychology of cats.” Catsiel climbs into his lap, and Cas frowns down at him, like he can’t understand why the cat would do that. But he doesn’t force him off, and as wont as Sam is to admit this, it’s, well, kind of adorable. He’s barely able to hide a smile as he watches the angel stroke the purring white cat.
“So, do we get an explanation for this?” Dean asks. He sounds pissed, sarcastic, and annoyed, his usual mix when covering up how concerned he is. “You know, the whole falling-asleep thing? Which you’ve never done before?”
“Yes. Well.” Cas looks down at Catsiel, clearly avoiding meeting Dean’s accusing glare. “There was a battle, and I was forced to exert an unhealthy amount of energy in order to dispel my attackers. I hadn’t expected it to take such a toll on me.”
“Are you still an angel?” Dean asks bluntly, and Sam cringes at Castiel’s responding glare, even if it isn’t directed at him.
“Yes,” he replies stiffly. “One moment of weakness doesn’t mean that I’ve lost all of my grace, Dean.”
“That wasn’t a ‘moment of weakness,’ Cas,” Dean snaps, and Sam watches as all of his concern gets ground up into fury. “Moments of weakness are having a dizzy spell after you’ve banged your head, or feeling like dying after you’ve puked. That was you coming in and collapsing. In our life, that’s grounds for a trip to the hospital. And you know that we don’t make those lightly.”
“Nevertheless, you didn’t take me, because you knew that I’m not one of you.” Catsiel meows from Cas’ lap, like he can sense his distress. Cas frowns, but he continues to pet him, scratching under his chin and making him purr with a noise that rivals the Impala’s engine. “Don’t demean me. I’m still far more powerful than you or any other human being.”
“Don’t turn this into some pissing contest,” Dean snaps. He probably would have continued, too, if not for the way that Catsiel suddenly ducks away from Cas’ touch, arches his back, and growls. Sam never thought that cats could do that, always thought that cats snarled, but that’s really the only way to describe it.
They all freeze, staring at the cat in Castiel’s lap. It stays in that position for a moment longer, tense as an arrow in a bow, daring any of them to speak again with fighting words. When none of them do, it gradually relaxes. A moment later, Catsiel is nuzzling Castiel, demanding that the petting be resumed.
Dean glances at Sam, Sam glances back, and Castiel gives in to the cat’s wishes and starts scratching his eats again. Apparently, Sam thinks, Catsiel isn’t very fond of fighting.
“…look, Cas,” Dean says, his voice softer now. “Just. Don’t push yourself beyond what you can take, okay? We can’t afford to have you not at your best.”
“I understand, Dean,” he replies, his voice lower than it usually is. He picks up Catsiel and sets him on the bed besides him. The cat meows, apparently dejected by the loss of petting. Standing up he says, “I should move on.”
“What? No way. You can’t just leave after that,” Dean says. “Spend the night getting some rest. Sam’ll give up his bed for you.”
Sam rolls his eyes, but he still says, “Cas, you really should. You might be able to leave, but that doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea.”
“I have a lead that I need to follow up upon,” Castiel insists. “A miracle that occurred in the southern regions of Italy. I think that this could be a very important clue.”
“You’re like a frigging bloodhound,” Dean mutters, running a hand through his hair. “Look, God can wait for you. The miracle isn’t going to just walk up and leave.”
“Actually, the miracle is the revival of a woman who has been in a coma for the past thirteen years. She awoke on Christmas day. It’s entirely possible that she might walk away.”
“You’re missing the point, Cas,” Dean says, but Castiel ignores that.
“See to it that you take care of Catsiel,” he says instead, leaning over and petting the cat’s ears. “I find his presence to be not unpleasant.”
With that, he flutters off - to Italy, Sam assumes, to meet with the miracle woman. Catsiel meows, apparently missing the angel that healed him.
“Well,” Dean says, picking up the crying cat and rubbing his thumb under his chin until he quiets down, “Turns out that Castiel is a cat person. Who’d have guessed?”
*
They’ve had Catsiel for almost exactly two months when the thing they were trying so hard not to think about happens: they bring work home with them.
It starts as a routine hunt - it always does. They’re ridding a town of a minor scourge of vampires, just a leader and his mate. They think, since that’s all that’s in the nest when they burst in on a bright, sunny day and get down to some beheading. The vampires fight, of course, and by the time that they’re in pieces Sam is fairly certain that his back is a giant bruise. That, and his shoulder was very nearly dislocated.
