Author's Notes: You may have read this already. This is my SPN Summer Gen Fic story for pheebs1, posted over at LJ at the end of last month :) Just uploading it here now that all the authors have been revealed.

Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine, not mine.

Sam finds some kittens in an old barn and discovers that pets aren’t always like ones on the TV. .

The Truth About Cats

Dean knew something was up as soon as he saw Sam’s muddy grin and messy face. His little brother had something wrapped up in his shirt and from the gentle way Sam held it to his chest, Dean was pretty sure it was something alive.

The mud on Sam’s face and in his hair suggested he’d been digging around for frogs. Or climbing trees for birds. Oh hell, what if it was a rat?

“Sam? Whatcha got there?”

“Ohmigosh Dean I found a barn over there behind the trees and-and-and look!”

Sam opened his bundle and there rested a tiny ginger and white kitten. It was young, probably only a few weeks old at the most. Sam looked up at Dean, still grinning. “And guess what?”

Dean couldn’t keep the suspicion out of his voice. “What?”

“There are more! Lots and lots of kittens! I just picked this one out ‘cause it was the littlest and I thought it was the cutest so I…”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. There are more?”

Sam nodded eagerly. “Yeah! Why? You want one too?”

Dean swallowed a groan. He should’ve known something like this would happen while living in an old farmhouse for the summer in central Illinois. After all, the countryside was probably crawling with lost pets. Hadn’t they seen enough dead dogs by the roadside to prove that? Dean wondered if their Dad’s latest job had involved dead dogs haunting people…

The kitten mewed and Sam scratched its head, looking all doe-eyed and adoring.

Feeling a mounting sense of foreboding (because how exactly could this end well?), Dean stepped past Sam and began walking ahead. “Come on, show me the rest of ‘em.”

“Okay!” Sam said agreeably, wrapping his precious bundle back up so only its head poked out. He spun around on his heel and took the lead, heading back into the tall grass that surrounded the whole property. “But none’ve ‘em are as cute as this one. I got the best one.”

Dean couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped. “If you say so Sammy.”

The old barn, hiding behind a row of windbreaker trees, had once been red. But now most of the paint had disappeared due to neglect and nature. There were countless holes in the roof and the doors were swinging on their last hinge. It was kind of amazing that the barn was still standing, but that didn’t seem to worry Sam. He walked in and headed for the west end of the barn where a pile of farming relics and household furniture had been dumped and abandoned. As Dean closed in, he heard the mewing of kittens. He had to admit it was the kind of adorable that made him want to go “Aw”.

Wow. That was so uncool.

The mother cat was looking tired as five kittens clambered over each other to get milk. Dean knew with one look that the mother needed someone to take care of her if she was to survive much longer. Sam’s fingers ghosted over each kitten and the mother was too exhausted to protect her kittens from what could have been a threat. It was probably the reason Sam had been able to take the sixth kitten. Dean watched the mother slump onto her side and realized she needed someone to take care of her. Dean thought fast, remembered the cans of tuna in the kitchen and figured it was better than nothing.

“Sam, stay here with the kittens. I’m gonna go get some food for the mom okay?”

Sam let his kitten rejoin his mewling siblings. “Okay. I’ll take care of ‘em.”

Dean made it to and from the house in five minutes. He returned with tuna in one bowl and water in the other. Sam was waiting with all six kittens in his lap. They were dozing as Sam kept them warm in the blanket. Dean went to the mom and found her lying frighteningly still. For one moment, Dean was sure she had died. But he placed his hand on her back and felt her breathing. More relieved than he thought he would be, Dean placed the bowls on the ground and carefully lifted the mother cat down so she could get to them. She didn’t show much interest at first but the smell eventually reached her. She began eating, slowly and carefully, always looking up to check on the kittens.

When the mother was full, she was ready to sleep again and Sam replaced each and every kitten by her side.

“D’ya think Dad will let us keep one?” Sam asked, ever the voice of hope.

Dean didn’t want to say ‘no’ but what other option was there? “We’ll just have to find real good homes for ‘em.”

“Couldn’t we be a good home?” Sam asked.

“I don’t think cats like living in cars.” And think of what their claws would do to the upholstery. Dean shuddered at the thought.

“They can’t live with us even for tonight? But we shouldn’t leave them in a barn. What if a wild animal came and ate one of the kittens? Wouldn’t you feel bad then Dean? Huh? Wouldn’t you?”

