Supernatural House Arrest (Supernatural Fanfic)

Chapter 92

When Dean and Castiel return to the war room the next morning, they expect Gabriel to come join them. It's what he's been doing every day for the last month, and expecting anything else from him would be ridiculous. It's not like anything has varied at all in the last few weeks. Why should this have changed?

That just makes it even more strange when not only does Gabriel not come to greet them, but he's not in the room at all.

"We're missing someone," Dean observes. "Where's Gabriel?"

"How would I know?" Castiel asks in a moment of oblivious sass.

Dean just shrugs. "Should we go look for him?"

"I don't see why," Castiel replies. "Wherever he is, he's not in any danger — not under Chuck's protection. It's probably best to just leave him alone. He'll come back when he wants to."

Dean hesitates, then nods. "Yeah, he's probably doing something important, anyway."

Gabriel is not, in fact, doing something important.

Dean and Castiel don't find out about it, but Lucifer does. He was just going to the bunker's library to read to pass the time, and he just so happens to stumble upon Gabriel sitting on the floor, his back against a bookshelf, with some black book on his lap.

He doesn't look up, but he seems to know Lucifer's there, because he says, "If you're here to talk, go away."

"And if I'm here to read?" Lucifer asks, not that he really cares what Gabriel wants. He knows his brother doesn't want to be around him, but he's not going to socialize with the rest of his "roommates" just to give his little brother some alone time.

But instead of telling him to get lost, Gabriel just says, "Plenty of books for both of us."

Lucifer eyes him skeptically, but it doesn't look like he cares too much, so he decides to just go along with it. He walks over to the shelf where he's been putting the same book for the last few weeks, but, for the first time, it's not there. Puzzled, he checks the surrounding shelves, skimming each book's spine, but he can't find it.

"Hey, what're you reading?" Lucifer asks, trying to see the book in Gabriel's lap.

"Why?"

Lucifer rolls his eyes. He just had to make it more difficult, didn't he? With the flap of his wings, he's next to his brother, trying to get a glimpse of the book.

"Hey!" Gabriel whines, slapping a hand on the pages to keep them from flapping in the wind Lucifer accidentally created.

"Is that —" Lucifer cuts himself off with an affirmative nod. Well, there goes his book. "Why are you reading the Bible?"

Gabriel finally looks up at him as he answers, "Because it's the closest thing to fiction they've got in this goddamn place, so it's either this is the history of wendigos."

Lucifer chuckles drily. "Yeah, I feel that."

Gabriel turns his attention back to the Bible, leaving Lucifer to fend for himself. Ordinarily, it would be him reading Bible, just to pass the time, but there's only one copy, and it's not up for grabs at the moment.

Instead, Lucifer skims the bookshelves for another book to read, but all of them seem to be research books. After a few minutes, Lucifer eventually gives up, walking out of the room in silence. Gabriel won't care. Hell, he'll probably be thrilled that he doesn't have to deal with his brother's presence anymore. If there's on thing Lucifer's good at, it's making people hate him. He did good.

Except that now he's stuck in the bunker, alone, trying not to run into anybody else who's stuck here, too. He has another twelve hours or so until Sam will be able to make his way back to bed with him. Maybe he should have tried to make amends instead of trying to make his relationships worse.

Welp, live and learn.