Dean is no worse-off than he is, which doesn’t, of course, mean that Dean is fine. He’s rubbing his thigh as they walk to the Impala, sticky machetes in hand. “Goddamn, that hurts like a mother. How come you can get shot and not feel anything for an hour, but as soon as some asshole throws you into a bedpost it makes you want to cut off your leg?”
“God hates humanity,” Sam replies. The jokes falls flat, and they drive to the motel in silence.
Dean takes the first shower while Sam lounges on his bed, trying to catch a minute or two of rest. Catsiel pats his arm until he pays attention to him, though, so he ends up just sitting there in bloodied clothes (which Catsiel doesn’t seem to care about) scratching the cat’s ears until he’s purring like the Impala’s engine.
It’s just as Dean is walking out of the bathroom that everything goes wrong. He opens the door and steps out, saying, “All yours, Sammy-” and then someone dressed entirely in black, a ski-mask pulled over their head, kicks down the door to their room.
Dean snarls, “Fuck!” and Sam jumps off the bed, automatically grabbing the gun. He shoots it in the leg - not a kill shot, but it should be disabling.
Except, it isn’t. Whoever it is snarls, stumbling slightly, but staying on its feet. “Think that’ll do anything? Sure as hell didn’t work on my kin, you fucking pieces of human shit.”
Vampire, Sam realizes. The pair that they took out apparently had a friend or son or something, and said friend or son had come to avenge their deaths. And their machetes are currently in the Impala, along with the vial of dead man’s blood that he and Dean brought along. The motel room doesn’t have too many sharp edges, and no, this isn’t good. Not at all.
Catsiel is crouching on the bed that Sam abandoned moments ago. His ears are pressed flat to his head, and all of his fur is standing up, all spiky and bristled. He hisses at the vamp, showing off his sharp cat teeth.
The vampire turns to look at him, and Sam thinks that under the ski mask, he’s taken on an amused expression. “A cat?” he says. “Really? You two are the famous Winchester boys, eliminators of all things bad, releasers of all things hellish, and you’re travelling around with a little puss?”
He steps forward, and Dean snarls, “Don’t you fucking touch him!”
“Oh, my.” The vamp looks amused. It reaches out and pokes Catsiel, who draws back and jumps off the bed, still growling. Sam bends down and scoops him up, holding the cat tight to his chest. Cas, he thinks, Sorry to bother you, but we need help. Please. He thinks that Dean is praying too; his lips are actually moving ever so slightly as he circles the vampire.
“This really doesn’t fit your image,” drawls the creature. “It seems like killing you right now would be less fun than actually going out and spreading the word that the big, bad Winchesters have taken on a little kitty.”
Dean yanks his gun out and shoots him in the head. He reels back - headshots aren’t easy for anyone to recover from - but it isn’t fatal.
“Enough foreplay.” It stocks forward and slams a fist into Dean’s diaphragm. He chokes, gasping for breath. Sam moves to his side, holding a meowing Catsiel in one arm and a gun in his free hand. “Those two you killed today? The girl was my sister. The boy turned her. We were going to find others, make others, and now I’m all that’s left.”
He turns to Sam. From behind the black ski mask, his two blue eyes are murderous. “I’m going to make you pay. But first, I’m going to kill your fuckin’ cat.”
“I beg to differ,” says a cool voice. The vampire turns around, and has only a moment to process the stranger’s arrival, before he finds his life being extinguished by a man in a trench coat. His black-clad body slumps to the floor, and Sam breathes a sigh of relief. He puts down a struggling Catsiel, who instantly starts to twine around Cas’ legs.
“Thanks, Cas,” Sam says sincerely, still processing the implications of what just happened, of what the vampire threatened to do, and how it was exactly what they were working to not have happen. Next to him, Dean’s wheezing is just starting to quiet down.
Cas nods coolly, his version of, “You’re welcome.” Then, as Dean straightens up, he scoops down and picks up Catsiel, who meows his pleasure at the action. Frowning, he says, “You almost got your cat killed today.”
Dean looks at him, a sort of pain in his green eyes that has nothing to do with having just been punched in the diaphragm by a creature of supernatural strength. Sam knows that he’s reaching the same conclusions as him. “I know.”
