Almost a full thirty minutes have passed as Michael stood, vigilantly, right outside their father's door, not trying to listen in, but unable to not hear the soft cries of his second youngest brother. As expected, the two of them came out of the room and Gabriel immediately wanted to rush upstairs to his room, but Michael quickly grabbed his arm and forced him into a hug. For a moment he wanted to fight it, pulling away and batting at his arms uselessly. But eventually he calmed down, or rather lost his will to fight, and sank his face into his brother's shoulder. He whimpered softly there, trying to keep quiet.
Lucifer stared at Gabriel's back, his eyes looking sympathetically towards him, then to Michael, "She was right." He mumbled, then silently wandered off to the kitchen. Michael wasn't sure what he planned to do once he was in there, seeing as how no one seemed to have an appetite anymore, but he didn't question.
He kept rubbing a soothing hand down Gabriel's back, trying to coax him to calm down. He knew there was nothing he could say to soothe him, no reassuring words of a better tomorrow, because it wouldn't be better tomorrow. It'd be much of the same hiatus.
Slowly, Michael pulled slightly back from Gabriel and looked down at his sobbing brother, "Let's go sit down." He mumbled to him, then led him into the living room, pulling apart completely. Soon they were sitting together on the couch, facing the fire place. He was glad Anna and Samandriel were already in town, getting and doing what they needed. Today was going to be grueling, he already knew. He still had to go into the office and make some final decisions, and listen to pitches. He hoped it wouldn't go over five hours, but he knew it probably would.
Eventually, Gabriel quiets down, sniffing back tears, rubbing at his red eyes. "I'm gonna go see Kali at work." He muttered, but didn't make a move to actually do it.
Michael looked at Gabriel up and down, "I think I'm going to call the Winchester guy and get him set up today. It'll give me a reason to stay down stairs for a while." He told Gabriel. Hopefully Sam wasn't busy, but he had a feeling he wouldn't be.
Gabriel nodded, "Don't tell Lucifer." He mumbled, which got Michael to crack a small smile. "He'll want to follow you to work like a puppy."
Michael shook his head, "I'm not telling him." He reassured Gabriel. He then stood up from the couch, "Don't get in Kali's way too much." He warned, then left Gabriel there. He then headed for the den, pulling out his cell phone. He'd saved Sam's number to his contacts after looking through his information the other day. Surprisingly it only rang once before he answered.
"Hello?" Sam asked, sounding confused.
"Hello Sam, it's Michael Autman." He informed him.
"Oh, hey! It's great to hear from you so soon." He spoke, though Michael knew he wasn't expecting a call until much later.
"Well technically we're supposed to wait for your background check to come through, but I was wondering if you wanted to come in today anyway, and I'd see if I could make that check happen a little quicker." He told Sam, already becoming inpatient with the way the system ran.
"Oh wow, that'd be great! Yea, I'd love to." He told Michael, sounding ecstatic.
Michael grinned, "Well alright. How about we meet at the office in say… an hour and a half?" he asked, knowing it wouldn't take him long to put his suit on, but gave Sam plenty of time, knowing that he might still be in his pajamas if he wasn't planning on doing anything today. Once he was in his room he began to set out his outfit, setting it out on his bed.
"Um, sure, that'd be fine." Sam answered.
"Alright. I'll see you then." And then hung up without a parting.
Sam began to freak out, laughing and pumping his arms in a victorious fashion. "Yesss." He chanted, quickly heading upstairs and left his TV show forgotten. Today just seemed to be getting better and better for him. First Pam, now Michael. He hoped Ruby would show up to say she was heading back for campus.
He quickly stripped down and got ready for a shower, not wanting to assume his hair was alright for another day. A moment later he was powering through a shower, scrubbing every inch of himself with a soapy cloth. It didn't take Sam long to finish his shower, but it took him longer to dry out his hair. While he got ready he wondered if his brother Lucifer would be coming back as well.
He swallowed, hoping not. He knew what angle Lucifer was playing at, and he wanted no part of it.
As Sam went through his hair with his towel with one hand he grabbed up his phone with another and sent Dean a text:
"Got a call from Michael just now. I'm meeting him at the office in an hour, not sure when I'll be back. Pamela brought us a shit ton of food, so there's stuff for dinner at the house."
And hit send. He knew Dean was trying to get home early today, though he wasn't sure why. He never mentioned anything to him while he'd been getting ready for work that morning. He shrugged it off, and went about getting ready.
Dean was washing oil from his hands when he felt a vibration in his pocket, a sign he'd been sent a message. He dried off his hands with a bandana, then reached into one of his deep pockets for his phone. When he saw it was from Sam he got a little worried, but his worry was erased when he read the message. He was a little surprised to hear about Pamela's kind deed. That meant he now had food in the house to offer Castiel. He grinned, replying back to Sam with a simple "Okay" and went back to work.
It was as he went to mark on some paper work that Bobby made a jab at him, "You look like you've been texting some sweetheart, Dean." He teased.
Dean glanced over his shoulder at Bobby, giving him a scowl, threatening him to say anything further. It only got Bobby chuckling. "You stare at me with those daggers all you want, boy." He mumbled under his breath as he kept tightening a bolt on a tire, a gruff smirk on his lips.
Then Benny chimed in, "Did you go and get a girlfriend when I was gone?" he whistled, "I didn't think I was gone that long." He teased, grinning at Dean from the other side of the Sedan.
Dean rolled his eyes, "It was Sam, Pamela came by and dropped off some rations." He explained, though it wasn't really the fact that Pamela had come by why he was smiling.
