Chapter 3

Still There

Leaning against the doorway, Sam shook his head at the sight before him.

He'd woken up to the sound of shouting – undeniably Gabriel and Dean's voices but surprisingly Castiel's voice, too, as well as other vocalizations and noises that were most likely coming from a TV speaker. When he entered the room of the commotion, Sam had to stop and stare at the three giant TV screens taking up over half the face of the wall. Gabriel, Cas and Dean were all sitting on Gabriel's large couch and were furiously mashing buttons and moving the sticks on the handheld controllers.

Sam had known the three had been sneaking away into Gabriel's entertainment room for the past few days for something, and apparently it was to play a colorful, first-person shooting game called… Borderlands 2. From what Sam could see, they had just started a battle with a cyborg – Wilhelm(?) – and Dean had just muttered something about having to kill himself, which Sam really didn't understand, even as he threw out what looked like a turret.

Gabriel responded with a typical smartass comment, resulting in Dean glaring at him before cussing and quickly moving his character away from several attacking robots. A quick glance to Castiel's screen showed Sam that the angel was the one who had caught the cyborg boss within a circular mass of purple/black… stuff.

Sam's gaze flickered back to Dean, and the screen in front of him as his brother's character 'died' – well, went into something called 'Fight For Your Life!' – but before too long Cas had moved his character over and started reviving Dean while Gabriel distracted the boss and other mobs, sprinting to the other side of the area and jumping around and occasionally turning to fire his (her? technically his character seemed to be a girl) assault rifle at the cyborg with enough precision to get several red, blocked CRITICAL hits.

Gabriel made a frustrated tsking noise when a particular shower of mortars fell right next to his character and took down the cyan blue bar right above what Sam assumed was the health bar. "When you two are done smooching, ya mind helping out?"

Dean grumbled a retort that Castiel took the time to glare at him for, but soon all three were firing at the boss and his minions. Gabriel crowed their victory along with an enthusiastic fist pump in the air. And Sam found himself smiling at the playful antics over who got which bits of the loot.

It was as Dean was assigning badass token things that Gabriel leaned back and finally addressed Sam. "Make up your mind, Samsquatch. Join us or scram," the archangel declared his ultimatum without even looking away from his TV's screen.

"I'm fine just watching," Sam waved him off.

"Aw… Come on, Sammy," Dean said, almost teasingly. He had stopped what he was doing to turn and face Sam. "Let your inner nerd out."

"The plot is rather entertaining, Sam," Cas added, glancing over his shoulder at Sam.

"I'd still rather just watch."

Dean rolled his eyes and turned back to look at his screen. "Whatever, dude. You're missing out."

While Sam simply went back to watching the three quest their way back to Sanctuary, he took the silent offer Gabriel sent his way to sit down (though Sam wasn't on the couch, he was on the room's very comfortable bed – because Gabriel's entertainment room had a bed and a couch). He listened as Gabriel rambled about how he'd lured Dean into playing with him and Cas – starting off at the beginning of a final playthrough of the Pre-Sequel and quickly going through it so Dean could get some of the plot before moving on to the Sequel for some of the 'more epic stuff' – during lulls in NPC dialogue.

What interested Sam the most was the main villain of Borderlands 2. When Sam asked about this Handsome Jack person, Dean responded with "he's funny but also a psychotic bag of cats and happens to have a right to be that way". Gabriel was somewhat reluctant to agree but not before adding "you really should reserve judgment until after you've seen everything he does".

That made Sam pause and give the archangel a troubled look. Obviously Gabriel had played through the entire series before, so he knew what happened. However, the statement sounded like there was something about Handsome Jack that hit close to home. Sam didn't know what it was, but he supposed he might be able to get Cas to tell him or at least more about this Jack character later.

Some time around when Gabriel, Castiel and Dean made it back to a now-floating city of Sanctuary, Sam realized someone was missing. For some reason (though it was more than likely because he had been distracted by watching the other three play their game), it hadn't occurred to him that with Mary out visiting an old friend, Lucifer was somewhere either in the Bunker or elsewhere alone.

While that didn't sound all that concerning, Sam was used to seeing Gabriel and Lucifer joined at the hip more often than not. And when they weren't together, they usually knew where the other was. But recently, Sam couldn't help but notice their… separation, for lack of a better word.

Again, not all that completely concerning. It wasn't like they were constantly together, 24/7. Still, Sam had rarely seen Lucifer in the past two weeks, and Gabriel was being rather quiet about it. Neither had said anything about their abrupt departure from Disney World – which had been even more suspicious when he, Dean, Mary and Cas were all told that their rooms were still reserved to them for another couple days when they tried to check out on the original leave date, but the humans and their angelic friend had just accepted the unexpected gift and stayed on the extended vacation, not passing up the opportunity.

