{Fic} Cat Got Your Tongue? (1/1) | SPN | Sam/Gabriel
Cat Got Your Tongue?
Author: enmuse
Recipient: theycallmegabe (sorry this is so late!!) for spnraritiesfest
Word count: ~3,400
Characters/pairings: Gabriel/Sam, Dean, Castiel
Rating: PG-13 (because it's FLUFF and higher rating is for language & eventual hints of sexiness)
Warnings: Um... kitty!fic. There's really not much to warn for!
Summary: Sam sat up straight and blinked solemnly at the room's occupants. Dean rubbed at his temples where he felt a headache starting. "Uh, yeah. Amateur witch, disrupted spell, Sammy's hero complex, and this is the result. So, fix him." or How the courtship of Sam Winchester wasn't successful until it involved cats
Author notes: I went with the request for Character A gets turned into a kitten, forcing character B to look after them, which is not the type of fic I'd usually write. But then I was writing so much angsty fic and I got the idea of a kitty!Sam in my head and it wouldn't leave my brain.
Thank you soooo much to wolfish_willow for a quick turnaround in beta'ing and assuring me that I didn't fail at fluff. (It felt so weird to write! LOL) Thanks also to qbiggerthanlove for cheering me on. I can't believe how long this took me to write. ;_;
Lastly: I imagine Sam is transformed into a cat breed like a Maine Coone (he soooo would be, you know it!) and Gabriel I imagine as I describe in the fic - ginger-colored, mackerel (patterned) cat.
~ ~ ~
Sam shouldered open the door to the basement. He brandished his knife and moved forward to clear the way for Dean.
The chanting they'd heard through the door cut off with a startled-sounding squeak. Dean stepped past Sam with his gun half-raised.
"Dude. It's just some sixteen year old girl."
"Oh my God!" The girl's eyes widened as she took a step away from them. She held her hands up in a defensive gesture. "W-who are you?"
Sam tucked his knife away and spread his arms to display his empty hands. "What kind of spell were you doing?" he asked, careful to keep his tone gentle but firm.
The girl glanced briefly over her shoulder at the little table set up with candles and various spell accoutrements before her gaze darted back to the brothers. "I... I wasn't doing anything bad!" she whispered, tears clearly gathering in her eyes. "I was just looking at the book!"
"Hey, it's alright. You were just trying something new, right? But it's important that we find out what you were trying to do," Sam explained. He slowly stepped forward but apparently it wasn't nonthreatening enough because the girl jerked backwards and bumped into the table.
"Oh crap," Dean muttered as the table and its contents tipped over.
Moving on instinct, Sam lunged forward to pull the girl out of harm's way. At the first sign of smoke wafting up from the spilled mess, Sam turned to put himself between the danger and the girl. The movement caused the wannabe witch to step outside of the chalked lines binding the spell, leaving Sam alone in its circle.
The smoke grew thick within the confines of the spell circle and twined around the hunter's body.
"Sammy!" Dean yelled. "Get out of there!"
Sam managed to say over a cough, "I can't!" The smoke closed in, hiding him from view for a long minute.
In a sudden upward rush of light, the smoke vanished. Sam didn't reappear. Dean turned on the girl and gripped her arm, hissing, "What the hell did you do?"
Tears ran down her face. "Oh God, I-I didn't mean to do anything! I was just-"
A grumbling sound turned their attention back to the circle on the floor. Dean realized that while Sam's body seemed to have disappeared, his clothes and knife remained in a pile. And the pile of cloth was moving. Dean crouched down and nudged Sam's jacket with his gun. The pile moved again and something that sounded distinctly like a growl emanated from the lump caught up in the clothing.
"Um... Sammy?" Dean asked hesitantly.
"Mrreow."
Dean pulled the jacket aside and stared blankly at the large cat poking its head out of the collar of his brother's shirt. "Oh. Shit."
Turned out that the wannabe witch (one Lily Edwards) had previously conducted only a handful of minor spells, all centered around typical teenage obsessions. She had decided to try something a little different this time, though, since she decided to try more difficult spells. Since she thought of herself as "stepping up" her witchcraft, she'd been attempting to summon an appropriate familiar. Apparently a feline familiar.
The girl had been near hysterical until Dean stowed away his shotgun and even then she was still too upset to speak much. She focused on apologies and wondering aloud if she should have tried messing with magic at all (the obvious answer being no). The turning point came when Sam, in his new furry body all of eighteen pounds, rubbed his head against the girl's calves until she started petting him. Her nervous rambling trailed off as she focused on petting kitty-Sam. As weird as it was to know that the cat was really Sam, Dean took advantage of her calm state and asked the important questions.