"Well ain't that awful nice of her." Bobby mumbled, "Next time you see her, tell'er I'm low on beer. Maybe she'll get me a case." He joked, which got the two younger mechanics chuckling.
The atmosphere in the shop was lighthearted, and for a while, Dean wasn't so anxious to get out of there. Bobby wasn't trying to embarrass Dean, he'd simply been trying to see if Dean had found a little happiness. He knew Dean deserved it after everything he's been through the past couple of weeks. Hell, he deserved it for the past couple of years. It hasn't been easy for the boys knowing that their dad was slowly slipping away. The only other father figure they had was Bobby, and they'd voiced all their concerns to him. He knew they were afraid of not being financially stable and he knew Dean specifically was afraid that Sam would stop going to school because of it. And even though Dean hasn't come to him and said it yet, he knew he was hurting inside because Sam had come down anyway.
Yea, he could read those boys like a book. So it was fairly easy for Bobby to see the look in Dean's eye. The way he tries to hide his grin, even now. Yea, he could see he'd found somebody special.
Castiel sat in his SUV for a long time, simply staring at the park, his hands still on the steering wheel. He took the keys out of the ignition a while ago, shoved in his pocket, and sat in silence. He'd been watching a family gather their blanket and their children's toys from the ground, wanting to wait until they left to get out. But the family had left thirty minutes ago, and Castiel had his eyes fixed on the spot they used to sit in.
There were no thoughts going through his head, no questions he was asking himself. He sat silently, as if waiting for something to happen, his hands slowly tensing around the steering wheel.
It wasn't until he heard his phone chirp, alerting him of a received text message that he finally snapped out of it. He hadn't realized he'd been locked in a trance, starting to panic slightly. He checked the time on his phone and was shocked by the realization that an hour had gone past and all he did was sat there and let the world pass him by.
"Shit…" he mumbled. But then he spotted the message he'd received and an uncontrollable, large grin spread across his face.
"Hey Cas" It had come from Dean Winchester.
He then quickly replied with "Hello, Dean." It was only a few seconds later that he got a reply.
"What are you up to?" Castiel chuckled to himself, thinking about sending him the truth that he was sitting in his car at the park, doing nothing. Honestly, he wasn't sure why he'd done that, staring blank faced into nothing. He didn't want to particularly think too hard about it either, in case he didn't like what he came up with. He knew it was something that he needed to inspect for himself, but now was not the time. He needed to respond to Dean.
"I'm not really doing anything at the moment, though I'm thinking about writing." He replied with instead.
It was almost an entire minute before he got a response, "What will you write about?" Dean asked.
Castiel leaned back into his seat, actually thinking about it for a moment, "Maybe about mechanics who text while on the job." He joked, grinning widely to himself. He hoped Dean would get a laugh from that.
Dean replied back surprisingly fast with, "I'm on break Cas. So maybe you can write about mechanics who are interested in writers instead."
Castiel's pupils dilated after he read the last message and he began to breathe shallowly. What did he mean interested? Interested in what, his work? In him? No, Castiel needed to bring this to a screeching halt immediately and stop over thinking this. Of course Dean was interested in his work. That's what he'd meant.
He tried to clear his head and come back with an appropriate response, "Maybe I'll do that. I'll call it Slacking Off." Not only was it appropriate, but it was clever.
"Oh thats a good one. Pultzer prize right there."
Castiel chuckled, shaking his head slightly. "Pulitzer." He replied back, correcting his spelling mistake.
"Don't be a grammar nazi Cas." Dean replied back. Castiel's brows furrowed.
"Grammar Nazi?" he asked. He wasn't sure what he meant by that. Though it sounded vaguely familiar, like he'd heard it somewhere before.
It was a minute later that Dean replied, "When you correct everyone's grammar and spelling errors. It's a meme."
"Me-me?" Castiel mumbled out loud to himself. The more Dean tried to explain the concept the more he found himself confused. And like clockwork, Dean followed up his last text with another.
"It's an internet joke." He explained.
"Oh." Castiel gave a frown of acknowledgement, but decided he would still call and ask Balthazar about it later. He was sure he knew more on the subject. He would hate to miss out on jokes in Dean's conversations.
Dean chuckled, not realizing how out of the loop Castiel was with pop culture. Then again, it wasn't like he himself was too in the loop, either. He couldn't tell you the names of the latest movies in theaters right now. He leaned back in the metal break room chair, balancing it on the back two legs as one arm hung over the back of the chair while the other held his phone. He was on break for another ten minutes, though if he and Cas were still in the midst of conversation past that, he'd probably still sneak texts to him while Bobby wasn't looking.
Dean then got Castiel's reply, "I'll have to look more into that." Dean grinned. He thought about sending him an array of pictures he'd stored on his phone that he found funny, but refrained from doing so. He didn't want to risk getting on his nerves with it.
"Don't worry, I'll show you when you come over." He replied simply. But then Dean quickly sent another message after that, "I'll show you a lot of things." He grinned, biting his lip, trying to contain it. He couldn't help himself, he knew these subtle flirts weren't getting past Cas, but even if he wasn't there to see it, he liked to make the writer blush.
He then heard footsteps coming down the hall, and almost like he'd been doing something he shouldn't be, he glanced at the door, hoping they were only going to walk past to the bathroom. Thankfully, that's exactly what they did. Dean grinned, glad for it and went back to staring at his screen. He hoped he hadn't scared Cas off with the last part, and waited patiently for his reply.
Castiel had his head in his steering wheel, screaming into his hands. His entire face was red, and he couldn't help the excited, embarrassed squeaky giggles. "Oh my God…" he kept mumbling.