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Chapter XXV

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'What are you doing down here so early?' Dean asked when he finally found Gabriel down in the kitchen after waking up and noticing him gone from bed. He was sitting at the table with a mug of coffee next to his arm and a bunch of papers all in front of him.

'Filling out Michael's medical papers,' Gabriel answered quietly. Dean stopped short and he was sure his eyes widened a little.

'You don't have to do that,' he said.

'No one else will,' Gabriel answered simply. Dean looked at him for a moment, even if Gabriel was not looking at him, but down at the document he was filling out. He went to pour himself coffee, and squeezed Gabriel's shoulder while he passed him.

'So, does that mean he's fine?' Dean asked, while he had his back to the other man.

'Yeah, Kali called. It was a little touch and go for a while, but he's stable.'

Dean didn't comment on that one. He was one part relieved that Michael didn't die, because Gabriel would've been effected by that, and not in a good way. On the other hand, the bastard was the cause for the worst things Gabriel had to go through his life, so Dean had no sympathy for the guy and he couldn't care less about him. He just wanted Gabriel to be okay, and all of them to recover from this nightmare that Michael's return brought along as smoothly as possible.

He had no idea how it would go, he wasn't sure how Gabriel was going to deal with this on the long run. Dean sat down next to him at the table, sipping his coffee silently. Castiel was asleep, but not since long, so they could let him rest for a bit before having to wake him up again. Dean's eyes landed on the papers on the table and he frowned.

'Where did you get all this stuff anyway?' he asked. He was pretty sure Gabriel didn't up and drove all the way back to Denver just to get these.

'I grabbed them yesterday at the hospital,' came the answer. Which meant that he planned to do this from the start.

'I have no clue what's going through your head,' he admitted.

'I'm not sure either,' Gabriel told him and he finally lifted his pen from the paper and looked up at Dean. 'I'm just... going with the flow, doing stuff that's not freaking me out.'

'Okay, that sounds good,' Dean nodded. He just hoped that Gabriel would tell them if he felt freaked out about anything regarding this, instead of trying to force himself. He tended to be honest about such things lately, but Dean was still worried, he just knew he won't ever stop being worried even if just a little. He wanted Gabriel to keep being okay, but this whole Michael thing was a very shaky ground.

'Planning on seeing him?' Dean asked and Gabriel's pen stopped on the paper again.

'I don't know,' he answered after taking a breath.

'Do me a favor and call Chuck beforehand if you decide to go, okay?'

'Yeah, okay,' Gabriel nodded. 'Nick survived too, by the way,' he added as he went back to scribbling on the form.

'Who?' Dean frowned, not following the sudden change in topic.

'Nick... our captor, Michael's ex-cellmate,' Gabriel explained. Dean gripped his mug tightly, his fingers whitening.

'Dammit,' he breathed out. 'I really didn't have a clear shot, I thought I got him.'

'You were the one who shot him?' Gabriel asked, raising an eyebrow.

'Didn't have time to aim properly when Cas threw himself at him,' Dean grumbled. He was normally not that eager to kill anyone, but with this bastard, he really wished he could've gotten him at a vital spot.

'Never be sorry for not taking a life, Dean.' Both Gabriel and Dean looked up and turned where Katrina walked into the kitchen, a shopping bag in her hand.

'This time I am, Katrina. Trust me I wouldn't have had nightmares over it,' Dean told her. 'It would be better for everyone without that scumbag alive.'

'I'm sure he will be sent right back to prison,' Katrina replied.

'But for how long? A decade? Two? Just thinking about this guy being free ever again pisses me off,' he said, feeling how the anger over what happened bubbled up within him again. 'He broke into our home! Hurt Cas, he was holding a fucking gun at Gabe's head! I want to wipe this fucker off the face of the Earth!' he growled.

'Language, Dean. I could call Mr. Crowley or someone else,' Katrina said while she was putting away everything from the shopping bag. 'Make sure he doesn't cause trouble for anyone again.'

Dean thought about it. 'Yeah, maybe. Depends on why he was in prison the first time around.'

'He killed his father,' Gabriel said. He was filling out a different sheet of paper now. Both Dean and Katrina turned to look at him for a moment, but he didn't elaborate.