Obviously the girl wasn't behind the recent rash of hexing in the town, but it sounded like the book she had found was part of a collection that other teenagers had been looking through recently. Lily claimed that most of her peers had joked about the material showing up at the school library, but a couple of people had copied down spells or stolen pages to try out. Lily provided several names that the hunters could look into.
Unfortunately, Lily had no idea how her locating spell could have become a transformation spell, which meant she had no idea how to reverse the effects. She was quick to withdraw herself from any possibility of helping with a reversal spell, immediately swearing off any more attempts of magic. She patted Sam's head and with a weak smile said, "You're a cute kitty, but I really, really don't want anything like this happening again because of me."
Dean said he'd clean up the place and let her head home. Sam sat outside the chalked lines of the spell circle. His whiskers twitched as he leaned forward. His ears flicked when Dean walked over.
"Don't suppose you'll help with cleanup," Dean said.
Sam looked up at Dean with his round cat eyes, and ears turned back with a clear look of irritation. He meowed, but not like a normal cat.
Dean squinted at his felinated brother. "Did you just... chirp?"
Sam chirruped again, followed by a low growl. Dean just barely managed to keep from grinning.
~
Despite annoyed kitty sounds of protests, Dean ordered Sam to the backseat of the Impala. Sam stretched out fully across the seat, tail twitching. Dean rolled his eyes as he started the car and pulled onto the road.
The first red light they came across, a solid thump followed Dean applying the brakes. Sam grumbled noisily as he jumped back onto the seat and Dean just laughed. "Seriously? I thought cats were supposed to be graceful."
In response, Sam began making hoarse hacking sounds.
"Oh hell no! You puke or plant a hairball, or whatever you're planning, in this car, I'm leaving you on the side of the road!"
Sam coughed one more time and then lay down again.
"Still a bitch," Dean muttered. Sam might not be able to articulate words, but his mrreow seemed to mean the typical response.
~
At the motel, Sam set to pacing around the edges of the room, sniffing suspiciously as his tail flicked in agitation. Dean shook his head, glad he wasn't the one smelling all the crap that the dim lighting and "dull" human senses probably hid.
"Man, you better hope the angel squad can do something about this," Dean said as he sent their current location via text to Cas. Across the room, Sam sneezed loudly.
It only took a few minutes for the sound of disrupted air to signal the arrival of Team Free Will's angel duo. Cas' gaze automatically went to Dean while Gabriel cast a quick glance around the room. The cat wasn't in sight.
"Did you misplace your brother?" Gabriel asked with an arched eyebrow.
Dean glared. "Think I'd be a little more worked up."
Sam's head and front paws popped up over the edge of the far bed, his pupils dilated. He stared at the angels, though only Dean noticed. Realizing that he was being ignored, Sam mrreow-ed loudly and jumped onto the bed.
"Dean, why do you-?"
Gabriel broke in with an amused, "Is that Sammy?"
Sam sat up straight and blinked solemnly at the room's occupants. Dean rubbed at his temples where he felt a headache starting. "Uh, yeah. Amateur witch, disrupted spell, Sammy's hero complex, and this is the result. So, fix him."
"Hmm..." The archangel leaned forward with pursed lips as he stared at the large cat. Sam's tail flicked and his ears twitched as he stared back.
Dean made a noise of frustration. Castiel moved closer to the bed and asked, "Sam, are you alright?"
Sam sneezed, which made Gabriel snicker.
"Dude, just snap him back to normal," Dean said.
"No can do, Deano." Sam growled. "Sorry, bucko, mixing magic won't do you any good right now." Gabriel elbowed Dean unnecessarily and pushed past Castiel to sit on the bed next to Sam. "So. Stuck as a kitty. You might be a big boy but I don't recommend following your brother as he tracks down the rest of the witches, got it?" Sam's chirrup sounded annoyed. He stood up and moved to the other side of the bed, tail audibly whapping Gabriel's arm as he moved.
"So, what? I'm just supposed to ignore the fact that my brother is a cat and get back to the case?"
Castiel frowned. "It is imperative that the coven be stopped as quickly as possible."
"Relax," Gabriel said with a wave of his hand. "Track down the witches, do your hero thing. Then grab their spell book and we'll sort out how we can fix Sammy without complications." The archangel arched an eyebrow. "So you two run along, okay?"
Suspicious, Dean asked, "And what're you planning on doing?"
With a wink and Cheshire Cat grin, Gabriel snapped his fingers. The angel disappeared and in his place sat a ginger-colored mackerel tabby. Castiel tilted his head with a curious expression; Dean just groaned.
