Chapter 21

All That Might Have Been

He was lost in his memories again. Not lost lost, but he wasn't about to leave them anytime soon. This time it was controlled. He knew when and where he was. It was more like watching a movie (but in his head). He could replay any number of scenes over and over again just because he liked them.

"Lu— Lucifer?! What are you doing? You can't just break into a place because they're not open right now!"

"Well, it's this or we wait until tomorrow morning when all sorts of adults and pests will be filling this place to the brim."

"But— it's— Ugh, fine. It's not like you'll listen to me. But I refuse to let you convince me to do this again."

"Ah, yes, because I take great pleasure in watching you fall flat on your face because you can't ice skate."

He hadn't, in fact, fallen. Not once. Lucifer had made sure of that. A steady hand had kept him upright the whole time, even when it wasn't actually there.

"Oh… Um, right… And how much money did you just spend to get her?"

"Technically none, but it was around a thousand of these saint quartz things and a US dollar is approximately two of them, so… a lot."

A sigh. "I guess if you really like her that much, it's worth it. I still can't believe I got you hooked on a gacha of all mobile games."

And Lucifer still played the game sometimes. He would get out his phone and load the app to play an event or roll for some new servant. He wasn't sure why Lucifer liked it so much. Maybe it was because of the story plot or the addiction of being a collector or even the different servant themselves. It certainly wasn't just because of the style of the game.

"Thank you, and have a nice day!"

"You too!"

"Why do you always say that?"

"Say what?"

"You know what I mean."

"It's called being polite."

"Doesn't it get boring? Tedious?"

"I guess it does get a bit tiring when the other person is being rude, but you can't really go wrong with trying to be nice to people because you can be."

Lucifer had asked him stuff like that. It wasn't out of some weird sense of obligation. It had been an actual curiosity. The archangel had wanted to know why, and so the human had given an answer. The answer wasn't always something that Lucifer liked or agreed with, but it was still an answer. Eventually, Lucifer had grown to accept those answers whether he liked them or not.

"I don't understand why you like this show so much. What makes it special?"

"I like it, Lucifer. I grew up with it, and I just happen to still like it."

"… I still don't get it."

"It's only my opinion Lucifer. You don't have to like the show if you don't like it."

It was the little things that made it hurt all the more. Lucifer cared about him – still did. And perhaps it was the want for a fairytale ending or the hope of a dreamer that made him wish that it could just go back to the way it was or at least become something that stopped reminding him of those times.

"I thought you said that you had the Mark ever since God— Chuck gave it to you at the beginning. Did it stay with you after you gave it to Cain? If so, wouldn't you still have it? Because then both Dean and Cain would've had it at the same time before Dean killed Cain, which would have meant there were multiple Marks all at once."

"Give me a moment, you said a lot of words…"

"Hey! … Well?"

"Ah, I know I didn't really explain everything at the time, but the short answer should be no..."

"Lucifer?"

"Fine. Look, I don't have it anymore, so who cares? Don't worry about it."

"… Okay."

Even then, there was something more than what Lucifer had built with him, something buried in their relationship's foundations. It was a trust, faith in each other.

"Are you sure we should be doing this?"

"If you don't tell, I won't tell"

"Lucifer…"

"Come on. It'll be fine."

"I guess… Okay, but only because it's not technically illegal."

"Whatever, kid. Let's go!"

In a way, he was almost jealous of the boy, which then made him hysterical at the notion that he was jealous of himself. It was absurd – to think that what he had with his brother was anything more or less than what Lucifer had with Bennett. But… It was different. And sometimes, that killed Gabriel inside.

"The hardest part of life is acceptance. The things we want to change, to deny, to push away from us… The things that scare us, that make us run to the far corners of the Earth. You don't have to accept everything, certainly not right then and there. But when you finally realize it won't ever go away, and when you take it as it is, only then can you truly understand."

"Uh… okay..?"

"I try my hand at philosophy, and all I get is an 'okay'— seriously?"

"Well, what am I supposed to say? I mean, nice job on the Hallmark card advice, but… eh?"

"You're such a jerk, Lucifer."

Gabriel wasn't sure why Lucifer never saw it in those six and a half months, or rather, he never understood why his brother chose to ignore it. Gabriel had the feeling Lucifer didn't know either. And the thing was, he was pretty sure neither of them wanted to know. The best part: the only one who would ever truly know would never tell.

"If I had taken the time to just stop for a minute…"

"Nothing would be different," the boy said in his silence. "Perhaps they would have known sooner or you would have been give their approval earlier, but you would eventually end up here."

Gabriel dragged his fingers through his hair. "It's not just that though."

"Regret is a person's greatest downfall. We cannot change what happened, only what will."

"Look at you, spouting philosophy at me," Gabriel scoffed with a cracked grin.

Bennett shrugged, his figure slowly coalescing into a 'solid' form within the space Gabriel cleared for them to have their conversation. "Well, one of us has to have decent advice to give."

"I screwed up."

