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The Wayfarer Motel stood on a backroad about a mile from downtown New Harmony, Indiana. It was a downgrade from their last temporary home in a duplex down the road from the local elementary school in Guthrie, Oklahoma, mainly because there was no yard to play in. The duplex didn’t have much of a yard, but there had been some yellowing grass, a sandy area near the back door for a sandbox, and a crabapple tree to climb, and the boys had made the best of it.
The Wayfarer Motel had a small parking lot with ten parking spaces backing onto a wooded area. They could run around and throw a ball back and forth in the quiet lot, but they learned to soften their throws after the time the football they picked up a few towns back sailed into the road and nearly got flattened by a truck.
They had been playing football and watching cars go by that Saturday afternoon until it started getting dark, and Sam complained he was hungry.Dean agreed it was chow time, so they were in the tiny dinette kitchen, Sam reading a non-supernatural hunting magazine while Dean heated chili on the stove.
“Hey Sammy, how about you go get us some dessert?” Dean said over his shoulder.
Sam smiled. Dessert meant using a few of the dollars left by Dad to get a snack at the surprisingly well-stocked vending machine by the front office. He heard his brother call after him as he went out the door.
“Dinner bell in about five minutes.”
Sam walked into the night air and thought about the snack choices he had memorized over the two weeks they had stayed at the motel.Dean had said Dad would be back in about three weeks. Sam hoped that wherever they moved next would be long enough for them to go to school. At this point, he would take going to school over having almost nothing to do most of the day.
Sure, they could walk downtown for something to do, but only for a few hours after school let out and not every day. A cop had stopped them at the general store yesterday near noon when they had been hanging around and asked them why they weren’t in school. Dean made an excuse about running an errand for their dad during lunch. Dean warned Sam later that if anyone knew they weren’t going to school, Dad would be in big trouble.
Sam walked down the concrete walkway of the motel to the vending machine humming outside the door near the front desk. He heard a squeak from behind him as he deliberated over his choices: pretzels, candy, or chips.
He turned to see a small shape walking towards him in the dark parking lot.At first, he thought it might be a raccoon. A family of them usually hung out by the dumpster out back most nights, waiting for one of the boys to throw their trash out. Dad had drilled into them that wherever they were staying, they always cleaned up after themselves, no matter what a dump it was. Dean jokingly warned not to let the raccoons get too close in case they had rabies, but he was just being a dick. Sam thought they were cute—for vermin.
But as the shape came closer from out of the shadows of the parking lot and into the neon glow of the vending machine he could see it was far too small, and it was completely black instead of striped. It was a kitten, fuzzy and delicate looking. It wobbled towards the light of the vending machine with a hitched meow that was more like a squeak when it noticed Sam.
Sam crouched down and held out a hand. “Hey, where did you come from?” Sam asked, delighted by the tiny visitor. As the kitten came to his outstretched hand and sniffed his fingers, he took the opportunity to stroke down the cat’s back with his other hand. The cat’s fur was dirty but soft; when he felt it’s skinny flanks, he could feel the fragile bones under it’s skin.
Sam didn’t have much experience with animals—he had given up on the idea of a pet after many fruitless discussions with Dad—but he knew how to check a person for injuries and assess basic health even if that was usually Dean’s job when Dad returned from a hunt. He picked the kitten up, and it squeaked and wiggled but didn't otherwise fight being carried by a strange human. Up close, he could see the cat’s eyes were sky blue, watery, but clear. It’s nose was silky and dry as it sniffed his cheek, and Sam raised it to his face to inspect it closer. There didn’t appear to be wounds, lumps, or fur missing.
It occurred to him that it might be hungry. He looked around the parking lot and saw no sign of a mother cat. He turned to the vending machine to assess the contents. Would a cat this tiny be able to eat anything he could provide?
He put the kitten down when he spotted a few viable options. He felt silly but told the cat, “Stay right there, buddy.” He chose a bag of potato chips, a candy bar, and a few beef jerky sticks from the machine, then opened the jerky, ripped it into pieces, and scattered it in front of the kitten. It sniffed the jerky and began to nibble.
Sam sighed with relief, then realized that his brother would be done making dinner by now and would freak out if he weren’t back soon.
He patted the kitten again and hurried back to the room with dessert for him and Dean. He hoped the kitten’s mom would find it. Nobody should be without a mom.
Just like he thought, dinner was sitting on the little Formica table when he got back, and thankfully Dean had been too busy stuffing his face with chili to scold him for taking too long. After they finished the pot, Dean turned the TV on to the evening news for lack of anything else to listen to while he washed the dishes and handed them over to Sam to dry.
“As for the weather tonight, it will be wet and windy, folks. Expect at least an inch and a half of rain and winds up to 60 miles per hour, expected to last until sunrise….”
