How to Take Care of Angels and Little Animals (2/3)
Title: How to Take Care of Angels and Little Animals (2/3)
Author: remivel
Recipient: akadougal
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Fluff, slight animal/angel abuse, animal angst
Spoilers: Set somewhere around Season 5 and 6, so very vague spoilers for both seasons.
Summary: Gabriel is tired of having to listen to Castiel's woes about the Winchesters, so he decides to take matters into his own hands... and turns Castiel into a furry pet for the Winchesters to take care of.
Author notes: Cut into a more reader-friendly 3 parts. REVISED (a bit) from earlier posting at Dean/Cas Secret Santa. Go there if you want to read it in its original context.
This took longer than expected. Answer to the giftee's prompt: "Animal transformation into something cute. Literal fluff." There may be a good dose of angst there as well, so forgive me for that if that's something you didn't want mixed in with your fluff. I hope you have as much fun reading this as I had writing it.
Part 3
Part 1
Cas thinks he really got lucky this time, as he finds himself comfortably seated on Sam’s lap for probably a couple hours now. He was able to find a way out of the motel room, he is unscathed after almost getting run over by the Impala, and now he’s back with Sam and Dean, the only ones who can help change him back. If he doesn’t know any better, he’d think someone out there’s watching out for him. Which okay, it’s probably true, because what are the odds that the animal shelter was closed when Dean and Sam went there to turn him in? Castiel would bet Gabriel had everything to do with the recent turn of events, and this thought comforts him a bit. However, he also knows how pigheaded Gabriel could be at times, and he would also bet Gabriel wouldn’t change him back until he got exactly what he wants out of this, whatever it is.
“See… he seems fine being cooped up in a car for a few hours,” he hears Sam say.
“Yes, I’ll be fine as long as you don’t leave me behind again,” Castiel tells them. He knows they don’t understand him, but it still gives him an odd feeling of comfort to voice out whatever he wanted to say.
“And he doesn’t seem to poop or pee all that much too,” Sam remarks, and Dean grimaces.
“I hope not. Coz if that cat stinks up my baby, I’m tossin’ it out the window-even while I’m driving,” Dean says.
Castiel glares at Dean, but he’s not sure it translates very well given his current state. He does find, however, that the hairs on his back have stood up in what apparently is a show of anger. Sam notices and glides a soothing hand through Cas’ fur. “He’s not really gonna do that,” Sam tells Cas fondly. “If he did… I’d seriously consider having him institutionalized,” Sam says next, directing his words to Dean. “I don’t know what you have against the kitten. He’s done nothing wrong.”
Dean glances over to him and Castiel tilts his head to the side, a gesture that comes naturally to him even in his human vessel. “That cat’s just weird, okay?” Dean says as he turns his gaze back onto the road.
“He’s not weird, Dean. It could just because he has these unusual ears,” Sam points out. “Mr.Bonbon’s probably a Scottish Fold.”
“What?!”
“A Scottish fold… it’s a breed. I read about it once. Explains the folded ears,” Sam elaborates.
“Yeah, I get that. I was askin’ about the name. Mr. Bonbon?” Dean asks incredulously. “So now the cutesy name isn’t enough, you have to add a mister to it?”
“I thought it suited him,” Sam says with a shrug.
“How are you even sure it’s a ‘mister’ and not a ‘miss’?” Dean comments.
Sam gently flips the cat onto its back and points between his short legs. “It’s got male kitty bits, see…”
Cas feels embarrassed as Dean glances down at him and he squirms and flips back onto his belly. He doesn’t know why it should bother him so much. He’s naked and a cat, after all.
Dean turns his gaze back onto the road. “Well, the name’s weird. You’re weird. That cat’s weird!” Dean grumbles.
Sam just rolls his eyes at him. “Whatever.”
+++
“You can’t bring animals in here,” the thin, balding man at the motel’s reception desk tells them.
Dean looks at Sam with his ‘I told you so’ face.
Sam just frowns and looks down at the kitten in his arms. It slipped his mind how some motels turn away guests with animals, and makes a mental note to hide the kitten the next time. “He’s trained and really docile,” Sam lies and pleads his case. “And if he breaks anything, we promise to pay for it.”
“Wait, we do?” Dean asks in surprise.
“That’s not the point. Our policy is-“
“Why are you turning them away, Hector?” a woman coming out of the office asks. She’s a burly lady, almost twice the size of the man, and from the look of terror flashing in the man’s eyes, Dean knows she’s the one in charge. “We don’t turn away their kind,” she tells the man quietly, but Dean and Sam still hear everything.
“Uh, excuse me?” Sam asks even before Dean’s expression fully evolves to his epic what-the-fuck face.
“Oh, yes, you can go to your room now,” she says to them in a sickly sweet tone. “Your kitten can come in, too. We wouldn’t want to inconvenience your family by refusing this cute little baby,” she says, wiggling her large, sausage-like fingers in front of the cat’s face.
Sam pauses. “Thanks…” he says tentatively as the man hands them their motel key.
They just started walking to their room when they hear the woman sigh, “What a beautiful looking couple.”
“Why’d you let the cat in too?” the man complains.
“Idiot. That’s their lovechild. You can’t let their kid stay in the car. Jeez!”
Sam and Dean exchange brief, awkward glances before looking down at the kitten in Sam’s arms. “Next time, hide the cat,” Dean says and Sam nods in agreement.
They never talk about that incident ever again.
+++
That night, Dean wakes up from a restless sleep to see the kitten sitting on the table quietly and watching him with eyes that almost glowed in the dim light. Besides the fact that the kitten doesn’t seem to feel the need to sleep, or to avert his gaze from Dean, he is also sitting like a person would, with his rump on the table, his back leaning against the wall, and his front paws resting on his tummy.
Dean narrows his eyes suspiciously at the kitten, waiting for it to pounce and attack him, or to change into a vicious tiger and devour them in their beds, but naturally, nothing happens, and Dean’s left wondering why he is so paranoid around the little creature.
He sighs and gets up to go to the bathroom. He continues to watch the kitten with distrust, and the kitten continues to stare right back at him in a way that seems very familiar and very unsettling at the same time. “Sam better be in one piece when I get back, alright?” he threatens half-heartedly as he passes by the kitten. The kitten meows once in response and turns his head to stare at Sam’s sleeping form instead. Dean shakes his head and enters the bathroom.
When he comes out a minute later, the kitten is still peacefully sitting there on the table. He glances up at Dean with the same innocent big blue eyes and Dean’s left feeling stupid again for even thinking that the kitten has been sent by demons to kill them in their sleep. Instead, it even looks like the little thing is watching over them while they sleep and Dean sighs as he reaches a hand out to ruffle the fur on the kitten’s head. “Good boy,” Dean says before he climbs back onto his bed.
+++
That morning, Dean finds the kitten curled up at his feet, not asleep, just lying on the bed and watching him with hooded eyes. If Dean finds that weird, he doesn’t say anything, and Sam counts that as a victory for Mr. Bonbon.
+++
A few days, several states, and a couple of run-of-the-mill hunts later, Dean and Sam retire to their motel room for the night with dirt and grime sticking to their clothes and every exposed inch of their skin. “Dibs on the shower!” Dean announces like a little kid as soon as they step into the room. Sam mutters a ‘fine, go ahead,’ and watches as Dean quickly shucks off his jacket and practically kicks of his boots in haste. The bathroom door slams behind Dean, and a few seconds later, Sam hears the shower running.
Sam grabs a bottle of water and drinks by the kitchenette when he hears a loud yelp of “Jesus Christ!” erupt from the bathroom. “Dean?” he calls out in confusion and concern, and a handful of seconds later, the bathroom door opens and Sam sees Dean’s outstretched foot shoving Mr. Bonbon out of the bathroom. “Damn thing’s watchin’ me shower. It’s giving me the creeps!” he hears Dean say before the bathroom door slams hard behind the kitten, who just looks up at Sam like he had no idea what had just happened.