Well fine, okay. Dean couldn’t beat that kind of reasoning…

…or Sam’s damned wounded puppy eyes…

“Fine. But only for tonight. We are not keeping them, got it?”

Sam grinned. “Awesome! Okay, we gotta go find something to put them in so we can carry them back to the house.” He all but ran out of the barn. “I bet there’s a box in one of the closets!”

Dean recognized that kind of excitement. “Sammy.”

The younger boy turned around, eyes glowing merrily. “Yeah?”

“We’re not keeping them. You got that, right?”

“If we prove to Dad that we can take care of all of ‘em, he’ll let us keep one.”

“He won’t Sam. It’s not that easy.”

“Is,” Sam declared, then spun around on his heel and resumed his dash back to the house.

Dean ignored the rush of thoughts that were his immediate reaction. Instead he followed Sam and said: “There are people who can give them a better home. Like some rich woman who treats cats like the kids she never had. C’mon Sammy, you gotta do what’s best for the kittens.”

“How come Dad doesn’t do that with us?”

His words left him, each and every one of them. Dean’s brain broke down into two simple camps: he doesn’t mean it badly: he’s little and he doesn’t get it and does he wish Dad would do that? But that means… Sam walked on for a moment before he noticed he wasn’t hearing two sets of footsteps. He looked back and found his older brother staring at him like he was some kind of stranger.

”De…”

Dean moved suddenly, jerking forward and walking as fast as he could without running. “C’mon. We’ll have to find somewhere in the house for the cat and her kittens to stay ‘til Dad comes back.”

“W-Wait!” Sam hurried after his brother, because Dean could walk fast when he chose to and Sam wasn’t tall enough yet to keep up the pace. “Dea-a-an!”

Dean briefly reached up to rub at his face before turned to face Sam. He didn’t meet Sam’s eyes, looking off to the sky instead. “You’ll have to give up your old blanket for the cat to rest on. The kitchen floor’s gonna be cold.”

“Okay,” Sam said, perfectly agreeable and totally unaware of the emotions that held Dean’s shoulders taut. “I’ll use the one with the baseball stuff on it. It’s the warmest.”

“Good idea,” Dean said quietly, a faint smile tugging his lips before something cold and dark shivered through him. He had to force himself onwards before he froze forever in the field.

Sam searched the house with all the gusto of any eight-year-old: lots of noise and lots of mess. At least he’d thought to get the blanket before storming all over the house in search of a box. Dean vaguely tidied up behind his little brother, knowing that some mess was acceptable but chaos would lead to loud-voiced lectures from Dad.

Eventually, Sam emerged from the closet they usually avoided, mostly due to the moths and the dust, and pulled out an old cardboard box. It wasn’t very big but it would do to move the cats. “I’m gonna go get the kittens.”

“Don’t forget their mom.”

“Duh.”

Dean arranged the blanket in the corner of the kitchen before getting fresh bowls of water and tuna ready. Sam came back, pushing the meowing box ahead of him. It was only when the kittens and their mother were placed on the blanket that Dean realized there was another issue that would need dealing with.

“We gotta make sure they don’t get away.” He looked around, eyes scanning for something he could use as a wall. “Don’t want any of ‘em to get stuck in the oven or something.”

A little while later a wall was constructed out of the box, school books and pans from the kitchen. No matter how hard the kittens tried, they couldn’t climb over the walls. Certain they were safe, Dean headed off to make dinner. The tuna had all gone to the mother cat, but there had to be something else lying around.

With the cats all settled, there was nothing else to do and Sam pretty soon realized that watching kittens was kinda dull. They were fun to pet for a little while, and they never stopped being cute and fluffy, but wasn’t there anything else they could do?

Would they dance? Sam lifted one to see.

“Sam, stop messing with them. You’ll piss the mother off and then you’ll regret it.”

Pouting and huffing with Sammy Brand dramatics, Sam declared: “But it’s boring.”

“Boring?” Dean replied as he dug into the freezer. “You were the one who wanted to keep ‘em.”

“Yeah ‘cause I thought pets were s’posed to be fun.”

“They’re babies Sam and they’re tired. You were boring when you were a baby. All you did was sleep and crap and cry and…”

“But they’re pets.”

Dean found a pizza and struggled to free it from its icy tomb. “Babies, Sam. They’re babies. Leave ‘em alone.”

The mother made an idle attempt at swiping Sam but she was still weak and tired. Sam pushed himself away with a sigh and left the cat and her kittens alone.

