Just a short chapter for now. Hope everyone's enjoying it so far! Did you know I have a twitter? Come hang out with me, VikkieTheMimm

Balthazar was miserable.

He was starting to notice that he spent a lot of his time being miserable, and he really didn't like it.

He had been miserable on Betelgeuse, stuck with his ambivalent parents and Castiel, of all people, for company. He had been miserable at Maximegalon University, because that was when Cas had decided to grow a personality, so he and Gabe had all the fun and Balthazar just had to tag along or find bail money. He had been miserable on Earth, because… well, frankly, who wouldn't be?

And now, he was miserable in space. Stuck on some god-forsaken asteroid, with a squirrelly guy who had no sense of humour.

So yes, he was pretty miserable.

Chuck sat on his gun-stool, smiling down at Balthazar.

"I am sorry that I didn't think to bring any entertainment, while we wait. I feel I was perhaps too intent on the final results of my plan, rather than execution."

"Look, just… don't talk to me, alright?" Balthazar glared. "Every time you talk to me, you make me want to ask a staggering amount of new questions, which I know you won't answer."

"All will be revealed…"

"If you say 'shortly', so help me I will throw you off this moon myself."

"I don't see what the problem is. I've given you a chance to get away from the hideously awkward reunion the crew of the Impala is no doubt experiencing. Or would you rather be there for the inevitable 'who did what to whom' conversation?"

He had a point.

That just pissed Balthazar off even more.

(-*-)

The Bloody Invaluable Book has this to say, on the subject of families:

'Families,' it says, 'are, in the broadest sense, groupings of similar items or organisms. You can have a family of instruments, a family of plant, a family of cybernetic brains and so on. In the personal sense, however, families are groups of people who share similar genetic traits, ancestors, or, in some cases, a specific relative. Since inventions such as time travel, cloning and multiamory (see article: pimps and hos) have become common place, it has given rise to new terms of relation, such as semi-cousin, half-aunt, half-parent, semi-parent, quasi-brother, and in some rare cases, half-semi-quasi-brother-cousin. That one makes for particularly awkward family reunions.'

'The terms of address, however, really make no difference. A person could be entirely unrelated to you and still count as 'family', if you have spent enough time together. No, the real definition of a family is 'a group of people who think they know your business better than you do, and most worryingly, are often right'.'

(-*-)

Dean and Cas lay quietly on the creaking bed of the medical bay. It probably hadn't been intended for such vigorous use as it had just seen, but it seemed to take the punishment fairly well. And Dean was pretty sure neither of them would be able to move for a good while yet.

He drummed his fingers on Castiel's back, glancing over the top of his scruffy hair.

"So, on a scale of one to ten, how likely is it that Gabriel will throw me out of the airlock?"

"Please don't talk about my semi-cousin while I'm trying to bask in the afterglow." Cas cracked one eye open and rolled over slightly, so he could glare at Dean.

"Sorry. Just… seriously, is he really going to be mad at me?"

"Why do you care?"

Dean shrugged, falling quiet as Cas nodded decisively and went back to using the human's chest as a pillow.

Dean drummed his fingers against Cas' back again.

"It's just I've picked up on this "Gabriel Angeles, President of Everything" thing and I…"

"Ok, please stop." Cas sat up and glared at him some more.

"I'm sorry," Dean shrugged, "it's just that, where I come from, if you're involved with someone, you generally want the family to like you."

"Yes, but where you're from, people think personalised ringtones are still a pretty neat idea."

"Cas…"

"Alright. I'll talk to him." Cas sat up, shooting Dean another quick glare. "I don't see why you care, though. It's just Gabriel…"

"Hey, lovebirds," Bobby's voice jumped through the speakers. "I'm going to need everyone on deck for the landing. This is not the kind of sky the autopilot can deal with."

Dean was still struggling back into his pants, as Cas swept away to the bridge.

(-*-)

The sky was certainly an interesting one. Meteoroids zoomed from one horizon to the other, crashing into each other and fragmenting into thousands of pieces. The crew of the Impala stood and stared as great, hulking rocks loomed out of the shadows and flew freely past them.

"Think you can do it?" Gabriel turned to look at Cas, fully realising for the first time how small and fragile his semi-cousin looked.

"Yeah," Said Cas, his tongue darting briefly over his lips. "Probably. I'm going to need complete quiet though." He sunk into the pilot's chair, and gripped onto the controls, his knuckles turning an even paler shade than they were naturally.

Dean rested a hand on Castiel's shoulder, but Cas shrugged him off.

"Not now, I need to focus."

"Yeah, I just want to…"

"Dean, shut up and back off. This isn't Jurassic Park any more."

"I was just trying to…"

"I said I needed silence; if you can't leave me alone for five minutes, get off the bridge."

Dean duly backed off.

Gabriel watched all this unfold in silence. Sometimes, just sometimes, he really did get sick of being right.