"Mreow?" Sam turned around and leaned forward, whiskers twitching as he sniffed in Gabriel's direction. For his part, Gabriel stayed amazingly still, tail swishing lazily back and forth across the comforter.
"Seriously? Your response is to add another cat to the mix." Both cats ignored Dean. "For fuck's sake..." he muttered.
Castiel watched intently as Sam circled Gabriel. After an additional minute of sniffing and tail-flicking, Sam settled at Gabriel's side. Apparently not quite satisfied, the ginger tabby ignored all matters of personal space and nudged his head against Sam's side. Sam's paw lifted and he seemed to lean away. Gabriel kept pushing, eventually twisting onto his back with his front paws batting the air by Sam's face.
"Mrr...mreow?" Sam batted at Gabriel's waving paws.
"I believe they are bonding," Castiel said solemnly.
Groaning, Dean turned away and tugged on Castiel's sleeve. "C'mon, I really don't want to be here if this is some weird cat courtship thing."
"I believe that is what bonding implies?" Castiel half-asked as he followed Dean out the door.
~
Much to Dean's annoyance, he and Castiel made only a limited amount of progress. By the end of the night they had a new lead but it would involve investigating the home of one of the teenage witches. With the family at home, the middle of the night was hardly the best time to break in and search.
Dean went back to the hotel room and hesitated at the door before unlocking it. He wasn't sure what might be going on with Sam and Gabriel. They had an interesting dynamic even when things were normal. And that was interesting in the sense that they vacillated between fondness, exasperation, and irritation (or sometimes a mix); and their interactions were full of ridiculously obvious flirting. Not that there were any signs that anything was coming close to being resolved. Dean didn't know if he wanted them to have at it and get over it, or if he wanted to try running Gabriel off with a shotgun; as if that would help.
Eventually he steeled himself and slid the key into the lock. He opened the door and stepped inside. The bedside lamp was still on but it wasn't enough light for him. However, just as he was reaching over to flick on the main light, Dean's eyes had adjusted enough to look around the room. On Sam's bed the two cats lay curled close together. Gabriel's ginger form was sprawled on its side, head tilted a little so that the underside of his chin was exposed. Sam's larger body pressed against the tabby and his fluffy tail tucked alongside Gabriel's. Sam's head rested on the other's shoulder and he had draped his paw over Gabriel's chest.
Dean groaned quietly to himself. Even if the two were frigging cats right now, it was all too obvious that they were cuddling. Cuddling! In plain view of Dean, of course. It was awkward, even non-human and transformed like this. Dean grimaced when the thought flashed through his mind that at least it was just cuddling. "Too disturbing," he muttered to himself.
Dean decided not to mess with the situation and headed for the bathroom, picking out a pair of shorts and tee to change into after a shower. He didn't look back when he heard the start of loud purring. He just shook his head and closed the bathroom door to put a barrier between them.
~
The next day Dean and Castiel tracked down a trio of witches - two young women and a teenage boy. The ringleader, one of the girls, was more than some novice playing around and when her eyes turned black, her abilities made sense. It was not a simple process to keep the teenagers away from their supplies; Dean ended up breaking the boy's arm to keep him from doing something foolish. Castiel took care of banishing the demon while Dean dealt with the humans.
In the end, the teenagers reacted nervously to the sudden surge of black smoke that erupted from their friend's mouth; that combined with Dean and Castiel's intimidating glares led to the book being handed over without argument. Dean didn't want to gank a couple of foolish teens if they didn't have to, so he let Castiel give a dire warning before they left.
Thankfully, once they finally got their hands on the spell book, it wasn't difficult to find the general reversal spell that would return Sam to normal. Castiel flew off to collect the more obscure ingredients while Dean went to the local grocery store to pick up the basics. They met back at the hotel room around sunset.
Dean opened the door and just stood there for a few minutes, jaw slack. Gabriel was in midair as Sam darted around the edge of the bed; Gabriel landed in the recently vacated spot and let out an annoyed-sounding meow. Sam's furry face peeked out from under the bed as Gabriel disappeared under the couch. Sam's nose twitched and his whiskers flicked in response.
Dean looked over in surprise at the sound of Castiel's huff of amusement. The angel wore a small smile as he watched the feline antics.
A blur of ginger-orange signaled Gabriel's sudden sprint from under the couch and across the room. He jumped onto Sam's bed and then across to the other. He kept running like a maniac as Sam crawled out and sat up straight to watch. Sam hunched in preparation to move; then, just as Gabriel dashed by again, he pounced and tackled the ginger cat to the floor. Gabriel yowled loud enough that Dean quickly closed the door. The two cats rolled around the floor as they wrestled, nipping and playfully growling. Dean got the uncomfortable feeling that he was watching some bizarre form of flirting.
