* Isla Sorna, August 10th, 2014 *
If Crowley had his way, Gabriel's office would have nothing but a desk and his paperwork in it.
Of course, Crowley didn't often get his way. So Gabriel's office was filled with distracting knick-knacks, pointless objects acquired simply for their odd appearance, and that damned fish tank. The tank spanned one whole wall, floor to ceiling, and behind the glass the fish watched his every move. They were like something out of the abyss, dredged up from the very bottom of the sea, teeth so large and curved that the fish's mouth hung open like a broken screen door.
They were some kind of expensive, extinct fish. If Crowley had his way, they would have stayed extinct.
Their black eyes, large as saucers, followed his path across the room, where Gabriel was sitting with his feet propped on the desk, twisting a pen in one hand and the other holding the phone to his ear. Behind him the floor to ceiling windows looked out over an open field, where the dinosaurs with the boomerangs on their heads- Para-whatevers- were grazing by the water. Crowley didn't care what the scientific name was, as long as they made money for the company and didn't kill anyone. The boomerang-heads, as Gabriel described them, were like big dumb cows. Harmless scenery.
Gabriel was either unaware that Crowley had come in, or he didn't care, but Crowley wasn't in the mood to be polite (not that he was ever in that mood in the first place). He certainly wasn't in the mood to stand there and listen to Gabriel trying to sweet talk one of his many conquests, as it sounded like he was doing.
"No, baby, I promise! I'll come to the mainland next week. We'll go out on the town, make it special, just you and-"
Crowley leaned across the desk and grabbed the phone from Gabriel's ear, ending the call and tossing the phone on the desk. As Gabriel sputtered indignantly, he also dropped a heavy file on top of the phone and jabbed one finger at it, staring at Gabriel accusingly.
"Did you see this?"
"What, a file folder? Yeah, I tend to use those," Gabriel said with a shrug, being his petulant self, especially with his phone call rudely cut off.
"Don't play coy with me, Novak. I know they sent you a copy. Did you even read it?" Crowley asked, shoving Gabriel's feet off the desk. They fell to the floor with a thud, jerking Gabriel forward in the chair.
"Yeah, I saw it. So a guy got on the chewy side of a raptor, this shit happens! We drop some cash on the family, they're happy, we're happy, on with dino-land," Gabriel said, rising from his chair and walking around to Crowley's side of the desk. "Come on, even in zoos they've got people getting walked on by elephants, and you know what they do? They hand the elephant a paintbrush and send it right back out to the 'paint with the fuckin' elephants' kids' program. Maybe some elephant anger management therapy."
Crowley rolled his eyes. "This is not a zoo, and that is not an elephant. There Is no precedent here, which means every mistake matters. You know that as well as I do. This lawsuit has your investors scrambling for assurances that I can't give them!"
Gabriel was infuriatingly calm. As Crowley's voice rose, the young CEO sat on the edge of the desk and began digging in the bowl of candy sitting on top of a stack of files, finally plucking a Tootsie Roll from among the rest and unwrapping it with a smirk. "You and those investors. You're always so fuckin' worried. How many times do I have to say I've got this entirely under control? It was one guy. One little blip in a transfer. It's nothing."
"Nothing, eh? Well this steaming pile of nothing has at least two of your investors talking about jumping ship before the whole damn thing goes down," Crowley said, and that seemed to get Gabriel's attention. It at least wiped the smirk off his face. He fought to swallow the candy quickly, narrowing his eyes at Crowley.
"They can't pull out of this. There's a contract."
"They very well can if they feel like you can't guarantee the safety of the workers and visitors on this island. They're under the impression that you can't control your critters, Novak. And unless you can prove differently, I can't keep them under my thumb until the park opens."
Gabriel groaned and rolled his eyes, standing up again and pacing over to the aquarium. The fish followed, coming closer to the glass, fins barely twitching to keep them in place as they watched.
Fuckin' creepy fish.
"What the hell do they want me to do, then? Gabriel asked, turning back around and throwing his hands in the air. "I can pay off the family, with enough zeros tacked on that funeral will become a party. We've got state of the art systems here. What more do they want? Dinosaur whisperers?"
"Of a kind."
"Well, call up Cesar Millan and tell him he's gonna need some bigger leashes," Gabriel snapped, the sarcasm practically dripping from his voice as he crossed his arms over his chest. Sometimes, Crowley wondered how such a child got so far in this business, and then he remembers seeing the numbers on the accounts that his mommy and daddy left behind when they passed.
