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It had been three days. Three whole days. During that time Gabriel had very gradually began to recover from his injuries, and Dean, Cas, and Bobby had been almost constantly stuck in the library looking for more possible theories as to why Gabriel still had the same amount of magical angel powers as a human.
During that time, Sam had self assigned himself as the angel's personal caretaker. He mainly just lounged around with Gabe on the couch, but he also occasionally helped by heating up a can of soup or retrieving the bottle of aspirin that was now nearing empty. Dean had found Gabriel and Sam asleep on the couch together four times now. That was a lot of times for three days, but after the first two times he didn't think much of it.
It wasn't until halfway through that third day, after finding Sam and Gabriel in a position on the old couch that most people would consider cuddling, Castiel asked Sam if he knew the vampire that had ruined Gabe.
"I didn't get a very good look at her" Sam confessed, slowly lowering his arm from around Gabriel's back. It didn't seem weird when they were alone, but now that Cas was in the room (as oblivious as he could be) he could get the wrong impression. "Wait hold on" he furrowed his brow "why are you asking me? Are you trying to imply that I could be the one he bonded with?"
"Well we're just trying to take in all possibilities" Cas offered, although it was quite clear that the idea had passed through his mind at least once.
"I'd have to see her again" Sam shrugged, restraining himself not to comment on Cas's facial expression, "but that's impossible so I'm not much help."
"I didn't bond with him Cas" Gabriel rolled his eyes. But the fact that he was practically lying on top of Sam could make other people think otherwise.
"Ok Gabriel" Castiel spun around and headed back into the library.
Gabriel looked up at Sam's face and frowned slightly. "What is it?" Sam asked upon noticing.
"I was just thinking, what if my soul mate is like Christina Aguilera or something?" Sam snorted at the thought.
"Well then I guess you're never going to be a full fledged angel again."
"What, you think she wouldn't lay me? I think she would, totally." Sam rolled his eyes.
"Well when that happens you can tell me you told me so." Gabriel laughed in response.
"There must be something else" Dean groaned, leaning back against the old wooden desk in the library.
"It's the only thing we've found." Bobby pointed out uselessly "and we've been at it for days".
"Bobby is right" Castiel agreed "we have to find out who my brother bonded with. Whether he knows he did it or not, it is crucial to him regaining his powers."
"What do we even do if we find this person?" Dean asked "I mean that old book didn't mention anything about it/"
"We can cross that bridge once we get to it" Bobby sighed. 'Why don't you two go get the sleeping beauty and we can try talking to him again."
"This is so stupid" Gabriel moaned, setting down his pen after about ten minutes. Dean had demanded that he right a list of every single possible person he could have bonded with, and as far as Gabe was concerned, that was a lot of people.
"Marilyn Monroe is dead" Sam pointed out, hovering over Gabriel's shoulder, scanning his list.
"I know" the exasperated sigh he let out made Sam mentally question the angel.
"Isn't there some way you can narrow this down?" Sam asked hopefully.
"If there was I would've done it already."
"Well can you at least pick a gender?" Dean called from the sofa, he was enjoying being able to watch TV for a little while without the couch being hogged.
Gabriel shrugged, it was true that the list consisted of both males and females, although there was a much larger group of ladies than men. "I just have no way of knowing, sorry."
Castiel looked up from Sam's laptop, he had been working on his technology-using skills over the past few weeks and was now able to surf the web without much trouble. "Bonding usually requires a certain amount of interaction with your mate" he pointed out. Gabe looked down on his list and picked up his pen, beginning to scratch off a few names.
Sam looked over at the clock, it was nearing 5 o'clock already. "What are we gonna do for dinner?"
"The fast food joints didn't change in the past ten minutes." Dean rolled his eyes "there's some soup in the pantry too." Sam grimaced.
"Maybe we can go out or something... I hate being stuck in this house."
Dean snorted "Us go out? To a place that isn't a run down diner? I don't know, sounds a bit unlikely."
"I think it sounds nice" Cas chirped.
"You don't even eat!"
"Come on, there's a TGI Friday's just downtown, it's nothing fancy Dean."
"Fine" Dean sighed "but we're not going anywhere until after he finishes his list." Gabriel slumped over in his seat.
"Bobby should be back from Tony's in a bit" Sam commented. The older hunter had gone over to another hunter's house to take care of some sort of business, he hadn't specified.
"I'm done with my list!" Gabriel announced loudly, holding up the piece of lined paper he had been using. "And I'm not waiting for that old man to get here so I can eat! I'm hungry!"
About a half hour later, Dean pulled the Impala over into the semi crowded restaurant parking lot and complained under his breath over how it would have been so much easier to just pick up Arby's. They wandered into the restaurant and were seated at a booth by a tall young woman who was serving as the hostess. Sam and Gabe slipped into one side and Dean and Cas slipped into the other.
No one was surprised when Dean ordered a burger. Sam went for steak, and Gabriel decided to try the fish and chips. "Are you sure you don't want anything Cas?" Dean asked as he closed his menu "Gabe's eating."
"Gabriel needs food to maintain his strength" Cas pointed out blandly.
"I'll get you a burger" Dean decided.