+++
Cas doesn’t mean to spy on Dean as he undressed and stepped into the shower. He was in the process of exploring every nook and cranny of the motel room since he had nothing else to do, and when he turned around, there was a half-naked Dean getting progressively more naked right in front of him.
Sure, he has spied on the brothers on more than one occasion, but never when they were in their private moments-when they were in the shower or when Dean or Sam hooked up with a girl from the bar. So it is definitely something new for Cas to see Dean naked again since he rebuilt each cell of his body from scratch. And really, he would’ve appreciated seeing it more had he not been a few inches tall and covered in fur.
To see Dean freak out over a cat seeing him naked is something new for Cas as well, and as Dean shoves him out of the bathroom with a foot, Cas can’t say he regrets anything from that particular experience.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Sam says to Cas with a grimace.
“I’m not,” Cas meows before he takes his spot on Dean’s bed for the night.
+++
“I can’t believe Cas didn’t show up,” Dean complains as they return from killing off a couple of demons that possessed kindergarten school teachers and were planning to hold a classroom full of students hostage.
Castiel’s ears twitch at the sound of his name, and he sits up from his now usual spot on Dean’s bed and listens attentively as Dean continues to gripe.
“I get that he’s probably busy but fuck man, there were twenty kids in that classroom. We could’ve used an extra hand,” Dean says before he flops onto the bed beside Cas and starts to undo his laces. Cas looks up at him curiously.
“You called for me?” Cas asks in disbelief and the meow distracts Dean for a moment. “But I didn’t hear-“
“It’s nothin’, little kitty,” Dean says as he pats Cas’ head. “Someone I counted on to help me didn’t show up,” he grumbles.
Castiel suddenly feels like he betrayed Dean’s trust by not being there. Dean needed him, and for the first time in a long while, he couldn’t be there to help him. He feels lost all of a sudden as waves of emotion run through him, making him lightheaded. He feels anger at Gabriel for putting him in this situation, feels guilty and ashamed for being so weak as to be trapped in this body in the first place, and feels the heavy weight of helplessness descend on him again when he realizes he still can’t do anything to change himself back.
“You two didn’t happen to have an argument the last time, did you?” Sam asks from across the room.
Cas turns his head towards Sam’s direction in surprise. Sam doesn’t know? Then it occurs to him that Dean wants to forget their kiss happened, so it’s natural that he’d keep that little information from Sam. Castiel isn’t sure if he’s disappointed or relieved about that. He looks back at Dean and waits for his reply.
“An argument? No man. Nothin’ like that,” Dean lies through his teeth, and Sam shoots him a look that clearly shows he’s not buying any of Dean’s bullshit. “Seriously, man,” Dean goes on. “Why would you think-“
“I don’t know, maybe because the last time he helped us, he hardly said a word and left. And all that time you kept on avoiding him and-oh come on, don’t look at me like that Dean, I know what I saw. And ever since then, you just seem a bit more, I dunno, high strung, I guess. You even take it out on the kitten!” Sam gestures toward Cas, and Cas looks from Sam to Dean and back.
Is that why Dean is sometimes mean to him? And why he’s more hot-headed than usual? Because he’s… affected by what happened? He hasn’t… forgotten… like he wanted to, and Cas feels a glimmer of hope in his chest at that.
“So that must mean only one thing. Something happened and you’re not telling me,” Sam says him.
“Nothing happened, okay?” Dean says with venom this time. “So can we just drop it?”
“Whatever, man. Just stop complaining about Cas not answering your call for once. He’s probably got a lot more things to worry about than to help us with a couple of demons.”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re right. We took care of those demons without him anyway. We’ll be fine,” Dean agrees, and Cas wonders if it’s right that he feels miserable because of that.
+++
The second time that Dean calls for Cas’ help and he doesn’t show, Dean no longer complains. He just glowers and goes to the bar across the street for a drink.
He comes back to the motel shit-faced and would not have made it inside the room if Sam hadn’t gotten up and opened the door for him. Dean collapses on the bed and nearly crushes Cas with his weight if the kitten hadn’t leapt out of the way at the last moment.
+++
The third time they needed assistance, Dean refuses to call Cas, and Sam ends up calling for the angel’s help instead. When, again, Cas does not show up, Dean goes straight to the nearest bar to get properly wasted.
“Seriously, Dean,” Sam says, shaking his head after he helped his brother onto his bed for the second time in a week. “If nothing happened… why the heck are you moping around like a lovesick puppy?” he asks, but by this time Dean’s already snoring heavily and Sam is just left sighing to an almost empty room.
The kitten sitting Buddha-style on the foot of Dean’s bed looks up at Sam with eyes that almost look sad, and Sam wonders if the cat can sense that something’s not quite right. “You see it too, huh?” Sam asks the kitten. “How stupid Dean can be,” Sam says with another shake of his head before he closes the light and goes back to sleep.
+++
‘There has to be another way to change me back,’ Cas thinks the next morning. He’s endured being a cat for a little over two weeks now, and he’s not that much closer to finding a solution to his predicament.
He moves out of the way as Dean shifts on the bed. ‘He snores louder when he’s drunk,’ Cas observes, and apparently Sam is aware of this as well, if the dark circles under his eyes are any indication. He watches as Sam yawns in front of his laptop for the fifth time since he started searching for leads in their current case. A handful of minutes later and Sam is standing up and grabbing his jacket.
“I need coffee…” Sam mutters before heading out of the room, leaving his laptop open on the table.
An idea builds in Cas’ mind and he hops off the bed and onto the table. ‘Maybe…’ Cas thinks as he presses his paws onto the keyboard. At first nothing happens, so he stomps his paws a few more times before something pops up with a weird name. ‘Google?’ Cas asks, head tilting curiously. ‘I’ve heard of this before…’ he says as he presses his paws onto the keyboard once more. His eyes grow wide when he sees letters appear on a small box in the middle of the page. “This is like that text messaging feature on cell phones!” Cas says excitedly.
He tries pressing the key with ‘backspace’ written on it, and the letters start disappearing one by one. He presses the long bar and a space appears. “I see how this works…” he says, and with newfound determination, he angles his paw just right and tries to hit just a single letter. He ends up pressing several at once, and he erases it with the convenient backspace key and tries again. ‘This might need some getting used to,’ he thinks, as he tries again and again, practicing to hit one key at a time. He is starting to get the hang of it when he feels something move behind him, and when he turns around, Dean is already sitting up on the bed and looking at him with suspicious, yet still very groggy, eyes. “What’re you doing, kitty?” Dean asks before he buries his head in his head and groans. “Ugh… I think I’m gonna-“ he doesn’t finish the sentence and leans over the side of the bed to a conveniently placed waste basket and hurls.
+++
“Your cat seems to like pressing buttons…” Dean remarks the moment Sam enters the room.
“What do you mean?” Sam asks and when Dean points at his laptop, Sam’s jaw drops, fearing the worst. “Oh my god, Dean…” he gasps, placing the cups of coffee he bought on the far end of the table and rushing to his precious laptop. The kitten jumps out of the way and settles back onto the foot of Dean’s bed.
“I saw him stomping his feet all over your keyboard. You might want to check if he didn’t dislodge a letter and eat it or something,” Dean tells him before he reluctantly stands up from the bed and makes his way to the bathroom.
Sam quickly inspects his laptop for damages but finds none except for a few black strands of cat hair. “Everything seems to be okay,” Sam says with a relieved smile.
“Yeah? Well, maybe he emailed Bobby naked pictures of you,” Dean quips from inside the bathroom.
Sam takes a second look at his screen and sees the browser opened to a Google search that didn’t match anything. “Nah, just a bunch of key smashes…” Sam says. “You like pressing keys, Mr. Bonbon?” he asks the kitten sitting on the bed. The kitten meows and Sam chuckles as he looks back at the screen. Then, he notices it.
It could just be his imagination, a way for his brain to make sense of things that normally don’t need making sense of, but he still sees it. Towards the end of the jumbled letters and numbers he sees “saml/,; he3lp,m, e24,” and he can’t help but see the words they possibly spell out.
Sam, help me.