'Son of a bitch,' Dean cursed. 'He told you that?'

'Told me some, figured out the rest,' Gabriel answered. 'I had to keep him occupied with something,' he added when Dean kept looking at him with a slight surprise on his face. 'So I kept talking and he kept talking in return.'

'Okay, gonna have to make a phone call,' Dean said finishing off his coffee. He definitely had to ask Victor about the guy and give him this information. Maybe it was already in this Nick guy's file, but better safe than sorry. Plus he wanted to make sure that the bastard was under locks even before they transported him into jail where he will wait until the trial.

Gabriel went back to his papers and folders, while Katrina started preparing breakfast. Dean admired her skill to act completely natural even when things were all screwed up. It gave all of them a sense of stability, that not everything in their lives was upside-down.

He went over to the living-room and dialed Victor's number. The sergeant picked up almost immediately, but that was no surprise, during work hours he always did.

'Hello Dean, everything alright at home?' Victor asked as a way of greeting.

'As they can possibly be at the moment,' Dean answered honestly. 'Listen, you got an ID on the guy with Michael already, right?'

'You're still not supposed to be involved in this,' Victor reminded him.

'Screw that, I wanna know who the guy is and why this whole crap happened. Gabriel said his name is Nick and he was Michael's cellmate.'

Victor stayed silent for a moment, obviously thinking about whether to start speaking, then he sighed and Dean knew that he won.

'Yes, Nicholas Lusepher. I got his file already.'

'I know he's alive, tell me he's on lock-up in the hospital.'

'He's not exactly in a condition to be a danger to anyone,' Victor told him. 'But I got some uniforms at the hospital in case he woke up and starts being too active for his own good.'

'Good,' Dean nodded even if he knew Victor would not see that. 'I wonder why the hell a guy like him could be let free. He's dangerous for fuck's sake. He also told Gabriel that he killed his own Dad, that in the file too?' Dean asked next.

'It is, but that's not what landed him in prison,' Victor told him. 'He was fifteen when he did that and after the investigation it seemed like it was self-defense. A bit of an overkill though, sixteen stab wounds on his old man. The neighbors found Nicholas with the corpse a day later.'

'Well fuck, abused kid?'

'Undoubtedly. He was in state care until he hit eighteen, got therapy and everything for a few years.'

'The load of good that did,' Dean remarked.

'He had some minor troubles after eighteen. Pickpocketing, vandalism and a couple of bar brawls, nothing major,' Victor continued, he probably had Nick's file in front of him.

'So what landed him behind bars?' Dean asked.

'Deadly assault,' Victor answered. 'He was twenty-two and got jumped by two guys in an alley who wanted to have more than his wallet.' Dean felt how his stomach moved unpleasantly. 'He beat one guy to death, the other got away with a few broken bones and some internal bleeding. Nick got sixteen years. A better lawyer probably would've got him to get away with less, but the survivor wanna-be rapist was some upper-middle class white-collar businessman with a family and nice ringing services to the community behind him, you get the picture.'

'Yeah, hard not to. And who was the genius who thought it was an awesome idea to put a child abuser in the same cell with an aggressive thug who was abused as a kid? Cause it sounds like a winning combination.'

'I'm pretty sure that the guys over at the State Penitentiary thought it would be fitting. You bet that child abusers don't get treated better inside than child molesters, not by the guards and definitely not by the other inmates.'

Dean hummed in agreement, he didn't have any first-hand experience about prisons, but he knew enough now to know Victor was right. The guards definitely put Michael in that cell deliberately, it was more than a little against the regulations, but Michael sure as hell didn't have a good lawyer watching out for his rights.

Castiel stood at the living-room entrance when Dean looked up next. He smiled and gestured at the phone, Cas smiled back a tired smile and nodded, heading towards the kitchen.

'How did he come out alive from there?' Dean wondered.

'No idea, Nick obviously didn't go too far. I could call the penitentiary, but you can bet they're going to be pretty tight-lipped about things like this.'

'Yeah, no kidding. I still don't get why the hell he did all of this,' Dean said.

'We're gonna have to wait till he wakes up to interrogate him. We're going to need Castiel and Gabriel to make formal statements too.'