Spoiled rich kid. He still wonders if he's shot himself in the foot, taking on this client.
"Experts, Gabriel. They want experts, and I'm not talking the guys who do maintenance on the ferris wheel at Six Flags. They want bonafide dinosaur experts signing off on this project."
Gabriel arched an eyebrow and laughed. "They do realize that all the 'dinosaur experts' that aren't on this island are sitting in piles of dirt staring at bones, right?" he asked, moving to the decorative stand near the office doors, the centerpiece of the room- a fully reconstructed skeleton of a small dinosaur. Compy-something. Crowley honestly couldn't care less.
"They don't care. They want the Winchesters. Old enough to know what the hell they're doing, popular enough in the industry that their opinion will make a difference. Though honestly, I don't think you'll get those two out here," Crowley said, watching one of the fish hover right behind Gabriel's shoulder, fins rippling in the still, dark water.
"Why the hell not? I pay for half their digs!"
Crowley snorted. "Because, Gabriel, not everyone is willing to fall at your feet and be a good little lapdog for you, unlike some of these brown nosers out here. The Winchesters are diggers. You call them and tell them you want them to drop everything and fly to a foreign country to see a nature park without telling them why you need them there? I can imagine how that would go. And if you did tell them, the pile of non-disclosure agreements would be enough to scare them right off before they step foot near a plane."
Gabriel drummed his fingers on the stand next to the skeleton, seemingly deep in thought, but Crowley knew that look. It was the look Gabriel always got when he was told he wouldn't be able to do something. And that, right there, was exactly what Crowley planned. He knew that the Winchesters would never agree to this insanity if he went, a lawyer representing Gabriel, because the Winchesters were not business people. They liked things face to face, personal.
"I'll fly out there myself and get them to come," Gabriel said stubbornly, and inside, Crowley was high fiving himself. Normally Gabriel wouldn't even think about going out and begging a few paleontologists to come to the park, but given the push of a challenge, it was inevitable; Crowley had walked him right into it.
It was genius, in his opinion.
"So what else? We grab a couple bone experts, drag them out here, make them ooh and aah, pay off the family, that good enough? Or do the investors want my balls in a vice while they're at it?" Gabriel continued, walking back behind his desk and dropping down in the chair. Crowley took the opportunity to sit in one of the chairs opposite, slouching back in it and hiking up one ankle to balance on the opposite knee. At least this way he couldn't see the mutant fish staring at him.
"They want a big name," he said, earning a roll of the eyes from Gabriel.
"I am a big fuckin' name."
"A likeable big name. Someone who has a positive pull with the public. Someone who, if they're photographed lined up at an ice cream shop, by the next month that ice cream shop will have twenty more stores. They want someone outside the industry to vouch for what you've got going on here, someone who the public trusts," Crowley added, pointing at the thick file on Gabriel's desk. "Someone whose popularity will be enough to overshadow that lawsuit going public, should it happen."
Gabriel swiveled his chair back and forth, a pen already in his hand, being twirled idly between his fingers as he thought. Then, a slow smirk appeared on his face.
"How about a New York Times bestselling author with a heart of gold?"
Crowley just stared for a moment, waiting for the punch line. It didn't come. "You have got to be joking."
"Why would I be joking? My little bro is perfect. His books sell by the millions, he donates to save the starving baby whale charities and shit like that, people love the guy. If he says the place is awesome, they'll believe him."
"And just how are you going to convince him to come? Have you completely forgotten Kenya?"
Gabriel waved a hand dismissively. "Kenya was a fluke, come on. That wasn't even my fault. He knows that."
"Gabriel, he still won't go within fifteen feet of a swimming pool. He's a neurotic mess, and I don't doubt he holds you responsible for a good chunk of that," Crowley said, rolling his eyes in an almost mockery of Gabriel's earlier eye-roll. "Come up with someone else. Someone who preferably will be willing and not blackmailed into coming."
"I won't blackmail him. He loves me, I can convince him," Gabriel insisted, leaning forward on the desk. "Gimme one shot. I'll swing by his place after I snag these two Winchester guys, and if I can't convince him, we'll come up with someone else then. Have a little faith, Crowley."
"Oh, that's rich, telling a lawyer to have faith in a megalomaniac CEO."