Sam looks at the kitten with a hint of suspicion, and the kitten looks back at him almost expectantly, like he’s waiting for something good to happen. Sam tears his gaze away from the kitten’s hopeful face and back at the screen. No matter how many times he looks at it, those words still keep on popping out for him.
“Dude, did you get me breakfast?” he hears Dean say, and Sam shakes his head and chuckles.
“That’s impossible,” he mutters under his breath, and closes the browser before he starts sounding as crazy as Dean. “No breakfast, just coffee,” Sam tells Dean before he stands up to hand one of the cups to Dean.
+++
Cas went from excited to disappointed in a matter of seconds the moment he saw Sam dismiss his message just like that. He gets over his disappointment fairly easily though, and no sooner had Sam and Dean left to chase down a lead that Cas is plotting ways to tell Sam of his identity. Because Gabriel might’ve warned him against telling Dean, but he didn’t say anything about telling Sam instead.
He looks forward to trying his paws at typing on Sam’s laptop again, but he finds that although Sam left his laptop in the room, he also left it closed. And Cas has no idea how to operate it, especially now that he lacks opposable thumbs.
Everything would have been easier if Gabriel had left him with the rest of his grace intact. Then again, with his grace, he could also turn himself back given enough time. As it stands, the amount of grace he can tap into is just enough to render him somewhat invulnerable to pain and hunger and make him slightly stronger than an average cat.
Sam and Dean apparently think he eats insects and other small mammals aside from the cat food Sam buys him, and they just think he hides his refuse somewhere they can’t see or smell. Cas is beginning to see that Dean is right when he said that having a pet does not suit their lifestyle. If he had been a normal cat, they’d probably lost him already, or maybe he’d have already died of starvation or something similar (Sam had asked Dean to leave the kitten some food and water the other day and Dean forgot. They didn’t come back for almost two days).
Nevertheless, he is still very grateful he retained some of his grace and the consciousness of an angel. He hasn’t figured out a way to use that to his advantage yet.
+++
Cas is left thinking up ways to somehow get his message across to Sam for the rest of the day, and before he knows it, night has fallen and he hears the roar of the Impala’s engine pulling up in front of the room.
Cas gets up from the bed to give them his usual greeting- by rubbing up on their legs (Dean had tripped on him a couple of times and had since sworn that if he trips one more time, he’s not going to be responsible for not-so-accidentally stepping on any part of the cat). However, when he reaches the door, he hears Dean’s voice along with someone else’s, and when the door swings open, Cas is kicked to the side (accidentally, this time) by two pairs of shoes stumbling on each other: Dean’s heavy boots… and some woman’s red stilettos.
Blue eyes widen in shock when he sees Dean drop onto the bed with a curvy brunette on top of him. He sees her pull off her tight dress, and her hair falls in delicate waves behind her pale back. He sees Dean’s fingers wrap around her tiny waist and-Cas can’t take any more of this and averts his gaze.
He hides under the table and suddenly he feels sick, which is weird because he still has his grace and he should not be susceptible to disease. He feels like puking, and it’s a different sensation than when he was purging out a hairball that time. This is much worse. He feels like his heart has sunk to his stomach and it’s rolling around there and making him all kinds of sick. He hears the woman moan and he feels his chest tighten unbearably, making it hard for him to breathe. He doesn’t know what’s happening to him, all he knows is he feels nauseous and he wants to be anywhere but here.
He’s seen Dean bring home girls more times than he can count. He has known for a long time how healthy Dean’s sexual appetite could be, and though he has never approved of any of Dean’s depravities, he has usually acted indifferent toward them. So to feel less-than-indifferent about this now should strike Castiel as very unusual, except it really doesn’t, because he knows exactly why he is feeling this way.
It’s the same feeling he had when Dean shoved him away and told him to forget they had just kissed. Forget that Dean looked at him with so much emotion just before their lips touched. Forget that Dean clung onto him and kissed him deeper and with more passion than he had ever thought possible. Forget that even for a short while, Dean made him feel like he loved him back.
But now Castiel is here, a scared kitten hiding under a table, and Dean is just a few feet away, kissing someone else. In bed with someone else. Is this his punishment? For putting the Winchesters above everything else, even above Heaven itself? It must be. Because he doesn’t think anything could be worse than this.
“Gabriel, please… if you’re listening. Take me away. Just this once,” he pleads as silently as he could, paws to his ears as he tries to muffle the sounds coming from the bed.
Gabriel doesn’t come for him, nor do the terrible feelings in his gut and chest stop.
He does, however, hear a sharp sound, like a cry, and before he knows it, he’s whipping his head towards the direction of the bed. He knows he probably shouldn’t have done that. Who knows what he could see? It could probably break him forever. But his dread melds into confusion when he sees the girl sit up on the bed and spit out an irritated, “Are you kidding me?!”
No sooner had she said this that she’s getting off of Dean and grabbing her dress from the floor.
“Sorry, Marie. Maybe next time,” Dean says with a forced grin.
“It’s Mindy, and don’t even think about a next time,” she huffs out indignantly as she pulls her dress on hastily. Dean sits up on the bed to put his shirt back on and rubs his face with his hands. He doesn’t even look up as the woman stomps angrily out of the motel room and slams the door shut.
A quiet minute passes with Dean’s face buried in his hands and Castiel quietly watching from under the table. He knows it’s wrong to delight in the misfortune of others, but he couldn’t help feeling relieved and happy about the turn of events. That is, until Dean zips up his jeans, stands up from the bed, and stalks to the table where Castiel is hiding. He crouches down and pulls Cas out by the scruff of his neck. He brings the kitten’s face up to his and stares straight into the round, blue eyes.
Cas gulps nervously at the indecipherable look on Dean’s face. Then Dean sighs. “This is all your damn fault,” he says before he walks back to the bed and deposits the kitten in his usual spot at the foot of his bed.
“My fault?” Cas meows quietly as he watches Dean trudge lazily to the bathroom.
+++
“Lemme get this straight…” Sam says, fighting the urge to burst into fits of laughter as he looked to his side at Dean driving, to the kitten lying on his lap, and back at Dean. “You… you heard the cat meow and… you can’t…” he pauses, trying to school his features into some semblance of indifference. “You… can’t…”
“I can’t get it up, alright?!” Dean blurts out angrily.
At this, the sound of Sam’s laughter engulfs the whole Impala and Dean wants to strangle his brother right then and there.
“I’m glad my problem is amusing for at least one of us,” Dean says with a fake smile.
“Oh come on, Dean. You have to admit it’s funny. What is it about this cat that makes you… you know… unable to perform?”
“Nothin’ alright!” Dean growls.
Sam laughs again. “If it was nothin’, you would’ve had Molly to yourself all night.”
“I’m pretty sure her name was Mandy…”
“Mindy!” Cas chimes in even though he knows he wouldn’t be understood. He doesn’t care anyway. He seems to be in a very good mood this morning.
“Whatever. The point is, you lost your uh, appetite… because of a cat. You’ve never been so affected before.”
“I just don’t like it when there’s another pair of eyes in the room, okay? Just thinkin’ of that cat lookin’ while we… while I… ugh….” Dean shudders. “It just creeps me out, alright?”
“Dean. He’s a kitten. You could’ve just locked him in the bathroom if you’re so worried you’ll taint his innocent eyes.”
“I did think of that, but by that time… Mr. Happy’s not so happy anymore…”
“Mr. Happy?” Sam says with a grimace.
“Oh you know what I mean.”
They drive in silence for a couple more minutes until Sam’s eyebrows knot as he recalls something. “There was an aquarium in one of our motel rooms a couple weeks back… you didn’t seem so creeped out by the little fishy eyes then when you brought back that red head…”
“It’s not the ‘little fishy eyes’ that creep me out… it’s that kitten’s eyes. They look too much like Ca-“ Dean shuts his mouth before the name could completely form on his lips, his eyes wide with disbelief at what he almost said.
“Like what?” Sam urges on, though he knows exactly what Dean was about to say.
“Nothin’,” Dean says, his eyes staring intently, too intently, on the road ahead, ignoring the pensive, almost knowing look Sam must be flashing him at this very moment.