Sam fumbled the bowl he was drying, and it hit the counter with a clang making both him and his brother jump, although Dean would deny it.
“What the hell, Sammy?” Dean scolded.
“Ah, sorry. I just realized I must have dropped my pocket knife outside when I went to the vending machine; I’ll be right back.”
He was out the door before his brother could protest or even offer a flashlight. Hopefully, Dean wouldn’t follow to try and help him look.Outside the wind had already started to pick up, and the sky was so cloudy he could barely see the stars. He hurried to the vending machine and looked around, but he didn’t see any sign of the kitten.
He imagined the kitten falling into a hole filled with rain water and drowning or being battered by high winds so it blew away like a tumbleweed. He needed to find that poor cat.
He had always liked the dogs he’d met on the road at roadhouses, truckstops, and Uncle Bobby’s junkyard, but he had no experience with cats. He knew what he’d seen on TV and had heard other kids at school talk about how they communicate with their cats. So although it made him feel dumb, he called out, “Here kitty kitty, here kitty kitty.” Then he clicked his tongue.
From his right, over a strong gust of wind, he heard a squeak, and the kitten darted out of a shadow. Sam ran over and scooped the kitten up, and when it didn't protest, he jogged back to the room with it clutched to his chest. The rain began to fall just as he got to the door.
Dean was waiting by the door and immediately started to scold him. “Did you find it? It’s too dark to go out looking now, dum—what the hell is that? Oh no, absolutely not,” Dean protested.
“Please, Dean, it’s just a baby; you heard the news! It could die out there in the storm,” Sam plead.
Dean frowned and put his arms in front of his chest, trying to look intimidating and tough like Dad.Dean wanted to be like Dad so much, but it didn’t fit. Sam hoped Dean never got that big and unknowable.
Sam knew his brother, his moods, likes, dislikes, and his tells and limits. He knew Dean had nightmares he refused to talk about. He knew when Dean was scared or worried about Dad and tried to hide it from him. He knew Dad put Dean in charge of him, and he took his duty seriously—and not just because his big brother loved to be the boss.
So he knew that his brother had a soft heart, always for Sam, like when he sneaked him candy and let him stay up late sometimes when dad was away, or when he allowed Sam to rest his head on his shoulder when he fell asleep in the back seat. But Dean also had sympathy for anyone in trouble. It was why even when Dad was gone or in danger, he told Sam that Dad was saving lives, and his job was too important to let anything interfere.
That was why they had to suck it up and be strong when Dad couldn’t be there to check one of Sam’s perfect report cards, or listen to the phone call from the gym teacher praising Dean for having great reflexes and asking if he had any interest in the baseball team.His brother wanted to protect others.
“It needs help, Dean. Dad helps people. We’re too young to do that, but we can help a little cat and keep it safe, right? he reasoned.
“It might be a witch’s familiar, Sammy!” Dean protested.
He was unsure if Dean were using it as a ridiculous excuse to stop Sam from begging, or if it were a justifiable caution. But he could tell his brother was losing ground in the argument.
“Then it would have reacted to the salt lines and hex bags,” Sam countered.
Sam remembered enough about what Dad had started to teach him about hunting that he knew he made a good point. Their warding was secure like it always was. He rubbed the kitten between it’s ears and tried not to look too satisfied.
Dean sighed in defeat.
The cat stayed the night in the bathroom crying through the door even though Sam poured it a bowl of water and put some sliced deli turkey on a paper plate. It would hopefully do it’s business in the tub, which was gross, but Sam promised to clean it up.
It eventually stopped meowing after a while, and when Sam opened the bathroom door the following day, he found it curled up and asleep behind the toilet. He had made sure to close the lid as a precaution against drowning. As soon as he touched the sleeping kitten, it made a strange chirping noise of surprise and sprang awake. He picked it up and brought it out to the bedroom.
Dean was making scrambled eggs on the stove and reminded him, “Checkout time for felines, Sammy.”
“Come on, dude. I want to play with it for a bit,” Sam countered.
Dean relented and continued to finish breakfast.
Sam sat on the bed he and had Dean shared until a few days ago. Dean said they shouldn’t get Dad’s bed dirty even when he wasn’t using it, so it was OK for them to share even now they were older. But sometimes, when Dad was gone for a long time, Sam would wake up to his brother in the other bed. The first time it happened, he asked Dean why he had moved, and Dean teased that Sam had been snoring too loud. It hurt his feelings at first that Dean didn’t want to share a bed. It felt like he was being left behind. Though now he thought it was just because Dean missed Dad.
He let the cat wobble around the bed, staying alert in case he needed to stop it from falling off the side.The cat pranced around, sniffed the blanket and pillows, and came to Sam when he called it with a click of his tongue. Sometimes it lay down, and Sam rubbed down it’s back until it purred.