Gabriel nearly pouted. "That's a strong word to use. I prefer to just go with heavily narcissistic."
Crowley stared at Gabriel for a few long moments, going over it in his mind. Even if Gabriel didn't manage to convince Castiel to come to the park, that would still leave them a few days to find someone with equal clout. There were always actors and actresses looking to jet off to some exotic locale; if it came down to the line, he could pull enough strings and wave some money under some noses.
"Fine. You get one shot. One visit. If he doesn't agree, then we're going with someone I pick," he said, and Gabriel pumped his fist in celebration, earning an exasperated look. "This isn't some pre-opening festivity, you know. Your investors have serious doubts about the safety of this park. If you don't get three signatures on that paper, you'll lose half your funding, at the least."
"Right, right," Gabriel said, nodding, though it was obvious he was back to not taking it very seriously. "I got it, Crowley. I'll impress them, don't worry. I'll give them the tour of their lives," he added with a grin, and Crowley shook his head and sighed before heading back to the door. As he pulled it shut behind him, he could already hear Gabriel back on the phone with whatever bimbo he'd been conversing with, apologizing and sweet talking.
He had a bad feeling about this, but no time to dwell on it. The investors were waiting to hear the game plan, and Crowley needed to sell them on it.
*Great Salt Lake Desert, Utah, August 12th, 2014*
"Right here. See the difference? This part is the vertebrae, and the spine runs along here, down to the tail."
Jo didn't look convinced, but Dean wasn't surprised. It was one thing for these students to sit in a perfectly clean classroom, staring at neatly excavated pieces of bone all day. It was a completely different ball game when you dropped that student in the middle of a desert and expected them to immediately be able to tell the difference between dozens of layers of rock and sand substrate and the bones they were looking for. Jo was lucky, though, because this was the perfect dig to learn on.
"Okay. I think I see it. So the hip should be somewhere around here," she guessed, pressing dusty fingers to one of the areas in which they hadn't gotten to bone yet. As soon as Dean saw a full arch of backbone, he'd called the excavation to a stop and called in the big guns.
"Right. Hip here, ribs are going to be all along here. What I'll have you doing is trenching out the area about a foot north of the spine, all the way up around the head, give it about 12 inches of clearance all the way around."
Jo looked up at him, her blonde hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, but pieces of hair already rebelling and falling into her face. Her skin was slightly reddened, the result of forgetting to put on sunscreen again after she'd sweated it all off in the midday sun, but she still looked just as alert and lively as when she'd showed up that morning with donuts and coffee for everyone.
"Why aren't we doing at least a partial excavation here? Isn't this a little big to block and send back to Chicago in one piece?" she asked, and Dean chuckled, standing up before his knees started screaming at him for squatting down so long. Jo followed suit, standing and wincing when her back audibly popped.
"Jo, how many complete Utahraptor skeletons have been found?"
"Complete? None."
"Exactly," Dean said, pointing down at the exposed sections of spine. "This looks like it might be complete. And if it is, man, we've got it made. I'm not taking chances on this one, not so late in the season. Not enough time to be choosy about what condition it's in. We'll trench around it, block it out, jacket it in some plaster, and get it to the lab before the weather changes on us. A lot easier on the specimen than trying to excavate and properly preserve, catalogue, and pack it one piece at a time."
Jo smirked. "The museum's gonna love the shipping fees on this."
"Nah, we'll just have the FedEx guy come pick it up. 9 foot tall raptor skeleton trapped in a couple tons of rock and dirt, not a problem."
Jo tilted her head back and laughed, and Dean smiled; she really was pretty. If they had met in a bar he may have started hitting on her, but instead, they'd spent the summer covered in dirt and dust and passing tools back and forth while he showed her how useless all her textbook learning had been for field work. She was more like a little sister now, carefully taken under his wing.
Also, her mother was slightly terrifying, so there was that.
"Dean! Jo! Come over here!"
Dean turned and stepped carefully over the ropes they had strung around the section of rock that hid the fossil from view, Jo following closely as they made their way to the small white tent, stepping around the people working on other parts of the dig. Sam sat at a rickety fold-up table inside the tent, bent over the laptop in front of him. The tent was barely big enough for the table and the ground penetrating unit behind it, just enough protection to keep the equipment from getting battered with dust.
"Got somethin'?" Dean asked, leaning over Sam's shoulder to see the laptop screen. The loading bar at the bottom of the program was nearly full, crawling its way steadily to the right.