+++
“They’re giant wolves,” Dean repeats as he talks to Sam on the phone. “Really. Giant wolves?”
“That’s what the witness said. She claims she saw more than a dozen.”
“A dozen? Shit, man. Maybe she was just exaggerating? You don’t think it could’ve been the shock of seeing her friends die?” he asks as he enters the motel room. Mr. Bonbon rubs against his legs and he ignores him and goes to sit on the bed.
“I don’t know. She is pretty shaken. But the coroner confirms it as an animal attack, most likely of wolves. Big wolves. Even if they were ordinary wolves, it seems fishy. Seven dead just in a week? And no deaths before that. At first we thought it was werewolves right? But you saw the bodies… there was hardly anything left of them.”
“And she swore they looked like wolves?” Dean asks again.
“Yeah. Pretty much, except they were as big as grizzly bears, and had ‘yellow, glowing eyes.’ How’d she see a whole pack of wolves eating her friends and managed to escape?”
Dean is stumped. Giant, man-eating wolves, a whole pack? “We should probably ask Bobby…”
“I’m on it,” Sam says before hanging up.
Dean sits on the bed, lost in thought as the kitten jumps up to sit beside him. He looks at the cat and its eerie wide eyes that reminded Dean too much of him. “An elderly couple went missing a week ago. And yesterday, five hikers were killed. One of them was a 15 year old kid,” he tells the kitten. “But this is the first time I’ve heard of giant wolves…” he thinks aloud.
He sits quietly for a couple more minutes, then he looks up at the ceiling. “I’ve got nothing here,” he calls out. “Seven innocent people are dead. A lot more are in danger. So if you’re listening, you sonnovabitch, get your feathery ass down here.”
+++
It takes Cas a couple of seconds to realize what Dean is doing. Hands clasped tightly in front of him, head tilted toward the ceiling, his Adam’s apple bobbing heavily with each word wrenched out of his throat. Dean is praying. For his help.
“Cas… come on, help us out here,” Dean swallows the lump in his throat and adds, “Please.”
A minute passes, then two, then five, and when nothing happens, Dean spits out a curse. “I knew it. You’re a vindictive son of a bitch, you know that? If you’re fucking angry at me, take it out on me some other way. Not like this. Not when people’s lives are at stake,” he tells the ceiling angrily. He breathes in, waiting for something, anything.
“Dean! I’m right here.” Cas meows but it’s useless. He’s useless. He moves forward and scratches at Dean’s thigh to get his attention. He doesn’t know what he plans to achieve once he gets Dean to look at him, but he just wants to tell him somehow. Wants him to know he’s right here, has always been right here with him, even if he doesn’t know it.
When Dean feels the soft paws scratching at his jeans, he turns to the cat and sighs, practically deflating on the bed.
“ You don’t suppose you know where Cas is right now, do you?” he asks.
Cas’ eyes light up the moment Dean turns his eyes toward him. “Yes, I’m right here Dean. Can’t you see?” he meows.
“He’s not in any trouble, right? I mean, he’s been gone longer before, but… this time…” Dean says with another heavy sigh. “He’d come here if he needed help, right?” Dean asks the kitten.
For a moment Cas is confused. Dean was just angry at him mere moments ago, and now, he’s wondering how he is doing. Is he hearing Dean correctly? Is Dean… worried about him?
“Oh who am I kiddin, you don’t understand a word I say,” Dean says, picking Cas up and settling the kitten on his lap. He glides a hand down its back and finds the soft fur soothing. Then the kitten purrs and leans to his touch and Dean can’t help the smile that forms on his lips. “You’re still so small, where’s your family, baby?” he asks affectionately.
Cas’ eyes roll back into his head at the heavenly feeling of Dean’s fingers running down his back. Everything gets so fuzzy when Sam does this to him, and it’s no different now that Dean’s the one giving him a bit of attention. He almost misses what Dean says next.
“Don’t you miss ‘em?”
Cas looks up at Dean and cants his head to the side. “Who?” Cas asks.
+++
“You kinda remind me of him, you know?” Dean tells the kitten. “He can be a dick sometimes but sometimes, I just mi-“ the words die in his throat as his eyes lock with the kitten’s bright blue eyes. Something indefinable stirs inside Dean as he stares into the kitten’s eyes, like something’s not quite right, like there’s a trace of magic, of power he can’t see but he can feel heavy in the air.
He picks the kitten up again, the same suspicion rising inside him as he brings its face closer to his. He stares straight into the kitten’s eyes, and the kitten stares right back at him, and he is drawn into the unfathomable depths of those eyes, blue going darker and darker the deeper he goes, then in the depths, a light, and the eyes glow electric blue. And there it is again. The same indefinable feeling. He sees galaxies swirl in those blue eyes, clouds and wings of white against a sky so blue and bright it hurts his eyes. He sees more than that. He sees friendship and recognition, affection and infinite knowledge, and then a glint of pain in the eyes of a tiny kitten.
He barely registers the clink of keys and the door opening until Sam speaks. “Hey, so I talked to Bobby, and he hasn’t heard anything like it but he’ll ask around…”
Dean jolts and drops the kitten to the floor, whatever spell woven in that space of time broken by Sam’s intrusion. He can still feel it though… the weird, supernatural aura surrounding the kitten, and he stands up, goes to the mini fridge and grabs a bottle of water.
“You alright, Dean?” he hears Sam say.
Dean gulps in almost all the water in one go. He wipes his mouth and turns around, eyes going back to the kitten. And for a moment he thinks his mind just made it up. Mr. Bonbon looks just like the ordinary kitten that he is. Except Dean still remembers that feeling. And his gut tells him he’s right and he’s been right all along.
“I’ll be fine,” Dean says, eyes still locked onto the kitten, who, oddly enough, keeps its eyes locked at Dean as well, as if telling him something, challenging him to voice his concerns. And he does. “We should get rid of the cat,” Dean suddenly blurts out.
Sam pauses from unpacking the print outs and other materials he got from the library and turns to look at Dean. “What? Where did that come from?”
“Don’t you think it’s weird? It hardly eats or sleeps, and I’ve never seen it poop or pee anywhere. It uses the phone, types on your laptop… and it looks like he’s even listening to us… look, look at it. Tell me that doesn’t look like it understands us,” Dean points out.
Sam looks at the cat then back at Dean. “Can you hear yourself, Dean? You sound insane.”
“I’m not insane, man. I’m telling you there’s some weird shit going on with that cat!”
Sam strides to the kitten and picks it up. “So you’re saying Mr. Bonbon is, what? Possessed?” he asks, looking into the kitten’s bright eyes.
“No! I’m saying it’s weird, Sam. It stares at me like Ca-“Dean stops, mouth agape. He stomps to the bed and flops down onto it.
“Like what, Dean?” Sam asks. “It stares at you like Cas does?” he ventures.
“Yes! Kind of. I dunno. All I know is when I talk to him, he seems to understand exactly what I’m saying. And look at him. He’s staring again.”
And Sam gets it. He looks down at the cat in his arms and the cat’s folded ears twitch, but his eyes never leave Dean. Blue and bright and intense and so much like Cas’, even Sam can see why Dean would feel uncomfortable. He sits down on the bed across from Dean’s and cradles the cat on his lap. “Don’t you think you’re thinking this way because…” Sam stops to hesitate.
“Oh spill it Sam,” Dean says irritably.
“You’re antsy Cas hasn’t showed up at all since that group of demons we killed three weeks ago. You’re pouring your frustrations on this kitten… and he does kinda look like Cas, now that you mention it.”
“Dammit, Sam, this is not about Cas!”
“It is, Dean. All of this is about Cas. That’s the only reason I could think of why you’re being all bitchy. Something happened back then and you’re not telling me, and I get it. Whatever it was, it’s between the two of you, but look, if you’re worried about him, we can ask around. I’m sure someone would know what’s happening up there…”
“I’m not worried, alright? He can handle himself. Why should I be worried about someone who ignores all of our calls and doesn’t even bother to drop by even once? Come on, we have a pack of giant wolves to kill.”