'Okay, we'll see how soon we can get to that. Michael made a statement yet?'

'No, he barely got out of surgery alive. We have to wait, he's still out on pain meds.'

'So, for how long can we expect to lock this Nick guy up?' Dean asked.

'Not sure. Just looking at his file, I'm gonna say that it's more likely for him to land locked up in some nuthouse than back in prison.' Dean thought about that for a second.

'No way they're ever letting him out from there again,' he said. From those high security asylums where the real headcase criminals went was not exactly easy to be let free.

'Depends on the State Attorney too,' Victor answered.

'Oh, no problem with that,' Dean replied.

'Crowley?'

'Crowley,' Dean agreed. Tony Crowley used to be a lawyer, but after some years, after he got rich and successful enough running the Denver office of Morthelli & Beskydy, he finally stopped defending scumbags. It was about time. Dean suspected this whole thing was some sort of a preparation to bigger plans, maybe political plans on Crowley's part, but Dean didn't give a damn. He was a damn good lawyer and it was good to have him on their side. He was definitely their inside guy in the Prosecutor's Office at this point.

'Give him a call, he can't stand me,' Victor said.

'I don't think he likes me either, but he was pretty good friends with Gabriel's mom so I'm sure he's going to be interested in this one.'

'Good. When can you get Castiel and Gabriel in for their testaments?'

'Tomorrow, we barely slept,' Dean answered.

'Good enough for me,' Victor agreed. 'And ballistics came back by the way,' he added.

'Huh?' Dean frowned.

'Figures you forgot. The ballistics from the victims at the warehouse office building,' Victor clarified.

'Tell me, you're not about to give me bad news,' Dean told him as his fingers tightened around his phone a little.

'The shooter had your bullet in him,' Victor said. 'The hostage was shot by a different rifle.'

Dean breathed out and his muscles relaxed too. He knew that he didn't miss, but it was still good to be confirmed. He was distracted and didn't think about this at all, but it was great to put it behind him completely now.

'Okay, awesome. Thanks Victor.'

'Sure thing. Rest and I'll see you tomorrow.'

'Yeah, bye,' he hung up and walked back to the kitchen. He could smell that Katrina was already in the middle of preparing food. He loved being home, even if their reasons for being here were not actually pleasant ones.

Gabriel was still going through papers and Cas was sitting at the table with a mug of coffee. He looked horrible. Gabriel's huge nasty bruise looked bad, but Cas still looked like death warmed over. Dean didn't resist the urge to lean down and put a kiss on his cheek, squeezing his shoulder and smile at him when the tired blue eyes found him.

'Feeling better?' he asked.

'Yes, I am,' Castiel replied. Dean looked at Gabriel, the older man still focused on the documents.

'Seriously, how many papers there are to fill out?'

'I finished that, these are his medical records.'

'Where the hell did you get that?' Dean asked in surprise.

'I printed it out while Cas was in the MRI,' Gabriel replied. Seriously, Dean really couldn't follow his logic. Why the hell would he search for Michael's medical records in the first place, how could he even think about getting a copy for himself last night?

'Are you sure you should be looking over those?' Castiel asked. 'And why didn't you tell me that this was what you had in your bag?'

'I just... it's just medical papers,' Gabriel answered and he had an audible hint of defensiveness in his tone.

'Gabriel?' Dean raised an eyebrow.

'I just wanted to know... why can't I know? It's just taking a look at his crap... disturbing medical records.'

'What is in there?' Castiel asked immediately with a deep frown. Dean figured that nothing good, after what he learned about Nick just now.

'Okay, I'm confiscating these,' he said and started gathering them up from the table.

'I already read it so, feel free,' Gabriel shrugged. 'It's a long list of shit,' he added.

'When a guy like Michael lands in a prison like that, such things happen, okay? Nobody looks fondly at some arrogant child abusing bastard.' Katrina didn't remind him this time to watch his mouth. She was making food, not interrupting them, but she was definitely paying attention.

'I got that, yeah. Countless amount of minor injury, from bruises, cuts and burns to broken bones and missing teeth.' Gabriel said.

'That is not what bothers you,' Castiel said, looking at the other man.