“Perhaps,” says Castiel, as the cat butts his head up under his chin, “You should think about finding him somewhere safe to stay.”
Dean sighs, and Sam can see whatever joy Catsiel’s presence brought him, whatever he got out of having that cat lying with him during the worst of his nightmares, exiting his body. “Yeah,” he says, his voice heavy. “Maybe we should.”
*
Catsiel seems to sense the change in the environment. He curls up with them a lot more, Sam notices, like he wants to keep them near while there’s still time.
They hop from town to town after the disastrous encounter with the vampire, passing plenty of shelters. But Dean never stops at any of them; if anything, he’ll press down on the gas and leave the ASPCAs and all the other places dedicated to helping animals behind in the dust.
Sam brings it up one time as Dean speeds up to make a light, just so they won’t be waiting outside of one. “Dean, the ASPCA is a really good organization. I’m sure that Catsiel would be adopted quickly-”
“No,” snaps Dean. He reaches over and scratches the cat’s ears. He’s lying in his usual place in Sam’s lap, eyes half-closed, occasionally letting out a contented purr. “I’m not just abandoning him, okay? We’ll find somewhere for him with someone good. And that’s it, Sam.”
Sam sighs and doesn’t broach the subject again.
*
Ms. Dora Rossi is, to Sam’s best guess, in the latter half of her sixties. She is, she tells them, a piano teacher who retired only last spring, when her arthritis finally got the best of him. Her relationship with Tommy Blaire, the eighteen-year-old who was found dead in his bed from causes that the newspaper won’t report (but which Sam and Dean both know are classic signs of a succubus) is that she taught him from the time he was five years old and got her grand piano all sticky with his grubby little fingers.
“He was a good boy,” she says, dropping her voice low as if there’s someone else around who might hear her confide this, “but between you and me, he was a bit of a lady’s man. He’d always have some blonde or another come in hanging off of his arm, and he would play to impress them. They were very nice young women, though all of them. Except for that most recent one.” She leans forward and describes the girl that they’re already suspecting to be a sex-obsessed demon.
At one point she offers them tea. They both refuse out of habit, but she still takes a cup for herself and sips at it while she gossips. She’s remarkably comfortable talking with a pair of federal agents.
Eventually, the conversation pauses as she takes a particularly long sip of her drink. Sam takes the opportunity to really observe his surroundings. What he sees surprises him, but in all the right ways.
“You must be a big cat person,” he notes, looking around the den that they’re in. The shelves are covered with little ceramic figurines of cats playing with balls of yarn, crouching and ready to spring at mice, or just lying in tight, round balls of fur. A picture on the coffee table shows a handsome golden-brown cat sunning himself in what Sam recognizes to be the kitchen.
Ms. Rossi follows his gaze to the picture. Her face lights up as she reaches over and picks it up, holding it in a hand that trembles with frailness. “Oh, yes. This is Bruin, my old cat.”
“You don’t have him anymore?” he asks politely.
She shakes her head, looking sad. “No. He passed on last month.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Sam says. In the back of his mind, an idea that’s probably crazy, and definitely unrealistic, is starting to form. “I know that it must be hard, having a pet pass on like that.” Actually, he doesn’t, because John never let them own pets as kids. Still, he knows it’s what he’s supposed to say, regardless of the look that Dean is giving him when Ms. Rossi bends down to drink her tea.
“Oh, it is. I’ve owned cats ever since I was a child, you know. They always ran around our house, catching mice and chasing my marbles. It just doesn’t feel right not having one around anymore, but…” she trails off, sighing.
“But what?” Sam prompts
“Well, the shelters around here don’t like letting old women like me take home their cats, as crowded as those poor places are. And pet stores are so expensive, and I don’t like to think that they’re just going to use my money to breed more kittens under horrible conditions.” She sighs. “I do miss it, though.”
“I can imagine. Do you think, though, that you would ever be interested in having another one? If you could find someone to give one to you?”
“Oh, yes,” she says immediately. “I’d love to have another one. And I could still take care of it, too. I might be an old lady, but I’m not dead yet.”
Sam thinks he kind of likes her.