"True," Bennett agreed, looking more and more real by the second. "But not in the ways you're thinking."

Gabriel shot him a glare.

The boy's form shook its head in response. "We knew this was always going to happen— deep down, even when I was just a kid and you were trying to act like everything was fine."

Gabriel didn't say anything, not that he would have needed to. Bennett already knew everything he could have said. Such was the balance of their psyches in Gabriel's headspace. The boy was more important, in so many ways.

"We both know it because there's always been something missing," Bennett continued, pausing to look upwards at the 'sky'.

Gabriel didn't have to follow Bennett's gaze to know what he was looking at. In fact, he was avoiding looking at them at all. They were like bright neon signs of his actions, though colored in a tinted view of the world. Seen through a clear glass, they were nothing but the idle remains of what was.

"They're still there, Gabriel. All of them. The moment you saw them, you knew this was coming, but you ignored them in favor of keeping what little piece of paradise you had— You got scared… You never did stop running."

Gabriel shook his head. "The one time I stopped and turned around, I got killed. Sure, Lucifer's sorry for it and I forgave him, but what that leaves behind doesn't go away."

"And yet I see that these bonds have flourished," Bennett said, gaze still pointed up. "You've been caring for them, even when all you could think about was letting them wither and fade."

"Just because I never wanted to give that up doesn't mean I won't settle—" Gabriel started, an old defensive anger rushing forward.

"You don't have to."

Bennett's form was gone before Gabriel even turned to look at him. The human boy had left as soon as he knew Gabriel had made up his mind. A soft breeze teased Gabriel's hair, the echo of a smile coming and going with its touch.

~o-O-o~

Out of the corner of his eye, Dean watched Lucifer fiddle with the radio (again), and Dean let him. It was a long trip – almost a thirty-two hour drive without stops. Dean knew it was impossible for the wingless archangel to sit still for more than a couple hours (tops) even when Lucifer was deep into reading one of those books he usually had with him.

Besides that, Dean was pretty sure that this would be the first time Lucifer had been this far away from the Bunker without Gabriel or Castiel. Not that Dean wasn't confident in his skills to keep Lucifer safe until they all met back up sometime in the next few days, but Dean could tell that the separation made Lucifer… not quite nervous, but wary, maybe.

Which was completely understandable, but it was something the depowered archangel was going to have to get over eventually. (Starting by bringing him along on a possibly extremely dangerous case probably wasn't the best way to start, but it was a little late to go back now.)

After agreeing to meet Gabriel at the closest place to stay near the mountain, Dean had left with Lucifer to get a head start on the investigation while Sam was staying behind with Castiel to wait for Mary. They had all also agreed that if they didn't see or hear from each other by the end of the week, Gabriel would be checking in with each one of them.

Lucifer went through all of the available stations three more times before just turning the radio off with a unsatisfied huff. Dean couldn't blame him. There wasn't much to pick from where they were, currently in the absolute middle of nowhere. And Lucifer wouldn't choose any of the cassette tapes because of his newfound dislike of listening to anything that happened to go over ninety decibels for long periods of time – something about sensitive hearing. (Guess what managed to fall into that category: all of Dean's music currently in the car… at least, most if not all of the classics, but he doubted Lucifer would want to go on a scavenger hunt for which ones he could consistently listen to.)

This left them to sit in the relative silence of the car. Lucifer had given up on whatever book he'd been reading a little over an hour into the trip, and not even the games on his phone seemed to be keeping his attention for long. The contentment he was getting from looking out the window was slowly going down the drain, which meant Lucifer was getting very close to his last resort of passing the time.

Dean decided to break the ice first. "You've been to Washington before?"

Lucifer didn't answer immediately, but he also didn't give off the impression that he didn't want to talk about it. It another minute for Lucifer to glance over at Dean and say, "Once… with Gabriel."

Dean had figured Lucifer had been there with the kid since his sister and cousin was up in Washington State, but only once and not again since? He knew Gabriel went to visit Lucilia (and damn if that wasn't a name coincidence Dean could barely wrap his head around) every other month or so, though some of those visits he didn't let her see him. Dean would have thought Lucifer went with Gabriel at least one of those times last year when things had been going well.

"How'd you like Seattle?" he asked casually.

Lucifer shrugged, the movement awkward with the way he was leaning against the passenger door. "It was… cleaner than I'd expected. We went to one of the big outdoor markets. Gabriel liked it. I didn't really care for it that much, too many people. And there were a lot of dogs around the city and those rainbow flag things up in apartment windows…"

Dean nodded along as he got Lucifer to open up and go on and on about what was arguably one of the best parts of his life: his time with Gabriel Bennett. That kid was a game changer. Only Chuck probably knew what would have happened if that kid hadn't been around and willing to take on Lucifer. Even as things were right now, Dean was sure that they could have been significantly worse.