Dean cleared his throat noisily and managed to catch the felines' attention. Sam looked up and suddenly started kicking more insistently at Gabriel. The ginger cat tried to stay close and batted at Sam's nose; Sam growled warningly.
Rolling his eyes at the kitty antics, Dean admonished, "Dude, cut it out. Or do you want to stay a cat, Sammy?"
The announcement got them to pull apart. Sam sat up and shook himself as Gabriel rolled away and stretched out. The larger cat sneezed and looked up at Dean and Castiel with wide, feline eyes. Gabriel looked like he was just lounging and waiting for them to get on with it.
Castiel cocked his head to the side and considered the ginger-colored tabby. "Will you not join us?" Gabriel rolled onto his back and tilted his head to the side. Castiel nodded at Gabriel's responding meow as if he understood. Dean didn't ask as Castiel moved to the table to start preparing for the ritual. With a sigh, Dean followed.
~
Within an hour, Sam's feline form sitting on his bed was surrounded by a thick cloud of powder blue smoke. A few flashes of light later, the cloud cleared and a decidedly larger mammal had taken the cat's place. Dean politely averted his eyes and began cleaning up the spell materials with Castiel's help.
"Dude, get some clothes on. I'm going out; I need a damn drink," Dean said.
"Run along, Deano," a familiar, all too cheerful voice said.
Dean turned an annoyed glare on Gabriel, who had also returned to human form. He almost opened his mouth to retort, but he realized that his initial instinct to warn Gabriel off would do no good. Dean rolled his eyes at himself and returned to the task at hand, which was made redundant when everything completely cleared up with a snap from Gabriel.
"I don't even wannna know what goes on," Dean warned as he grabbed his jacket and keys. "I'm going out and enjoying a freaking cat-free night." He glanced at Cas when he reached the door. "You wanna come?" The angel seemed to consider the invitation for a moment. Dean felt pretty sure that the answer would be no, but Castiel surprised him by nodding and following him out.
Before Dean could fully close the door, he saw Sam holding a pillow over his lap and watching Gabriel approach; the archangel's movements still held some of the earlier feline grace.
Dean mentally groaned and firmly told himself to stop thinking about it. "C'mon Cas, I think I need to get another room before we go." Castiel again surprised him when he smiled rather than asking for the reason why.
~
"So..." Sam clutched the pillow on his lap a little tighter as he watched Gabriel practically glide across the floor. The archangel wore his trademark smirk but the light in his eyes seemed more affectionate than usual.
"So, are we done playing games?" Gabriel asked. He came to a stop in front of Sam, feet on either side of the human's. It was probably the only time Sam needed to tilt his head back to meet the archangel's stare.
Sam licked his lips nervously. "Games?" Well, they had certainly been playing around as cats - which had been ridiculous but also really, really fun - but he didn't think that was what Gabriel meant.
Rolling his eyes, Gabriel leaned forward until their noses almost touched. "You're not an idiot, Sammy. You know I've been trying to get your interest for weeks. You've flirted back."
That was true. Sam had started off thinking it was just another way for Gabriel to bother Sam and rile up Dean, but when the angel didn't let up, he began to realize it was something more. Sam had been hesitant to go beyond the casual flirting, uncertain what he wanted out of it. The slow build had been leading up to something more than he expected, though, and now he felt even more nervous to reach out.
Gabriel's smirk softened into an affectionate smile. "I promise I only bite when you want me to," he teased.
Without thinking about it, Sam retorted, "You were biting me just a few hours ago! I didn't-!"
Gabriel's lips pressed against Sam's, muffling the protest. What started as a light kiss turned deeper as Gabriel pressed Sam back onto the mattress and crawled onto his lap. When he pulled back to let the human breathe, he teased, "That's how I play, Sammy, and you bit back." Gabriel nipped lightly at Sam's earlobe and chuckled at the little mewl he got in response.
"You're going to be intolerable," Sam muttered. He wrapped his arms around Gabriel's back and pulled him close. His hands roamed the angel's back and drifted up and into Gabriel's hair.
"Mmm, you'll like it," Gabriel murmured back as he nuzzled at Sam's neck. He made a sound very similar to a purr and Sam snickered. "Don't think I missed your little kitty noise a few minutes ago, kitten."
"Oh man, do not call me kitten."
"Aww, but it's so fitting, kitten!"
Sam tightened his hand on the back of Gabriel's neck. "Keep it up and we are so never going to have sex."
Gabriel huffed in annoyance. "Fine, fine." Sam could feel the angel's lips curve into a grin. "How about 'big boy'?"