"I imported all the data from all three locations and it's compiling now. If this thing is as good as they claimed, we should have a 3D shot of the entire skeleton," Sam explained, already looking way too excited about this. This was why Dean let him handle the computers and fancy equipment; Dean would rather be out there working on preserving this thing and getting it ready for transport.
But he had to admit, having a full 3D picture of exactly what they were dealing with would be really nice. They would not only know if it was a full skeleton, but also find out a lot quicker where they needed to trench.
"Don't get used to this fancy shit, Jo. Most of the digs you work at you'll be lucky to have secondhand chisels," Dean joked, and Jo raised an eyebrow.
"What makes this dig so special?"
"Hell if I know. Novak Industries has a boner for the Field Museum, for some reason. I'm not complainin'," Dean said with a shrug. For the past few years, their program had flourished, most of it in thanks to Gabriel Novak. The dude ran nature parks and theme parks, but for some reason, he'd showed up at the curator's office one day and asked to fund their digs. All he wanted in return was to have real-time access to their research.
Given the number of zeroes on those checks, it didn't seem like much to ask.
And now this behemoth, the ground penetrating radar system. A rep from Novak Industries had brought it directly to the dig site, saying it was a 'bonus' for their hard work. Dean thought it sounded like bullshit, but Sam was already salivating over the $20,000 piece of equipment, and it would look bad enough to return a gift- even worse, return it with drool stains from a techno-geek.
It was a big deal. Digs sometimes had GPR units, but they were temperamental, and the results weren't that useful. To Dean, it just looked like grey and white smudges and dots on the screen. Somehow, Sam could make sense of the crap and plot it out to approximate points on the ground they were working on.
This thing, though, this was brand new, and evidently created by a team Novak hired, considering the bold "Novak Industries" logo emblazoned on the side. You supposedly rolled the machine to three different spots on the ground near the fossil, ran the machine at each location, uploaded the results to a computer, and the program that came with it would compile it into a clear-as-day 3D image of the subsurface.
Dean had his reservations, but he was nearly as curious as Sam was.
The bar hit the end and the picture came up, and Dean's breath caught. It was a top-down angle right now, and even just from that he could see that they'd hit the jackpot, both with the dig and the machine. The skeleton looked complete; from the well-defined skull all the way down to the massive claw on each hind foot. It looked like the bones of the arms had deteriorated a lot, but if they were careful, they could still reconstruct the broken pieces.
"Wow," Jo whispered, leaning forward as Sam dragged the mouse across the picture, tilting it downward and then around. Every angle was crystal clear, white bone against dark grey rock, and Sam let out a low whistle- over the machine or the fossil, Dean didn't know. Probably both.
"Damn, this guy needed a dentist. Check out the pitting below the teeth there," Dean said as the skull came into view, focusing on pockets of missing bone where infection had likely set in. It was a full grown Utahraptor, and without the presence of other injuries, he felt pretty safe in guessing that it died after the infected teeth made it impossible to eat properly. Not a pleasant death.
"How tall do you think it is? 8 feet?" Sam asked, and Dean shook his head.
"Looks more like nine, if the feet are where I think they are out there. Might be closer to ten."
"Dude, stop exaggerating, it's not ten."
"And here I thought boys were experts in exaggerating size," Jo said, but before Dean could smack her for the comment, the sound of a helicopter cut through the air. And it sounded close.
"What the hell…?" Dean muttered, straightening up and stepping out of the tent as the sound got even louder, wind cutting across the ground from the direction of their mess tent. The thing had to be landing in the clearing back there, and making a damn mess while it did.
"Cover the site!" he yelled to the confused workers, and Jo immediately grabbed for the tarps they saved for covering the fossils at night, starting to hand them out. Dean left her to it; he had a bone to pick with a pilot.
He stalked around the mess tent, and sure enough, the helicopter sat in the clearing behind it, winding down but still making a ridiculous amount of noise. Dean started to yell some choice words at the guy, but the pilot just shook his head and pointed. And when Dean followed the gesture, he saw that the door to their motorhome was standing wide open.
The motorhome was off-limits- that was where he and Sam stayed on digs, where they kept all the important crap that shouldn't get covered in dirt and grime. And someone had just hopped out of a chopper and barged into what amounted to their house?
Yeah. Whoever this was, Dean was probably going to punch them.