'He had two suicide attempts,' Gabriel replied quietly, his fingers playing with the edge of the cover on the table. 'Two. He drank disinfectant when he was on cleaning duty the first time and he cut up his wrists at his second attempt. I'm fine, it's just... a little disturbing for me.'

'Whatever Michael does or doesn't do, it has nothing to do with you,' Dean told him.

'I know, but it's not like I can erase his existence or just wipe away our past. He's there, even if I don't see him, don't talk to him, he's there. It's nagging at the back of my mind... I just need some time to figure this out, okay?'

'You definitely need to call Chuck,' Dean answered, because this was over his head and that twitchy little guy could get Gabriel to see things clearly easier than anyone else.

'Seconded,' Castiel nodded. 'We're here too, but I'm sure it would be good to hear what he has to say about all this.'

Gabriel looked at both of them for a moment before nodding. 'Yeah, I think that would be good.'

'But only after breakfast,' Katrina spoke up and walked closer, putting his arms around Gabriel's neck as she leaned down. 'You need to take a breath and clear your head a little,' she said. Gabriel smiled mildly and put a hand on hers for a brief moment.

'Put those papers away now,' Katrina added and went back to the stove. They didn't argue with her.

Gabriel looked a lot more at ease during breakfast and Dean was glad about that. He didn't know what he was expecting exactly, but apparently Gabriel wasn't taking all of this that hard. He was also watched constantly by both Dean and Cas to be honest. Dean was sure that the only reason he didn't show even the slightest trace of annoyance at the treatment was because he was too occupied with his own thoughts.

Dean let them know about them having to make their statements then they ordered Castiel to get more rest. Dean made some phone-calls to start arranging the cleanings and repairs in their apartment. Sure he could go and take a look himself, but he really didn't want to. Perks of being a cop, he knew exactly where to call to get such mess dealt with, not every cleaning lady in the yellow pages was willing to wipe blood up from floors after all.

Gabriel helped Katrina around the house. Dean knew he had to do something, because Gabriel just wasn't the type to sit around. If he wouldn't have been able to do this, he would've been a lot more stressed probably. Again he wondered if they should press him to find a hobby, he wouldn't bury himself in work all the time then.

They were all dead tired by the time they went to bed, even if they didn't do that much during the day. Just like the night before they were close together on Cas' bed, wrapped up under one blanket.

'You're nothing like him, you know,' Cas said out of the blue in the dim bedroom. Dean blinked his eyes open in surprise, having no idea what he was talking about. He felt Gabriel tense a little in his arms, so he ran a soothing hand down his stomach reflexively.

'I know he said you were, and I know even you said it, but you're nothing like him. So I don't want you to think that even for a second.'

Dean figured it had to be Nick he was talking about, because surely Michael wouldn't have said something like this. He didn't say anything, just stayed where he was, pulling closer until his chest was pressed to Gabriel's back and he continued to stroke his stomach slowly. Castiel was on the other side, face-to-face with Gabriel.

'I didn't think I was,' Gabriel said.

'I was there, I know you did, maybe only a little. And I don't want that, because there really is nothing in you that's even remotely like him,' Castiel said firmly, with absolute conviction. Gabriel was silent for a moment, then his hand reached Dean's and he huffed out a small laugh.

'What?' Dean asked quietly.

'Chuck told me the same thing on the phone, I'm too damn predictable,' Gabriel answered. Castiel leaned closer and put a kiss on his lips in reaction. Dean tightened his arms for a moment and kissed his shoulder. It was good to know that Gabriel could laugh despite everything going on. It made Dean more relaxed than anything the other man could've said to them.

'I want to go to the hospital tomorrow,' Gabriel told them after a little silence. Dean wanted to look at Cas, but it was too dark too see the expression on his face anyway. He figured they were still thinking the same thing.

'Alright,' Dean said.

'We can go after we're done with the police,' Castiel answered. Dean swore to himself that he won't say anything about this. He sure as hell didn't want Michael to even breath the same air as Gabriel, but it was not his call. There was no way for him to completely understand this, to put himself in Gabriel's place, it was just impossible, so he wouldn't say anything. He was just going to make sure that no one hurt him, not Michael, not anyone. He also knew without having to ask, that Castiel was with him on this.

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To be continued...