*
The drive back to the motel is tense, because they’re both thinking the same thing, but neither of them wants to say it - Dean, because he doesn’t want to admit it, and Sam because he doesn’t want to upset Dean. Really, he doesn’t; he’s sympathetic to the position that he’s in, much as Dean probably thinks otherwise. He knows how hard it is for his brother to give things up, and he also knows that he really does care for the cat (not that Dean of the abundance of testosterone would ever bring himself to admit that). After all, Sam saw for himself how Catsiel stayed with him through the nightmares; how Dean, when he first picked him up in that alley, drew a comparison between himself and the cat.
But he also knows that Dean is smart enough to recognize that if they want Catsiel to be safe, they need to leave him with someone who isn’t on a first-name basis with half the monsters in the world. And an old woman who’s lonely and missing her pet -they’re not likely to come across a better candidate for taking in Catsiel.
When they pull into the parking space, Dean just sits there for a moment, staring out into space. Sam waits patiently beside him, although he’s not entirely sure what he’s waiting for.
Finally, Dean shakes his head and calls, “Cas? If you can spare a moment we’ve got something--”
There’s a whoosh of air, and Castiel is sitting in the backseat of the Impala. “-for you to check out,” Dean finishes. “Slow day?”
“I suppose,” Castiel replies. “What is it that you need?”
“There’s a woman who lives nearby. Dora Rossi is her name. Kind of an old lady? Anyway…” Dean pauses before he says, sounding unhappy, “we think that maybe she’d like to take in Catsiel. But we want to make sure that she’s not, like, a monster that eats cats first, you know? So, would you be able to check her out?”
Castiel nods. “Yes. I’ll have that done for you soon.”
With that, he disappears. Sam turns to Dean. “I think you’re making the right-”
“Don’t,” Dean interrupts. “Spare me that share and care bullshit, okay? I’m doing what I have to and that’s that.”
Sam nods, and tries to keep the sympathy from being too blatant in his eyes.
*
They gank the succubus that night, using a complicated spell that sends her back to the pit of Hell. She goes screaming curses at them, involving what there genitals will and will not be able to do the next time they try to have sex. Sam’s pretty sure that they won’t actually be effective, but he’s really not in any hurry to find out.
“She was hot,” Dean says on the ride back. “I mean, if I ignore the whole ‘bitch from Hell’ part? I would’ve done her.”
His words are casual and, well, perfectly fitting to Dean. But his fingers are tapping out some eclectic pattern on the steering wheel (actually, Sam thinks that it might be Moby Dick, in which case he is actually very impressed with his brother for knowing the whole damn solo, much as it doesn’t surprise him) and that betrays his nerves. Sam doesn’t bring it up, though.
Castiel is waiting for them in the motel room, looking mildly impatient as he perches on the edge of a bed as they step through the door. Catsiel, on the other hand, is crouched in his lap, perfectly happy with the attention that he’s receiving.
Cas glances up at them. Without preamble he says, “Dora Rossi is, for all intents and purposes, a good woman. She prays to God daily and genuinely believes in Him. She has no children and was married only once, to a man that was killed in a car crash three years after their wedding. The longest period that she went without having a cat was six months. She has no criminal record, but she regularly volunteered with the animal shelter when she was young. She enjoys playing the piano, although her arthritis prevents her from doing so properly. Her arthritis aside, she is a very healthy woman, and will probably live upwards of ten years more, providing that the apocalypse isn’t brought about before then. She is also very much a fan of Broadway musicals.”
“Damn,” says Dean, raising an eyebrow. “You do one hell of a background check, Cas.”
Castiel stands up, scooping Catsiel in her arms as he does. The cat purrs loudly, nuzzling Cas’ chest. With a great sort of solemnest he places Catsiel in Dean’s arms. “He is a good creature, and I expect that the woman you asked me to look at will provide him with a good home.”
It’s as close to reassurance as Sam has ever seen him give. With a little more practice, he thinks, maybe Cas could actually get good at that.
“Yeah. I guess anything’s better than us.” Dean bends his head so that his forehead is practically touching the still-purring Catsiel. “Thanks, Cas.”
Cas nods. He pauses, like there’s more that he wants to say, and then he just shakes his head and disappears. It’s a start at least, and it’s not like sympathy usually comes quickly, anyway.
“Tomorrow morning,” Dean says after a pause. He adjusts his hold on Catsiel. “We’ll stop by before we cut town.”
Sam nods, and wishes that he had something to say.
Catsiel sleeps on Dean’s bed that night. Sam isn’t insulted in the least.