+++
On to Part 3
Back to Part 1
Author: remivel
Recipient: akadougal
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Fluff, slight animal/angel abuse, animal angst
Spoilers: Set somewhere around Season 5 and 6, so very vague spoilers for both seasons.
Summary: Gabriel is tired of having to listen to Castiel's woes about the Winchesters, so he decides to take matters into his own hands... and turns Castiel into a furry pet for the Winchesters to take care of.
Author notes: Cut into a more reader-friendly 3 parts. REVISED (a bit) from earlier posting at Dean/Cas Secret Santa. Go there if you want to read it in its original context.
This took longer than expected. Answer to the giftee's prompt: "Animal transformation into something cute. Literal fluff." There may be a good dose of angst there as well, so forgive me for that if that's something you didn't want mixed in with your fluff. I hope you have as much fun reading this as I had writing it.
Part 3
Part 1
Cas thinks he really got lucky this time, as he finds himself comfortably seated on Sam’s lap for probably a couple hours now. He was able to find a way out of the motel room, he is unscathed after almost getting run over by the Impala, and now he’s back with Sam and Dean, the only ones who can help change him back. If he doesn’t know any better, he’d think someone out there’s watching out for him. Which okay, it’s probably true, because what are the odds that the animal shelter was closed when Dean and Sam went there to turn him in? Castiel would bet Gabriel had everything to do with the recent turn of events, and this thought comforts him a bit. However, he also knows how pigheaded Gabriel could be at times, and he would also bet Gabriel wouldn’t change him back until he got exactly what he wants out of this, whatever it is.
“See… he seems fine being cooped up in a car for a few hours,” he hears Sam say.
“Yes, I’ll be fine as long as you don’t leave me behind again,” Castiel tells them. He knows they don’t understand him, but it still gives him an odd feeling of comfort to voice out whatever he wanted to say.
“And he doesn’t seem to poop or pee all that much too,” Sam remarks, and Dean grimaces.
“I hope not. Coz if that cat stinks up my baby, I’m tossin’ it out the window-even while I’m driving,” Dean says.
Castiel glares at Dean, but he’s not sure it translates very well given his current state. He does find, however, that the hairs on his back have stood up in what apparently is a show of anger. Sam notices and glides a soothing hand through Cas’ fur. “He’s not really gonna do that,” Sam tells Cas fondly. “If he did… I’d seriously consider having him institutionalized,” Sam says next, directing his words to Dean. “I don’t know what you have against the kitten. He’s done nothing wrong.”
Dean glances over to him and Castiel tilts his head to the side, a gesture that comes naturally to him even in his human vessel. “That cat’s just weird, okay?” Dean says as he turns his gaze back onto the road.
“He’s not weird, Dean. It could just because he has these unusual ears,” Sam points out. “Mr.Bonbon’s probably a Scottish Fold.”
“What?!”
“A Scottish fold… it’s a breed. I read about it once. Explains the folded ears,” Sam elaborates.
“Yeah, I get that. I was askin’ about the name. Mr. Bonbon?” Dean asks incredulously. “So now the cutesy name isn’t enough, you have to add a mister to it?”
“I thought it suited him,” Sam says with a shrug.
“How are you even sure it’s a ‘mister’ and not a ‘miss’?” Dean comments.
Sam gently flips the cat onto its back and points between his short legs. “It’s got male kitty bits, see…”
Cas feels embarrassed as Dean glances down at him and he squirms and flips back onto his belly. He doesn’t know why it should bother him so much. He’s naked and a cat, after all.
Dean turns his gaze back onto the road. “Well, the name’s weird. You’re weird. That cat’s weird!” Dean grumbles.
Sam just rolls his eyes at him. “Whatever.”
+++
“You can’t bring animals in here,” the thin, balding man at the motel’s reception desk tells them.
Dean looks at Sam with his ‘I told you so’ face.
Sam just frowns and looks down at the kitten in his arms. It slipped his mind how some motels turn away guests with animals, and makes a mental note to hide the kitten the next time. “He’s trained and really docile,” Sam lies and pleads his case. “And if he breaks anything, we promise to pay for it.”
“Wait, we do?” Dean asks in surprise.
“That’s not the point. Our policy is-“
“Why are you turning them away, Hector?” a woman coming out of the office asks. She’s a burly lady, almost twice the size of the man, and from the look of terror flashing in the man’s eyes, Dean knows she’s the one in charge. “We don’t turn away their kind,” she tells the man quietly, but Dean and Sam still hear everything.
“Uh, excuse me?” Sam asks even before Dean’s expression fully evolves to his epic what-the-fuck face.
“Oh, yes, you can go to your room now,” she says to them in a sickly sweet tone. “Your kitten can come in, too. We wouldn’t want to inconvenience your family by refusing this cute little baby,” she says, wiggling her large, sausage-like fingers in front of the cat’s face.
Sam pauses. “Thanks…” he says tentatively as the man hands them their motel key.
They just started walking to their room when they hear the woman sigh, “What a beautiful looking couple.”
“Why’d you let the cat in too?” the man complains.
“Idiot. That’s their lovechild. You can’t let their kid stay in the car. Jeez!”
Sam and Dean exchange brief, awkward glances before looking down at the kitten in Sam’s arms. “Next time, hide the cat,” Dean says and Sam nods in agreement.
They never talk about that incident ever again.
+++
That night, Dean wakes up from a restless sleep to see the kitten sitting on the table quietly and watching him with eyes that almost glowed in the dim light. Besides the fact that the kitten doesn’t seem to feel the need to sleep, or to avert his gaze from Dean, he is also sitting like a person would, with his rump on the table, his back leaning against the wall, and his front paws resting on his tummy.
Dean narrows his eyes suspiciously at the kitten, waiting for it to pounce and attack him, or to change into a vicious tiger and devour them in their beds, but naturally, nothing happens, and Dean’s left wondering why he is so paranoid around the little creature.
He sighs and gets up to go to the bathroom. He continues to watch the kitten with distrust, and the kitten continues to stare right back at him in a way that seems very familiar and very unsettling at the same time. “Sam better be in one piece when I get back, alright?” he threatens half-heartedly as he passes by the kitten. The kitten meows once in response and turns his head to stare at Sam’s sleeping form instead. Dean shakes his head and enters the bathroom.
When he comes out a minute later, the kitten is still peacefully sitting there on the table. He glances up at Dean with the same innocent big blue eyes and Dean’s left feeling stupid again for even thinking that the kitten has been sent by demons to kill them in their sleep. Instead, it even looks like the little thing is watching over them while they sleep and Dean sighs as he reaches a hand out to ruffle the fur on the kitten’s head. “Good boy,” Dean says before he climbs back onto his bed.
+++
That morning, Dean finds the kitten curled up at his feet, not asleep, just lying on the bed and watching him with hooded eyes. If Dean finds that weird, he doesn’t say anything, and Sam counts that as a victory for Mr. Bonbon.
+++
A few days, several states, and a couple of run-of-the-mill hunts later, Dean and Sam retire to their motel room for the night with dirt and grime sticking to their clothes and every exposed inch of their skin. “Dibs on the shower!” Dean announces like a little kid as soon as they step into the room. Sam mutters a ‘fine, go ahead,’ and watches as Dean quickly shucks off his jacket and practically kicks of his boots in haste. The bathroom door slams behind Dean, and a few seconds later, Sam hears the shower running.
Sam grabs a bottle of water and drinks by the kitchenette when he hears a loud yelp of “Jesus Christ!” erupt from the bathroom. “Dean?” he calls out in confusion and concern, and a handful of seconds later, the bathroom door opens and Sam sees Dean’s outstretched foot shoving Mr. Bonbon out of the bathroom. “Damn thing’s watchin’ me shower. It’s giving me the creeps!” he hears Dean say before the bathroom door slams hard behind the kitten, who just looks up at Sam like he had no idea what had just happened.
+++
Cas doesn’t mean to spy on Dean as he undressed and stepped into the shower. He was in the process of exploring every nook and cranny of the motel room since he had nothing else to do, and when he turned around, there was a half-naked Dean getting progressively more naked right in front of him.