He jogged to the open door and was up the steps in record time, and when his eyes adjusted from the bright light outside, his fists clenched. Some short asshole had helped himself to a bottle of whiskey, and was presently sitting on the counter beside the sink, sniffing it like some kind of wine.
"You know, you should buy better shit than this, being stuck in the desert," the guy said, and Dean stormed around the island and grabbed the guy by the collar of his shirt.
"Who the hell are you and what the hell are you doing in here?" he snapped, but the guy didn't even seem fazed. He chuckled and reached up with the hand that wasn't holding the whiskey, patting Dean on the arm.
"Just checking up on my investment, Dean-o. I can see you've been spending the money on plaid shirts instead of decent booze," he said with a smirk. "Gabriel Novak. Nice to meet you, Mr. Winchester."
Dean let go of the guy's shirt like it had caught fire under his hands. He opened his mouth, tried to speak, but nothing came out, and hell. Really? He'd just assaulted Gabriel Novak. The guy who was funding this dig. And every dig for the past three years.
"Jesus Christ, you couldn't…I don't know, call ahead? Give us a heads-up?" he managed, just as Sam stepped inside, Jo not far behind him.
"Okay, who's the jerk-" Sam started, and Dean cleared his throat. Loudly.
"Sam, this is…Gabriel Novak," he explained, and he was pretty sure Sam's face went a few shades paler.
"Oh, I…I didn't mean 'jerk', I just…"
Gabriel laughed, hopping off the counter and reaching out to shake Dean's hand, then Sam's. "Nah, go ahead, call me every name in the book. I interrupted your digging, after all, but not without damn good reason," he said, catching sight of Jo as she stepped out from behind Sam. "Who's the lovely lady?"
Jo snorted, shaking his offered hand. "Don't flatter me, I'm covered in dirt. Jo Harvelle."
"She's doing her graduate work, she's been interning on our digs all summer," Dean explained, still in a state of shock. What was a millionaire doing in the middle of the desert in Utah? Why now? He figured if the guy ever showed up in person, it would be with an entourage and a whole lot of expectations. This dude just stole their shitty whiskey.
"Well. I don't want to take too much of your time, so let's get down to business, shall we?" Gabriel said, grabbing three more glasses and pouring whiskey for the three of them, as if he weren't the guest here. "I love your work. I do. Your research has been instrumental in some of my endeavors, to say the least."
Sam looked skeptical. "What kind of endeavors?"
Gabriel waved a hand at him, like a pesky mosquito. "I'm not going to smother you with details here. That's why I have scientists. I hire them to explain shit to people for me so I don't have to do it. And really, I'm here to reward your stellar efforts."
Dean took the offered glass of whiskey- he had the feeling he'd need it for this. "Thought the GPR unit was our reward," he said, his tone holding a note of suspicion. If Gabriel noticed, he didn't bother acknowledging it.
"The GPR unit was just a bonus. This, though…what I've got for you today, it's a true reward. A break from all your hard work. A sort of…vacation for you two."
Sam laughed. "A vacation? All due respect, sir, but we've got a raptor to get out of the ground before winter hits, and then we're needed back at the labs-"
"Yeah, yeah, you're busy. I know. But this isn't your average vacation," Gabriel said, waggling his eyebrows at them. Dean kind of shuddered; he could do without the suggestive sleaziness from this guy. "I have a new park opening. A sort of nature preserve, off the coast of Costa Rica. Bought a whole island chain for it, it's a paradise, I'm telling you."
"What kind of nature park?" Jo asked with a frown, tugging the band from her hair and letting it fall free across her shoulders- along with a shower of dust from it.
"The kind that you'll like. It's right up your alley," Gabriel said, but Dean was already shaking his head, leaning back against the counter.
"Not a good time, man. We've gotta keep this site on schedule, we can't afford to waste time and get this thing damaged," he said, leaving out the unspoken 'and I am not sitting on a plane for hours on end thank you very much'.
"Already have you covered. I talked to the head of your department, and he's got replacements coming in to wrap up your dig and get everything sent back safely. Guys with as much field experience as you."
Dean's eyes narrowed. "Why are you so eager to give us a vacation?"
The CEO's honey brown eyes seemed to light up at that, almost mischievous. "Because while you're having the best vacation of your lives, you'll be doing me a favor. See, I have to deal with investors who have ridiculous expectations. They've got their lawyers up my ass about the new park just because I don't have any outside opinions on it yet. So, all I need is for you to fly down for the weekend, enjoy yourselves, and then sign a paper saying how totally awesome it was before you leave. Easy stuff. The investors are happy, the lawyers are happy, I'm happy, you're happy."