In any case, Sam found himself asking: "So where's Lucifer?"

Gabriel stiffened, and Castiel's worried glance over at the archangel did nothing to assure Sam of the idea that everything was fine. Dean must have caught the look, too, but didn't comment on it. He did, however, give Sam a warning in the form of a raised eyebrow before he went back to selling some of his loot to an ammunition machine.

"You can ask him that the next time you happen to see him."

Sam frowned at the back of Gabriel's head. The archangel's voice had been tense, strained. Something was definitely wrong, or at the very least, not right.

His mind made up, Sam quietly slipped out of the room as the three gradually settled back into playing their game, subtly closing the door behind him with a soft click. He slowly made his way to the entrance of the Bunker, deeming the library as a good place to begin his search for their older resident archangel.

It turned out that Sam didn't have to look any further. He paused in the library's entryway at the sight of Lucifer's back to him. It almost looked like Lucifer was staring out into space, zoned out, or just something – Sam really didn't know. He did know that Lucifer wasn't breathing (not that angels – let alone archangels – needed to breathe or anything).

"Hey, Lucifer, you should go talk to Gabriel and work out whatever's going on between you two…" Sam trailed of when Lucifer didn't so much as twitch. (He still wasn't breathing.) "Lucifer?"

Sam took a small step into the room, taking another step when that didn't garner a reaction. Eventually Sam was only a couple feet away from the zoned out archangel.

"Lucifer?" he tried again, reaching out to lightly touch his shoulder.

Sam's hand never reached its destination.

A crushing grip wrapped around his wrist before twisting his arm behind him and pinning him down on the closest table. Sam was hit with the disturbingly familiar feeling of a bone being snapped right before it all suddenly let up.

"… Sam?"

He raggedly let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and rested his head against the cool table before turning his head to look over his shoulder at a bewildered Lucifer, who abruptly let him go and moved back a couple steps.

"Mind explaining whatever the hell that was?" Sam prompted with no small amount of tension in his voice. He fully turned and took a seat in the nearest chair, cradling his injured (definitely fractured) wrist.

"You startled me," the archangel pouted defensively, even as he brushed two fingers against Sam's temple.

Sam refrained from shivering at the wash of cool grace flooding his system, healing any damage he had received, before both it and the pain simply faded – leaving nothing but a slight buzz. Instead, he raised an eyebrow at the archangel. Continue, the look said.

"I was…" Lucifer had that frown on his face – the one people usually get when they've walked all the way to a certain room and then have to turn back around when they've realized they don't remember why they went to that room or what they were there for. "I was looking for something…"

Sam was in no way on good terms with Lucifer. Not completely anyway.

He might never be able to ever really trust the archangel, but Gabriel trusted him… And Sam kind of trusted Gabriel – he definitely trusted Gabriel Bennett. So he had accepted the olive branch that came with the youngest archangel reconciling with the second oldest archangel – the olive branch being that the two distracted each other with themselves, which meant that any shenanigans were directed at each other and not any unwilling participants (read as: everyone else). Essentially, over the past five or so months, Gabriel and Lucifer had been more occupied with being brothers again than going out Trickster-ing or doing Apocalyptic-y stuff, respectively… And wow, Sam was never saying that out loud.

Still, after having to learn to deal with Lucifer's presence (which was surprisingly less difficult than Sam would prefer to admit), the human could say that Lucifer was okay to be around. The archangel was actually kind of funny and a lot smarter than he let on most of the time. Sam couldn't help but wonder sometimes if it was arrogance or pride that made Lucifer do stupid things that helped lead to his downfall. Sometimes he concluded that it was both.

Either way, he knew Lucifer enough from past experiences to be able to tell that something was seriously off right now.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" he asked, even though he figured the answer was—

"No."

Sam blinked and then frowned. He hadn't exactly been expecting a straight answer. Maybe some avoidance or not even getting an answer at all… Not the sheepish, singular word that just came out of Lucifer's mouth.

"Hey… Are you… okay?"

It wouldn't hurt to just ask. Some people (like Dean) didn't appreciate the offer to simply spill about whatever was bothering you. Sam really wouldn't care one way or the other if Lucifer actually told him what was going on with him. He just hoped that the archangel would take the initiative to go talk to someone if he decided not to tell Sam.

"I, uh— I don't think it's anything for you to worry your pretty little head over," Lucifer replied coolly, smoothing over his initial stumble by putting on an air of his usual grace. (Pun not intended.) And now Lucifer's metaphorical walls were up, a blank mask covering any other discrepancies in his demeanor up.