“Go watch TV or something,” Dean said as he slid the pizza into the oven. “They’re not gonna get any more playful if you just stand there and stare.”

But the TV did little to distract Sam and he spent most of the night going back to the kittens. He always found them sleeping rather than bouncing around. Sam wasn’t amused. “I thought they’d wanna play.”

“How about you help me make some ‘Kittens for Sale’ signs?” Dean suggested as he took his plate to the sink. He then went and grabbed some paper out of the pile Dad kept on the coffee table, and the few Sharpies he had. “Either you help me or you watch TV. You ain’t gonna stand there poking any kittens, understood?”

With one last look at the sleeping cats, Sam returned to his half of the pizza. He watched as Dean wrote out the for sale sign with a black Sharpie. “Your handwriting sucks,” Sam commented.

Dean just shook his head. “You’re such a neat freak.”

“Am not! You just suck at writing.”

“Whatever. Anyway, how much should we ask for each kitten?”

“A gazillion dollars!”

“No. How about seventy-five?”

“Seventy-five gazillion? Cool!”

“Yeah Sam,” Dean said as he wrote Kittens 75 on the first poster, “seventy-five gazillion.”

“We could buy tons and tons and tons of cats for that! Better cats, ones that’ll play.”

“So let me get this straight,” Dean said as he finished off one poster with their contact details. “You don’t mind selling the kittens because they’re boring, am I right?”

“Right!”

Dean laughed. “You’re such a freak.”

Five posters later, the black Sharpie was dead and the green one wasn’t looking like it would last much longer. Sam offered to go and see if there were any more and it was just as he had returned to the closet when the door opened and John came in, looking a little tired but free of any injuries.

“Hi Dad,” Sam said before returning to his Sharpie quest.

John put his bag down. “Hey Sammy. What’re you doing?”

“Looking for Sharpies. Dean’s making posters ‘cause I found some kittens and I don’t wanna keep ‘em ‘cause they’re boring so we’re gonna sell ‘em.”

“Kittens?”

“Yup, and their mom. Dean wants to sell ‘em for seventy-five bucks but I wanna sell ‘em for a gazillion but he’s making the posters and I…”

John could only take so much no-pausing-for-breath Sam-talk for so long. “Dean?”

“In here Dad.”

Leaving Sam to dig through the closet’s still largely unknown contents, John sought out Dean and, just as Sam said, found him making posters at the kitchen table. “Where are they?” John asked, his tone one of long-suffering.

Dean waved vaguely to the hastily made kitten pit. John looked in and saw the six kittens and one very tired mom. “And he wants to sell them?” John sounded more than a little surprised. Amazed was closer to it. Ever since The Puppy Incident of ’89, John had been on the lookout for Sam’s requests for pets and even prepared numerous ‘Sorry, but no’ speeches, varying from the gentle to the Marine Corps worthy. Sam wanting to sell cats was unexpected, to put it mildly.

“Yeah,” Dean said, lips twitching with a grin. “He thinks they’re boring.”

“Boring? The kittens?”

Dean nodded as he struggled to get the last bit of ink out of the pen. “They sleep and don’t play. Guess that’s boring.”

John reached out and scratched the mother cat behind the ears. “We could use the cash…”

“Yeah, a gazillion bucks.”

John returned to the kitchen table and looked at Dean’s posters. “We’ll put them up around the nearest town tomorrow. I’m sure they’ll sell quick.”

”To people who don’t think kittens are boring.”

Sam returned with a single Sharpie, neon pink in color. John took it, mulled a moment, and then took a sheet of plain paper. He wrote:

For Sale
Cute Kittens
75
Six available
Mother for sale as well.

“You wrote cute!” Sam giggled as John listed the phone number and address. “You wrote cute in pink!”

“I’m targeting a specific market,” John replied, going for serious but grinning instead.

Sam blinked. The kid was smart, but economics was still a little beyond him.

“Dad means girls,” Dean explained. “He’s trying to sell the kittens to girls. They like cute things.”

“Oh, okay. Girls like boring things?”

“Girls like pretending cute things are babies,” John answered.

“Huh? Why would they do that? Don’t girls play with cars and Transformers? What’s so good about babies?”

“You’ll understand one day kiddo,” John said, ruffling Sam’s hair.

Sam shrugged, not really caring to understand. It turned out that he only had one thing on his mind. “I’m gonna get some of the money, right? I did find them all.”

John laughed. “Yeah kiddo, you’ll get some.”