Dean has a single voicemail from Gabriel –

How is he?

That's it. Three words. Several hours later, when he has yet to find the time to call Gabriel back, another message appears.

Not that I care or anything.

Dean sighs and picks up the phone, dialling the number for Castiel's former first assistant. Gabriel, presumably as a mark of how he really doesn't care, waits until the middle of the second ring to pick up, sounding like he's just leapt across the room.

"Gabriel, just call him." Dean begs, in lieu of 'hello'.

"Never!" Gabriel proclaims melodramatically. There's a long pause as Dean waits for the inevitable...

"Does he miss me?" Gabriel asks in a small voice.

"Like a monkey misses the organ grinder." Dean promises. "He's just ploughing through all the things you left in the kitchen and going for runs."

Gabriel sighs. Then, "Hold up, even the chocolate lube?"

Dean feels slightly sick.

"Which was..."

"Red tube in the salad drawer."

Dean presses his fingers to his temple. "No, because I ate that on my oatmeal this morning."

Silence.

"Bleh." Gabriel says unhelpfully.

Dean chokes down his bile and tries to focus on the issue at hand.

"Just...call my brother, tell him you're sorry for being an ass and then offer him make-up sex." Dean winces at the unfairness that he is the one giving this talk.

"He won't even talk to me." Gabriel insists.

"Well, make him talk to you." Dean says unhelpfully.

There's a long, dangerous silence.

"Huh." Gabriel says thoughtfully, then hangs up.

Dean stares at the phone, wondering what he's just unleashed on the world.

"Dean." Castiel calls from the main office, walking towards Dean's desk even as he reels off - "I'm going to my lunch appointment, while I'm gone, get the numbers for last quarter, Uriel on the phone, fresh starbucks and the proofs from yesterdays shoot..." He picks up his coat and slides gracefully into it, pausing as Dean hands him his briefcase. Blues eyes trace the lines of Dean's face for a second before he leans forwards and kisses him lightly on the mouth leaning in fast but pulling away slow.

"Take some time for lunch." He advises, softly.

"Will do." Dean hides his surprise at the caring interlude. "I'll see you later."

Castiel leaves Dean standing there, with a low thrum of warmth in his veins.

It's all started to shift to a different locus, this thing with Castiel. They sleep in 'the red room' and breakfast downstairs – breakfasts which they cook themselves as opposed to having them brought in by the caterer. The ruined pearlescent splendour of the downstairs rooms is steadily being replaced. Castiel made a mood board (whatever that was) and spent a long time in his office, looking at it and asking Dean's opinion on serge verses umber. He seems wondrously unsure now that he has the chance to overhaul his environment.

Dean still doesn't really care about throw pillows. But he did pitch in on the discussion of whether to install what Castiel tactfully described as 'a moodily lit room with wall mounted chains and scotch guarded floors'.

He came down on the side of 'pro bondage dungeon' Mainly because Balthazar wouldn't let Castiel have one, the way most wives wouldn't allow an indoor basket ball hoop or a go-cart track. But he had to be 'anti painting it yellow in defiance of tradition' – too weird by far.

There's also normal stuff to consider like, couches and carpets and whether Castiel even wants end tables. All of which Castiel is labouring with like he's actually building a house instead of merely furnishing one.

Dean's getting used to the moments, when, spread out and naked on top of Castiel's writhing body – the other man squints at the ceiling as if he's trying to decide between crown mouldings and coving.

Oh yes, Dean's learnt the words – he's probably qualified to be an interior designer by now. But somehow it's worth it to see Castiel light up whenever he gets the 'feel' of the room exactly right. To have the place transformed from a house to a home over a period of weeks.

Dean jots down his to-do list and pops down to the canteen for lunch. Things are changing, doubtless they'll continue, but they're changing for the better.

He just wishes he knew where they were headed, sometimes.

Sam's habits aren't known to a lot of people. Dean knows for example, that Sam eats raisin bread every time he gets breakfast on the way into work. He knows that Sam washes his sheets every three weeks and folds them just so to be stacked, three deep, in the linen chest. Prefers the big couch to the recliner and he only sits at the dining table when he's reading.

Sam also only orders pizza when he's depressed.

This is a fact known to only two people.

Not only does he order pizza when he's depressed, he orders it from the same restaurant, in the interval between Desperate Housewives and Gilmore Girls, his standard 'depressed evening in' television fare.

So, when the knock comes on the door, Sam picks up his wallet and approaches the spy hole, spotting the large white box just outside his door. It's all a part of his routine.

However, if there was ever a person that was born into the job of ruining routines – Gabriel would probably steal that person's job, and possibly his car as well.

Sam opens the door and sees before him the last man he expected to see. Gabriel, brandishing a white pizza box and wearing a...

"What the hell is in your face?" Sam asks moodily, securing the large, dark moustache with a glare so intense a lesser piece of facial hair might have withered and fallen from its place.

"I'm sorry?" Gabriel says in an appalling Italian accent.

"Gabriel." Sam sighs.

Balancing the pizza on one palm, Gabriel holds up a hand. "Mario." He corrects. "You want ze pizza or not?"

Sam gives him a withering look.

"It's a Chicago, deep pan Gabriel...nothing Italian about it."

Gabriel looks put out.

"Are you still going to let me in?"

Sam rolls his eyes, but steps away from the door.

"Take off the moustache." He demands, watching Gabriel open the pizza box and remove a slice.

"You love it." Gabriel says, through a mouthful of pizza.

Sam takes a slice and sits down on the couch.

Gabriel looks at him thoughtfully.

"Ask me when I last had sugar." He says, finally. "Go on, ask me."

"Why?"

Gabriel waves a hand encouragingly.

"Ok, fine – when?"

"Not since I last saw you." Gabriel says proudly. He chews thoughtfully on his pizza. "It's not the same when you're not licking it off of someone you..." he frowns, looks up. "I was an ass...I'm sorry." He says seriously. "Forgive me, beat me...I don't care, just let me come back."

Sam looks at him sceptically. "You won't call me a moose again?"

"No."

"Or say I look like a constipated Pekinese?"

"Never."

"Or stand next to me in the bathroom, making cracks about my..."

"I won't say or do, anything offensive." Gabriel promises. "Unless you want me to." He adds with a grin.

Sam stares at him a minute longer.

"I'll get you a plate." He says softly, walking towards the kitchen.

Gabriel takes it as the almost acceptance of an almost apology.