Sam groaned and proceeded to block any further suggestions with a firm kiss.
~ ~ ~
Author: enmuse
Recipient: theycallmegabe (sorry this is so late!!) for spnraritiesfest
Word count: ~3,400
Characters/pairings: Gabriel/Sam, Dean, Castiel
Rating: PG-13 (because it's FLUFF and higher rating is for language & eventual hints of sexiness)
Warnings: Um... kitty!fic. There's really not much to warn for!
Summary: Sam sat up straight and blinked solemnly at the room's occupants. Dean rubbed at his temples where he felt a headache starting. "Uh, yeah. Amateur witch, disrupted spell, Sammy's hero complex, and this is the result. So, fix him." or How the courtship of Sam Winchester wasn't successful until it involved cats
Author notes: I went with the request for Character A gets turned into a kitten, forcing character B to look after them, which is not the type of fic I'd usually write. But then I was writing so much angsty fic and I got the idea of a kitty!Sam in my head and it wouldn't leave my brain.
Thank you soooo much to wolfish_willow for a quick turnaround in beta'ing and assuring me that I didn't fail at fluff. (It felt so weird to write! LOL) Thanks also to qbiggerthanlove for cheering me on. I can't believe how long this took me to write. ;_;
Lastly: I imagine Sam is transformed into a cat breed like a Maine Coone (he soooo would be, you know it!) and Gabriel I imagine as I describe in the fic - ginger-colored, mackerel (patterned) cat.
~ ~ ~
Sam shouldered open the door to the basement. He brandished his knife and moved forward to clear the way for Dean.
The chanting they'd heard through the door cut off with a startled-sounding squeak. Dean stepped past Sam with his gun half-raised.
"Dude. It's just some sixteen year old girl."
"Oh my God!" The girl's eyes widened as she took a step away from them. She held her hands up in a defensive gesture. "W-who are you?"
Sam tucked his knife away and spread his arms to display his empty hands. "What kind of spell were you doing?" he asked, careful to keep his tone gentle but firm.
The girl glanced briefly over her shoulder at the little table set up with candles and various spell accoutrements before her gaze darted back to the brothers. "I... I wasn't doing anything bad!" she whispered, tears clearly gathering in her eyes. "I was just looking at the book!"
"Hey, it's alright. You were just trying something new, right? But it's important that we find out what you were trying to do," Sam explained. He slowly stepped forward but apparently it wasn't nonthreatening enough because the girl jerked backwards and bumped into the table.
"Oh crap," Dean muttered as the table and its contents tipped over.
Moving on instinct, Sam lunged forward to pull the girl out of harm's way. At the first sign of smoke wafting up from the spilled mess, Sam turned to put himself between the danger and the girl. The movement caused the wannabe witch to step outside of the chalked lines binding the spell, leaving Sam alone in its circle.
The smoke grew thick within the confines of the spell circle and twined around the hunter's body.
"Sammy!" Dean yelled. "Get out of there!"
Sam managed to say over a cough, "I can't!" The smoke closed in, hiding him from view for a long minute.
In a sudden upward rush of light, the smoke vanished. Sam didn't reappear. Dean turned on the girl and gripped her arm, hissing, "What the hell did you do?"
Tears ran down her face. "Oh God, I-I didn't mean to do anything! I was just-"
A grumbling sound turned their attention back to the circle on the floor. Dean realized that while Sam's body seemed to have disappeared, his clothes and knife remained in a pile. And the pile of cloth was moving. Dean crouched down and nudged Sam's jacket with his gun. The pile moved again and something that sounded distinctly like a growl emanated from the lump caught up in the clothing.
"Um... Sammy?" Dean asked hesitantly.
"Mrreow."
Dean pulled the jacket aside and stared blankly at the large cat poking its head out of the collar of his brother's shirt. "Oh. Shit."
Turned out that the wannabe witch (one Lily Edwards) had previously conducted only a handful of minor spells, all centered around typical teenage obsessions. She had decided to try something a little different this time, though, since she decided to try more difficult spells. Since she thought of herself as "stepping up" her witchcraft, she'd been attempting to summon an appropriate familiar. Apparently a feline familiar.
The girl had been near hysterical until Dean stowed away his shotgun and even then she was still too upset to speak much. She focused on apologies and wondering aloud if she should have tried messing with magic at all (the obvious answer being no). The turning point came when Sam, in his new furry body all of eighteen pounds, rubbed his head against the girl's calves until she started petting him. Her nervous rambling trailed off as she focused on petting kitty-Sam. As weird as it was to know that the cat was really Sam, Dean took advantage of her calm state and asked the important questions.