Sure, he has spied on the brothers on more than one occasion, but never when they were in their private moments-when they were in the shower or when Dean or Sam hooked up with a girl from the bar. So it is definitely something new for Cas to see Dean naked again since he rebuilt each cell of his body from scratch. And really, he would’ve appreciated seeing it more had he not been a few inches tall and covered in fur.
To see Dean freak out over a cat seeing him naked is something new for Cas as well, and as Dean shoves him out of the bathroom with a foot, Cas can’t say he regrets anything from that particular experience.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Sam says to Cas with a grimace.
“I’m not,” Cas meows before he takes his spot on Dean’s bed for the night.
+++
“I can’t believe Cas didn’t show up,” Dean complains as they return from killing off a couple of demons that possessed kindergarten school teachers and were planning to hold a classroom full of students hostage.
Castiel’s ears twitch at the sound of his name, and he sits up from his now usual spot on Dean’s bed and listens attentively as Dean continues to gripe.
“I get that he’s probably busy but fuck man, there were twenty kids in that classroom. We could’ve used an extra hand,” Dean says before he flops onto the bed beside Cas and starts to undo his laces. Cas looks up at him curiously.
“You called for me?” Cas asks in disbelief and the meow distracts Dean for a moment. “But I didn’t hear-“
“It’s nothin’, little kitty,” Dean says as he pats Cas’ head. “Someone I counted on to help me didn’t show up,” he grumbles.
Castiel suddenly feels like he betrayed Dean’s trust by not being there. Dean needed him, and for the first time in a long while, he couldn’t be there to help him. He feels lost all of a sudden as waves of emotion run through him, making him lightheaded. He feels anger at Gabriel for putting him in this situation, feels guilty and ashamed for being so weak as to be trapped in this body in the first place, and feels the heavy weight of helplessness descend on him again when he realizes he still can’t do anything to change himself back.
“You two didn’t happen to have an argument the last time, did you?” Sam asks from across the room.
Cas turns his head towards Sam’s direction in surprise. Sam doesn’t know? Then it occurs to him that Dean wants to forget their kiss happened, so it’s natural that he’d keep that little information from Sam. Castiel isn’t sure if he’s disappointed or relieved about that. He looks back at Dean and waits for his reply.
“An argument? No man. Nothin’ like that,” Dean lies through his teeth, and Sam shoots him a look that clearly shows he’s not buying any of Dean’s bullshit. “Seriously, man,” Dean goes on. “Why would you think-“
“I don’t know, maybe because the last time he helped us, he hardly said a word and left. And all that time you kept on avoiding him and-oh come on, don’t look at me like that Dean, I know what I saw. And ever since then, you just seem a bit more, I dunno, high strung, I guess. You even take it out on the kitten!” Sam gestures toward Cas, and Cas looks from Sam to Dean and back.
Is that why Dean is sometimes mean to him? And why he’s more hot-headed than usual? Because he’s… affected by what happened? He hasn’t… forgotten… like he wanted to, and Cas feels a glimmer of hope in his chest at that.
“So that must mean only one thing. Something happened and you’re not telling me,” Sam says him.
“Nothing happened, okay?” Dean says with venom this time. “So can we just drop it?”
“Whatever, man. Just stop complaining about Cas not answering your call for once. He’s probably got a lot more things to worry about than to help us with a couple of demons.”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re right. We took care of those demons without him anyway. We’ll be fine,” Dean agrees, and Cas wonders if it’s right that he feels miserable because of that.
+++
The second time that Dean calls for Cas’ help and he doesn’t show, Dean no longer complains. He just glowers and goes to the bar across the street for a drink.
He comes back to the motel shit-faced and would not have made it inside the room if Sam hadn’t gotten up and opened the door for him. Dean collapses on the bed and nearly crushes Cas with his weight if the kitten hadn’t leapt out of the way at the last moment.
+++
The third time they needed assistance, Dean refuses to call Cas, and Sam ends up calling for the angel’s help instead. When, again, Cas does not show up, Dean goes straight to the nearest bar to get properly wasted.
“Seriously, Dean,” Sam says, shaking his head after he helped his brother onto his bed for the second time in a week. “If nothing happened… why the heck are you moping around like a lovesick puppy?” he asks, but by this time Dean’s already snoring heavily and Sam is just left sighing to an almost empty room.
The kitten sitting Buddha-style on the foot of Dean’s bed looks up at Sam with eyes that almost look sad, and Sam wonders if the cat can sense that something’s not quite right. “You see it too, huh?” Sam asks the kitten. “How stupid Dean can be,” Sam says with another shake of his head before he closes the light and goes back to sleep.
+++
‘There has to be another way to change me back,’ Cas thinks the next morning. He’s endured being a cat for a little over two weeks now, and he’s not that much closer to finding a solution to his predicament.
He moves out of the way as Dean shifts on the bed. ‘He snores louder when he’s drunk,’ Cas observes, and apparently Sam is aware of this as well, if the dark circles under his eyes are any indication. He watches as Sam yawns in front of his laptop for the fifth time since he started searching for leads in their current case. A handful of minutes later and Sam is standing up and grabbing his jacket.
“I need coffee…” Sam mutters before heading out of the room, leaving his laptop open on the table.
An idea builds in Cas’ mind and he hops off the bed and onto the table. ‘Maybe…’ Cas thinks as he presses his paws onto the keyboard. At first nothing happens, so he stomps his paws a few more times before something pops up with a weird name. ‘Google?’ Cas asks, head tilting curiously. ‘I’ve heard of this before…’ he says as he presses his paws onto the keyboard once more. His eyes grow wide when he sees letters appear on a small box in the middle of the page. “This is like that text messaging feature on cell phones!” Cas says excitedly.
He tries pressing the key with ‘backspace’ written on it, and the letters start disappearing one by one. He presses the long bar and a space appears. “I see how this works…” he says, and with newfound determination, he angles his paw just right and tries to hit just a single letter. He ends up pressing several at once, and he erases it with the convenient backspace key and tries again. ‘This might need some getting used to,’ he thinks, as he tries again and again, practicing to hit one key at a time. He is starting to get the hang of it when he feels something move behind him, and when he turns around, Dean is already sitting up on the bed and looking at him with suspicious, yet still very groggy, eyes. “What’re you doing, kitty?” Dean asks before he buries his head in his head and groans. “Ugh… I think I’m gonna-“ he doesn’t finish the sentence and leans over the side of the bed to a conveniently placed waste basket and hurls.
+++
“Your cat seems to like pressing buttons…” Dean remarks the moment Sam enters the room.
“What do you mean?” Sam asks and when Dean points at his laptop, Sam’s jaw drops, fearing the worst. “Oh my god, Dean…” he gasps, placing the cups of coffee he bought on the far end of the table and rushing to his precious laptop. The kitten jumps out of the way and settles back onto the foot of Dean’s bed.
“I saw him stomping his feet all over your keyboard. You might want to check if he didn’t dislodge a letter and eat it or something,” Dean tells him before he reluctantly stands up from the bed and makes his way to the bathroom.
Sam quickly inspects his laptop for damages but finds none except for a few black strands of cat hair. “Everything seems to be okay,” Sam says with a relieved smile.
“Yeah? Well, maybe he emailed Bobby naked pictures of you,” Dean quips from inside the bathroom.
Sam takes a second look at his screen and sees the browser opened to a Google search that didn’t match anything. “Nah, just a bunch of key smashes…” Sam says. “You like pressing keys, Mr. Bonbon?” he asks the kitten sitting on the bed. The kitten meows and Sam chuckles as he looks back at the screen. Then, he notices it.
It could just be his imagination, a way for his brain to make sense of things that normally don’t need making sense of, but he still sees it. Towards the end of the jumbled letters and numbers he sees “saml/,; he3lp,m, e24,” and he can’t help but see the words they possibly spell out.
Sam, help me.
