AN: I know you guys are chomping at the bit to get some more of Cas, consider this a peace offering for his early exclusion! xoxox reviews are your friends, so ...you know! love them, write them! and leave them for me to find lol
swlfangirl
Castiel was sitting at his desk when he'd received the call. Being a US Marshal apparently afforded you some perks, even if they were things like immediate notification in the event of your brother's death. He had to still be in shock, because he actually found that to be fairly humorous. It had been at least twenty years since he'd seen or heard from Lucifer, and Castiel could barely remember him and without photographs he doubted he could even recall what he looked like. He supposed he'd given up hope of having him back long ago, but finding out he was dead was something he hadn't expected..
He gathered his things from his desk and nearly stood, before glancing back at the blackened computer screen staring back at him. If he wanted to find out what happened he'd have to look himself; the local authorities in whatever podunk town they'd found him probably wouldn't like a US Marshal asking too many questions about their investigation.
When he searched the database for information, bleak would have been a generous definition of what he found. The back alley way of doing things seemed more promising in theory, searching through news articles, police statements, and making a few calls. Being a US Marshal tended to open all sorts of doors when you're looking for information, but even still the only details from the case that he could uncover were the names of two suspects, and that they were claiming self defense. With a little more digging he was able to find an address for Dean Winchester and Joanna Harvelle.
It was only thirty minutes later when he walked into Gabriel's office. He knew how his brother had felt about their older sibling, and there wasn't any love lost between them. Lucifer had left home after a fierce argument with Michael, and there'd been no word from him since. However even taking that into account, Castiel didn't want anyone else to be the one to give Gabe the news. So he sat in the plush seat beside the closed door, waiting for Gabriel to have the time to see him. He didn't have to wait long; the door swung open and his much shorter brother stepped through, wearing his personally trademarked look of smugness.
When he broke the news to Gabe, the other man barely reacted. He just took the new information in his stride, almost as if he wasn't surprised in the least. But then, he did something completely unexpected…he stood up from his chair and demanded a road trip. Castiel would have thought his brother had gone completely crazy, but he'd had thirty years of previous experience with the man and his eccentricities. Gabriel never ceased to amaze him, with the constant pranking, and never ending surprises, he should honestly have seen this coming.
Against his better judgment, the shorter man convinced him to drive nearly thirteen hours and through three states to get information from people he wasn't supposed to know about, let alone talk to. They'd filled Gabriel's car up with a couple of weeks worth of clothes, drinks, snacks, and eventually fuel before leaving town. It was just barely an hour later when they made their first stop. Castiel looked at Gabe in confusion as he pulled off the exit ramp.
"You cannot seriously need the restroom already, Gabriel."
"Not everything is a necessity, but if you must know this would definitely qualify."
Castiel rolled his eyes in disbelief, but continued to sit quietly in the passenger seat. He'd thought the cherry red convertible was such a ridiculously expensive choice at first, but the longer he'd been seated against the soft interior, the more it seemed he'd been a little rash in assuming that ego was the only reason his brother had picked it. He would admit that it had been very freeing to feel the wind as it whipped through his hair, he would have almost compared it to horseriding, in the way it felt as if he were flying. However, nothing could really have compared to the experience he'd always loved, that moment when his black stallion galloped across the field with the ground falling away beneath him.
Instead of stopping at the first restaurant, gas station, or even convenience store that they saw, they passed several which only added to Castiel's confusion. He'd even seen two auto mechanic shops, so he assumed there was nothing wrong with the vehicle. He nearly just asked his brother what he was doing again, but he knew his efforts would be fruitless. So he just leaned back in his seat instead, and closed his eyes to wait for Gabriel to decide to stop the car.
They pulled up to a house, or what used to be one; it could have easily been condemned in it's current state. He thought for sure Gabe had lost it, or signed them up for one of those weird reality tv shows of his or something. One episode of Survivor was enough to teach him that he wanted nothing to do with the genre. Gabriel had already stepped outside and moved up the shaky porch, before Castiel made the decision to get out of the car.
"Gabriel, what are you doing? There's police tape around the door frame..."
That's when it hit him, they were at Lucifer's house. All these years gone, and his brother had just been a short one hour drive away, but he'd never called, or visited, or anything. Then he thought back over the information he'd found on his computer and not once did it mention an address, which raised the question: how in hell Gabriel knew where to go?
"How did you know Gabe?"
The question seemed simple in nature, but it was loaded with all of the resentment and loneliness Castiel had ever felt towards Lucifer, even he knew that. Gabe, who had always been his favorite brother and the only one he really liked spending time with, had been hiding things from him. By the look on Gabe's face, more than enough of his questions had been answered, and he still wasn't sure if he wanted to share the mysterious information. Clearly, he thought he was protecting his younger brother, and Castiel wasn't sure if he should be angry or grateful. Gabriel wasn't one to keep his mouth closed about anything, certainly not something he felt was important, which suggested that whatever secrets he'd been keeping were going to be unpleasant to deal with.
"Relax, Cassie, I just want to scope the place out."
Wasn't that just like his brother? Completely ignoring his warnings and dodging the harder question he hadn't wanted to answer, all at the same time. Gabe reminded him a bit of a magician with the way he would stand center stage, bigger than life, show his hand and all his tricks, and still end up distracting the audience long enough to accomplish what he'd wanted. He was a master at slight of hand tricks. It was one of the many things that made him such an incredible attorney. It wasn't until Castiel had returned from Iraq with an honorable discharge that he'd had the privilege to see his brother in the courtroom, and that's certainly what it was. It was nothing short of brilliant the way the smaller man commanded his presence and had the jury eating out of the palm of his hand.