"Why would your investors care what we think about a nature park?" Sam asked, barely beating Dean to the question. Something was off here. They were paleontologists; they should be bringing in biologists, zoologists, the scientists that would really know their shit about Costa Rican ecology. Not them.
"The investors said 'experts'. They didn't say what kind. I like you guys, so I picked you. You've been working too hard anyway, you could use a break," Gabriel said, and then he winked at Jo. "You should come, too. It'd be nice to get an opinion from the fairer sex."
Dean sighed and set down the whiskey, cutting Jo off from what would likely be an insulting comment in Gabriel's direction. "Look, we really can't. As much as we appreciate the…completely weird offer, we have a ton to do here-"
Gabriel was ignoring him, and instead had pulled out his checkbook and flipped to a blank check, jotting down the Field Museum Department of Paleontology on the line. Then he wrote 50,000 on the cash line, raising an eyebrow at Dean.
"I'm serious, this is a really bad time to just be taking off from the dig, and the labwork-"
Gabriel added another zero at the end. Dean's eyes went wide, and he glanced uncertainly at Sam, who looked just as torn as he was. That was…a hell of a lot of money, for them to come spend a couple of days on an island. That could fund their digs for the next year, maybe two.
Gabriel smirked, then lowered the pen again, and with one careful swipe turned the 5 into a 9.
The silence was thick enough to hear a pin drop, then Sam laughed nervously.
"When does the plane leave?"
*New York City, New York, August 13th, 2014*
Castiel was dead tired.
He dragged his suitcase up the short walk to his door, the rumble of the rollers obnoxiously loud on the quiet street until he lifted the suitcase up the three steps. He unlocked his door with a sigh, then pushed it shut and went to the alarm panel to turn the alarm off.
Except…the alarm wasn't going off.
He stiffened as he heard a sound from the kitchen, and he left the suitcase by the door, instead moving as quietly as he could to grab a poker from the fireplace. He was certain that whoever it was, they could probably already hear his heart beating, the way it was pounding against his ribs in time with the adrenaline coursing through his veins.
There was light streaming from under the kitchen door, and he edged toward it, adjusting his grip on the poker before he shoved the door open and stepped through. He started to swing at the figure by the fridge- until the man turned, and Castiel saw his face.
He barely managed to stop his swing in time, and even then he would have hit Gabriel in the face had the other man not stumbled back in surprise. He was holding a beer, and looking at Castiel with some mix of amusement and pride.
"Nice swing, little bro! Though, gotta say, I hope you don't greet all your guests with a poker to the face," he said, and Castiel dropped the poker heavily on the counter, fear being quickly replaced by anger.
"What are you doing here? How did you even get in?!" he demanded as Gabriel opened the beer and took a swig.
"Relax, I had a copy of your key made last time I visited. Just in case."
"And the alarm?"
"Had Charlie sync my phone up with your security system. I can turn off your alarm from Costa Rica, bro."
Castiel just stared for a few seconds, and then he laughed in disbelief. He clenched his jaw and grabbed the beer from Gabriel's hands, slamming it down on the counter, and then grabbed Gabriel by the shoulder and pushed him toward the door.
"Out. Get out of my house, Gabriel, and I'm changing my locks, and my alarm, and I swear to God I will not hesitate to hit you in the face if you show up again-"
"Wait, wait! Come on, Cas, I need to talk to you. Gimme ten minutes. Five, even," Gabriel said, twisting free of Castiel's grip and giving him a pleading look. He held up his hands, as if trying to calm an angry dog, and Castiel just glared.
"You didn't even come to the hospital, Gabriel. I was in a Kenyan hospital in a coma for four days, and you couldn't even spare an hour? And now you show up here, three years later, and you want to talk?!"
"I did send flowers…"
Castiel tensed and closed his eyes, pressing his fingers to his temples and just trying not to lash out and punch Gabriel in the face. "Gabriel. Get out. Now."
"Five minutes, Cas? Please? Come on, I'm in a bind. I need your help," Gabriel said, and Castiel opened his eyes, for the first time that night seeing something other than a smirk on Gabriel's face. He actually looked worried. Castiel ran his hand down his own face with a sigh, and then he leaned back against the kitchen counter.
