Happy birthday @hollygopossumlovesj2! I can’t believe I’m so lucky that I get to write this absolutely ludicrously adorable plot bunny (plot possumy?) This fic is sponsored by all-round superstar @silver9mm who consistently comes up with these wonderful ideas 👅 Love to you both!
“You don’t even know what I’m going to ask!”
“Can we please keep the–”
Sam glared at him and then very deliberately put the shoebox on the war room table. “I’m keeping it.”
Sam took the lid off the shoebox and carefully peeled the towel back. His face went all soft and ridiculous as he peered inside. “It’s so sweet Dean, how could you even say that? Look at it!”
Dean looked into the shoebox. A pile of matted and muddy fur looked back at him. It made a deep hissing sound. The kind of sound a submarine might make if it was also simultaneously trying to commit murder with it’s beady little eyes.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “It just oozes adorableness. Oh no wait, that’s the maggots.”
“It doesn’t have maggots!” Sam whisked the box off the table, looking for all the world like Dean had just insulted his baby. Which. Oh no. Uh oh.
“You’re getting attached! This is why we don’t have pets! You picked it up like three minutes ago and you’re already attached!”
Sam cradled the box in his arms. “Marigold if it’s a girl, Cyril if it’s a boy. Wouldn’t that just be so precious?”
“NEWSFLASH SAM, THAT’S ATTACHED!”
Sam left the room with his nose in the air and the shoebox of unwanted hairball under one arm, giving off the distinct impression that Dean was the bad guy in this situation.
“WE’RE NOT KEEPING IT!” Dean yelled after him. Sam didn’t respond.
Whatever, it would probably die overnight.
(It did not die overnight.)
Sam cleaned the damn thing up, and dried it carefully, and when it was looking more like an ugly cactus than a soggy tea-cozy he announced that it was a girl, and also that it was a baby.
“No,” Dean said again, but Sam clicked the “pay now” button on his fast-track order of specialty food and blankets.
“No,” Dean said again when the thing needed feeding every four hours and Sam suggested a roster.
Somehow he got rostered on anyway. Marigold managed to scream at him the whole time, even when she was drinking.
“I hate you,” Dean told her. “You look like Cousin It got in a fight with a bobcat.”
He gave her the whole bottle then tucked her back into her warm nest.
“No,” he said when Sam announced that Marigold had progressed to solid food and Dean needed to make a run to the store.
He made a run to the store.
“No,” he said when Marigold needed to learn climbing skills and Sam asked him to make a rope course in the garage.
He made the stupid course.
“No,” he told her when she climbed on his lap to reach the biscuit he was eating. He swapped it to his other hand. Marigold put her paws on his chest and stretched up to reach it. “No,” Dean said again, more forcefully. “I don’t like you and we’re not friends and biscuits aren’t good for you.”
Sam came home thirty minutes later. Marigold was curled up in Dean’s lap, gnawing on a biscuit and looking very pleased with herself. Dean’s hand was resting over the curve of her rump, his thumb stroking her back. Sam crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow.
“Shut up,” Dean muttered.
(But he didn’t stop patting.)
“No,” Dean said a month later, glaring at everything and nothing and definitely not upset or anything.
“It’s okay if you are crying.”
“I know you secretly liked her. But it’s time to say goodbye.”
“Good. I’m glad. I don’t care.”
“Okay, last chance.” Sam put Marigold’s carry-case on the ground. Marigold sniffed eagerly at the exciting outside air.
Dean stared doggedly at the horizon.
Sam gave her a final wave. Then asked, “Do you want me to let her go without you even saying bye?”
Dean’s jaw was clenched hard. A minute passed, and then another.
“No,” he finally said. He pulled her favourite biscuit out of his pocket.
