Author's note: Thanks so much to Larkafree, Maknatuna, Keefer, kb18142, CherylB1964, Maddy Love Castiel, Riceball-1989, XxZessxX and robby1925 for last chapter's reviews!

14

Dean ducked low as the entire group followed an obviously flustered Chuck into his house. This was where that damned pigeon lived after all, so the blonde cat felt justified in being highly suspicious of their new surroundings. Oh, it wasn't that he was worried or even afraid for himself. He was a hunter, a real warrior, nothing could scare him! He had to make sure that Castiel with his inferior human instincts was safe as well however and that was the only reason why he was walking as close as possible to him!

"I… uh… I…. didn't expect visitors," Chuck mumbled, fumbling with his blue-striped bathrobe to get it closed completely in the front. If he had known that someone might visit he would have at least worn pants over his boxers, usually anyway.

"Given the circumstances, I might as well be the one with the inappropriate attire," Castiel deadpanned, sparing a quick side-glance toward Becky, who was still dressed in her bathrobe as well, after all. He wasn't entirely sure why he had entered the house at all, but Chuck had stepped aside to let them all inside and Sam had immediately followed Becky – or rather Gabriel – inside which had then prompted both Dean and Castiel to follow.

"Do you want a bathrobe, too? Chuck has a few," Becky suggested, startling not only the two men with it. The blonde woman didn't seem to notice however as she simply kept chattering on. "This is one of the strangest mornings I've had in a while! First there's not one singly leaflet in the mail, then the crazy girl from across the street attacks me and finally I find Gabriel and this beautiful kitty in my living room!"

The long-haired cat was pretty sure that he was never going to live any of this down. First Dean and Castiel had seen how he had been chased by Becky on her bike, then Gabriel had made his intentions of being in some sort of physical relationship with him known and just when his older brother had sort of stopped laughing about that the blonde woman had said something that had immediately started the grinning and chuckling again!

"His name is Sam," Castiel pointed out. The blue-eyed man was sure that this was the time to let the woman know that the long-haired cat belonged to him and that he didn't intend to change anything about that.

"Hear that, Sammy, you're 'this beautiful kitty' now!" Dean commented between laughs, sitting close enough to Castiel's leg so they were touching, "Looks like not only the pigeon has a crush on you!"

Gabriel bristled at that even faster than Sam did. He had only just decided that he absolutely wanted to have the cat all to himself, even if being in a monogamous relationship might damn them both to being celibate for some time, so the thought of having to share with Becky of all people was scandalous!

"Anyway, I think Gabriel hurt his wing. He was hopping around and didn't even try to fly," Becky finished, noticing how the bird was getting restless in her hands. Besides, they were all standing in the middle of the living room and someone had to start with getting them back to the topic at hand. Identifying what the topic at hand even was wasn't that easy, however.

"I'll… I'll take a look at that…" Chuck replied, nodding to himself as he reached out to take Gabriel from Becky. That the bird might have hurt himself explained his prolonged – even for his standards – absence. It did not explain why there were two cats as well as a distant neighbor Chuck had only seen in passing once or twice in his house, however. He really wished – not for the first time – that Gabriel could simply talk to him.

The pigeon kept perfectly still as his father was carefully checking his wings, it was only when the human frowned and threw him a few inches in the air that he spread his wings purely out of instinct and flew in a small circle over the heads of everyone present. He then quickly landed right next to Sam, rubbing his head against the cat's chest before he could get mad.

"You could fly this entire time?" the long-haired cat groaned, ducking his head to give the bird's head a quick lick. He wasn't really angry or anything, at least not yet. He wasn't sure how he was going to react to learning that the pigeon had just deceived and used him this entire time, however. He'd give Gabriel the chance to explain first, in any case.

"I don't think so," the pigeon replied awkwardly, sitting between Sam's front paws, ignoring the strange looks the humans gave them. He also ignored how amused Dean was already again, but the other cat's opinion didn't really concern him either way. He mostly had to worry about his father's judgment, in fact.

"You don't think so?" Sam repeated after his little companion. He honestly didn't know what to think of the evasive answer he had gotten.

"It's not like I actually tried!" Gabriel stated defensively, "Look, back in your garden my wing hurt like hell, but after that… you never gave me a reason to have to try. Everything was going great!"

The brown cat huffed out a breath, but didn't object. There had been a lot of times when the pigeon should have better taken flight, but Sam had to agree that everything had worked out for the best. Not to mention that he simply didn't feel like being mad at Gabriel while the pigeon was nestling against his chest in a sort of apology.