“Hey, Dean, can we go into town after breakfast? I’ll do an extra thirty reps during the workout tonight, I promise,” he said.
Dad always left instructions for them to exercise each morning and before bed. No Winchester boy should be lazy, even if they weren’t in school.
Sam locked the cat in the bathroom again after refilling the water bowl and providing more lunch meat. The cat meowed at him, but Sam whispered so Dean wouldn’t hear, “We'll be back in about an hour, buddy.
Main Street was small but had enough amenities to entertain them. It had the same layout as most small towns they traveled through, so they blended in his memory. The only actual points of interest were: the New Harmony Grocery, from which the boys occasionally bought as much food as they could afford and could carry; a small bookstore called Smith Booksellers, where Sam liked to hang out when he could get Dean to agree; and a dingy arcade called Fun-o-rama, where Dean challenged him to Pac-Man on the rare occasions when they had change left over from groceries.
Sam made a beeline to the bookstore when they arrived on Main Street. Dean opted to sit outside on a bench with a soda and watch people pass.
“A half-hour, OK, Sammy?”
Sam nodded. He went to the pet care aisle and read as much as he could before Dean dragged him out.
When they arrived home, they found the kitten had pooped in the tub. Just as Sam promised, he cleaned it up. He didn’t mind since he was so excited about everything he’d learned.He learned that the kitten was about six weeks old according to it’s size, and that it should be eating solid food. Cats preferred to cover their poop, so after he cleaned up the tub, he dug up a few handfuls of sand from the parking lot and put them in a cardboard box he took from the trash. He put the homemade litter by the door for easy cleanup. He learned from the helpful, but gross, visual aid in one book and a glance under their tail—while he made scrunched-up paper balls for the kitten to play with on the floor—that the kitten was female. He told Dean, who nodded and continued to watch a soap opera on TV with a weird amount of interest.
Sam played with the kitten for the rest of the day, chasing her around the room and making toys for her out of paper, bottle caps, and thread from the emergency sewing kit, until she started meowing her head off when it became late afternoon.
Dean spoke up. “She’s hungry, dummy. You used to be that loud when you wanted grub as a baby.”
Sam moved to the fridge to get more meat, but Dean stopped him. “We gotta eat too, Sammy. Give her this instead.” He took a can from a bag on the kitchen counter. Sam had noticed Dean holding a bag on their walk home but had not asked what was in it. Dean held the can out, and Sam took it and saw it was cat food: MeowMix ©, chicken-flavored wet food. It had a bright orange cat licking their lips on the label. Sam didn’t know what to say.
Dean shrugged casually and said, “She can stay until Dad comes back since I don’t wanna deal with you crying like a baby.”
Sam hugged his brother, then opened the can and fed their new roommate. After the kitten gobbled up the whole can, she pranced over to the motel room window and flopped over into a sunbeam. She looked so comfy that Sam got down on the floor with her on his stomach and stroked her for a while.
The next day they left her in the room with access to the bathroom while they did their morning workout.
“She needs a name,” Sam said as they returned to the room after doing twenty laps of the parking lot after breakfast. Dean made a beeline for the sink to pour himself a glass of water as Sam collapsed on a tattered armchair in the corner to take a break.
“Just call her spooky or midnight or panther,” Dean said between gulps of water.
“Those are lame names. Every black cat has a name like that,” Sam said, unimpressed.
“Well, she won’t have it for long. Then she’ll go back to just being a cat,” Dean said with a shrug.
Sam sighed and got down on the floor to start his pushups. They usually raced to see who could do their pushups and sit-ups faster.
“How about Sabbath, because she’s black?” Dean suggested as he joined Sam on the floor.
Of course, Dean would suggest a name referencing the music he loved, especially when Dad played it in the car.
“If she grows up with that name, she’ll be a witch’s familiar for sure!” Sam protested.
Dean shrugged, apparently out of ideas.
Sam thought more about a name for the kitten as he finished his workout, then joined her sprawled on his bed in a nest of sheets as he hadn't made his bed yet.
He lay next to the kitten and put his face right next to hers where she rested her head on her front paws. He stroked down her back, and she purred loudly like an engine turning. Her flawless, jet-black fur was warm from the sun.
“Chevy,” Sam said suddenly.
“What?” Dean asked as he finished his workout and got up. Dean looked out the window at the mention of the car, even though Dad said on his last call that he would be back at the end of the week.
Sam felt bad for a moment for getting his brother’s hopes up. “Her name is Chevy. She’s black, and her purr sounds like our car’s engine,” Sam explained.
Dean stared for a moment. Then he grinned. “That’s a mighty big name to live up to. Sure she’s up to it?”
“You’ve seen her attack her toys; she’s a badass. She’s almost as pretty as the real thing, too, aren’t you, girl?” Sam cooed as he rubbed between her ears.