Well, Sam tried. He would just have to mention this little incident to Castiel or Gabriel, and then he'd be telling Dean and Mary right after.

~o-O-o~

"Hey, your werewolf buddy is still coming, right?"

Dean looked over to amber eyed archangel. "Yeah, I think so. Why?"

"Did he say if he was bringing the rest of his pack with him?" Gabriel asked as he carefully watched over the cooking dishes, taking a quick peek at the turkey in the oven.

"Uh…"

"No," Sam answered for him, striding evenly into the kitchen while he looked down at the tablet in his hands. "And Garth said he's only stopping by to say hi before he goes back to his pack for the rest of the holiday."

"Oh."

"Well, that just means I don't have to make as much of this stuff rare," Gabriel quipped without turning to the room's newest occupant.

Dean rolled his eyes. Gabriel could fix any of the food to any of the coming guests' preferences at the snap of his fingers. It was just the archangel showing off at having everything right the first try and having done it the old fashioned way.

"What about the witch twins? Are they bringing anyone else with them or no?" Gabriel continued.

Dean couldn't help but think that the archangel was going down a mental checklist of people attending the little gathering he and Mary had plotted. It wasn't going to be anything too big, but it would include any family friends for sure.

"Max sounded a bit hesitant about it, but he and Alicia are coming too. And no, I don't know if they're bringing anyone, though I doubt it," Sam replied rather knowledgeably, still looking down at the tablet.

"Jody should be here soon," Dean inputted before Gabriel could even ask. "She's gonna have a great time meeting you."

"Aw, shucks, didn't know you thought so highly of little ol' me," the archangel practically cheered. There was relative silence in the kitchen as Gabriel took the time to stir a few of his concoctions. "Any word from Sam-a-lam's lady friend?"

Dean barely hid smirk when Sam looked up at that.

"Eileen and I aren't—"

"Don't even try to deny it, Sammy-kins! I saw you on FaceTime with her last night."

"I was giving her directions—"

"And what about that time you went off on a hunt with her alone? Bet you kids had some fun," Gabriel interrupted again, though this time with a waggle of his brows.

Dean lightly coughed at the implication, not that he cared. If Sam wanted to become a thing with Eileen, he wasn't about to get in the way of it. He was mainly against relationships that weren't healthy for Sam or anyone else involved. Still, Dean hadn't thought Sam had made a move yet.

"Woah, wait," he cut in, pointing a finger at Sam, who had turned to face him. "I thought you went on that hunt solo."

Gabriel let out a low whistle. "Ooh, that's naughty, Sammy."

"Shut up," Sam hissed at him before returning his attention back to Dean. "I told you I was meeting up with someone. You're the one who assumed otherwise after not listening."

Gabriel let out an amused snort as Dean huffed his irritation. "Whatever, Sam, is your girlfriend coming or not?" Dean asked, deliberately putting a bit of emphasis on 'girlfriend'.

Sam shot a glare at both of them and then rolled his eyes, opting to look back down at the tablet he had placed on the table. "Yes, she's coming… and she'd not my girlfriend."

"Hmm… We're going to have to fix that," Gabriel intoned in a sing-song voice.

"I will throw this tablet at you."

Eventually both Dean and Sam were kicked out of the kitchen. Something about Gabriel wanting to keep most of the food courses a surprise, though Dean pretty much already knew what most of what was being cooked was.

Still, it gave Sam and Dean the excuse to go finish the 'preparations', which mainly consisted of making the tables in the library dinner table worthy. Thankfully, they didn't have to worry about not having enough chairs, so they quickly moved on to decorations their mom had insisted upon. The open room was soon lightly littered with (fake) fall leaves and other Thanksgiving-y trinkets. Dean was rather proud of the cornucopia he had arranged on the middle table.

Not too long after they had finished, Sam's phone received a message from Garth indicating that the hunter-turned-werewolf was close and that he'd be there any minute now.

"I still can't believe we're actually doing this."

Sam elbow nudged Dean in the side as they made their way down the corridors to the garage. "Just think of it like we asked everyone to come over so we could all hang out."

Dean tried to put it all into perspective with that mindset. "Nope. It's still weird," he said, shaking his head. "Dude, I'm freaking out. We've never had this many people come over to 'hang out'."

"Well…" Sam started, trying to think of something that might calm Dean down. "I dunno. Don't think too hard about it. Be yourself."

"Very inspirational," Dean grumbled.

Sam just gave him a helpless shrug. Dean shook his head and rolled his eyes.