While they were waiting for their waiter to bring their food, the foursome landed back on the topic of Gabriel's soul mate situation, which led to Gabe changing the subject to his favorite types of candy, no one took the initiative to change the subject back.
Once they received their food, the table went mostly silent, the only sounds coming from biting and chewing, and the pop music that was muffled by other customer's conversations. Even Cas seemed to be enjoying his burger.
Dean paid the bill and the group headed out of the restaurant. It was only a little after seven, but Gabriel was yawning loudly in the backseat, causing a chain reaction throughout the car (besides Cas of course). Dean parked in front of Bobby's house a short while later.
"Bobby?" Dean called as soon as he pushed open the door. Gabriel slipped past the hunter and made a beeline towards the couch he had grown so accustomed to over the
past few days.
Only to stop abruptly and let out a noise that sounded somewhere between a growl and a shriek, startling everyone that was still standing in the doorway. "I just wanted to take a nap!" He moaned. Sam and the others wandered over to find a certain, very british demon lounging on the couch as if it was perfectly normal.
"Crowley?!" Sam gaped. Dean pushed past Sam, storming towards the king of hell.
"What the hell are you doing here?" He spat, eyes burning with anger.
Crowley held his hands up as if to show he was innocent "I mean no harm boys, really. In fact I'm here for just the opposite reason."
"And that would be?"
"I'm here to help." Dean turned back to face Sam and Cas.
"What do you mean help? Help with what? Where's Bobby?" Sam frowned, the lines in his forehead becoming more and more visible.
"So many questions" Crowley tsked "first of all, don't worry about your dear old Bobby, he just popped out for a mo, I think he said he was going to get a beer from out back-"
"Wait he knows you're here?" Sam twisted up his face into an expression that said 'why the heck didn't he kick you out?' As if on cue, the sound of the back door opening made everyone turn to face in the general direction, even though there was a wall blocking the view. Bobby appeared in the front of the room seconds later.
"Oh uh hey boys" he gave a half-smile and awkwardly gave a tiny wave gesture.
"Why is Crowley here?" Cas asked bluntly.
"I told you I was here to help!" Crowley threw his hands in the air like a child who wasn't getting their way.
"What on Earth could he help with?" Dean asked, glaring at the demon and then turning to make eye contact with Bobby.
"Well first of all" Bobby crossed his arms over his chest "I didn't summon him here if that's what you're thinking. He showed up here and wouldn't leave." Crowley shrugged. "And then he went on to blabbering-"
"I do not blabber" Bobby gave the demon a look of death.
"Can we just get to the point?" Gabriel rolled his eyes, obviously not concerned about the fact that the king of hell was in the room, he really did just want to sleep.
"Who's he? Another angel? Gee was the moose jealous that his big brother had one and he didn't?"
"My name's Gabriel" the archangel glared and defensively took a step back so he was closer to Sam.
"Oh ah yes Gabriel, of course" Crowley swallowed visibly, obviously making the connection that Gabriel was an archangel. Gabriel smirked smugly in return. "Now as I was saying, I came here because apparently one of you got yourself sucked into a bio-deal. Which honestly doesn't surprise me. I'm just going to assume it was the archangel, am I right?"
"Wait, this is about Gabe?" Sam shifted his weight and frowned "why do you care about that?"
"Like I said, bio-deal. Sets off a fire alarm down in my office. You basically managed to screw yourself for eternity by doing whatever the hell you did with that vampire."
"All I did to her was try to kill her!" Gabriel protested. "And what's with this bio-deal crap? Is that what happened to me?"
Crowley sighed loudly and leaned back into the couch. "And you angels claim to know everything... A bio-deal is essentially when you're vulnerable enough to allow someone or something to take advantage of you. Of course for something like that to happen the someone or something would have to either be extremely powerful, or they have some sort of relation to someone else that you're extremely close with-"
"Bond mates" Gabriel muttered under his breath.
"Oh really? Who's the lucky girl?"
Gabriel looked downwards slightly, causing Crowley to raise a brow. "Guy then? Lucky guy?"
"That's our problem." Sam said eventually "he doesn't know." The demon clicked his tongue.
"Now that is a bit of a problem. I was going to tell you how to get your magic powers back, but it's no use if you don't know who you're looking for." Crowley pressed down on the couch to maintain balance as he stood up "I can't be of any assistance to you boys today." The demon spun on his heel, and instead of snapping away back to hell or wherever, he wandered past Bobby into the kitchen.
"What the fuck?" Dean's eyes narrowed "why isn't he leaving?"
"Hey Dean, he might actually be helpful" Sam shrugged "he says he knows how to get Gabe's powers back." Dean scowled, but deep down he had to agree, having a
constantly complaining archangel hanging around 24/7 wasn't exactly his idea of enjoyable.
After about a minute of awkwardly standing around, Gabriel took over the couch once more and Sam joined his (yeah, big surprise not). Bobby was in the kitchen with Crowley and their conversation was soon drowned out by the TV, Gabe had switched to one of those stations that play music videos all day. Dean and Cas headed into the library.
"Those two are inseparable I swear" Dean rolled his eyes "if I didn't know better I'd think they had the hots for each other!"
Cas chuckled lightly. "I wouldn't be surprised."