"… wondering through some tourist market area when Gabriel saw some shop and had us stop. I think he bought a trinket for Lucilia, but for a moment he freaked out about how he was going to pay for it," Lucifer was saying, a small smile that was barely visible from this angle forming at the memory. "You should've seen his face when I told him I have a card that taps into all the money that technically belongs to dear ol' Dad."

"So that's how you've paying for things? I guess that's one hell of a paper trail," Dean mused.

Lucifer let out a low chuckle. "Oh, if there were a way to follow it, maybe, and the best part is we barely put a dent into his 'account'."

Dean could hear the air quotes Lucifer was using and found himself smiling right along with the archangel. "Dude, how much did you even spend?" he asked, only partially joking.

Lucifer finally turned to look at him, eyebrow raised. "Do you really want to know?"

"Sure, give me a ballpark number," Dean prompted. As he did so, he activated his left blinker, navigating through an interchange to head west on I-80.

"Well, considering Gabriel made sure I paid for everyplace we stayed or item picked up along the way… half a million?" Lucifer threw the number out there like it was nothing, and Dean forced himself to keep his eyes on the road instead of taking a shot at Lucifer.

"Seriously? You spent five hundred grand in six months?" he asked incredulously, though he knew perfectly well that it was a reasonable number. By the time he, Sam, Mary and Cas had caught up to Gabriel and Lucifer on their 'extended vacation', they'd been through half of the continental states, and technically they would have only been paying for one person.

"Hey, you asked," Lucifer replied, going back to looking out the window; however, now he seemed to be invested in his conversation with Dean.

Dean tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel, thinking up his next question to keep Lucifer talking (and therefore at least somewhat entertained). "Wait, you said you barely put a dent into Chuck's account. How much does he even have?"

Lucifer made an "I don't know" noise. "That's something to ask him. You could probably buy the whole world a couple times over with it though, not that he cares to spend that much," he muttered.

Right, time for a new topic. "What about that book you're reading? New one?"

"Yeah, Gabriel's shoved some more sci-fi novels at me," Lucifer answered with a slight air of fond irritation. "The Time Machine was okay, didn't care much for the style or plot. I'm in the middle of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Weird transition, but it doesn't really matter what order I read books as long as they're not a series, right?"

"Hey, man, keep it up, and at this rate, you'll be as much of a bookworm as the kid," Dean pointed out.

Lucifer scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Well, I'm taking a nap," he said like the pampered cat he was, basically ignoring Dean's comment and wiggling around until he was comfortable enough for his 'nap'. "Wake me up when we're close."

"Whatever you say, your highness."

~o-O-o~

It took Lucilia less than a second to recognize the sound of Gabriel's wings. She quickly turned and hugged the breath out of him, squeezing for all it was worth.

"Lucy? What's wrong?"

Gabriel sounded worried, but he didn't need to be – at least, not for her. Because she was fine— Really, she was. To be honest, she thought that he needed to think about himself a bit more, especially when he had all of the selfish-selflessness of her big brother.

She pulled back just enough to look up into his amber eyes. "I just missed you, silly."

Lucilia watched as a series of emotions passed through those eyes, and he almost took her reply for the answer. "But that's not all…" he said in a questioning tone.

She shook her head, burying her face back into his chest and letting him hold her closer. "There was someone here to see you," she started slowly. "Mr. Crowley got mad when she saw me. He couldn't get her to leave, so they're at Mr. Redfield's now."

Gabriel went still at the news. "Did this other lady look kinda like Belle from that new Beauty and the Beast live-action remake?"

"Yeah, except she was in regular clothes and doesn't have the accent," Lucilia answered dutifully.

"That would be Kemuel." Gabriel let out a sigh, tapping his chin against Lucilia's hair. "She's, ah… an old friend."

Lucilia struggled to remember exactly what happened that night. "Well, she and Mr. Crowley were arguing on the porch, and she said something about needing to tell you something important and that it couldn't wait."

"They can wait another hour," Gabriel told her, and he stayed with her for two.

~o-O-o~

Mick was not nervous about being in the field for the first time in a long while. That being said, staying behind a desk for over a year had done him no favors. Ketch was far more suited to be on this case, even alone, but with him occupied not only by the task of killing the creature but also keeping Mick alive, Mick would have to try and stay out of Ketch's way if only to make the other man's job easier.

Which would almost make the hardest part of Mick's job be not being completely useless. (Some days he wondered if there had ever been a point— Was this how it was always planned? If that was true, then why had He made them fight? It wasn't fair. All of the anger and worry and hate—)

But, to be fair, the case itself was rather straightforward. At first, however, Mick had almost dismissed the reports as something for the regular authorities to handle, but somewhere along the way he realized that two of the three victims had been hunters. This of course meant that the case would attract other American hunters – not that this little fact had occurred to him at the time. Which, most realistically, was the reason of how Mick happened to come across the patchwork Winchester family.

Ketch would not be happy. Then again, what the other man didn't know immediately wouldn't kill him.

A/N: I'm cutting it close, but I filled in my monthly quota. We're actually relatively close to the end, folks. I'd say about four to six more chapters before I completely wrap this up.