How had they even gotten here?

That's what Dean asked himself every time something like this happened. 'Something like this' being, well, this. Domestic normalcy (as close as they could get to it anyway). Dean had only gotten small tastes of it throughout his life, though he knew that Sam had known and felt what it was like more than Dean ever could have. Sam had tried to treat Dean to it once in a while.

But this. This was way beyond what Dean was ready for.

Thanksgiving dinner with friends and family.

Yeah, no. Brain still in overload.

Dean had maybe been a part of one 'proper' Thanksgiving holiday – and that had been with Lisa and Ben. It had been a bit awkward, but it had also been nice. This was something else.

It was still sometimes hard for Dean to wrap his head around the fact that they now had two archangels living with them in the Bunker. Some hunts still got kind of rough, but nothing was all that life threatening for the most part. There wasn't some dark, evil big-bad on the verge of destroying the world as they knew it.

Life was… easy. It was relaxed. It was nice.

And that was why Dean was hesitant to accept it all. Now don't take that the wrong way – Dean was grateful for the good stuff life was throwing his way, but he was also just waiting for the inevitable curveball that would pull the rug out from underneath their feet.

"Dean."

The older Winchester blinked, his eyes quickly snapping over to the source of the half-irritated and half-concerned voice of his brother. "What?"

Sam just let out a knowing sigh before answering. "I said, Castiel and Jody, Claire, and Alex will be here in another hour or so. And Mom just texted that she's a couple hours out, but she and the twins should make it in time. I think Lucifer's still setting up the area outside."

"Oh," Dean responded blankly. He really zoned out there for a minute, didn't he? Oops.

"Come on, let's get saying hi to Garth over with."

Yes, Dean did consider Garth a friend, but he was not looking forward to the werewolf's customary hug. "Right. Fun times."

"Don't be mean, you jerk," Sam said with a smirk.

"Whatever, bitch."

A/N: Hmm… not as long as I wanted it to be, but I feel like I should just let you guys imagine the best Thanksgiving dinner ever for the 'little' SPN family I have accumulated here. It was a relatively good place to stop too. Really, this is just making it easier for me to pick up however I want next chapter. This was filler with 'hints' of plot anyways, so next chapter might be more filler with a bit more plot. IDK.

Dammit, Borderlands 2 consumed (is comsuming) my life a little too much over my summer break. And I still have AP English stuff to do! WHY?! (I am such a bad procrastinator. Kill me.)

Last edited: [August 12, 2018]

teabrows: Well, I'm glad you liked my little essay.

As for that last question of yours... I'm not really sure. However, there's this one fanfic called A History of Heaven by Crawler (it's about 160k words long if you really wanna go read it; it's not half bad even if you don't agree with some of the things in there). In the fic, the backstory for Gabriel and Raphael is that they were originally one being before they were split in two – Gabriel and Raphael became practically opposites; Gabriel being everything Raphael wasn't and vice versa. The resulting relationship is actually pretty strained since Gabriel is all warm and fun loving while Raphael could get kind of cold at times with his strict, no nonsense attitude. (It's been a while since I actually read the story, so sue me if some of what I just wrote is a bit off. Please don't actually sue me though...)

But I guess if I'm just sticking to SPN canon, then I suppose it's possible for Raphael and Gabriel to have been like Michael and Lucifer, which would kind of make the relationship between Lucifer and Gabriel understandable – they're similar through being the younger brothers within a set/pair. It's also possible that after Michael raised Lucifer, Chuck made Raphael; Michael was in charge of Raphael's upbringing; Chuck then made Gabriel, and Lucifer was in charge of raising Gabriel instead of Michael or Raphael (which would take into account Lucifer teaching Gabriel all of his tricks); the relationship between Raphael and Gabriel could have been anything at that point, but I have the feeling that either way, Raphael would have still treated Gabriel similarly to how Michael treated Lucifer, if on a lesser scale.

Anyways, the point is that when Gabriel fled Heaven during Michael and Lucifer's fighting, Raphael (along with the rest of Heaven) most likely assumed Gabriel had died (at least, that's what Gabriel was implying – in my opinion; that he'd faked his dead). And what's a way that some people deal with grief? They shut down and more or less cut themselves off from their emotions. Not healthy, but that could have been what happened to turn Raphael into what we know of him in the show.

I hope you got your answer somewhere in the jumbled mess of words. XD

Avenage99: I knew you'd like that part with Borderlands, you poetic philosophical nerd. (Also, I'm thinking about posting a Tales from the Borderlands one-shot about Rhys' thoughts on Jack, post Episode 5. Good idea or no?)