Obviously the girl wasn't behind the recent rash of hexing in the town, but it sounded like the book she had found was part of a collection that other teenagers had been looking through recently. Lily claimed that most of her peers had joked about the material showing up at the school library, but a couple of people had copied down spells or stolen pages to try out. Lily provided several names that the hunters could look into.
Unfortunately, Lily had no idea how her locating spell could have become a transformation spell, which meant she had no idea how to reverse the effects. She was quick to withdraw herself from any possibility of helping with a reversal spell, immediately swearing off any more attempts of magic. She patted Sam's head and with a weak smile said, "You're a cute kitty, but I really, really don't want anything like this happening again because of me."
Dean said he'd clean up the place and let her head home. Sam sat outside the chalked lines of the spell circle. His whiskers twitched as he leaned forward. His ears flicked when Dean walked over.
"Don't suppose you'll help with cleanup," Dean said.
Sam looked up at Dean with his round cat eyes, and ears turned back with a clear look of irritation. He meowed, but not like a normal cat.
Dean squinted at his felinated brother. "Did you just... chirp?"
Sam chirruped again, followed by a low growl. Dean just barely managed to keep from grinning.
~
Despite annoyed kitty sounds of protests, Dean ordered Sam to the backseat of the Impala. Sam stretched out fully across the seat, tail twitching. Dean rolled his eyes as he started the car and pulled onto the road.
The first red light they came across, a solid thump followed Dean applying the brakes. Sam grumbled noisily as he jumped back onto the seat and Dean just laughed. "Seriously? I thought cats were supposed to be graceful."
In response, Sam began making hoarse hacking sounds.
"Oh hell no! You puke or plant a hairball, or whatever you're planning, in this car, I'm leaving you on the side of the road!"
Sam coughed one more time and then lay down again.
"Still a bitch," Dean muttered. Sam might not be able to articulate words, but his mrreow seemed to mean the typical response.
~
At the motel, Sam set to pacing around the edges of the room, sniffing suspiciously as his tail flicked in agitation. Dean shook his head, glad he wasn't the one smelling all the crap that the dim lighting and "dull" human senses probably hid.
"Man, you better hope the angel squad can do something about this," Dean said as he sent their current location via text to Cas. Across the room, Sam sneezed loudly.
It only took a few minutes for the sound of disrupted air to signal the arrival of Team Free Will's angel duo. Cas' gaze automatically went to Dean while Gabriel cast a quick glance around the room. The cat wasn't in sight.
"Did you misplace your brother?" Gabriel asked with an arched eyebrow.
Dean glared. "Think I'd be a little more worked up."
Sam's head and front paws popped up over the edge of the far bed, his pupils dilated. He stared at the angels, though only Dean noticed. Realizing that he was being ignored, Sam mrreow-ed loudly and jumped onto the bed.
"Dean, why do you-?"
Gabriel broke in with an amused, "Is that Sammy?"
Sam sat up straight and blinked solemnly at the room's occupants. Dean rubbed at his temples where he felt a headache starting. "Uh, yeah. Amateur witch, disrupted spell, Sammy's hero complex, and this is the result. So, fix him."
"Hmm..." The archangel leaned forward with pursed lips as he stared at the large cat. Sam's tail flicked and his ears twitched as he stared back.
Dean made a noise of frustration. Castiel moved closer to the bed and asked, "Sam, are you alright?"
Sam sneezed, which made Gabriel snicker.
"Dude, just snap him back to normal," Dean said.
"No can do, Deano." Sam growled. "Sorry, bucko, mixing magic won't do you any good right now." Gabriel elbowed Dean unnecessarily and pushed past Castiel to sit on the bed next to Sam. "So. Stuck as a kitty. You might be a big boy but I don't recommend following your brother as he tracks down the rest of the witches, got it?" Sam's chirrup sounded annoyed. He stood up and moved to the other side of the bed, tail audibly whapping Gabriel's arm as he moved.
"So, what? I'm just supposed to ignore the fact that my brother is a cat and get back to the case?"
Castiel frowned. "It is imperative that the coven be stopped as quickly as possible."
"Relax," Gabriel said with a wave of his hand. "Track down the witches, do your hero thing. Then grab their spell book and we'll sort out how we can fix Sammy without complications." The archangel arched an eyebrow. "So you two run along, okay?"
Suspicious, Dean asked, "And what're you planning on doing?"
With a wink and Cheshire Cat grin, Gabriel snapped his fingers. The angel disappeared and in his place sat a ginger-colored mackerel tabby. Castiel tilted his head with a curious expression; Dean just groaned.
"Mreow?" Sam turned around and leaned forward, whiskers twitching as he sniffed in Gabriel's direction. For his part, Gabriel stayed amazingly still, tail swishing lazily back and forth across the comforter.