“Wow, no need to go that far, Sammy,” Dean said, looking offended at anything being as beautiful as the Impala. Then he laughed. He went into the kitchen, probably to make lunch.
Sam kept lying there stroking Chevy, he thought he could feel all soreness from his workout fading the longer Chevy’s purr reverberated in his ears.Chevy didn’t notice she’d been named. She was fast asleep. Sam grew up listening to the engine of Dad’s car to soothe him, and he’d fallen asleep to the sound of it all his life. So it wasn’t his fault he accidentally fell into a nap. Dean let him sleep.
From then on, they lived mainly around Chevy’s schedule. When she was awake, they played with her. They encouraged her to chase toys, carried her around, and built pillow forts to sit or sleep in.
When she was asleep, which was pretty often, they worked out, explored in the woods behind the motel, or went into town.
She bounced back and forth from each brother, not seeming to have a preference for company. Although Sam secretly hoped she liked him best since he saved her in the first place.
Chevy sat with Sam while he read by the window, or she often sat on his book. She came to him when he called for her.
To feel useful, Dean whittled stakes for Dad out of branches he found in the woods, and sometimes when it was warm, he sat on the curb outside their room and whittled and hummed while he worked. Chevy sometimes darted out the door when Dean went out and sniffed around the parking lot and rolled in the wood shavings to keep him company.
When they watched “Wheel of Fortune” in the evenings before bed, Chevy crawled between them on the small couch and fell asleep.
In no time, it’d been six days. Tomorrow was Sunday, and Dad said he would be back after dinner.
Dean made mac and cheese with marshmallow fluff for dinner because it’d been Sam’s favorite since he was a toddler. He knew it was his big brother’s way of cheering him up since it was their last night with Chevy. Chevy was oblivious, sleeping under the kitchen table on Sam’s feet.
They hadn’t talked about what would happen tomorrow. But Sam knew it was necessary. There was no way Chevy could come with them. However, they couldn’t just put her back outside.
Sam remembered a quote from a book he read many schools ago by some French guy. It said, “You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.” Dad’s responsibility was avenging Mom and saving people, and Dean was responsible for caring for Sam. Sam was just a kid, but he knew Chevy was his responsibility because he rescued her. That meant ensuring she was cared for even if they weren’t together, even if it meant saying goodbye.
That was why Sam had gone to the lobby while Dean was in the shower this morning and asked the old lady at the desk for a phone book. He looked up the number for the local animal shelter. The chipper-voiced secretary had told him the shelter was five miles away, and when Sam said he didn’t have a way to get there, she said someone could come to pick Chevy up since she was so young that it counted as an emergency.
When he told Dean after dinner, Dean nodded, gripped his shoulder, and said, “Good job, Sammy.” Then he added, “Sorry, man.”
They continued their evening routine as usual. They washed the dishes and watched “Wheel of Fortune” with Chevy snuggled between them. But when it was time for lights out, Sam got into bed with Chevy and broke down. He held Chevy close and cried as silently as possible into her fur.
After a few minutes, he heard Dean shift and leave the other bed. He was immediately embarrassed that his brother heard him crying like a baby. But a moment later, Sam felt his brother slip into bed with him for the first time in days. He put his arm around Sam and Chevy in the dark, and they all fell asleep.
A teenage girl in a station wagon pulled into the parking lot of the Wayfarer Motel at 3 pm the next day. Sam met her at the motel room door with Chevy sleeping in a box with her homemade toys and the rest of the canned food Dean bought.
The girl promised the shelter would take good care of Chevy, and since kittens were popular, she would probably be adopted immediately. The girl also promised they would use the name he gave her until she was adopted and given another one.
Dean said he bet whoever adopted her would keep the name since it was so badass, but Sam knew his brother was just being nice. They had given her lots of cuddles to say goodbye earlier that day, so it was maybe a blessing that she was asleep as he handed her off. He didn’t think he could say goodbye to her twice; even Dean got misty-eyed.
Any evidence that a kitten had lived there with them was gone after they cleaned up and packed their stuff.
“Someday, I’ll have a real pet when we live in a real house for good,” Sam proclaimed a little bitterly but with hope as he sat on the couch while Dean prepared sloppy joes for dinner.
“Yeah, Sammy, someday,” Dean agreed as he put dinner on the table. “Now come eat,” he added.
Dad returned, and they loaded into the car after a quick reunion hug. As they drove away, Sam thought his family’s whole life was a secret: what his dad did, why they traveled around all the time, and what was out there in the dark. He was glad he and Dean had a secret to themselves about the one good thing that ever came from a dark and stormy night, stumbling out of the shadows.
Sam looked across the backseat at Dean, and his brother gave him a little secret smile, and he knew Dean agreed.
The End