"Five minutes. That's all you're getting."
Gabriel clapped his hands together and grinned, reaching again for the beer sitting on the counter. "Thanks, bro. Listen, I know I haven't been around lately, but I'm telling you, I have a damn good reason. A really damn good reason. As in like, world changing."
"World changing," Castiel repeated dryly, giving Gabriel a look. It didn't seem to discourage him.
"Yeah. And I need your help. Just for one weekend, and believe me, you'll love it."
Castiel turned away and opened a cabinet, pulling out a bottle of vodka and a glass. "You know, I seem to remember you saying that before you stuck me on a boat with a completely insane tour guide who proceeded to get us capsized by a hippo."
"Come on, Kenya was a fluke. It was three years ago! I've matured. I've grown. Learned from my mistakes," Gabriel insisted, earning another humorless laugh from Castiel, who was pouring himself a generous amount of vodka. And then, after a pause, pouring a little more. "Look, this is different. It's an island, off the coast of Costa Rica, and I've got it turned into this amazing preserve-"
"A preserve?" Castiel repeated, voice rough from just having taken a long drink from his glass. "So you're saying you show up here three years after nearly getting me killed touring one of your nature preserves because you need me to tour another nature preserve?"
"This is different! No hippos, for one thing. And no boats involved. And no tour guides, either!" Gabriel insisted, eyes bright with excitement. Meanwhile, Castiel could already feel his stomach churning over all this. "I learned from that. Safety is the number one concern on this island. State of the art systems, top of the line."
Castiel stared into his glass, then took another long pull off it; he definitely wasn't drunk enough for this. "What the hell is in Costa Rica that you felt inspired to make a preserve for? Boa constrictors? Monkeys?" he asked, stalling the inevitable. Gabriel gave him a mischievous look.
"If I told you, then you wouldn't be surprised, Cas."
"Yeah, well, I've had enough of your surprises already for a lifetime. The answer is no," Castiel said, reaching for the bottle again, only to be stopped by Gabriel's hand on his arm. He sighed, looking back up at his older brother.
"I wouldn't ask this of you if it wasn't really important, Castiel. I've got investors on my ass. They want expert opinions on the preserve or they're gonna yank the rug out from under me. I've already got a couple scientist-types signed on, but they want someone more influential. And I thought, hey, what's more influential than the guy selling millions of books every week?" he said, and Castiel fell silent for a few moments. He should say no. He should say hell no, and kick Gabriel out on his ass. Hell, when he was in the hospital, Anna jumped on a plane and spent a day and a half getting there to be with him; Gabriel was in the same country and evidently couldn't be bothered.
"Just a couple days, Cas. You fly out, you relax in a tropical paradise for the weekend, watch some pretty animals, sign a sheet of paper that says it's totally a cool place, and that's all. Really. I know I screwed up and I know I don't deserve your help, but my back's against a wall here," Gabriel continued, his voice softer now. Castiel set down his glass and shook his head, wishing the vodka would kick in quicker.
"Even if I wanted to, Gabriel, I have meetings all weekend with the reps for the European branch of the publisher, we're working on getting translations sorted out."
"I know. I called your agent and got her to reschedule."
Castiel looked up with a glare, and Gabriel shrugged. "What? I knew you'd use it as an excuse, and hey, even if you don't go you get the weekend off now. Win-win."
Castiel sighed again. "Gabriel, you are the most narcissistic, presumptuous, self-important asshole I know."
"…Is that a yes?"
Castiel closed his eyes again and shook his head. "I can't believe I'm going along with this."
He opened his eyes again to see Gabriel smiling brightly, tugging a paper out of his jacket. "You won't regret this, Cas, I promise. This is going to be one of the best weekends of your life! Here, that's your flight info, and I'll be meeting you at your last stop to take a helicopter the last leg."
"You made reservations already. Of course you did," Castiel said, taking the paper with a wince. He'd played right into Gabriel's hands, he was sure, but there was no time to say he'd changed his mind. Gabriel was already headed for the door.
"Well, gotta run, lots of stuff to get ready for you guys! No mosquito nets and tents this time, Cas, five star resort all the way! You're going to love this," he said with a wink, and then he was gone, and Castiel heard the front door open and shut again. He slowly turned around and leaned forward, slamming his head against the counter with a groan of frustration.
"I am a colossal idiot."