Sam looks at the kitten with a hint of suspicion, and the kitten looks back at him almost expectantly, like he’s waiting for something good to happen. Sam tears his gaze away from the kitten’s hopeful face and back at the screen. No matter how many times he looks at it, those words still keep on popping out for him.
“Dude, did you get me breakfast?” he hears Dean say, and Sam shakes his head and chuckles.
“That’s impossible,” he mutters under his breath, and closes the browser before he starts sounding as crazy as Dean. “No breakfast, just coffee,” Sam tells Dean before he stands up to hand one of the cups to Dean.
+++
Cas went from excited to disappointed in a matter of seconds the moment he saw Sam dismiss his message just like that. He gets over his disappointment fairly easily though, and no sooner had Sam and Dean left to chase down a lead that Cas is plotting ways to tell Sam of his identity. Because Gabriel might’ve warned him against telling Dean, but he didn’t say anything about telling Sam instead.
He looks forward to trying his paws at typing on Sam’s laptop again, but he finds that although Sam left his laptop in the room, he also left it closed. And Cas has no idea how to operate it, especially now that he lacks opposable thumbs.
Everything would have been easier if Gabriel had left him with the rest of his grace intact. Then again, with his grace, he could also turn himself back given enough time. As it stands, the amount of grace he can tap into is just enough to render him somewhat invulnerable to pain and hunger and make him slightly stronger than an average cat.
Sam and Dean apparently think he eats insects and other small mammals aside from the cat food Sam buys him, and they just think he hides his refuse somewhere they can’t see or smell. Cas is beginning to see that Dean is right when he said that having a pet does not suit their lifestyle. If he had been a normal cat, they’d probably lost him already, or maybe he’d have already died of starvation or something similar (Sam had asked Dean to leave the kitten some food and water the other day and Dean forgot. They didn’t come back for almost two days).
Nevertheless, he is still very grateful he retained some of his grace and the consciousness of an angel. He hasn’t figured out a way to use that to his advantage yet.
+++
Cas is left thinking up ways to somehow get his message across to Sam for the rest of the day, and before he knows it, night has fallen and he hears the roar of the Impala’s engine pulling up in front of the room.
Cas gets up from the bed to give them his usual greeting- by rubbing up on their legs (Dean had tripped on him a couple of times and had since sworn that if he trips one more time, he’s not going to be responsible for not-so-accidentally stepping on any part of the cat). However, when he reaches the door, he hears Dean’s voice along with someone else’s, and when the door swings open, Cas is kicked to the side (accidentally, this time) by two pairs of shoes stumbling on each other: Dean’s heavy boots… and some woman’s red stilettos.
Blue eyes widen in shock when he sees Dean drop onto the bed with a curvy brunette on top of him. He sees her pull off her tight dress, and her hair falls in delicate waves behind her pale back. He sees Dean’s fingers wrap around her tiny waist and-Cas can’t take any more of this and averts his gaze.
He hides under the table and suddenly he feels sick, which is weird because he still has his grace and he should not be susceptible to disease. He feels like puking, and it’s a different sensation than when he was purging out a hairball that time. This is much worse. He feels like his heart has sunk to his stomach and it’s rolling around there and making him all kinds of sick. He hears the woman moan and he feels his chest tighten unbearably, making it hard for him to breathe. He doesn’t know what’s happening to him, all he knows is he feels nauseous and he wants to be anywhere but here.
He’s seen Dean bring home girls more times than he can count. He has known for a long time how healthy Dean’s sexual appetite could be, and though he has never approved of any of Dean’s depravities, he has usually acted indifferent toward them. So to feel less-than-indifferent about this now should strike Castiel as very unusual, except it really doesn’t, because he knows exactly why he is feeling this way.
It’s the same feeling he had when Dean shoved him away and told him to forget they had just kissed. Forget that Dean looked at him with so much emotion just before their lips touched. Forget that Dean clung onto him and kissed him deeper and with more passion than he had ever thought possible. Forget that even for a short while, Dean made him feel like he loved him back.
But now Castiel is here, a scared kitten hiding under a table, and Dean is just a few feet away, kissing someone else. In bed with someone else. Is this his punishment? For putting the Winchesters above everything else, even above Heaven itself? It must be. Because he doesn’t think anything could be worse than this.
“Gabriel, please… if you’re listening. Take me away. Just this once,” he pleads as silently as he could, paws to his ears as he tries to muffle the sounds coming from the bed.
Gabriel doesn’t come for him, nor do the terrible feelings in his gut and chest stop.
He does, however, hear a sharp sound, like a cry, and before he knows it, he’s whipping his head towards the direction of the bed. He knows he probably shouldn’t have done that. Who knows what he could see? It could probably break him forever. But his dread melds into confusion when he sees the girl sit up on the bed and spit out an irritated, “Are you kidding me?!”
No sooner had she said this that she’s getting off of Dean and grabbing her dress from the floor.
“Sorry, Marie. Maybe next time,” Dean says with a forced grin.
“It’s Mindy, and don’t even think about a next time,” she huffs out indignantly as she pulls her dress on hastily. Dean sits up on the bed to put his shirt back on and rubs his face with his hands. He doesn’t even look up as the woman stomps angrily out of the motel room and slams the door shut.
A quiet minute passes with Dean’s face buried in his hands and Castiel quietly watching from under the table. He knows it’s wrong to delight in the misfortune of others, but he couldn’t help feeling relieved and happy about the turn of events. That is, until Dean zips up his jeans, stands up from the bed, and stalks to the table where Castiel is hiding. He crouches down and pulls Cas out by the scruff of his neck. He brings the kitten’s face up to his and stares straight into the round, blue eyes.
Cas gulps nervously at the indecipherable look on Dean’s face. Then Dean sighs. “This is all your damn fault,” he says before he walks back to the bed and deposits the kitten in his usual spot at the foot of his bed.
“My fault?” Cas meows quietly as he watches Dean trudge lazily to the bathroom.
+++
“Lemme get this straight…” Sam says, fighting the urge to burst into fits of laughter as he looked to his side at Dean driving, to the kitten lying on his lap, and back at Dean. “You… you heard the cat meow and… you can’t…” he pauses, trying to school his features into some semblance of indifference. “You… can’t…”
“I can’t get it up, alright?!” Dean blurts out angrily.
At this, the sound of Sam’s laughter engulfs the whole Impala and Dean wants to strangle his brother right then and there.
“I’m glad my problem is amusing for at least one of us,” Dean says with a fake smile.
“Oh come on, Dean. You have to admit it’s funny. What is it about this cat that makes you… you know… unable to perform?”
“Nothin’ alright!” Dean growls.
Sam laughs again. “If it was nothin’, you would’ve had Molly to yourself all night.”
“I’m pretty sure her name was Mandy…”
“Mindy!” Cas chimes in even though he knows he wouldn’t be understood. He doesn’t care anyway. He seems to be in a very good mood this morning.
“Whatever. The point is, you lost your uh, appetite… because of a cat. You’ve never been so affected before.”
“I just don’t like it when there’s another pair of eyes in the room, okay? Just thinkin’ of that cat lookin’ while we… while I… ugh….” Dean shudders. “It just creeps me out, alright?”
“Dean. He’s a kitten. You could’ve just locked him in the bathroom if you’re so worried you’ll taint his innocent eyes.”
“I did think of that, but by that time… Mr. Happy’s not so happy anymore…”
“Mr. Happy?” Sam says with a grimace.
“Oh you know what I mean.”
They drive in silence for a couple more minutes until Sam’s eyebrows knot as he recalls something. “There was an aquarium in one of our motel rooms a couple weeks back… you didn’t seem so creeped out by the little fishy eyes then when you brought back that red head…”
“It’s not the ‘little fishy eyes’ that creep me out… it’s that kitten’s eyes. They look too much like Ca-“ Dean shuts his mouth before the name could completely form on his lips, his eyes wide with disbelief at what he almost said.
“Like what?” Sam urges on, though he knows exactly what Dean was about to say.
“Nothin’,” Dean says, his eyes staring intently, too intently, on the road ahead, ignoring the pensive, almost knowing look Sam must be flashing him at this very moment.