"Seriously? Your response is to add another cat to the mix." Both cats ignored Dean. "For fuck's sake..." he muttered.
Castiel watched intently as Sam circled Gabriel. After an additional minute of sniffing and tail-flicking, Sam settled at Gabriel's side. Apparently not quite satisfied, the ginger tabby ignored all matters of personal space and nudged his head against Sam's side. Sam's paw lifted and he seemed to lean away. Gabriel kept pushing, eventually twisting onto his back with his front paws batting the air by Sam's face.
"Mrr...mreow?" Sam batted at Gabriel's waving paws.
"I believe they are bonding," Castiel said solemnly.
Groaning, Dean turned away and tugged on Castiel's sleeve. "C'mon, I really don't want to be here if this is some weird cat courtship thing."
"I believe that is what bonding implies?" Castiel half-asked as he followed Dean out the door.
~
Much to Dean's annoyance, he and Castiel made only a limited amount of progress. By the end of the night they had a new lead but it would involve investigating the home of one of the teenage witches. With the family at home, the middle of the night was hardly the best time to break in and search.
Dean went back to the hotel room and hesitated at the door before unlocking it. He wasn't sure what might be going on with Sam and Gabriel. They had an interesting dynamic even when things were normal. And that was interesting in the sense that they vacillated between fondness, exasperation, and irritation (or sometimes a mix); and their interactions were full of ridiculously obvious flirting. Not that there were any signs that anything was coming close to being resolved. Dean didn't know if he wanted them to have at it and get over it, or if he wanted to try running Gabriel off with a shotgun; as if that would help.
Eventually he steeled himself and slid the key into the lock. He opened the door and stepped inside. The bedside lamp was still on but it wasn't enough light for him. However, just as he was reaching over to flick on the main light, Dean's eyes had adjusted enough to look around the room. On Sam's bed the two cats lay curled close together. Gabriel's ginger form was sprawled on its side, head tilted a little so that the underside of his chin was exposed. Sam's larger body pressed against the tabby and his fluffy tail tucked alongside Gabriel's. Sam's head rested on the other's shoulder and he had draped his paw over Gabriel's chest.
Dean groaned quietly to himself. Even if the two were frigging cats right now, it was all too obvious that they were cuddling. Cuddling! In plain view of Dean, of course. It was awkward, even non-human and transformed like this. Dean grimaced when the thought flashed through his mind that at least it was just cuddling. "Too disturbing," he muttered to himself.
Dean decided not to mess with the situation and headed for the bathroom, picking out a pair of shorts and tee to change into after a shower. He didn't look back when he heard the start of loud purring. He just shook his head and closed the bathroom door to put a barrier between them.
~
The next day Dean and Castiel tracked down a trio of witches - two young women and a teenage boy. The ringleader, one of the girls, was more than some novice playing around and when her eyes turned black, her abilities made sense. It was not a simple process to keep the teenagers away from their supplies; Dean ended up breaking the boy's arm to keep him from doing something foolish. Castiel took care of banishing the demon while Dean dealt with the humans.
In the end, the teenagers reacted nervously to the sudden surge of black smoke that erupted from their friend's mouth; that combined with Dean and Castiel's intimidating glares led to the book being handed over without argument. Dean didn't want to gank a couple of foolish teens if they didn't have to, so he let Castiel give a dire warning before they left.
Thankfully, once they finally got their hands on the spell book, it wasn't difficult to find the general reversal spell that would return Sam to normal. Castiel flew off to collect the more obscure ingredients while Dean went to the local grocery store to pick up the basics. They met back at the hotel room around sunset.
Dean opened the door and just stood there for a few minutes, jaw slack. Gabriel was in midair as Sam darted around the edge of the bed; Gabriel landed in the recently vacated spot and let out an annoyed-sounding meow. Sam's furry face peeked out from under the bed as Gabriel disappeared under the couch. Sam's nose twitched and his whiskers flicked in response.
Dean looked over in surprise at the sound of Castiel's huff of amusement. The angel wore a small smile as he watched the feline antics.
A blur of ginger-orange signaled Gabriel's sudden sprint from under the couch and across the room. He jumped onto Sam's bed and then across to the other. He kept running like a maniac as Sam crawled out and sat up straight to watch. Sam hunched in preparation to move; then, just as Gabriel dashed by again, he pounced and tackled the ginger cat to the floor. Gabriel yowled loud enough that Dean quickly closed the door. The two cats rolled around the floor as they wrestled, nipping and playfully growling. Dean got the uncomfortable feeling that he was watching some bizarre form of flirting.