"Your pigeon is very remarkable," Castiel spoke in a perfectly neutral tone. He might have been surprised by the level of affection the bird displayed for the younger one of his two cats, that there was something going on with those two had been quite obvious to him before already, however. Sam had acted like he had wanted to protect Gabriel earlier, after all.

"Gabriel is an archangel pigeon," Chuck stated like that explained why exactly the golden bird had made friends with the long-haired cat, "He is… he is one of a kind, though. His brothers are more… conventional."

Saying that Gabriel was the very strange one of the bunch would have felt like badmouthing the bird. It wasn't like Chuck was bothered or inconvenienced by the pigeon's behavior, it simply was extraordinary. Sending the messenger pigeons out was more like a pet-peeve of his, anyway. It wasn't like he couldn't get the messages across in another way by himself.

"Conventional? Boring is what they are," the golden bird commented in a huff, "And bickering like an old married… triple."

It was mostly Michael and Lucifer arguing however, so they were like an old married couple. Gabriel hadn't wanted to exclude Raphael. Not to mention that his black and brown brother was annoying him frequently enough to be included, anyway.

"Oh great, there're more from where he came from," Dean snarked, "We better get out of here quick!"

Sometimes the blonde cat wondered, if his human really could read his mind. Castiel often said the right things with the exactly right timing, either way.

"I am glad that we were able to get to the bottom of this, but I think it is time for us to leave now," the blue-eyed man stated in a friendly tone. Sometimes he just had to wonder if Dean didn't understand him, after all. The cat had stood up the exact moment he had spoken about leaving, anyway.

"Uh… were we?" Chuck asked while Becky nodded along. The two of them weren't quite so sure that they knew what had happened that morning. They would have been content to just say that it had been a strange morning and move on, to be honest.

"Of course. Sam and Gabriel are friends now," Castiel explained as if it was the most obvious things in the world. Sam had to give the man credit for drawing all the right conclusions. Unfortunately he tended to express things in an all too easy to misunderstand way, though. "And they obviously spent the night together."

Gabriel didn't seem to see anything wrong with the statement and the long-haired cat wouldn't necessarily have either, but the way Dean was laughing again was annoying him just a little. Okay, it was annoying him a lot, especially since he had long since run out of new comments about Dean and Castiel and thus didn't have anything to shoot back with when his older brother would inevitably tease him about all this.

"Shut it, jerk!" Sam finally huffed, getting ready to leave just a little reluctantly. He'd see Gabriel again before long he was sure, but Dean would have a lot of time to annoy him in the meantime.

"At least I'm not some pigeon's bitch, bitch!" the blonde cat shot back, smirking.

The golden pigeon couldn't help chuckling at that, too. He immediately took flight to get away from Sam's warningly raised paw and landed on his father's shoulder.

The bird's move brought his presence back to Becky's attention. In all honesty, she might have been a little preoccupied watching the long-haired cat before. It would be really nice, if Sam decided to visit her more often in the future. Oh well, she knew where he lived in case he didn't. She'd only have to come up with a reason to visit the dark-haired man, but that really shouldn't be that much of a problem. Once upon a time she had spent a lot of early mornings in front of Chuck's house so she could intercept his morning newspaper and deliver it herself, after all.

"Oh, Chuck, I never read your message. What was it about?" the blonde woman stated. Getting the piece of paper off Gabriel's leg hadn't been on the forefront of her mind for quite some time. She had been busy trying to – uselessly – rescue the bird, after all.

"I just wanted to tell you that coffee this afternoon was okay with me," Chuck shrugged lightly.

Becky clearly was happy with what she had just heard and it didn't look like Gabriel was surprised by hearing what exactly he had tried to deliver as hard as he had. The revelation of the content of the message still left a bad taste in the long-haired cat's mouth. Of course, the fact that Dean was once more incredibly amused played a rather big part in that.

"That was the all important message?" Sam asked incredulously while Dean broke into another fit of laughter. The brown cat was quite sure that he hadn't heard his brother laugh this much in a very long time. He would have preferred it, if not all the laughing had been at his expense, though.

"There's no such thing as and unimportant message! Some are just more important than others!" Gabriel pointed out in a lecturing tone, "See you later, Gigantor!"

Maybe the most important thing about this particular message hadn't been its actual content, however. It might have been all about the journey to get it delivered.