+++
“They’re giant wolves,” Dean repeats as he talks to Sam on the phone. “Really. Giant wolves?”
“That’s what the witness said. She claims she saw more than a dozen.”
“A dozen? Shit, man. Maybe she was just exaggerating? You don’t think it could’ve been the shock of seeing her friends die?” he asks as he enters the motel room. Mr. Bonbon rubs against his legs and he ignores him and goes to sit on the bed.
“I don’t know. She is pretty shaken. But the coroner confirms it as an animal attack, most likely of wolves. Big wolves. Even if they were ordinary wolves, it seems fishy. Seven dead just in a week? And no deaths before that. At first we thought it was werewolves right? But you saw the bodies… there was hardly anything left of them.”
“And she swore they looked like wolves?” Dean asks again.
“Yeah. Pretty much, except they were as big as grizzly bears, and had ‘yellow, glowing eyes.’ How’d she see a whole pack of wolves eating her friends and managed to escape?”
Dean is stumped. Giant, man-eating wolves, a whole pack? “We should probably ask Bobby…”
“I’m on it,” Sam says before hanging up.
Dean sits on the bed, lost in thought as the kitten jumps up to sit beside him. He looks at the cat and its eerie wide eyes that reminded Dean too much of him. “An elderly couple went missing a week ago. And yesterday, five hikers were killed. One of them was a 15 year old kid,” he tells the kitten. “But this is the first time I’ve heard of giant wolves…” he thinks aloud.
He sits quietly for a couple more minutes, then he looks up at the ceiling. “I’ve got nothing here,” he calls out. “Seven innocent people are dead. A lot more are in danger. So if you’re listening, you sonnovabitch, get your feathery ass down here.”
+++
It takes Cas a couple of seconds to realize what Dean is doing. Hands clasped tightly in front of him, head tilted toward the ceiling, his Adam’s apple bobbing heavily with each word wrenched out of his throat. Dean is praying. For his help.
“Cas… come on, help us out here,” Dean swallows the lump in his throat and adds, “Please.”
A minute passes, then two, then five, and when nothing happens, Dean spits out a curse. “I knew it. You’re a vindictive son of a bitch, you know that? If you’re fucking angry at me, take it out on me some other way. Not like this. Not when people’s lives are at stake,” he tells the ceiling angrily. He breathes in, waiting for something, anything.
“Dean! I’m right here.” Cas meows but it’s useless. He’s useless. He moves forward and scratches at Dean’s thigh to get his attention. He doesn’t know what he plans to achieve once he gets Dean to look at him, but he just wants to tell him somehow. Wants him to know he’s right here, has always been right here with him, even if he doesn’t know it.
When Dean feels the soft paws scratching at his jeans, he turns to the cat and sighs, practically deflating on the bed.
“ You don’t suppose you know where Cas is right now, do you?” he asks.
Cas’ eyes light up the moment Dean turns his eyes toward him. “Yes, I’m right here Dean. Can’t you see?” he meows.
“He’s not in any trouble, right? I mean, he’s been gone longer before, but… this time…” Dean says with another heavy sigh. “He’d come here if he needed help, right?” Dean asks the kitten.
For a moment Cas is confused. Dean was just angry at him mere moments ago, and now, he’s wondering how he is doing. Is he hearing Dean correctly? Is Dean… worried about him?
“Oh who am I kiddin, you don’t understand a word I say,” Dean says, picking Cas up and settling the kitten on his lap. He glides a hand down its back and finds the soft fur soothing. Then the kitten purrs and leans to his touch and Dean can’t help the smile that forms on his lips. “You’re still so small, where’s your family, baby?” he asks affectionately.
Cas’ eyes roll back into his head at the heavenly feeling of Dean’s fingers running down his back. Everything gets so fuzzy when Sam does this to him, and it’s no different now that Dean’s the one giving him a bit of attention. He almost misses what Dean says next.
“Don’t you miss ‘em?”
Cas looks up at Dean and cants his head to the side. “Who?” Cas asks.
+++
“You kinda remind me of him, you know?” Dean tells the kitten. “He can be a dick sometimes but sometimes, I just mi-“ the words die in his throat as his eyes lock with the kitten’s bright blue eyes. Something indefinable stirs inside Dean as he stares into the kitten’s eyes, like something’s not quite right, like there’s a trace of magic, of power he can’t see but he can feel heavy in the air.
He picks the kitten up again, the same suspicion rising inside him as he brings its face closer to his. He stares straight into the kitten’s eyes, and the kitten stares right back at him, and he is drawn into the unfathomable depths of those eyes, blue going darker and darker the deeper he goes, then in the depths, a light, and the eyes glow electric blue. And there it is again. The same indefinable feeling. He sees galaxies swirl in those blue eyes, clouds and wings of white against a sky so blue and bright it hurts his eyes. He sees more than that. He sees friendship and recognition, affection and infinite knowledge, and then a glint of pain in the eyes of a tiny kitten.
He barely registers the clink of keys and the door opening until Sam speaks. “Hey, so I talked to Bobby, and he hasn’t heard anything like it but he’ll ask around…”
Dean jolts and drops the kitten to the floor, whatever spell woven in that space of time broken by Sam’s intrusion. He can still feel it though… the weird, supernatural aura surrounding the kitten, and he stands up, goes to the mini fridge and grabs a bottle of water.
“You alright, Dean?” he hears Sam say.
Dean gulps in almost all the water in one go. He wipes his mouth and turns around, eyes going back to the kitten. And for a moment he thinks his mind just made it up. Mr. Bonbon looks just like the ordinary kitten that he is. Except Dean still remembers that feeling. And his gut tells him he’s right and he’s been right all along.
“I’ll be fine,” Dean says, eyes still locked onto the kitten, who, oddly enough, keeps its eyes locked at Dean as well, as if telling him something, challenging him to voice his concerns. And he does. “We should get rid of the cat,” Dean suddenly blurts out.
Sam pauses from unpacking the print outs and other materials he got from the library and turns to look at Dean. “What? Where did that come from?”
“Don’t you think it’s weird? It hardly eats or sleeps, and I’ve never seen it poop or pee anywhere. It uses the phone, types on your laptop… and it looks like he’s even listening to us… look, look at it. Tell me that doesn’t look like it understands us,” Dean points out.
Sam looks at the cat then back at Dean. “Can you hear yourself, Dean? You sound insane.”
“I’m not insane, man. I’m telling you there’s some weird shit going on with that cat!”
Sam strides to the kitten and picks it up. “So you’re saying Mr. Bonbon is, what? Possessed?” he asks, looking into the kitten’s bright eyes.
“No! I’m saying it’s weird, Sam. It stares at me like Ca-“Dean stops, mouth agape. He stomps to the bed and flops down onto it.
“Like what, Dean?” Sam asks. “It stares at you like Cas does?” he ventures.
“Yes! Kind of. I dunno. All I know is when I talk to him, he seems to understand exactly what I’m saying. And look at him. He’s staring again.”
And Sam gets it. He looks down at the cat in his arms and the cat’s folded ears twitch, but his eyes never leave Dean. Blue and bright and intense and so much like Cas’, even Sam can see why Dean would feel uncomfortable. He sits down on the bed across from Dean’s and cradles the cat on his lap. “Don’t you think you’re thinking this way because…” Sam stops to hesitate.
“Oh spill it Sam,” Dean says irritably.
“You’re antsy Cas hasn’t showed up at all since that group of demons we killed three weeks ago. You’re pouring your frustrations on this kitten… and he does kinda look like Cas, now that you mention it.”
“Dammit, Sam, this is not about Cas!”
“It is, Dean. All of this is about Cas. That’s the only reason I could think of why you’re being all bitchy. Something happened back then and you’re not telling me, and I get it. Whatever it was, it’s between the two of you, but look, if you’re worried about him, we can ask around. I’m sure someone would know what’s happening up there…”
“I’m not worried, alright? He can handle himself. Why should I be worried about someone who ignores all of our calls and doesn’t even bother to drop by even once? Come on, we have a pack of giant wolves to kill.”
+++
On to Part 3
Back to Part 1