He followed Gabriel through the door because at that point he no longer had plausible deniability, so he may as well help. He found broken glass smashed into nearly every surface which suggested signs of a struggle, at least at first...but once he'd taken a longer look he realized they were all vodka bottles and unless his older brother could drink an entire liquor store, they'd surely been broken at different points in time and just not been cleaned or picked up.
He moved to a different room and found a small picture, no bigger than his thumb, of a beautiful blonde girl staring at Lucifer with admiration and love in her eyes. He slipped the photo in his pocket before he turned and spotted a laptop left on the floor. Castiel was seriously starting to believe that whoever was running this investigation was totally inept. Who left such a crucial pieces of evidence behind at a crime scene?
He disregarded the normal procedures, because clearly the police had done the same, and he opened the screen and pushed the power button. Nothing happened, it seemed evident that at the very least the battery was dead, but that could easily be fixed with fifty bucks or a Marshal's badge. Luckily enough, he just happened to have both. Castiel finished his search quickly, not wanting to stay in the oppressive atmosphere that seemed to permeate through the house, and decided to wait for Gabe outside.
Gabriel came out of the house a moment later, with a look of mild disappointment showing briefly on his face. Of course as soon as he saw Castiel he put on that fake smile that he always seemed to wear when he thought someone was watching. They left without much hesitation; there was nothing really left to see.
As he slid into the passenger seat, Castiel mentioned that he wanted to stop somewhere and pick up a charger for the laptop so that he could hopefully gain more knowledge about what had happened. He may have said the last part of the statement with a little more petulance than what he normally would have, but the fact that Gabe was still keeping him in the dark was really starting to work its way inside his regular sunny disposition.
They hit the road again for another few hours. Castiel had to content himself with flipping through a magazine Gabe had picked up at the gas station because his only other option was to stare at the endless highway in front of them. Finally, they stopped for dinner nearly halfway into their journey while they debated if they should get a hotel room for the night, because Gabriel refused to let Castiel drive his precious car. He couldn't see what the big deal was, but the older brother could not be persuaded. No one touched Lola but him.
The town they were in pretty much the middle of nowhere, hardly the type of area to support a booming tourism industry, so the motel they pulled into wasn't anything fancy. Gabriel complained a lot, but cheered up immensely when he discovered the fully stocked mini-bar and an array of chocolate bars. Castiel really couldn't care one way or the other. He'd stayed in worse places; as long as it had a bed and an outlet for him to plug in his newly acquired charger, he'd deal till morning.
Lucifer's laptop booted up, and Castiel was surprised to find that there was no login or password required. It just booted up to the desktop, a picture of a blonde girl with her arms wrapped around an older man who must be Lucifer. His brother either hadn't thought he'd need to protect his information or he didn't care if anyone found what was on there. It was … unusual. Still, it made Castiel's job easier at least. Settling down for a long evening, he began to sort through the information, starting with the internet history.
It took several hours. The longer he sat there, the more disturbed he became. Lucifer seemed hooked on gambling sites and had numerous large cash withdrawals from his bank. His internet searches for weapons and a bizarre obsession with the occult. It reminded Castiel of the types of people he tracked down for a living rather than his half-remembered older brother.
Then there were the emails. Lucifer seemed to use his email infrequently, clearly preferring less trackable means of communicating. But there were several saved emails from a Dean Winchester addressed to Jo Harvelle that had somehow been forwarded to Lucifer's email. Castiel very much doubted that it was a coincidence that those were the names of the two suspects in the murder case.
But reading through them, all he saw was a worried brother trying to get information on his sister. There was no mention of Lucifer and the emails were sent months, even years apart. Each email was increasingly desperate for information, but there was still so much hope. Like Dean had absolutely no doubt that Jo would come home eventually.
Castiel envied him. He'd never been that close with his siblings. Not even Gabe, who'd wander in and out of Castiel's life whenever he felt like it.
But then he'd opened the last email. Instead of the hopeful letters that he'd been reading, the whole thing ached with a terrible loneliness. There was a sadness to the letter that resonated with something inside him. He didn't know why, but he felt a sense of recognition; as if even though they'd never met, Castiel somehow knew this man.
The desire to find out what had happened to Lucifer was even stronger, but now it was mixed with a sense of uncertainty. When Gabriel had first suggested this road trip, Castiel had had a half-imagined plan that they were going to seek justice for Lucifer's death. But it was slowly dawning on him that this wasn't a clear cut case, and he didn't think that Lucifer was an innocent victim.
"DId you find anything useful?" Gabe asked after a bit, clearly getting bored of whatever trashy television show he'd been watching.
"Perhaps. I think we really need to talk to Miss Harvelle," Castiel said still looking at the email. He couldn't bring himself to mention Dean to his brother, though. If Gabriel was going to keep secrets from him, that was fine, but he was going to keep this to himself as well. He could tell his brother's curiosity was growing. Out of a sudden fear of discovery, Castiel forwarded the email to himself and then quickly deleted it, his mind more at ease once he knew Gabe would never see it.
"Let me have it, maybe I can work my magic on it and find out something you missed."
Just as he'd suspected, Gabriel wasn't one to beat around the bush if it was something he wanted. He shut the email window down and politely passed it over. He thought about the words over and over in his mind as he laid against the uncomfortable hardness of his mattress. He didn't have long enough to memorize it, but he knew the way that he had felt, when reading it was uncommon, to say the least. There was something about Dean Winchester that made him feel like he was missing something, something profound.