Dean cleared his throat noisily and managed to catch the felines' attention. Sam looked up and suddenly started kicking more insistently at Gabriel. The ginger cat tried to stay close and batted at Sam's nose; Sam growled warningly.
Rolling his eyes at the kitty antics, Dean admonished, "Dude, cut it out. Or do you want to stay a cat, Sammy?"
The announcement got them to pull apart. Sam sat up and shook himself as Gabriel rolled away and stretched out. The larger cat sneezed and looked up at Dean and Castiel with wide, feline eyes. Gabriel looked like he was just lounging and waiting for them to get on with it.
Castiel cocked his head to the side and considered the ginger-colored tabby. "Will you not join us?" Gabriel rolled onto his back and tilted his head to the side. Castiel nodded at Gabriel's responding meow as if he understood. Dean didn't ask as Castiel moved to the table to start preparing for the ritual. With a sigh, Dean followed.
~
Within an hour, Sam's feline form sitting on his bed was surrounded by a thick cloud of powder blue smoke. A few flashes of light later, the cloud cleared and a decidedly larger mammal had taken the cat's place. Dean politely averted his eyes and began cleaning up the spell materials with Castiel's help.
"Dude, get some clothes on. I'm going out; I need a damn drink," Dean said.
"Run along, Deano," a familiar, all too cheerful voice said.
Dean turned an annoyed glare on Gabriel, who had also returned to human form. He almost opened his mouth to retort, but he realized that his initial instinct to warn Gabriel off would do no good. Dean rolled his eyes at himself and returned to the task at hand, which was made redundant when everything completely cleared up with a snap from Gabriel.
"I don't even wannna know what goes on," Dean warned as he grabbed his jacket and keys. "I'm going out and enjoying a freaking cat-free night." He glanced at Cas when he reached the door. "You wanna come?" The angel seemed to consider the invitation for a moment. Dean felt pretty sure that the answer would be no, but Castiel surprised him by nodding and following him out.
Before Dean could fully close the door, he saw Sam holding a pillow over his lap and watching Gabriel approach; the archangel's movements still held some of the earlier feline grace.
Dean mentally groaned and firmly told himself to stop thinking about it. "C'mon Cas, I think I need to get another room before we go." Castiel again surprised him when he smiled rather than asking for the reason why.
~
"So..." Sam clutched the pillow on his lap a little tighter as he watched Gabriel practically glide across the floor. The archangel wore his trademark smirk but the light in his eyes seemed more affectionate than usual.
"So, are we done playing games?" Gabriel asked. He came to a stop in front of Sam, feet on either side of the human's. It was probably the only time Sam needed to tilt his head back to meet the archangel's stare.
Sam licked his lips nervously. "Games?" Well, they had certainly been playing around as cats - which had been ridiculous but also really, really fun - but he didn't think that was what Gabriel meant.
Rolling his eyes, Gabriel leaned forward until their noses almost touched. "You're not an idiot, Sammy. You know I've been trying to get your interest for weeks. You've flirted back."
That was true. Sam had started off thinking it was just another way for Gabriel to bother Sam and rile up Dean, but when the angel didn't let up, he began to realize it was something more. Sam had been hesitant to go beyond the casual flirting, uncertain what he wanted out of it. The slow build had been leading up to something more than he expected, though, and now he felt even more nervous to reach out.
Gabriel's smirk softened into an affectionate smile. "I promise I only bite when you want me to," he teased.
Without thinking about it, Sam retorted, "You were biting me just a few hours ago! I didn't-!"
Gabriel's lips pressed against Sam's, muffling the protest. What started as a light kiss turned deeper as Gabriel pressed Sam back onto the mattress and crawled onto his lap. When he pulled back to let the human breathe, he teased, "That's how I play, Sammy, and you bit back." Gabriel nipped lightly at Sam's earlobe and chuckled at the little mewl he got in response.
"You're going to be intolerable," Sam muttered. He wrapped his arms around Gabriel's back and pulled him close. His hands roamed the angel's back and drifted up and into Gabriel's hair.
"Mmm, you'll like it," Gabriel murmured back as he nuzzled at Sam's neck. He made a sound very similar to a purr and Sam snickered. "Don't think I missed your little kitty noise a few minutes ago, kitten."
"Oh man, do not call me kitten."
"Aww, but it's so fitting, kitten!"
Sam tightened his hand on the back of Gabriel's neck. "Keep it up and we are so never going to have sex."
Gabriel huffed in annoyance. "Fine, fine." Sam could feel the angel's lips curve into a grin. "How about 'big boy'?"
Sam groaned and proceeded to block any further suggestions with a firm kiss.
~ ~ ~